This piece was just after I started the blog and was using any and every journey as content for posts, hence it’s just me moaning on about flying to and from Brussels, and going on about dEUS a bit.
The podcast version is with Rebecca Smith.
To Brussels …
Like many people who love travelling, I love trains.
This starry-eyed love doesn’t come from contemporary evidence, certainly not from any recent experience I’ve had on the railways; it’s more a mix of childhood memories of Hornby train sets, from fun family days out on the steam train to Whitby, and from fiction, where trains were glamorous and romantic and have puzzling crimes solved by eccentric detectives.
The commuter trains into Madrid are none of these things. They are neither glamorous nor romantic, there’s no dining car or sleeper cabins, and whatever crime there is, it’s not of the puzzling kind.
When planning this trip, I had investigated getting a proper long-distance train all the way from Madrid to Brussels. I was willing to make the multiple changes en route, in Barcelona, in Lyon and lastly in Paris, even willing to change stations in Paris, from Gare de Lyon in the south to Gare du Nord, Europe’s busiest station, in the north, despite the big gap between them … but unfortunately it was so prohibitively expensive that I reluctantly accepted the blindingly obvious and instead bought a flight ticket.
I set off early on Sunday for my midday flight. The airport is quite far from my house by public transport, so it makes for a very long day, even if the flight itself isn’t such a big distance. I am not clear why being on a train looking out the window is tiring, but just the act of travelling – even if my contribution is little more than sitting upright – seems to sap my energy these days. Getting old has compensations, but this isn’t one of them.
I got to Nuevos Ministerios, an intermediate station on the line connecting Madrid’s main stations of Atocha (full title: Puerta de Atocha–Almudena Grandes) in the south and Chamartín (full title: Chamartín-Clara Campoamor) in the north – both the Central and West Tunnels that pass under the city go through Nuevos Ministerios before splitting to take different routes south to Atocha. These are mostly used by commuter trains these days, with the longer distance services now mainly using the newer East Tunnel that avoids all the intermediate stations.
Nuevos Ministerios – an unimaginative station name that just means New Ministries – is where the metro line to the airport connects, and so, along with other suitcase-wheeling passengers, I huffed and puffed up and down escalators to get across to the metro – a fairly easy task in the Spanish capital where most of the transport infrastructure is neatly joined together.
Nothing much happened on the metro, although I did get a seat which was nice, so let’s cut to the airport where nothing much happened either.
Madrid’s huge Barajas Airport is not really one airport, it’s two (or more). The experience of Terminal 4 (T4) cannot be compared to the older terminals, they are, at least from the passenger-experience point of view, entirely different airports. Today I was in T4, the swish huge kilometre-long (yes, I’ve walked it) open space used by Iberia and their One World partners. It is best appreciated by going to other airports and coming back and realising it’s actually rather good in comparison. Like all airports, it’s a series of processes connected by queues. The process to check-in for a flight is limited by the symmetry and cleanliness of the airport design, meaning there’s virtually no innovation space – no posh check-in lounges with direct routes to the lounge here – people just have to queue up in zigzags and hope there’s enough staff. The only difference between the posh check-in desks and those used by the riff-raff is the time you have to wait.
I queued up, checked in and wandered off to the next queue: security.
Fortunately I have Fast Track for the moment, so can now whizz through without the need to empty out my bag. This was only annoying in that it meant the staff have less to do, and so seem to have fallen into the habit of standing around chatting, instead of the more-productive habit of attending to me and my bag, which by this point was stuck upstream on the conveyor belt because there was no one behind me, and so the belt had stopped moving.
It eventually jerked along and fell into my grasp, and I put my belt, jacket and cap back on and headed to the lounge for a much-needed coffee.
They only got the moderately smiley face in my feedback.
The lounge in Madrid’s T4 is not great. It’s not bad, and the food is pretty decent, but the problem is that the lounge is not quite big enough to meet the demand, and this then limits what they can do with it. They have improved it over the years, and tried to create different atmospheres and poshen up the bogs and whatnot, but in the end, it’s all just a bit too busy and cramped. The one in the Satellite Terminal (T4S) is much better, not least because it’s less busy.
Many people argue that window seats are the thing for the wise traveller, arguing it’s more private, that no one disturbs you to go to the loo, and you can look wistfully out the window … yes, that’s all true, but allow me to make the case for the aisle: it has more legroom, you can get up and walk around without bothering anyone (major health benefit) and you can get off more quickly.
