Day 1: Travel is easy and other lies told to you by your parents. (parent lies not included) Free spelling errors included though

Could a travel photo get more cliche?

Like I said, an every day blog. Exactly that. Every day. No missed days. Not a one.

Sorry to be behind a few days, there has been very little time to sit down and type anything between walking, checking into a room, prepping the bed and space, unpacking as little as possible, finding the nearest power plug, laundry in a sink, communal dinner at 7pm, conversations with other pilgrims, and lights out at 10pm (but really everyone is in bed with lights out by 9:15). Then up at 7 and kicked out by 8am to start walking all over again. BUT today, we arrived early in prep for the first big hill I have to climb.

But ALL of that is way beyond where I need to start. We need to start on my 26 hours of travel. We need to rewind 6 days. Well, that’s a lot of days when I type it out. Hmmmmmmm. Let me check. Yep, 6 days ago was Wednesday. Swirly swirly out of focus circle fade…..

Wednesday morning I was running around like a chicken. Might have still had a my head, but a chicken for sure. Last minute packing, find the cord for my watch, Pull out that charging brick, add one more rubber strap to the outside for typing things down, sunglasses… maybe…no yes. Oh no, now I need to repack so I can check the backpack because it has the walking poles and tripod on it. Pull the camera cube out, grab the fleece, chargers, snacks, laptop, throw it all in the 20l collapsible day pack I had thrown in. Great. And now, where are my tickets? What do you mean I need 2 different apps? Fine. Apps galore. Flight from PDX to Denver, Flight from Denver to London, Flight from London to Madrid. Found emails, for pre-checked in, and then somehow its suddenly 9:30 and I want to be at the airport by 10, good thing its not a 30 minute drive, or no it is.

My partner drives me to the airport, one of us is a basket case, and its not the baby who got to ride with us. Photos, kisses, hugs, bags, doors, wall. Wall?

Walls, where none belong.

Airport broken. That’s all I know. This wall should not be here. But there it is. Fine, we know how to beat walls, COOLAID. NO. wait. No. I walked to the left. Pretty simple. Checkin agent is now digital, fast, but I need to talk to a real person about my bag. Found person, “Hey, do you think TSA will let this bag on as a carryon with the tripod on it?” I should mention that I was anxious because I had less than an hour turn around on my flight into and out of Denver. Would like to know for sure that my clothes are going to get there. Big long think, “Maybe, lets go ask my boss.” Find boss, same question, same long think. “Go try, if they kick you back we can check it with the baggage tag you already have.” So I trundle off towards the TSA. Passport, face scan, zig zag line, conveyer and bins. 3 bins because I’m, carrying 3 bags, main pack with tripod and walking sticks, camera cube with camera gear, day pack with laptop and other random gear. Plastic belt and shoes off. Through the body scanner without issue, and no smiles at my jovial complaints about why the machine would be angry about a plastic belt. Now its time to stand, shoeless and holding my pants up, and wait for my 3 bins.

1 bin, 20L bag exits the Marie Currie magic box and comes down the ramp to me. 2 bin, camera cube slides out towards me as well. 3 bin…. Taking a while. Slides out and over to the “We would like to take you to a back room for a fun hide and seek game if we don’t like what we find” line. Great, cool. They don’t like the tripod or walking sticks. Fine. We can deal with this. “Hi,  is this your bag?” “Yea.” K, stares at the X-ray picture and then unzips the front pocket. “Anything in here that can poke me?” “Um, no?” Digging around. And then reader, I got smacked in the faced with a huge “You’re and idiot” realization. I packed the bag to be checked. I purposely put a small multi-tool in my bag. The bag I just tried to take onto a plane. “So hey, I just figured out what your looking for, (*pointing*) its in this pocket here.” “Yea ok, see, it has a knife on it, we can send you out to check the bag, mail it home, or toss it.” Well, its a $2 multitool. Toss it. Toss it quickly. That’s it. Released.

