Today I return to mainland Spain after my week of school in Tenerife. I took an early bus to Tenerife North airport, 30 minutes away, getting to the terminal around 0900. I settled into the lounge airside and had my own muesli with a few other bits.
The location gave me a good view of the apron area where I was the propeller jets reversing-and-turning for departure. That was quite interesting. The marshaller does disco-like movements with the arms to indicate “keep backing” and “turn”.
I was fortunate on the 1155 flight to Madrid, to be seated next to a kid which gave me a little more room. We descended very early about 40 minutes before landing. The scenery of the flat land was very dry, so obviously it’s not always true that “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains”.
Landing at Madrid T4 around 1545 (one hour time difference), the bus area was there as I exited so I took the bus to Atocha Station for EUR5. I knew that the train also operated the same route but was a fraction faster but didn’t bother checking the price. I later realised that it would have been about half the price. That’s the price for slothful behaviour and not doing proper research. The bus was crowded and the trip to the remaining terminals and collecting extra passengers took up about half the travel time.
At Atocha Station, as I was orientating myself, some policemen wanted to check my passport, entry stamp, look into my bag and know where I had been and where I was going to. They were real cops with big guns and a van nearby. I should have said that I didn’t speak any Spanish and only English.
With all that out of the way, I continued the walk to Hostal Residencial Fenandez nearby. In the strong evening sun combined with a wrong turn, it felt like a long walk.
I had run out of water by now and bought a 1.5 litre bottle for EUR1.50 from a convenience store when it can be one-tenth that price at a supermarket. I normally get 8 litres for EUR1! Of course, soon after that I found a supermarket. I regained some savings after by eating at a Chinese-operated restaurant where meals were about two-thirds of that in the surrounding places.