Spanish story

Flight from Madrid

My Spanish friends decided to take me to their cottage in Salamanca, where I was to spend two beautiful days before my flight on Sunday evening back home. We had fun. We talked and walked. I was shown that nightlife started here when we in Slovakia are going to sleep. Consequently, we slept in for a long time in the morning. On the day of our departure, we woke about 11 a.m. We had breakfast on the sunny terrace, and then we went for a walk. My friend Mercedes asked me about the departure-time of my flight.

”At 7 p.m.. I should be at the airport before 6 p.m..”

The look on my hosts´ faces told me that we have a problem. Husband of Mercedes Pepe asked me if I was sure. ”Do you know that the time changed from winter to summer? It’s now an hour later than we have on our watches.”

I knew, of course, that the time was going to change. For some reason I thought that the night of the change would be after I was already on the plane.

It was 1 p.m. and my hosts hurriedly prepared a schedule. Unfortunately, Sunday lunch was part of the agenda, and a good Sunday lunch one simply can’t bypass in Spain. The women cooked and we packed. By the time we had eaten, washed the dishes, cleaned up and locked the doors it was 4 o’clock. Pepe, who was driving, said that everything was going to be okay. We would make it.

Everything would have been still all right if we hadn’t found ourselves soon at the rear of a convoy of weekend motorists on the roads leading to Madrid. But we did. We were stuck in a column that was only moving inch by inch. We couldn´t turn round or drive across country, only shuffle along behind the others. And, to add insult to injury, I had to pee soooooo badly. But where? For many kilometers around there was only a treeless plain. And I was scared that the column would at last start to move and I couldn’t stray so far from the car. The scene was prepared for an ideal tragi-farce.

Probably you don’t believe in the impish gods of travel, but when on the move I am frequently confronted with phenomena, which are, to say the least, at least remarkable. In this case the convoy of cars finally started moving and we collectively sighted with relief but as we were about to in the main road to Madrid we came upon the reason for all these transportation calamities we´d been experienced. I thought that I might have a heart attack. This main route to Madrid was, for some inexplicable reason, interrupted by a dirt road and two members of the Guardia Civil had stopped all cars, now queuing up several kilometers long, to allow a tractor and some donkeys to make their way across the road from one field to another.

Finally, we made our way on the Circle Highway around Madrid. Houses and whole districts of the town were blinking about us quickly, as if Pepe was surpassing all speed records. But the airport was nowhere to be seen. When I asked where we were, Mercedes smiled and answered that we were on the outskirts of Bratislava, a nice attempt of a joke - except that it wasn’t funny. And my need for a toilet had escalated to an unbelievable degree. But try to stopping in the middle of the highway when your flight leaves in fifteen minutes! So the casual travelers at the Madrid international airport on this Sunday evening witnessed a spectacular scene. A car screeched to a halt and a man dashed frantically into terminal building. Two girls jumped out from the same car, grabbed some luggage and ran after the man.

Well, I can now confirm that Spanish women maintain their calm in moments of dire crisis. Mercedes and her sister Clara tried to check-in as I was doing my toilet business. But, of course, I had forgotten to give them my passport.

Famous Spanish improvisation saved the day. The girls rushed to the men’s toilet and explained the situation. I slipped my documents under the doors of the toilet and they dashed back to check-in counter. After I dispensed with all exigent matters, I ran across the airport hall yanking up my pants. Mercedes and Clara just had time to give me my passport and boarding pass and I wished them well and made my way across the inspection points at the airport. All the officials closed their eyes, and I found the right gate to the plane and clambered in just before the doors were closed. It only took a few cognacs to help me recover from this particular little prank of the gods of travel.