So now, still shoeless and holding up my pants I’m hobbling off towards a table across the hallway to try and get some dignity back after being the expectedly forgetful American at security. Moved stuff around and shoved the camera cube back in the backpack, its ok because its gonna be with me now and not thrown around by luggage handlers. Awesome. This is the best outcome. Down the hall and towards my gate that the sign says is 15 minutes walking. Lets call the partner. Reader, something was missing. Not my phone, not my mind, just my brand new earbuds. Left on my chair at home. 3 weeks of 12 mile a day walking ahead and I have no earbuds. This will not do. There has to be a store here that has some. Some quick looking around and it seems there is a likely store 1 gate down from me. Earbuds acquired, off to my gate 1 concourse over and 5 gates down.

After getting to the best gate in the airport E5 I set in the for the wait, about 90 minutes. Found a lovely seat overlooking the tarmac, even has a power plug to top off any battery usage. Time for some music and a phone call to my partner. Reader, I bought the wrong ear buds. My ears are a bit funky so only certain buds will stay in. I had bought the wrong set. No way they will stay in my ears. So, backpack back on, cords unplugged, snacks back in other bags and I set off for my 12 minute walk back to Concourse D. Did I mention that I had tossed the packaging because I had no room for it? Well, in the most exciting part of my day I got to go trashcan diving to get it back, exchanges only with original packaging. Exchange the buds for the correct pair, black box, not a silver one. OBVIOUSLY. And then back down the 12 minute corridor for the 3rd time. Look, its not that interesting of a walk. Blank white walls looking over not much. Few benches. Look, its pretty boring. I can’t quite describe how boring of a walk it was the first time. And now its 3 times. Things can only get better.

Well, this entire time my brother and his wife were just landing from a flight over seas and taxiing to E Terminal. Great! We can wave and see each other for a minute before I have jump on my plane. Quick google to check where their flight might come in. Hey Google “PDX KLM gates.” “KLM does not operate at PDX. KLM a Dutch airline primarily operates from Amsterdam and is not known to serve PDX. If you are planning a flight with KLM, it is likely from another airport, NOT PDX”. Excuse me Mr AI, who is obviously always right and won’t kill me during the uprising if I agree that they are never wrong, I have my brothers shared location on my screen, And he’s at Terminal E. Well actually no. Arriving international flights are too scary to let inside the terminal. You have to be bussed to the front of the building and get thrown outside the doors of baggage claim unless you have a connecting flight. So I took a selfie with them through a wall, and they took a photo of my literal airplane from their prison bus. This day was starting out weird man, just weird.

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Thankfully the rest of the day was pretty normal for what one might expect. And frankly, if you expect the rest of my day then I hope you get the counculing you deserve.The plane loaded easily. Flight was fully booked so they were looking for people to check bags. Like a dog who ate the Thanksgiving Chicken I avoided eye contact with anyone who looked like they wanted to take my bag. Got to my seat  31F, a window seat, and was luckily the first one there, gave me extra time to get situated, Camera bag into the overhead bin with the tripod bundle under my feet. 20l bag stuffed under the seat in front of me. Then a lovely older couple headed to vacation somewhere tropical slide into the 2 seats beside me and we’re set for our 3 hour flight. Those 2 were asleep before we taxied backwards. Out like a lightbulb in Spain last week. Taxi was smooth and we didn’t even stop as we rolled onto the Runway. Then we were off. Oh, and both my seat mates eyes snapped open as the pilots hit full throttle. Smooth flight Watched the first few episodes of The Old Man with Jeff Bridges. In Denver we flew a big circle around the whole airport to dodge a thunderstorm. Good landing and then to the gate A28.

Seeing how I was at the back of the plane, it took a bit to get off, but my departing flight was at A27, just across the wide corridor and no more than 30 seconds from arrival ramp to where I lined up as the gate agent called group 2 to board. So you know, plenty of time. Minutes and minutes even until Group 3 boards. Group 3 was me. Or so my ticket claimed. Just incase that wasn’t obvious. First class is spendy man. So onto United UA27 to go find my next back of the plane seat. This is a wide body plane. Kinda like me. W I D E. I didn’t actually count the middle seats, but I’m pretty sure there were 5 in the middle section. So 3 5 3. And I had 52L, another window. One of my seat mates beat me to my row. She was going to see her long-distance Boyfriend in London for a mystery vacation. Her dad wasn’t happy she was dating someone from London. That’s about all we talked about. No middle seat friend so we got to stretch out and not elbow fight over armrests. Makes for a better flight. Time to tuck into more Old Man episodes. Decent show so far, but I only made it 4 eps deep. 11 hour flight. 26 minutes of sleep. Oh I tried. Just couldn’t fall asleep. It was…. Something. Coca Cola solves the problem though. I have to be awake for my transfer in London because my tickets aren’t linked and I have to collect all my unchecked luggage and go find a ticket counter to collect a boarding pass and go back through security. But that’s 5 hours from now. We’re still in the air for an amazing sunrise, on the other side of the plane. 9 people in the way.

But wait. I have to get from Madrid to Leon Spain to meet Kevin. And I have no idea what that method is supposed to be. So a quick google on the plane wifi and I find a train ticket. Its in Spanish so, to know, it says something. I can’t read it. But I know it goes from Madrid to Leon, and it gets me to Leon at 9pm with enough time to walk to my accommodations, before the normal 10pm Albergue lights out and doors locked time. And back to sunrise. It was… purple.

Purple

London was busy, flew in circles for an extra 20 minutes waiting for a place to land. English countryside looked like fun from 10,000 feet. Easy landing and then waiting to get off the plane because weirdly I’m in the back again. So yea. 4 people exited behind me. And then the walking started. Reader, I am not exaggerating, 20 minutes of walking using the moving sidewalks. Just to get to the elevators up to Immigration and get my passport checked. Stood in line for 15 minutes in a room the size of a football field with 326 other planes worth of people, SOOOO many people. But like, expected I guess? But ewww, people. Cleared and then off to baggage claim so I can go upstairs and check in. Well upstairs was a whole thing. I think that every escalator in the terminal is broken. So we’re waiting for 1 of 4 freight elevators to show up. They go to 3 levels and somehow take 10 minutes to get to all 3, both up and down. 2 of them show up full. To the gills. Not getting in with 5 feet of backpack behind me. 3rd shows up, going down, but empty, and we, those waiting, are all done, its going down. Down will eventually go up right? Sure. So my fellow waiters and I pile in and wait to go down 1 level before hammering on the level 5 button. Slowest elevator ever, but we make it to level 5 and I’m off in search of British Airways ticket counter. There’s a lot of counters, a lot. But hmmmmmmmm, one would think that BRITISH Airways would be more prominently marked…….. Ok. Need some assistance. 4 bored looking airport employees desperately hoping that the lost American doesn’t come yell at them. “Hi, can you help a lost american find British Airways?” “Sure, That’s in Terminal 5” So like, not where I am. Somewhere else. But why. Who planned this? I want a word with the Prime Minister and his cat. No? Ok Fine, how and where do I go. And why are there no signs. No idea what terminal I’m even in. Maybe 2? Maybe the moon. Maybe Canada. A sign would be nice. Another set of elevators and I’m deep in the bowels of the London Airport Catacombs of long nonfunctional moving walkways, concerning smells, no signs, and little clue where I am going.

And then hope. Civilization. London Underground signs. And instructions to not go near it unless you had a ticket because they don’t want freeloaders in Piccadilly Station. So to the left I go, towards the underground Airport Subway.

Look, if I find Terminal 5 faster I’m willing to mind whatever you say.

Off to Terminal 5 and even more confusing escalators. But finally, after 35 minutes of seemingly random turns, elevators, ticket booths for free trains that only go to airport terminals. Wait, why do I need a ticket for a free train that only goes around to the Terminals? No, you know what, use that time to break another escalator, there was one that worked back a few sentences and thats not allowed here. So I spy, through a throng of people and signs warning me of the perils of leaving my luggage unattended, the British Airways check in. No helpful people, but the same digital signin tablets. Get my boarding passes and head off to security hoping they won’t have an issue with my tripod and poles. London security is slightly different. All Electronics have to be taken out and run by themselves. So I had a bit of unpacking to do, and for a change of pace I got to do it while shoeless and holding up pants. But I managed it, no beeping of the metal detector scanner thing. And no smile again at my joke after they told me to stand like the guy painted on the wall. Well, I asked if it was ok if I wasn’t as skinny as the bloke painted with his arms out from his sides like it was jazz time. Not even a smirk. And that was a damn good joke. Wasted. Oh well. Bags and electronics through with no issue. And again were back to shuffling over to a tab- no, no table. Ok, the floor next to that pillar will do. Dressed and bagged up, time to find food and wait for my flight.

