1999 Africa: Madrid-Barajas Airport

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Madrid-Barajas airport

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1999 Africa: Madrid-Barajas Airport

Update: Please check my main Canary Islands page to see travelogues for other Gran Canaria trips.

Monday 20 December 1999 (continued)

airport

Soon after our plane landed at Marid-Barajas airport, which I described while on a previous trip to the Canaries, Rose began complaining of nausea. I'd never heard of anyone getting airsick after landing. She asked for several bottles of water, and since I was dry as well, Isaac and I got into line at one of the airport restaurants and walked away with four or six half-liter bottles. A minute later I had to buy two room-temperature bottles; Rose couldn't tolerate the chilled ones.

We had a few hours until the next leg of our flight started, so we wandered around the airport. Isaac played in several shops, and we enjoyed the sights and sounds of air travel. Madrid-Barajas is a familiar lay-over spot for me, so it was reassuring and relaxing to be back. But we were so tired. And Rose seemed to be losing steam with every passing minute. (She's normally quite the trooper, never giving up before the destination is reached. This was very wierd behavior for her.)

airport

Isaac and I tucked Rose in; while she slept on a bench we enjoyed the "slidewalks" and the luggage carts. I was getting terribly hungry (again), so we ventured over the the restaurant just as it was closing. I got the last hot meal, a wienerschitzel with spaghetti. Isaac chewed on the roll. Finally our time was up, and we went back to wake Rose. On the way to our gate she told me she urgently needed to visit the bathroom. (I've never known her to urgently need to go, but it was a wierd day.) At the gift shop by the bathrooms we picked out an Elmo doll while waiting for Mom to reappear. After a while she did, telling me that she had thrown up. Okay, now I had two sick people to herd.

The story gets a bit funnier. Aboard the plane Isaac and I sat in an aisle seat, Rose in the middle, and a well-dressed Spanish girl reading Cosmopolitan Español in the window seat. Rose took the airsickness bag from the window seat, and the girl gave her such a look. Rose used the bag before the plane started taxiing down the runway. The Cosmo girl looked as though she would jump out the window if Rose threatened her pants with the razor-sharp crease. Rose motioned me to turn Isaac away from her, so we wouldn't be worried by the vomiting, but he refused, thinking the great sounds Mommy was making were just the funniest things around.

airport

This was the hardest part of the entire trip for me (I realize later on). Isaac loves planes, and is rambunctious despite his illness. Rose can't contribute to taking care of him at all. And I'm just exhausted from the last two days of worry and exertion. But somehow I manage to entertain and contain Isaac for the duration of the flight.

We arrive in the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria airport, but it's very late in the evening, and everything has closed. Our bags arrived on the flight before us, not having to wait for an available seat as we had to. Rose ends her broadcast day, lying on another bench, falling asleep. Isaac and I work the few airport staff around. One suggests that we ought to return tomorrow. I ask her whether the airport police have keys to get into the offices, if an emergency arose in the night. I tell her - in my unused Spanish - that I have a very ill baby, a sick wife, and medicine in the bags. We follow one staffer, then another, all around the airport as the bureaucracy is wakened. On the way I see a cabbie, and ask him to wait for us as long as need be; I guaranteed him a fare to Playa del Inglés. He agrees.

Finally I have the bags (and Isaac) in hand. Rose is now on the wrong side of the security barrier, and I have to walk the luggage cart the wrong way down several one-way hallways before I find and retrieve her.

We find the cabbie. In the rain we drive - in a very comfortable air conditioned Mercedes Benz taxi - towards the southern tip of the island.

The hotel staff are expecting us, and have our room ready. We check in at 0300.

It can only get better, right?

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