On balance, and without much doubt in my mind, I’m an aisle-seat man.
I have nothing much to say about the flight. It was, like most flights, uneventful and fine, but not enjoyable in any way whatsoever. The “we hope you enjoyed your flight” message on arrival seems increasingly out of place – outside of Business Class, airlines make minimal effort to make a flight enjoyable, and instead, following what customers demand, focus on making it affordable.
Maybe they should say “we hope you found the discomfort of your flight a fair reflection of the price you paid” when they land.
At Brussels I decided to take the train into town. I usually take the bus, more out of habit than anything else, but have recently started shifting over to the train. I got the lift into the basement and bought a ticket, then rushed through the barriers to see when the next train was: 40 minutes. I rubbed my eyes, cartoon-character-like, as if they were deceiving me, and checked again because a 40-minute wait made no sense. I asked a member of staff, because surely this cannot be true, but he kindly explained that my eyes were correct, but that I could get an earlier train, change in Brussel-Noord, wait there for 20 minutes, and arrive at Schuman at almost exactly the same time … thinking lovingly of those regular buses I’d turned my nose up at, I was regretting getting the train.
I wandered down to the platforms to see if I could take any photos:
I like Brussels. It is not the prettiest of cities, nor the most historic, but it has an international charm about it. There’s good food (as one friend puts it: French quality with German portions – the Berlaymont Brasserie is the best place I’ve found for the delicious beery beef stew Carbonnade), interesting beer (I’m not keen on all of it, but can recommend Orval), great chocolate (the sea-salt dark chocolate by Côte d’Or is to die for), great music – although gone a bit jazzy and electronic for my taste, but check out dEUS, Balthazar and Triggerfinger for starters – and it’s all readily accessible via train, bang in the centre of a beautiful country, and very close to four other European countries … what’s not to like.
I managed to find a Georges Simenon book in English (The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By) in Standaard Boekhandel which has a fairly decent little shelf of books by Belgian authors, and a dEUS album in Caroline Music (I didn’t take a photo because it was pouring down – the photo below is from when I got back home and put it on the turntable, and the photo of the shop is from a different visit a few months later) – I had heard bad things about Caroline Music, that it was expensive and the staff disinterested and aloof, but given Chez Pias had closed its record store, I had little choice if I wanted some Belgian vinyl. It’s actually quite a decent place, right in front of the legendary Ancienne Belgique venue, a place that has seen many a magnificent concert, and where I once saw the great Stef Kamil-Carlens play his Bob Dylan set.) …
So, after a week of work and Belgian beer (in Beers Bank) …
… and finding fellow Leeds United fans in the James Joyce pub on Rue Archimède …
… I headed home …
… and back
Eventually the bus appeared and I lumbered on with my heavy case, thrown from side to side as it turned up a tiny street toward the airport and I inched along the crowded airless aisle to find somewhere stable to stand. Thinking longingly of the spacious temperature-controlled train with its luggage racks, I was regretting getting the bus.
We lurched and wobbled our way through the narrow uneven streets, the hot and sweaty air the only thing that was still as I, clinging to a vertical bar, was thrown around like a rag doll in a washing machine.
We emerged onto wider roads, but this was little respite. Here we were hit with ranks of traffic lights, waiting to stop us every chance they got. It seemed like every minute we slammed to a dead stop before kangarooing off again when the light turned green. Eventually the bus gave up, or the driver did, there was no explanation when, a few miles short of the airport, we were told that that was our lot, that the journey had terminated and we had to get off and wait for the next one.
I wasn’t anxious about the time, I’d left a good margin of error, but I was exhausted. A bad night’s sleep followed by a busy day at work then dragging a heavy case along the city streets had done me in, and I just wanted to check in for my flight and sit down. I sighed and waited, expecting the next bus to be even busier than the last.
Ten minutes later it rumbled up the road, and surprisingly wasn’t crowded. I got my case and backpack aligned to a seat and tried to swing into it, but it was high and narrow and when the bus moved off, my case headed swiftly toward the back on its wheels. Wheels are a great addition to suitcases, but brakes would be another. I grabbed it and clung to the pole, waiting for a good moment to try again. I had to take my backpack off or I couldn’t sit down, so I was holding the wheely case with one hand and my backpack with the other, and with any attempt to retain dignity long since abandoned, I managed to clamber up and plonk myself down into my seat with a weary sigh of relief.