Down the only working escalator I’ve seen so far in this airport, I mean… If its not working why is it closed, its just stairs. “Sorry not working, just stairs now” would suffice. You don’t need all those caution tapes and plastic barriers. But who knows, someone needs to keep the caution tape and plastic barrier companies in business. Downstairs things are a bit more… people-y. Like a mall in the 90s. But no one is in the stores because who needs a new $9000 handbag at the airport, or perfume from MAC. Well, fine, the Whisky Shop was packed. But the rest were manned by wary employees brushing off bags worth more than their salary and making dismissive glances at us unwashed cattle braying along the corridor. I mean, my fellow cattle were braying, I was looking for food. Not much to be had, but I found a place with some tasty dumplings and Teriyaki Chicken bowls.

Oh, I forgot to mention the other fun thing about Londons airport. Or maybe its just a fun thing about Terminal 5 and all its cattle. My flight, that boards at 1:30 local has no idea what gate it will be at until 12:50. This is also a changing number depending on your flight time. So 4 huge TV’s with flights and times that are cycling though 4 screens each 4 seconds apart and you have to find your flight, and departure time on one of them, the left 1 has flights that have gates, the middle 2 are just flights with no gates yet, and the right is helpfully telling me that I need to sit down or go to the children play area. Tempting. But in a terminal that would take 10 minutes to walk from 1 side to the other if there weren’t 1 million people milling around while being looked down their noses at by empty except for superior monocle wearing shop employees. But I digress, I found an empty gate and sat down to wait for the 40 minutes until my flight would be grown up enough to get a gate number.

When the flight gets older it will receive a gate number. Nature is truly astounding.

Ding ding, gate number is sent to me on yet another app. I love unless single use apps. Favorite. Goodbye Heathrow airport app. I will never need you after I get to my gate. Which is downstairs. Or down elevator. Because the escalator had another case of stairs and running yellow caution tape. The gate is a bit bare, pretty lame room with gates 9A - 9F. Not confusing at all since the board and app said “Gate 9”. Letters are extra to put out I guess. Not in the budget, too many broken escalators. Figured out I needed 9C, Stood around until they started calling old people, babies, and group 1 up. 7 people. Cool. Group 2? 0 people. Better call them another 4 times and wait 3 minutes between each. This way the rest of us uncivilized Group 3 people stand around looking like puppies watching you not drop that bacon on the floor. Finally 3 is called. And yeay! We get to line up in a zig zag maze of seatbelt barriers. Fun, exciting because straight lines would have been hard. Or, maybe the 2 straight lines for Groups 1 and 2 were jealous and made the employees do the zig zag. Either way, the lady behind me had a friend who skipped into the Group 2 line. Well reader, it didn’t work out for her Group 3 ass. Well, that and somehow she held a ticket for flight BA460. This was Flight BA462. So that was funny to me. “Wait for me (friend in line with correct ticket). They booked me on the wrong flight, I’m gonna go make them fix it and I’ll back.” No… No you won’t lady. You live in London Airport now. There are catacombs down there you can live in. I suggest pulling a few plastic barriers away from the stair-escalators and building a shelter. You’ll be fine. I and the other passengers though, we were going to Madrid Spain, from London Englsand, in 40 minutes, on a… BUS?

Reader, I am as confused as you. Busses do not go direct from London to Madrid. And this is going to take a while. And there are no seats. And no open windows or air conditioning. Well, it was a good life. London isn’t where I would have wanted to die, but you know, it’ll do I guess. Ok, so didn’t die. Mostly. I found a window labeled “Leave this window open for ventilation” and opened it. Guy across from me opened his too. So for now alive. Still stuck on the first bus boat I’ve ever seen though. Driver shoves, ok, pushed because people had issues with “stand closer than 6 feet from the person next to you” requests, the last 2 people on board and heads for his seat. Closes his little door separating him from us cattle and the bus rocks to the the left by several degrees. Oh great the bus really does think its a boat, but maybe a little bit of a slow boat because now it thinks it needs to do the whole waves rocking thing on land too….. Definitely going to die. Then we rock the other way. Ok, sure, this is good wave practice bus. But really, I don’t think you have crossing the English Channel and Bay of Biscay in front of France in you little buddy. Maybe he’s friends with a pod of dolphins.

