Hello and
welcome to another travel adventure with the Findlaters.
For this
adventure we have decided to take blogging to the next level and will be doing
video blogging AKA vlogging. Be sure to check it out, as it complements the descriptions of the events described in these written blogs! Link and embedded video below:
This trip
we started from home in England and had to head up to London Stansted Airport
which is at the far north of London (see image below)
We left
home at about 2:30 in the morning for a flight leaving at 6:25. It took us about
an hour and a half to get to the airport and as we approached it we saw notices
for road and highway exit closures which had us sweating in our boots (just a
little!). We made it to the long term parking, and hopped on a bus to the terminal. Once we got through security it was time for
breakfast. Thanks to me (merc) the awesome wife we had four avocados which all
ripened at the same time, a box of crackers (which we found out later were
already open and a bit stale), and a bag of rice cakes. We managed to smuggle a
salt shaker/grinder through security but as you can imagine no knife...
So
breakfast consisted of pinching one end of the avocado and tring to peel it
like a banana, and using the crackers to carve out chunks as you go or applied avocado like a roll-on glue stick! As you could imagine the whole process was not very
elegant but it saved us money and that’s the important part! It was also tasty
and probably healthy.
This is the
part where we mention how we got from England to Spain.
The flights cost us 100
pounds return for two people. With such cheap prices, came the usual catch (and
we knew it was there somewhere) so the airline was Ryan Air – the catches to be
aware of was that you could take carry-on luggage but it was only for small
‘handbag’ sized items, if you showed up with an proper/typical carry-on sized
bag they would ‘check it in’ to the cargo hold for ‘free’ but not by checking
it in at the beginning but by having to carry it with you all the way through
to the moment you are about to get on the plane where they take it and put it
in the hold.
We didn’t know this specifically but assumed there would be extra
costs or luggage allowance issues and paid an extra 7 pounds for each of our
bags which apparently made us “priority”.
The “catch”
that got us was because we booked with our Australian passports (non EU) there was
a little text in the top righthand side of the ticket which called for a “visa
check”. This means you must have a printed ticket so that one of their people
can look at your passport and sign the ticket without actually needing any
‘visa’ anywhere.
If you do not have said paper and had opted for the
environmentally friendly alternative of the digital ticket then you are
cordially invited to part with 20 pounds at their ‘help’ desk in return for two
pieces of paper with your tickets printed on them. Or if you have the time and
comfortable shoes you could walk all the way to the other end of the terminal
where there was a normal airport-based information desk where they will print
your tickets at a 50% discount to what the Ryan Air people were offering.
End
of this story is it cost us 10 pounds to get a signature on the piece of paper
to be able to get on a damn aeroplane.
“Priority”
is what I mentioned our tickets were which meant early boarding and that your
bags are allowed to be taken onboard with you. This newfound preferential
status quickly went to Kyran’s head and he swaggered past the long line of
people waiting to board the plane with their “pleb” status. His bubble was quickly popped after our
priority boarding party was ushered onto a bus, soon followed by the plebs and
in the end, nobody got on the plane before anyone else.
Enough
about the flights!
We end up at Madrid Barajas Airport and had to catch an
inter-terminal transfer bus to Terminal 4, where we could catch the train into
central Madrid (Principe Pio station). From there we went and put our luggage
at our aunty’s place and fly out the door to try to make it to the Ministry of
Justice and General Registry to follow up on our longstanding attempt at
registering our marriage with the Spanish Government which was submitted 4
years ago. We are now nearly 10 years married!
I don’t
know if any of you have seen Asterix
& Obelix: The 12 Tasks where they have to go get a form or piece
of paper in this government admin building.. In the end everyone who attempts
this task ends up crazy.
To see what I am talking about here's a link to the clip:
Well to describe our attempts at registering our
marriage I was borderline crazy until we went to this office (for the third time) and was helped by
this kind lady (she must be new, and hasn't been broken yet!?). She helped
so much that I walked out of there and felt like I had a breath of fresh air
and that things were finally happening.
To celebrate the apparent successful (or otherwise 99.9% completed) marriage registration, we found a small bar tucked away down a gap between a building and a large stone staircase/ramp. We feasted on a ‘royal’ salad, a glorious bruchetta, and shared a jug of Sangria to wash it all down. I (kyran) had a little coffee and we were off again! Merc spotted a banner advertising ice blocks and icecreams etc up from where we were sitting for the meal, and I got her an ice lolly/ice block/popsicle. The sun was out in force and merc got a little redness to her fair skin!
We decided to walk back
to aunty Argi’s house where we had stashed our bags earlier and stop by
Principe Pio shopping centre and “La despensa” grocery store before going back
to the house to siesta.
On the walk back we
found some familiar sights and sounds at Puerta Del Sol and Plaza Mayor. The sights
and sounds of these bustling parts of Madrid brought back memories of our
previous adventures in 2014.
We arrived at Principe
Pio and got some supplies and merc got her eyebrows threaded and kyran got a nice
new haircut for summer!
Our other Spanish aunt who lives near Madrid invited us all out for dinner at a nearby (to us) vegetarian/vegan café called Sanissimo.
We stayed out pretty
late with the family dinner so after getting back to Argi’s apartment we went
to bed, excited for our bus trip to Cordoba tomorrow!
Well that is it for this blog, thanks again for tuning in I hope that you have enjoyed the additional Vlog, I would be happy hear any feedback that you have and anything that you would like to see let us know!
As always if you do like reading our blog you should consider subscribing/following us, that way you know each time a new blogs gets posted.
Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:
Well that is it for this blog, thanks again for tuning in I hope that you have enjoyed the additional Vlog, I would be happy hear any feedback that you have and anything that you would like to see let us know!
***
As always if you do like reading our blog you should consider subscribing/following us, that way you know each time a new blogs gets posted.
If you want to contribute to keep the blog full of adventures I have set up a Paypal account that you can donate to.
Also if there is anything that is around where we are and you want us to see it/review it please do let us know! we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at:
