Thursday, December 21, 2006

Spanish Siesta....Part I - The journey across the seas

Well i thought i'd start to share my experiences in Spectacular Spain........

I started with a lot of nervousness, as there was a lot of confusion regarding my tickets. I had to catch this flight in Chennai and I was in Mysore.... Had a ticket booked on Air Deccan to get to Chennai from Bangalore... but then as Air Deccan can very well be trusted to do... they screwed up and delayed my flight... SO that meant i would have to get a ticket somehow and fly over to Chennai!! That gave me some bumps in the beginning... but eventually i did get to Chennai and well in advance... gave me enough time to catch up with some goood friends... I did have a ball of a time actually... which guy wouldn't considering the fact that he's at a pub with 8 gals... and mind u... he's the only GUY!! Man, that was some evening... had loads of fun....

I always was a lil teeny weeny bit worried as to the kinda crowd i would have to meet during this trip... Coz the only person i knew travelling in this trip(there were 300 ppl travelling together) was me!! Apart from a few ppl from my area.... I really dint like those ppl so dat dint really count as people.... I kept calling these ICICI ppl and these tour guides to find out if there were any body somewhere close to my age group travelling on this trip.... and finally i did come to know that there was one gal from Kerala... Neethu...."that's interesting I thought". Little did i know that it was gonna be one hell of an interesting task getting to know this gal!!

I saw her on my bus from the hotel in Chennai to the international airport... and man she was cute... had this amazing smile... but then i knew rite back then that i would have some problems talking to this gal! She was mallu and she had this whole battallion of uncles and aunts (chetas and chechis,as we call them) travelling with her... Who i guess had sworn to the gods and the kings that they would guard this gal from harmless innocent creatures like me(I can see ya laughing) till death! Anyways i just resigned to my fate and was pretty much by myself at the airport... dint know wat to do and so went to all the phone booths and called loads of ppl! Walked through the duty free shops and saw loads of BOOZE! Stuff dat we normally don't see in the bars in our country! Maybe just in the huge hotels and these drinks would command an astronomous sum! After i got bored doing this, I just sat down in the lobby..... I look around and wat do i see.... I see this gal... Neethu walking towards me.... My heart started beating faster... not that i was having a crush or something!! Just dint know if she was the type to talk to... or more importantly if she was planning on coming over to speak to me!! he he... that really took my trip...And you know wat?? She did come over to me and say hi... I was like pretty happy... as in i was like... "Cool, this gal's great... i finally got some company on this trip!"... we spoke for some time...."Now don't ask me wat we spoke about ok"! Coz it was just the junk that ppl talk when they first meet... pretending to get to know each other better... wheareas in reality actually checking out the other person's reactions to the different things that they say and the way that they say the things that they wanna say!! (Hope i haven't lost you on this one!) But this moment dint last long... as her group of ppl,her security detail as i began to refer to them... got out of the Duty shop where their alcoholic noses had dragged them into... And of course they came to her 'rescue'... but yes they made it as subtle as possible... thank god for that... they would just come and sit alongside and start a conversation with her and drag her back!!

I was like "Big deal". They aint gonna be able to stick to her all the time and i for sure would have my opportunity sometime soon and dint really bother bout those ppl back then.... lil did i know that they would have the last laugh(atleast in Spain)... he he....My flight was not very eventful considering the fact that i had slept for like 4 hours for the last two nites put together, I did sleep through most of the flight!! But sure i did get up in time to grab something to eat.... Its always exciting when we get the food on the flight... coz u really dunno wat ure gonna get and the packaging makes it all the more appealing! The food was considerably decent... though the alcohol they served on the flight was not upto the mark... the wine tasted like some medicine and the whisky like .... I can't describe.. will fill in some adjective when i get it.....By the way back at the airport i had smoked with some Indians who said they were travelling to Ireland.. they were something like doctors i guess and they were going back to work after a holiday.... I had bid adieu to them but then in the flight one of those guys were sitting next to me... "Off course the world's a small place".

OK, Now lets get to Frankfurt... I had this transit stop at Frankfurt... where i had to catch another flight to get to Madrid. Man was i taken up by the sheer size of this airport.... I couldn't even think of comparing it to the Indian airports... the Indian airports were like so damn small compared to this... i got tired just walking around the airport searching for the damn boarding gate... there were actually ppl who were travelling on cylces throughout the airport....Now i understand how Tom Hanks managed for so long in the international airport(somewhere in US) in the fil "The Terminal"!!! God these terminals are so huge... in fact it was so amazingly neat!! I was impressed... earlier i had thought that thank god we had half an hours time of transit!! But then i realised that it really wasn't enough.. thank god our flight to Madrid was delayed by another twenty minutes... that gave us just enough time to find our boarding gate!!

Next Stop MADRID!! The flight to Madrid was pretty ok considering the fact that it was just about 3hours.... and i had this Spanish couple sitting next to me... they did make some interesting conversation and they did tell me a lot about Spain... was funny... coz all through the trip.... he was the only Spanish person i spoke to(leaving aside the ppl at the hotels and the bars)... I did think that i would get an opportunity to meet loads of ppl... but sadly i dint!! Anyways it was really nice to speak to this guy....

The airport at Madrid was more like Earth... it atleast had some similarities to our Indian airports... I could see that it was a lil old.... And then... we went to get our baggage... and I did manage to get a word or two across to Neethu... or else most of the time... it was this huge smile that passed between the two of us!! As i was getting my luggage... Neethu who was standing just behind me comes over to me and was like "Look at dat guy there.... isn't tat KK... the singer... god... i'm such a big fan of his!" And sure enough i look around to see... it was KK... A few months before this trip... During the 25th anniversary celebrations of Infosys... they had called KK over to perform for us... and that was one amazing show... KK, or KrishnaKumar Menon as he was born, sure is a great performer. He could get the crowd moving.... But i really dint make it a point to go over to him and speak to him.. though i was really wondering wat he was doing here at Madrid... maybe some show at some private Indian party!!

We walked out of the airport to see these guys holding big placards(shaped as stars) welcoming us to Spain... it sure was nice to see this welcome... lil did i know that this was gonna be the beginning of many such lavish welcomes that ICICI had prepared for us!! At the hotel we had this welcome tea... (not really the High tea kinds... coz i don't think the ppl i was travelling with really did understand the decency involved in a HIGH tea!!). They handed us our room keys and two t-shirts... One was a jersey, something like a real madrid jersey... looked kinda nice... the other one was pretty plain.... Anyways i take my room key to see that they had made me share rooms with his Munshee guy... he's this guy from madurai... he knew my dad... more like he was my Dad's competitor...and i really dint think he was that great a guy!! I just resigned to the fact that i would have to put up with him over the next few days... Dint want that to dampen my mood.... I go over to the room... and man... it was mind-blowing... a sprawling room... so huge... was beautiful!! And these ICICI ppl had designed some labels and put them over the sheets... welcoming us to Spain and asking us to enjoy a Spanish Siesta.... sure that was a nice thing to do.... some creative stuff.. they had placed their banners and pamphlets all over the place... they sure were pampering us....

That was the beginning of my journey abroad..to Spectacular Spain... Siestas, Tortillas, Wine and Payella(sorry i don't think i got dat spelling rite... someone correct me please) included. There's more to follow..... Guillaume, Seema, sex shops, wine, food, Guiness beer, the metro, football, Flamengo, performances, dance, hookers and off course Neethu..... hang on for the next bit.... catch u soon ppl....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How far will he run?
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