When the popular podcast Pardon My Take first launched, Big Cat and PFT Commenter promised us many things. Among them were Cult Week and Airport Reviews. Well, all us Award Winning Listeners have basically already joined a cult, but the Airport Reviews still have yet to happen.
As you may have read on any of my recent posts, I am abroad for the semester nbd. I feel that gives me a chance to take Airport Reviews international/actually start them.
I've already flown into London Heathrow once, soon to be twice as I type this, and I have flown out of London Gatwick into Barcelona El Prat. I can't go into too much detail since those were a while ago, but based on pure memory I can score them. Heathrow I am going to put off since I may be flying into there (and out at least at the end of the semester) multiple times. I know I'll be back there, basically, and want to give it a cumulative score. London Gatwick I will give a C+. Not too much really going on, security was kinda weird, but they had free WiFi. Barcelona El Prat, it stinks. STINKS. To make a long story short, I spent almost an hour trying to find the currency exchange so I could take a cab to my buddy's apartment. Turns out they don't advertise it too well. It was in this corner and was just a bank with little signage to even tell you it was a bank, let alone they did currency exchange there.
So now we got to the present. I am currently sitting in a McDonalds at the airport in Madrid as I have been since roughly 8 o'clock. You see, I was planning my spring break and found myself in a conundrum. I was staying with my buddy in Barcelona from Friday to Thursday. We were going to go somewhere else in Europe at that point, but he told me a week out that his school was taking them to Valencia further down the Spanish east coast for the weekend. So I booked a hotel in (read: on the outskirts of, HUGE jimbo) Madrid. Being the frugal college student I am, I thought to myself, "Hey, my flight out is Sunday at 655 AM, why don't I just do two night in madrid and Saturday I can carry all my shit through the city and then make me way over to the airport at 8 pm and stay overnight until I can go through security and board!" I have yet to decide if this was, in fact, bad and not good.
But how is it so far? Well, I will make a few updates in real time.
11:11 PM (Make A Wish, bitcc)-WiFi is free and unlimited (would be REAL asshole-ish to cut us off). A little slow at times, but bearable in the least. There's a ton of people in this McDonalds, and the aromas have actually been fairly effective at keeping me up so I don't doze off and get everything stolen, likely by the homeless guy who told me he lives in the terminal and I gave 5 cents to (this is my one good deed of the year). I also watched this cute Spanish girls luggage while she went and ordered some nugs, but my game in Spanish is worse than my game in English as I learned in Barcelona. Shocking, I know. Probably gonna have to get up and get some food and walk around for bit soon so my legs don't fall off.
1:42 AM-I've been here for almost 6 hours and I may be reaching my breaking point. I swear if I get stuck next to a fat person on this flight and am unable to sleep I will do absolutely nothing. Also I have a middle seat so I'm SOL. I did get a Big Mac, Fries and soda from McDonalds though. i had been holding out until I was super hungry in the hopes it would then carry me over until I least got through security and could see what sort of breakfast options there were near my gate. Looks like I'll be getting another Big Mac meal plus a McPollo (McChicken, for you non-Spanish speakers), and then getting breakfast at like 5 AM. My ass hurts from the poor cushioning, I am trying my hardest to not fall asleep so my stuff doesn't get stolen, but I did witness some dude city at an unattended McDonalds meal, eat a few fries, look around and then put his coat in front of the meal while he shoveled it into his laptop bag. That alone may make this whole thing worth it. Just an incredible event to witness with my own two eyes.
5:00 AM-Got through security without understanding a single thing being said to me, a few points off there for not adjusting to me as an ugly American. Departures area is pretty nice but as I type people are just starting to flow in in small numbers. Nothing is open besides the second 24-hour McDonald's that I do not want to order form. Hoping shit either opens soon or theres stuff near my actual departure gate. It's a waiting game, folks. Oh, and the WiFi still isn't working for me. So that's bad.
UPDATE-Fixed the WiFi issue. We byke.
5:51 AM-I'm sitting at the gate waiting for boarding to start in like 20 minutes. Not much around us besides a few vending machines.
I think this is a good time to I've my full review and grade. Nothing left to do now but get on the plane, nothing left to really explore. Unfortunately, there really wasn't much to explore anyway, seeing as nearly everything was closed down since it was, you know, the middle of the night. I'll do my best to grade this place fairly despite the time I was here and the amount of time spent here. All scores out of 10.
Cleanliness-8.7-Super clean, save for some occasional trash left by another person staying overnight. Staff was on top of it. Almost too on top of it, considering some little Spanish teen punk basically kicked a few of us out of our section in the upstairs McDonalds so he could clean the floors. You know what, just because of that the score is down to 7.7. Fuck your floors dude.
Amenities-7.3-WiFi was good aside from when it wasn't/didn't work. Other than that, not a lot of great places to sit or lay down for long periods of time. They were good but not great.
Facilities-8.4-Shoutout McDonalds.
FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10. I don't care if that math does or doesn't add up, nerds. A solid airport you have, madrid. Would have been nice to experience it with everything open and also not for 10 hours, but you just have to roll with the punches. I am also going to keep any spelling or grammar mistakes since I was basically insane by the end of this experience.
All I know is I'll probably have reviews for Heathrow and Boston Logan in May when I visit them for the last/next times. Hoping to get a few other airports in as well (I travel, nbd).
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