1995

3 Months

NYC

A Jewel

Eivissa

Tree Abuse

ECO

Black Friday

Bocadillo

Danger!

Estofado

Sangria

Rave

Cannibis

Camino Viejo

Neutrinos

Weather

Roosters

JCS

The PM

Plongeé

Smila

Customs

O. J. Verdict

1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Fish Monger

A Roar

MacWorld

Padinkos

Bye E, Hello GC

Gran Canaria

Where

A Tour

How

Food

Yumbo

Las Palmas

Playa

1995 Gran Canaria: Potpourri

Norteños

More Food

Irishmen

Heading Home

USA

With Dad

Back at Home

Wednesday 6 Sept 1995

The Iberia 747 is quiet and comfortable. In fact, this has been one of the most trouble-free flights I've had in a long time; it's a pleasure. Even the food is good. There is smoking allowed on this flight, but none of it wafts to my seat. We leave on time, I sit (in my usual aisle seat) next to some pleasant, forgettable people. Minutes after taking off, my seat is in its most reclined position, I'm covered in two airline blankets, and I'm snoozing for the entire flight (save food and a couple trips to the head). I'm so tired that I don't even follow my usual jumbo jet ritual: go up to the piano bar on the second level of the aircraft, sip a coffee or two, and write a few complimentary airline postcards. That's tired.

I arrive at Madrid-Barajas airport (MAD) refreshed and happy. The landing was excellent, the flight attendants were professional, and I had a full night's sleep. After confirming that I have over three hours until the next leg of my flight, to my final destination, I wander around the airport. First I go outside to stretch my legs, breath some local air, enjoy the local weather, and take a gander at the taxi-cabs. Here they're little white cars with a red diagonal slash on the front doors.

I go back inside the airport terminal to take advantage of the local plumbing. Uneventful. (Boy have I got some stories to tell you...) Then, during my continued exploration of the airport I came across the cigarette machine pictured at right. I'm not sure how clearly the details are to folks that weren't there, so I'll describe it to you. It's a chest-high cigarette machine with a large drawing of an American bald eagle pointing it's right wing directly at the airport traveller in an homage to the US Army Uncle Sam recruitment poster: "We Want YOU". Next to the eagle is the object of this nauseating advertisment - Great American brand cigarettes. I'm sure feeling proud now; what a reputation for my country, the land of the Free and the home of the filtered menthol lite-tar 100s. Sigh.

I beat a hasty retreat before I topple the offending cigarette vending machine, and wander down some of the airport's side wings. I wander by a scale model of the airport, into the exhibition hall (closed this early in the morning), by several groups of giddy Japanese travellers running to catch their connection flights, around three or four groups of slow-moving nuns (of several different orders, judging by their dress), and finally, a quick left turn after yet another closed money-changing booth. There, across the hall from an obnoxious electronics, CD-ROM, film-and-batteries emporium, I'm charmed by the statue of a waiter in formal dress, hawking my favorite variety of caffiene: Illy café espresso.

I stop in my tracks. What an anachronism. Right here in the midst of the tasteless advertising af the late twentieth century stands a marker of times gone by, hearkening to an era when service meant getting your money's worth and a smile to boot. I dig in my pockets for the small amount of pesetas that remain from my last jaunt to Spanish-speaking lands, seven years earlier. Glory be, I think I have enough paper and coins to drink myself into a tingling tizzy.

The image you see below is the result of patching together seven or eight images taken with my Apple QuickTake 100 from a seat in the corner. As my cappucino was cooling off I snapped the pictures, connected the camera to my PowerBook with a handy-dandy serial cable, downloaded the images and cleared the camera, and then used Adobe Photoshop to stitch together the individual scenes. I hope the end result gives you a feeling for the hustle and bustle of the café - a mixture of hurried travellers and earnest snatches of conversation. It was a most pleasant place in which to kill some time, enjoy several cappucinos, edit the images you've seen here, and write these web pages. I did have to fend off several strange looks - using a laptop computer in a café isn't the norm in Europe (and as I was to find out later, not the norm anywhere: I wasn't in Silicon Valley anymore). Most gawkers, including the café proprieters, were bemused. Children, I found, immediately grasped what I was doing, and if the mood struck them, they took the time to explain to their parents.

[MAD-cafe image removed because it became corrupted and I can't seem to find an uncorrupted version.]

In the time I had left before needing to arrive at the boarding area for my next flight (pictured here), I closed all my files, unplugged the camera, packed everything away, cleaned up my table, and made another trip to the local facilities.

Actually, that's not the plane I took. That would have been too easy. Rather than bringing our puddle-jumper to a jet-way, so we could walk directly from the terminal onto the aircraft, we helped the airline shave a bit off of the profit margin. Instead, we were driven by bus to the far side of the tarmac, where we got out and in an orderly manner stormed the airplane (even though we had assigned seats). The flight from Madrid to Ibiza airport (IBZ) was short and uneventful, just long enough to drink down orange juice and hand the cup back to the stewardess (all the flight attendents were female on this hop, all the management and flight crew were male).

I was met at the airport by my uncle-on-my-Mother's-side Daniel, his wife Shraddha, and their 17-month-old baby boy, my cousin Djamal. Mayra, their oldest, my nine-year-old cousin, was waiting for me at home in Sant Joan de Labrita, 20 km (12 mi) away. I enjoyed the catch-up conversation and a leisurely ride northward, to town. There we stopped at the local watering hole for a caffè con leche, went home and had ourselves a vegetarian meal that couldn't be beat, and went to sleep until the next morning.