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France/Spain 2011
Day 13 - 29th March - Santiago (Part 1)
I left for the airport really early for a morning flight.
At 6:15am there was already the smell of baking bread in the air.
Weird shop window things, including "Telefono Labios" ("Lips Phone")
At the Deutsche Bank ATM, the first line of text was in German. Very good.
Pastries I had gotten the previous day. They were quite bad (in general the Spanish standard was below the French one) so I couldn't finish them. Somehow I don't recall Italy having a Boulangerie-Patisserie culture.
Jamon Ruffles!
"Femeninas prácticas" ("women's practices")
Cute T-shirt (the blue one at the left)
"All products in this shop can be boarded and consumed in the plane"
Unsurprisingly, AirAsia didn't fly to Santiago, with their outside food policy.
Santiago airport seemed quite slack - they looked at my boarding pass but not my passport, and they let me in with 120ml of water. Maybe it was because I don't fit the profile of an ETA recruit.
"Vueling is a modern, sociable, imaginative and decisive airline, always thinking about you"
I think something got lost in translation.
"Pasta salad with vegetables elaborated by Cuina Justa"
Gourmet airline food. But then maybe Cuina Justa in Spain is like, say, Panda Express in the US.
"Have you enjoyed reading Ling? Take it home with you. It's yours to keep... If you would like to read Ling every month but are unsure about whether you will be flying on Vueling, you can become a subscriber"
It was amusing reading about fluorescent dog poo, but would I want to subscribe?!
I then arrived at Barcelona airport (there were no direct flights to Paris). I checked out Jamon Iberico in a fridge. It was 17,6€-21,5€ per 100g, and 99,90€ for 1kg.
Instant paella.
English in the Middle (between Catalan and Spanish)
One airport cafeteria I went to had for 11,40€ tabillas of ham, cheese and sausage. There were plates of hot food also. Wth. (I think it was a buffet)
6,75€ Jamon Iberico baguette. It was still crusty - almost fresh. I could taste the nuttiness, but the shit Hum Sup Guy had scored for me was still better, as the aroma filled my mouth.
Jamon Inside
It had a delicate flavour, but it was lost in a sandwich (and if eaten in large quantities) so though I picked some out to eat on its own, I couldn't really taste the acorns by the end.
I wonder if the Spanish (or indeed anyone on Continental Europe) eats Picnic Ham.
Mmm
Vueling had told me that I'd get 1 hour free wifi, but didn't send me a password, so I went to a booth. The first time I visited it the man couldn't help me, and told me to try the Kubi network (15 mins free). Later I went back and asked someone else, and made a 3 minute 53 second call. Multiple that by $1.50 per minute and 1.25 (roaming on demand) - and it was still cheaper than 6.10€ per hour of Wifi. In any case the login they gave me didn't work, so I gave up.
"Recommend" - FHM, DT
I was going to patronise McDonald's but they didn't like me taking a picture of the menu, so TOO BAD.
They had a chicken and bacon wrap ("CBO"). The last is Onion I'm guessing.
The "1955" is not the year McDonald's was founded but the year Ray Kroc came in. Sad.
Vueling didn't even let me use my phone on flight mode. They really take their job seriously.
Perhaps one reason the Spanish are "monolingual" (the worst in Continental Europe I'd experienced) is that there are so many regional languages. So in addition to learning their regional tongue, they have to learn Standard Spanish, and that is enough.
A lot of women wore boots, but guys only wear boots if they are, say, hiking. This tells us something. Well, in the Barcelona airport toilet I saw one East Asian guy with grown-out blond hair travelling with another guy in boots, but they were probably Japanese so it didn't count.
In Spain, I saw quite a few blonde women - but no blonde guys. Again, this tells us something.
Spanish art is substandard in that they hadn't mastered proportion, and much of the works looked like caricature, being unrealistic (e.g. huge heads).