August 20/21, 2024 when two days become one from Albuquerque to New York, from New York to Madrid, and drive from Madrid to San Vicente de Barraquea.
Travel days are always difficult, but this one was also exciting in many ways.
We awakened at 3:30 on Monday August 20 at home and Ubered to the airport at 4:15 for our 6:15 flight to New York. While waiting for departure we ate breakfast. Suzette drank a coffee with steamed milk, I drank a chai and we shared a large Oatmeal raisin cookie.
The first leg of the trip was an 1 hour and fifteen minute doze with our eyes closed much of the way to Dallas. I have regained much of strength and the pre-surgery hip joint pain is gone, so I was able to make the connection in Dallas easily, especially since we had checked three suitcases. Suzette carried the back pack with our essentials such as medications, our travel documents, electrical device chargers and cables, her laptop, and our pillows. I carried an insulated bag with a few New Yorkers, the food bag with the three pate open faced bagelsand two Gravad lax on bagel open faced sandwiches we made last night.
At 10:30 we flew from Love to LaGuardia arriving around 2:30. After we obtained our grips we wandered a bit toward the ground transportation area. We had not made any arrangement for a shuttle from La Guardia to JFK from which the American Airlines flight departed, but soon an Uber agent found us and we agreed to be driven to JFK for $65.00.
The driver took us to the door of Terminal 8 at JFK and we checked our bags bags in the priority bag check area. This trip I decided to fly business class so we could have seats that reclined flat into beds, which comes with several perks, we soon found out. After the one on one baggage service by an attendant, the attendant directed us to the Lounge, which at JFK is shared with British Airways, So we went to the Lounge. I had read articles about how airlines are competing to provide luxury lounge service but this was my first experience a luxury lounge. As soon as we checked in at a front desk, we were directed down a hallway into and two slices of sautéed chicken thigh a large area filled with tables and chairs, easy chairs, and a buffet line of food items and a buffet of wine choices. There was even a bar for making mixed drinks and aperitifs, a Bloody Mary bar, coffee and tea station and showers. Everything a first class traveler might want. Every chair had an easy to reach charging outlet. Suzette started working and I went to explore the wine selections. I walked past the reds and Italian Pinot Grigio to the 2022 Famille Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhône Rose and Piper Heidsick champagne . For our fist glass I poured two Rose’s and took them back to the long work desk next to our big easy chairs where Suzette had moved to work.
It was three hours before our flight to Madrid, so I decided to order my book for the trip. I decided on Ron Churnow’s biography of George Washington that won the Pulitzer Prize that Ihave been wanting to read. I then wandered over to the self-service long buffet food area and took a bowl of tomato soup that was delicious. After enjoying the soup I decided to eat lightly because dinner would be served on the flight. I took seven or eight tortilini in alfredo sauce and two sautéed slices of chicken thighs and refilled my glass with champagne. I loved the Piper Heidsick champagne because it has small bubbles that just keep bubbling.
I decided to stop eating before attacking the dessert buffet, because I was getting a little tipsy and knew there was an entire dinner that would soon would be served. So I made a cup of Twining’s English Breakfast tea and then we walked to our flight.
We were group 1 so we walked onto the plane and were shown to our seats that were middle seats divided by a partition, that we soon found out would be dropped so we could talk and reach into each other’s cubicle. The configuration in the 777 in business class is one seat on the outside of an aisle and two seats in the middle section, instead of the economy class of two on the outside and four in the middle.
We were given fancy sound suppressing headsets and shown how to move the seat from upright to flat horizontal. Soon we were served warm nuts and a glass of wine. I ordered the Pinot Grigio because the attendant had recommended “The Fish” for dinner. Things moved pretty quickly, perhaps because it is only a 7 1/2 hour flight. Suzette and I decided to watch the same movie and agreed on a French Girl about a chef girl friend who falls in love with a New York teacher in New York. The girl’s family lived in Quebec and she was offered a job as executive chef at a fancy restaurant in the Frontenac Hotel in Quebec City. The movie had a large ensemble cast with lots of sub-plots and was very entertaining.
