Madrid, Spain

November 2005

It was the business trip that almost wasn't. The VP of Engineering didn't want to send one more person, I was assigned to another behind schedule project that wasn't too happy with losing their engineer hours, the entire trip was almost cancelled entirely because there was some issue with whether or not the tanks in Spain would be available for us to interface with. But, yet, work paid for my passport (and took my passport picture), and sent me to Spain on a first class ticket. It was a fun and challenging opportunity.

Flying first class was definitely a new experience. They have special lounges with comfortable chairs and free drinks while you wait to get on the flight. Plenty of leg room, they bring you champaigne and newspapers before you even take off the ground. The seats on the international flights recline to almost horizontal. And flying first class you rack up a lot of frequent flyer miles. The dinner menu on the plane was pretty intimidating though; I wasn't even sure what most of the dishes were, and decided to try the barbequed duck entree, exotic as it sounded, because at least I knew what I was ordering...

My first impression of Spain was looking out the window of the airplane as we landed. We flew over lots of small vineyards and other sights that just didn't look like Kansas (or anywhere in the US that I'd been for that matter). It was a rainy afternoon in Spain, and I had a window seat. I was quite enthralled watching the airport vehicles used for the luggage, how they looked just like playmobil, and my car garage set, but real! It was like seeing toys come to life, which is a bit surreal. I wish I'd snapped a good picture of this, but I was too busy staring to think to get my camera until all the interesting scenery had passed. But apparently I'm not the only one who's had that feeling flying into Europe, so as a stand in, here's a picture from a total stranger's trip to nearby France where he comments about France looking like a "Playmobil Airport"--its actually a pretty close rendition of what it looked like in Spain too.

And our hotel, the Westin Palace Madrid was every bit as elegant and cultured as flying first class had been (and had a price tag to match).  However, their continental breakfasts were a bit more "normal" of food. Well, "normal" being the Spanish idea of a good breakfast buffet. They had a lot of strange things like freshly carved meats, but plenty of items to choose from, and there was always fresh fruit and cereal available. The only part that was tricky here is at home I'm accustomed to having a somewhat light breakfast, and then lunch about 3-4 hours later. In Spain, we were running on Spanish time, having breakfast at 6:45am and not having lunch until 2pm, meaning either, eat a high-protein breakfast, or make sure you have some snacks to hold you till lunch. And then dinner wouldn't be until 9--One time we went looking for dinner at about 8 or 8:30, and we were pretty much the first patrons in the restaurant--people eat dinner late there. In the late afternoon or early evening you'd be hard-pressed to find a "real meal", at that time of day, they like to have tapas, or appetizers, from little delis and the like. A good one would be something like thinly sliced salmon on a slice of bruchetta. But even more common was thinly sliced ham as the topping. It was strange to be in a country where turkey is pretty much unheard of (I guess it is kind of traditionally American and native to the Americas) and chicken hard to come by and usually served so salty its hard to stomach. But their seafood is amazing, especially mixed in with Paella. Just watch out for vegetables laced with ham not listed on the men--the Spaniards are really into pork, wouldn't be a good place to take your Orthodox Jewish friends.

I spent a good portion of my time in the conference room at Tecnobit's office, just outside the northern extremitites of the city limits. I also spent a bit of time at El Goolooso (?), the army base. Wasn't much worse getting on base in Spain than in San Diego.