Today is really yesterday that never ended, at least at first anyway. Depending on when you last read my words, dear reader, you might not know Miami had an horrendous storm which closed the runways right when we needed them most.
The lounge at the E terminal gates is closed, so we used the D terminal lounge for a couple of hours, and then transferred to E on time as requested. After 30 minutes, by which time we really should have seen the nose of our plane looking at us, we suddenly get a message that our gate has moved to the J terminal, quite a hike away. We have to clear security again to swap terminals.
Finally sat at J18 we naïvely expect things to be sorted soon, but unfortunately not. We just sit like lemons, still not told why there’s a problem, but I do some sleuthing on FlightRadar and soon learn that nothing at all is landing, and that our inbound flight and several others have landed at West Palm Beach, some 70 miles away.
With plenty to read and write we while away the time, updates come in occasionally, and we eventually get a departure time of 02:00. In fact this becomes 02:15 so it’s over three hours later than should be. We’re not best pleased, but weather happens! Captain tells us we’re going to have a healthy tailwind so should recover a bit of the delay. We manage to start Mrs Harris goes to Paris whilst waiting to taxi - it’s a lovely movie, entirely charming, but we find it difficult to compare with the musical our friend Richard Taylor created for Sheffield Crucible - of course both are fabulous really!
The dinner, at 03:30 is still very good, indeed the first time ever to have a confit duck leg on a plane and it was excellent, and all wines perfect too. By the time Mrs ‘Arris has sorted Dior’s problems, we’re ready for bed and get about five pretty good hours of shut-eye before breakfast - which wasn’t so good!!
Landing in Madrid a few hours later than expect leaves us with a dilemma - should we wait in the airport for five hours, or stick to plan-A and go into the city. Of course you know what we do - we’ve had enough sitting around already. It’s a bit of a faff, but we check in our bags in left luggage and the jump on the metro, swap to inner city transport, and land in Sol, one of the famous areas.
We first visit Playa Mayor before heading towards the palace, on to the Teatro Real, Temple de Debod, and Plaza de Español and more.
After 90 minutes we concede and catch the two trains back to Terminal 4, grab our bags and the train to T1. The flight home is rapid, we arrive 25 minutes early. Sadly our driver fails to turn up - it’s the last time we use Talixo - and it takes us quite a while to get a taxi, but we’re finally home by 01:00 on Friday morning,
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