It Never Snows In Madrid
After 6 months of anticipation and preparation we were finally on our way. The van arrived to take the family and I to JFK for our move to Madrid Spain. We traveled light carrying only 1 large roller suitcase, 3 large roller duffel bags, 3 carry-on rollers, 2 overstuffed laptop bags, stroller, car seat, 1 insulated bag of food stuffs, 1 oversized cloth bag, and a medium sized plastic tote covered in duct tape.
We made it to the airport and through security without much hassle and plenty of time to spare. The flight was uneventful, Lilah, as always, was a great traveller and did very little crying and/or complaining, Camille was able to nurse her to sleep shortly after the dinner service. I believe Camille was able to get a little sleep at least she seemed to drift in and out. I, on the other hand, tried lying still for about 45 minutes then gave up and watched the the first few episodes of “Flight of the Conchords” and the first season of “Curb” .
As we finished our breakfast the plane finally descended beneath the cloud cover and we could finally see the city of Madrid……covered in SNOW?!?!
As we prepared for the landing Camille entertained schemes of ensuring that Lilah stayed asleep as we deboarded the plane…the welcome to Madrid announcement from the Captian took care of that plan…so after sleeping only ~4 hours since waking up from her nap on Friday afternoon at 2pm Lilah was up and rarin’ to go for her arrival in Madrid.
As we came off the end of the jetway Lilah, the ham that she is, threw her hands up over her head and shouted “ESPANA!” (now as we left NY we asked Lilah where she was going and provided the answer as “ESPANA” but this was completely unprovoked). It took over an hour to collect all of our bags, thank goodness for Blue’s Clues.
Being that we had arranged for a car service to take us to our apartment from the airport we figured immigration was basically the last bump in the road, we couldn’t have been more wrong. Upon finding the car service counter we were told that the city of Madrid was “closed” due to the snow (less than 6 inches mind you) and that all of their cars were stuck in the city and our best bet would be to take the subway into the city….out 2.5 year old and two luggage carts piled with 13 bags disagreed.
We went out to the taxi stand at which there were about 15 people and no taxis. After about 20 minutes of sitting outside 3 taxi’s finally show up…now I don’t speak spanish but they were clearly telling the folks in front of us that they could/would not take them where they needed to go b/c the roads were to bad. We knew our apartment was only 12 miles from the airport so Camille walked up to one of the cabbies and gave him our address and he was more than happy to take us. Somehow he managed to pack all of us and our 13 bags into this tiny european hatchback, we were not very comfortable as we were 3 abreast in the back seat, luggage and stroller in the floorboards, bags stacked in the passenger seat and the back completely full, but hey we only had to travel 12 miles…..
As we got out of the airport and onto the motorway we quickly realized that our day was no where near bein over traffic was at a standstill in all directions on all visible roads. That 12 miles took almost 3 hours and 280 euros. About 45 minutes into the trip after not moving for what seemed to be an eternity Lilah, completely unprovoked, started yelling “Rapido, Rapido” (translates to “faster”) which gave us all, the cabbie included, a nice laugh, probably the last one of the day.
(we learned that the airport was closed down at noon for over 5 hours…so in the end I guess we are lucky that we even made it Madrid).
As we learned over the next few days it had been 5 years since the city of Madrid had seen snow, and it hadn’t seen this much snow in over 30 years. The general population of Spain were very pleased with their snow as Snowmen could be seen on almost every median in the city center and adults were hurling snowballs at each other everywhere you looked. The kicker, of course, is that by the next morning you could barely tell that it had snowed at all…..
