The trip has started pretty well.. no traffic to jfk and a quick trip through ticketing and boarding etc. I’m flying Iberia airlines which is based in spain. It seemed like at least half of the passengers were English-speaking: a mix of business travelers (upfront in business class with me) and a lot of tourist-types (backpacks on and sitting in back). What I found interesting about Iberia is that while they obviously fly a lot to the us, the stewardesses didn’t speak much English. Now you might think that this is my own ethnocentric view, but I have found on other airlines that most of the stewards/stewardesses have some basic command of English. Not so on my Iberia flight. This made the settling in process in business class very interesting. The flight was on a 747, so first class is upstairs and business class is in the nose, but downstairs. Also, the pilot and all are upstairs, so in business class there is just a closet in the front of the plane up there. Anyway, as I boarded I felt like I walked into a scene from I Love Lucy. Three stewardesses where standing over this man trying to make themselves understood. At first I thought maybe he had tried to smuggle on a large cheese wheel, but apparently his suitcase was too heavy for the overhead and they wanted him to move it to the closet up front. The only way I know this is because when I went to lift my fairly large suitcase into the overhead compartment, one of the ladies ran over and threw up her hands at me. “no, no…” okay, I guess I’ll put it up front in the closet. The other interesting thing about Iberia is that all of the stewardesses (and the one steward on board) were fairly old and not overly attractive. While this isn’t such a huge deal, on a long night flight it is sometimes fun to fantasize that one of the better looking ones will give you a handjob under your blanket or take you into the lav and fuck your brains out. This type of fantasizing is not possible on Iberia.
Okay, more about the flight. Once airborne they began the service. The old ladies came by offering sherry (which I declined) and had instead a fairly decent Rioja. The menu offered duck, so I thought I’d give it a shot. It turned out to be very good, but also lead to a pretty horrifying experience. The duck came with some lovely snap peas in a sort of brown sauce. I enjoyed sort of dipping the peas into the sauce. One problem… as I forked one of the bigger peas, I bent it over and re-poked it with my fork so there was sort of a tension on the pea pod. As I brought it to my mouth the one side of the pea sprung loose from the fork tines and sprayed the front of my shirt. Overall not a big deal as I was planning on going to the hotel before seeing or doing anything so I had plenty of time to change. Unfortunately, one of the old lady stewardess must have witnessed this little event and ran over to help. She spoke in rapid Spanish… “empuje, hola, como say yama": whatever. I assured her I was fine but she wouldn’t give up. She started unbuttoning my shirt! Wow! That’s okay, grandma. In order to escape I stood up to go to the lavatory to try and appease the old lady, but that just encouraged her. She continued unbuttoning and her older aunt came up from behind me and started pulling out my shirt tails. What the fuck? Before I knew it I’m standing in the aisle with no shirt. Now I’m a hirsute fellow and I guess this is a big deal in spain, because the one who pulled my shirt tails out started oooing and awing at the hair on my chest. Then, some other ladies who were sitting up front turned to see what was happening and they made some comments that I couldn’t understand but it sounded nasty. I’ve never felt so violated! I swear one of them tried to run her hand thought my chest hair. Well, to make a long story short, I got my shirt back and was able to get it back on and get back to my seat and buckle up. Jeez!!
I swear as I splept on the plane someone tried to unbutton my shirt again.
Okay, I’ve traveled a fair bit, but I’ve never really known how to use a bidet. Are you not supposed to wipe and then wash out your ass? Seems silly to me.
TV in the hotel is quite a hodge podge. It is the morning and there is the full range of Spanish “Today” show type programming in the morning. I was surprised that the female anchorwomen were not as hot as I thought they’d be. Katie Couric still is tops. There is quite a bit of Japanese programming on, too. there must be a big sumo tournament because sumo was on all morning. Looks like a couple of western guys are taking up the sport, although once they get fat and have their hair done, they look pretty asian. There is also a few channels of german programming -- it's kinda strange: sort of a divorce court meets jerry springer show on. I don’t speak much german but it appeared that ‘the brother’ was on the hot seat and all his relatives were coming up and giving him a mouthful. I thought the Germans were above all that.
Went to a bullfight. Wow! In Madrid the month of May is like Super Bowl month for bullfighting. We went to the Plaza del Torros and saw a bunch of cool stuff. Someone got a ride on the bull's horn - no goring but the guy got bounced around a lot. Saw a "duel" between two matadors - kind of a like a dance off; one guy would fight the bull for a minute, then the other guy would step in and fight and vice versa. Pretty cool. The fighting was not as gory as I thought it would be. At some pioint I did feel sorry for the bull, but the spanish guy next to me assured me the bull didn't actually suffer that much - hmmm, tell that to PETA. Overall thrilling and I highly recommend it. I found this site that shows pictures from the actual day we were there.
http://mundotoro.com/mundotoro/SanIsidro2004/Imagenes.asp?Fecha=2004/05/13&Seccion=Imagenes&Id=892