We arrived at the airport’s grim bus garage a few minutes later, the driver skilfully piloting us in despite the awkwardly-angled and narrow entrance seemingly designed to deter buses rather than welcome them. I got off, dodging the slow meandering knots of people who didn’t understand courtesy as well as I do – one wearing a Tupac t-shirt – and jostled my way into the terminal building. One of the escalators up to Departures wasn’t working, so I dragged my bag up manually and headed to the Air Europa check in … now almost delirious with exhaustion.
The good news was that there was no queue, but the bad news was that there was no seat for me. Either through random chance or malignant force, Air Europa had decided to put me on stand-by.
My ticket, as far as I knew, had cost the same as everyone else’s and entitled me to just as much access to the plane: at no point had I been offered a discount for a less good chance of getting the thing I’d paid for, yet for reasons unknown and unexplained, I was the unlucky one who was going to have to take a chance.
This wasn’t my first time on random stand-by, so I knew there was no point arguing. Air Europa doesn’t have any staff in Brussels anyway, decisions are made hundreds of miles away, probably by unsympathetic computers, and those sangfroid decisions don’t get explained to the mere paying customer, unless you count the vague and meaningless “the flight is overbooked” … well yes, obviously it’s overbooked, I’m not a FUCKING IMBECILE, but why is it overbooked, and why me? … “wait and see” they say, not so much disinterested in my plight, more powerless to do anything about it.
The very nice and sympathetic check-in agent said I should just wait and see at the gate before worrying about it, he said he really hoped I’d get on, and I thanked him because although him hoping stuff was not going to make any difference whatsoever, it’s still nice.
I didn’t really want to “wait and see”, I wanted to go home, and so I joined the immense queue for security. Even this seemed to go wrong as people from the Fast Track line were ushered into our bit, taking over one of the security lines, slowing our progress still further.
I plugged in and listened to Archive’s excellent Call to Arms & Angels album.
I saw on the departure board that there were two more flights out to Madrid later, although not on Air Europa. This meant there was a good chance that if I didn’t squeeze on to my original flight, they’d pay for a seat on one of those rather than stick me in a hotel for the night – surely between the three planes heading to the Spanish capital, there’d be room for little old me on one of them … only it wasn’t just little old me, as I got to the gate I discovered there were three of us who’d been kicked into stand-by purgatory. I smiled at the gate agent who – efficient and businesslike – didn’t see any need for encumbrances such as sympathy or empathy or any of the other emotions, and told us all to wait and see.
I started thinking about what I was going to have to rearrange if I didn’t get home that night … was it more of an adventure to stay anyway, I wondered? I’d get an all-expenses night in a hotel with food included … yes, but I’ve been there before, and it’s not what you think. Don’t imagine any kind of apology-laden luxury, with a limo gently driving you to the best suite in town accompanied by a slap-up meal and a bottle of bubbles. It’s usually an intermittent draughty hotel bus driving you to the cheapest drabbest accommodation available, and a meagre meal voucher that barely covers the cost of the main course, which doesn’t really matter because by the time you get to the hotel, they will have finished serving food anyway.
I attempted conversation with another passenger on stand-by. It was her first time in such a predicament, and she was incredulous, determined to get home and not willing to take no for an answer. She was polite, but needed to express both her frustration at the situation, and her determination to get home.
The Agent nodded and told her to wait and see. He’d done this before, many times, and knew there was nothing he could do until the final passenger count was known.
We decided to wait and see.
After a few minutes of waiting and seeing, the Agent ripped up our stand-by boarding cards and called us over. I had 5C, a surprisingly decent seat for a last-minute assignation, and the person I had been chatting to had 6C – although when I got on she was sitting in 5C. I smiled and said it was no bother, I would sit in her seat and this seemed fine until she decided that we had to things properly and made me move. I am not sure if she was just nervous, and wanted to make sure everything was done properly as a coping mechanism, or if the man-spreader in the middle seat on row 5 had just pissed her off once too often.
Oh well. I swapped seats, cracked open my Kindle and settled in. After today’s journey, I was just glad to be going home.
MrJohn 