I’ll cut to the final result before filling in the details – everything worked and we made it to plan. But the journey in between is worth the telling.

The flight was pretty much textbook – get situated, eat something, watch a movie, take a nap, wake up, and realize you still have 5 hours more to go. I usually keep the automated flight map up and running because it gives constant updates on important things like “Estimated Arrival Time” which of course factors directly into my ongoing background “probability of success calculations.” The early indications were positive, it looked like the 1-hour late departure translated into only a 30-minute late arrival time.

The meal hour arrived and I was asked what entree I wanted. I responded and was told. “We’re out of that” which I found surprising since I had reserved the meal a month ago on their app. When I pointed that out, I was told I had given an alternative (which I hadn’t) of a meal that didn’t appear on the menu. I was assured it was a worthy substitute after asking what the point of the reservation process was if it didn’t work. That was met with a shrug and it was reminiscent of that old Seinfeld episode in which he reserves a rental car and then discovers that there are no cars available.

“Yes, we understand how the reservation process works.”

“No, I don’t think you do.”

From food to the movie. I chose the recent Michael Mann movie, “Ferrari” an eponymous biopic covering the early years of Ferrari’s career. A pretty enjoyable film, made more so by Adam Driver’s incredible immersion into the role. Worthy of your time if you’re an auto racing fan although there was a lot less racing than character drama.

I decided to have a nap, and that was going along just fine until we hit some turbulence. And by “turbulence,” I mean “bouncy castle” turbulence. Now I’ve logged a lot of air miles, and a bit of bouncing around doesn’t bother me all that much. But several bumps in this patch were worthy of a pause. It didn’t last long, and I was able to drift back off for another hour.

We were getting close to breakfast hour so I was surprised that they hadn’t started pouring coffee. Instead, one of the flight attendants came by and tossed a bag on my tray table, containing a tub of yogurt, a small package of granola, and a fig bar. Another pre-order malfunction? No, the attendant came back and told me that they were still under a turbulence watch and thought it might be a better idea to not have carts full of hot food and beverages plying the aisles if it hit us again. Given that potential, the yogurt was just fine.

We landed at 10:00 on the dot, and my mental calculations were looking rosy. We’d landed at the end of the terminal so it was a long haul to passport control. Several people went flying by, yelling “I have a close connection!” The Barajas passport hall was completely different than it was in 2019 so it took a couple of minutes of bleary-eyed reckoning to figure it out before we found our way to the proper line. An agent there was pulling people out for special handling if their connections were close so I figured my train connection counted as much as a plane connection and I told him “11:45.” He said, “You’re fine, I’m only people out with 11:15 or less, you’ll be out of here in 10 minutes.”

And he was almost right.

We have a standing joke about always picking the wrong passport line. In the past, we’ve always made good progress until the person in front of us lacks a passport, or has an Interpol “red warning” out for their arrest. On our last trip through Schiphol in Amsterdam, it was a family of six with all kinds of passport problems that brought us to a dead end. In that case, they opened another line and waived us over which was great until the agent forgot to stamp my entry which went undetected until we tried to leave and the next agent wanted to know how I’d entered the country. That time it was me, who had the Interpol flag.

I picked a line and was happy to see us moving along faster than everyone else until it was our turn to move up, at which point a woman walked in from the cleared side and started talking to the agent. I stood there and watched every other line pass us by until the agent finally waved us in and handed off the problem to a supervisor. We got through, passed the gauntlet of escalators and trains, and hit the taxi stand at 10:30 with more than an hour to get to Atocha station.

I’d practiced some Spanish for the cab driver, asking whether we could make the 11:53 departure, and rolled it out on him once were in the car and heading for the highway. “No problem” was the answer. That little bit of language got all three of us talking about youth crime, American politics, gangs, and a general overview of current events. It’s always refreshing to talk to someone abroad about how our country shapes up on the world stage, and how that compares to what our politicians try to tell us how foreigners think about us. Suffice it to say, there is a big disconnect.

We arrived at Atocha with 20 minutes to spare, paid the driver, and tipped him generously which resulted in a big smile and handshake. “Por la conversación” I told him before wading into the crowd.

Atocha is a wonderful old station made better by the tropical arboretum in the center of the old arrival hall. There is just something nice about giant plants in the middle of a building. We passed through security and only had to wait perhaps 10 minutes before our train appeared on the sign. Down the ramp, into our seats, and on our way.

I’d forgotten how hard it is to handle a 3-hour train ride after a 24-hour travel day, but we made it. Caught a taxi at the train station and got to our apartment at exactly the 3 PM check-in time. The young woman who would let us in arrived and we went through the usual rigamarole of credit cards and passports. We had a nice conversation with her about how much we loved Sevilla (she really liked my NO8DO tattoo) and about language study. She went on her way and we headed out to find a grocery store for some breakfast supplies.

The apartment seemed nice enough if a bit used. Living room, two baths, two bedrooms, kitchen, and a little den area. Certainly adequate for our 6 nights, even if it deserved a bit of TLC (which is often the case with rentals like this.) Two balconies overlooking Plaza de la Contradiction was an unexpected bonus, if for nothing more than the sweet smell of orange blossoms drifting up from the square below.

It being Sunday, the streets were mobbed both with obvious tourists and well-dressed locals having a promenade after a day of church and brunch. Sevilla traditionally had a bit of a problem with a complete lack of grocery stores in and around the old city. We’d traditionally used El Corte Ingles, the upscale Spanish department store where we’d shopped in every town we’d visited. It’s a bit of a hike, and we were tired and addled-brained, and it was hot outside, so you can imagine my surprise to see that in the intervening 5 years, Carrefour had added a half dozen of their “express” stores to the local neighborhoods. We’d regularly shopped them in Paris, and while not full service, they’re more than adequate to get us started with some fruit and yogurt. So I asked Google Maps for directions, and off we went.

As usual, Google did its thing and led me on a wild goose chase. We arrived at the spot it had identified and of course, nothing was there. So we circled the block and came up empty-handed. MLW spotted a Sevilla tourist information office and went in to ask. “Sorry, there are no Carrefours in Sevilla and the only grocery is Corte Ingles.” Could Google Maps be lying to us?

Never being one to give up on a quest, I re-loaded the map and the store we’d been looking for had relocated itself about 5 blocks to the north. Was it my jet-lagged brain? Or was it Google? I wasn’t going to let either get away with anything so we kept on going, turned a corner, and there it was. I suggested that MLW take a photo of me standing under their sign for the children in the tourist office but at that point, I was just glad enough to find some food. Fully provisioned, we carted our supplies back to the apartment, unloaded them, and went back out for dinner.

To make it easy on the decision-making process we went straight over to Mateo Gagos and chose “La Traditicional” a restaurant we knew from previous trips. Una copa de tinto (red wine,) una copa de blanco (white wine,) Carrilada (pork cheeks simmered in sherry,) Adobo (Hake nuggets,) and veraduras a la plancha (grilled vegetables,) and all the trials and tribulations of what seemed like the previous week (only 36 hours) disappeared in the sheer bliss of a good meal with great company.