And off we go in a jerking forward acceleration classic to English drivers who are unsure which pedal does what. But, moving is good. And then Roundabout. To go back the way we just came. Efficient. Imagine parking the busses, which have doors on both sides, the other way? No, that budget went to escalators too. Got it. So now were headed off to find a boat launch, or space shuttle, or flock of geese, I don’t know at this point. But, every Will that has been in an airport today has been shoved on a bus against their will. So At least their consistent. And that counts for something. I think. Eventually, to everyone surprise we find ourself in some back lot at Heathrow between white gates and random parked rows of plane service trucks and we pull over. Ok, well this will be something, there’s a plane. Airbus 321, the cheap of the cheap. But it has a set of stairs parked at the door with implications that we won’t have to test the Buses seaworthiness, but its still good at rocking with the waves as it does it both ways again before we are able to open the doors and get off. Waving goodbye to my aquatically inspirational challenged bus friend I head up and into the plane. Seat 34F. Back of the plane. You know, its worth mentioning that if the plane is going to crash into the mountain, its usually the tail that’s sticking out at an angle. Back of the plane. It’s what survivors do. Window seat. Because I like looking at ants below.

Seat mates end up being 2 highs cool age kids. Must be a school trip or something. Middle one falls asleep immediately with earbuds in. I head to the phone because there’s no in-seat entertainment unit. “This is the pilot, we’ve asked for clearance but have been told that there are no clearances available right now, should be some in 20 minutes.” Holding planes hostage is now I see. Well plyed you escalator breaking bastards. 40 minutes later we get our clearance and get to touch a runway. Off we go, kids next to me slept though takeoff, an impressive feat.

Our 40 minute late departure put us into Madrid 20 minutes late. Just in time for the worst turbulence I have ever been in. And I hate flying. So this is fun. 20-30 foot drops and some fun violent side to side jostling as we break through scattered cloud banks. 10 minutes of that and I’m ready to give ol’ Bus-ter a second chance. Maybe today is a good day to die. But no, we made it on the ground. THANK GOD no one clapped. I didn’t need any more excuses to puke on anyone. Off to some gate and off to me being the 7th to last off the plane. Kid lost one of this earbuds while sleeping. Found it just as it was our rows turn, so some good things happened on that cursed flight. Off to Immigration to get my first ever Passport stamp and to go find my train.

So remember that 20 minutes late landing. Well, now my buffer before boarding for my train was 90 minutes. And I needed to figure out where the hell my train even left from. And I had to get out of the unending corridors of nothing. Finally out with my fancy new dated stamp and its now 5:55, train leaves the station at 6:50. Phone with a picture of the ticket in hand I just start walking up to information people asking where I needed to go. There’s not knowing Spanish, and there’s bad Spanish. My Spanish is closer to not know it. Asking for a bathroom is about it. A surpassingly useless thing since they are very well marked most of the time. Anyways, over there, go take that train to the train station that your train leaves from. Cool. Off we go. Hmmmm a train to a train. Is it going to be fast enough? I have 40 minutes now to train leaving. Train service info booth, “Hey, will this train get me to wherever this station is in time?” The biggest concerned eyes I have ever seen, frantic glance at a wall clock, back at my phone. “Taxi”. “Ok, I need to take a taxi?” “Yea”. Well readers its a good thing I booked the later of the 2 trains I was looking at. I mean, I would have been in line at immigration when the first one left, so, not even close.

Out the door and over to the taxi stand. “I need to get here (shove phone at a dude who obviously spoke English).” Points at a taxi, trunk, phone in another face, “Yes, I can get you there”. And off we go in the first air conditioning since leaving the upstairs of the Heathrow airport. I’m sure I was a sight to behold. Dragging around this huge bag, awake for 24 hours, sweating like a pig. But the dude got me there in 13 minutes. And it wasn’t close. I looked it up afterwards. 18 minutes by car. Dude was doing over 140+km on the freeway and 60 on the surface streets. $34 to go 13 minutes to catch my $84 2 hour train. These are not great ratios. But, I’m only at the station. I have to find a gate for a train on a ticket I can’t read other than knowing what train car and seat I have. Oh good, more security checkpoints, but this one was like a traffic intersection in India. People everywhere, no lines, bins in piles. Got my bag wrestled into one and on the track, around the other side and there no one. Some police about 20 feet away looking bored. I’m, not sure what the X-ray machine was looking for, but I’m less sure what would have happened if they found it. There was no real stoping anyone from taking any bag they wanted and walking off, or really just walking through without running through the machine. Security theater at its best.

