Madrid and flying home

Rob's attitude when I told him I was going to sit in the airport all evening until it was time to check-in for my flight was 'fuck that, come hang out at mine'. He had to edit an internet show him and some friends are making (he's an ex-theatre director and actor) - it's pretty good - so he wasn't going to be in the apartment most of the night, but it was still way better than sitting in an airport.

When Rob's friend Mike turned up at the apartment to say hi, he had a similar reaction to me sitting by myself all night and told me to come out with him. Mike (late-middle aged, ex-Navy, living in Spain Texan) helps organise an English-Spanish language evening in Madrid (he's a veteran of Vaughan Town, with over 50 programs under his belt) and dragged me along to the drinking and socialising part of it.

I spent the evening chatting to a pair of American girls that both worked as language teachers for Vaughan, about the Welsh language (one of them had a degree in linguistics), in great, confusing detail (on their insistence, I was the one confused, trying to remember linguistic rules and various idioms and sayings for them), one of them actually videoed me saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch on her camera.

Mike and I headed back to Rob's at 12 for me to grab my bag and say goodbye and I jumped back on the Metro to go to the airport. I managed to get out of paying the surcharge for the airport metro line by a combination of acting the stupid tourist (which always helps) and the fact that their ticket machines weren't accepting credit cards and I didn't have any cash.

Airports, as I doubt I need to inform anyone, are not nice places to sleep. Airport floors especially, are not comfortable. Neither particularly are Ryanair planes. It's interesting to note however, that though I be completely aware at the time that the reason I'm so pissed off is because I'm suffering from lack of sleep, this doesn't stop me wanting to kill everyone around me.

Back in Liverpool and everything feels the same. Managed to catch the Liverpool-Chester train with a minute to spare, missed the Chester-Bangor one but boy am I used to hanging around in that particular station.