Dinner was soon served. The first course was a salad accompanied by a cold eggplant and tomato carbonara with artichoke hearts drizzled with a crumbly cheese served with a warm dinner roll. Not great but not bad.
The entree was next. It was appealing but I had run out of room to enjoy more food. It was a nice sized chunk of Chilean sea bass encrusted with panko and lightly sautéed so still moist, served on a plate with heavily seasoned, sautéed large orzo and a small pile of blanched and sautéed green beans.
I tried to finish the bass and beans but left most of the orzo and the wine.
The dessert sherry was Dry Sack that I used to drink a lot, so we ordered glasses of it. And I recalled how much I liked its nutty sweet taste. I finally broke down and ordered the chocolate caramel hot fudge sundae and ate the hot fudge off the top and Suzette ate a bite or two of the vanilla ice cream.6-
I had taken a sleeping Pill so it was time to recline and sleep with 4 1/2 hours left in the flight. Suzette helped me adjust the seat to almost flat and tuck me in with the provided blanket and I slept soundly for about four hours. It was perfect.
I was shaken awake by the Attendant with breakfast about 30 minutes left in the flight.
I was happy to have been awakened because Breakfast was lovely. A large Chobani vanilla yogurt with a small cup of granola served on a plate of fresh fruit.
Soon after I finished breakfast the plane landed at Madrid Airport. Madrid Airport is huge
Airports are where I accumulate the most steps. I walked 4390 steps on August 20 and 5024 steps on August 21, mostly in the Madrid Airport.
You go up two floors to Passport Control and then down two floors to transit from the gate to baggage carousel and then down four floors from baggage claim and across bridges to exit to the parking garage where the rental car office was located.
When we arrived at Record Go, our car rental company, in the parking garage we were told we were forty minutes early and it would cost 40 Euro extra to take delivery early and that our car was not yet arrived.
So we dropped our suitcases behind the counter and walked back to the airport and saw a fancy bakery restaurant named Paul’s where we bought a bottle of Zumma fresh squeezed orange juice and a chocolate croissant for a total of 10.15 Euros and read our books for a few minutes and then returned to pick up our dented red Toyota sedan that we were Assured was in perfect working order. We gladly accepted the car with the realization that any damage liability was probably a non-issue.
I need to mention that Suzette is a prolific reader. When she is not working or talking on her phone, she is reading. She favors books that are offered for free on Amazon and other streaming services.
After we rented our car we made our way out of the parking garage and onto the highway north for the 4 1/2 drive to San Vicente de Barraquea.
Burgos was about 1/2 way so we decided to stop there for lunch. Suzette found a restaurant that specialized in paella in a suburban 60’s or 70’s neighborhood named Pesquero (the Fisherman) arriving a few minutes after 1:00.
I ordered the 15 Euro menu of the day. I chose scrambled eggs with ham and shitake mushrooms for my first course and Flounder in a Murnier sauce for my entree.
The menu also includes a basket of bread, a bottle of wine, a cafe con Leche, and a dessert.
Suzette understandably ordered seafood paella and we shared our lunches.
Again I could not finish my food and wine even with Suzette’s help, so we took a carry away box full of paella fish and a piece of bread. I do not enjoy the heavily seasoned rice of most paellas, so I only ate a couple of bites of paella.
We were tired and I was having trouble staying awake so Suzette found a large park where we parked the car in the shade and I fell asleep immediately for 45 Minutes while Suzette went to a lovely restaurant in a wooded area of the park to use the restroom.
We then got back on the road north toward Santander. The road crossed several river valleys and plateaus until it finally came to the Picos de Europa, Spain’s high mountain range where we crossed many valleys on viaducts and traveled through mountains in tunnels until we reached the coastal area. Finally, at 5:00 we arrived at San Vicente. Its main road was packed with cars, but we finally made our way to the Posada Labrador by 5:30.
We checked in and were shown to our room, a comfortable room with two twin beds. We took showers and got into our pajamas and went to bed. I slept from 6:30 to 11:30 and then blogged this blog.
Suzette slept through everything, including rowdy young people talking and yelling in a house nearby until 2:30 a.m. when I finished this blog entry.
Bon Appetit
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