And now I have about 7 minutes before the end of boarding. In the corner I spy the name of my train company and 2 employees standing there. Phone, face, “Where?” Stream of spanish. Not sure what I expected. So I start gesturing, pointing different ways. “Si, si,”, and points me off towards a gate that has a line of the last 12 people scanning their tickets through. Oh, well, not close then. Good. Perfectly planned to have 12 people left. Ticket scan, and down some stairs we go, and then reader, down a working escalator. The Spanish have mastered the art of escalator repair. Suck it London. Down to the platform and I start looking at the train to my right that’s under the Leon signs. But no, that’s not my train. My train is the train parked down the track from this train. This is the train that leaves after mine. So, 11 cars and an engine later we get to “My” train.

HaHa, silly duck faced train. Why the long face?

The keen eyed of you may notice that this is not what a normal train looks like. Blind googling and ticket purchasing in a sleepless fuge state has put me on Spains Bullet Train. The 2 hour travel time from Madrid to Leon makes a bit more sense, not that I was doing a good job of judging timeline or distances apparently. Ok, so this will be fun. Off to car 2 and seat 6c, another window. I had planned to use the time on this train to write up some this blog, but when I suddenly found myself hurtling through Spains beautiful countryside in between broken storm clouds with god rays everywhere, I was a bit stuck on looking out the window.

Award winning photo taken through the dirtiest train window ever.

So. This has been a bit long, but if things would just be boring I wouldn’t have to type so much. Train ride was lovely. 247km for most of it. 2 stops. Rolled into Leon at 9pm. Off the train to an exotic smell of human feces, up another working escalator and I was done traveling. Done I say. Finito. DONZO. 26 hours of go go go. Stress. Done. Oh, what’s this, I’m 1 mile and 20 mins of walking from my hotel? Cool…. Awesome. Trudge.

The exhausted face of a professional traveler.

So apparently Spain doesn’t eat, or go to sleep at normal times. Also, my walk was along a car free street. And there were sooo many people out looking for dinner, shopping, walking around. And when I say people, I mean whole families with their 4 year olds ruining in circles. Kevin texted me his location and I altered course to go find him infront of the Leon Cathedral and it was soooo worth it.

I spent about 40 minutes around the Cathedral taking pictures and talking to another  photographer who wandered over and waned to talk shop. Some great photos and some great conversation. Kevin had booked us a private room in an Albergue that didn’t have a lights out time. So we walked slow back to the hotel and made our way up to the room. Comfy beds, big window door thing to outside, tiny toilet room that you had to straddle the toilet to close the door. Unpack a bit, catch up on what’s going on, bed. Close eyes, 20 minutes later, mmmmm sleep. “HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY WHOS GONNA PAY! HEY HEY HEY PUNTA WHOS GONNA PAY”. It was in Spanish of course. And it was gently wafting though the open window because neither Kevin or I wanted to die of overheating in that room. So, I guess the day I got there, May 1 is Labor Day in Spain. And Labor Day is party day. The bar just around the corner was in full tilt and the, what sounded like 8-10 dudes, were having the time of their lives. Kicking something against every wall in what I assume was the drunkest soccer game ever played, although I must admit that most English people play soccer too, so maybe that record is still held somewhere else. Reader, the party went on until 3am. I passed out around 2, but it was amazing the different chants they came up with either as some sort of working party revolution chant, or an attempt to guilt another buddy into buying a round. Either way. No way to know. I wasn’t going to ask. And closing the window was not an option. Death had already tried to get me twice today. Not giving him 3rd chance via heatstroke.

So there we have it. The Travel “day”. Sorry this has taken a while to get up. Surprisingly its taken me a while to type this all out, and now I have to figure out how to format it correctly with all the pictures. Unless I don’t get that figured out, and then you win internet, you win. Now go fix an escalator as a treat for yourself.