The Horror of Post-COVID Airports

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We land in Lisbon feeling like zombies. We manage to lose Issy’s boarding pass for the next leg not once but twice, but no problem we’re told both times; just go the kiosk and print it again. I wonder what exactly will happen when two pretend Issy’s try to get on the flight.

This airport’s just like all its post COVID cousins - queues and more queues, all of them moving at glacial pace. … and officials yelling angrily at everyone; do they really think that passengers are deliberately not understanding the overly complex procedures for getting anywhere at the moment, at least that’s how they feel to us.

We land in Bilbao. We’ve spent several frustrating hours over the past few days trying to fill in what we were told was a mandatory health form that we needed to complete to get into Spain. I think I finally cracked the code just before we left Lisbon, but either I’m a complete idiot or it wasn’t that simple. How many jabs have you had, what was the date of the last one, what vaccine did they use - that question generates a worryingly long list of exotic sounding options - I don’t suppose the world’s vaccine producers ever considered that working together might have got us there quicker? I wonder how effective they all are? I think I read recently that the one they use in China’s as good as useless (oops, hope the good Premier Xi isn’t reading this) and that’s why they have to lock entire cities up behind welded shut steel doors ever time someone gets the sniffles. Anyway, I finally get an email back saying that I’ve successfully completed the form, and attached are the QR codes that we need to show before they’ll let us in. Uh huh. So where’s the person we need to show them to; well nowhere. We find ourselves out in the street without a hint of anyone asking to see a thing. There’s several hours of my life I’ll never get back.

We get on the bus for the hour long ride to San Sebastián. Hmmm. It seems that our bus driver is having a bad day, well either that or he really needs to find a career involving a bit less interaction with humans. There’s a sign saying you’re not allowed to talk to him, but that’s a bit hard when he’s the one selling the tickets. I ask for two, and he barks something back at me that I can’t understand. He barks it again, only this time much louder, and we get the message that he’s ordering us to put our our suitcases in the luggage compartment before he’ll let us anywhere near the hallowed seats. He clearly spends most of his days ferrying around people who don’t speak Spanish, and from what we’ve seen so far his understanding of English is pretty good. But is there any way he’s going to respond to anyone in anything other than his native tongue; well no. Two young English girls climb on, and there seems to be a problem with their on-line tickets. He barks “adonde vas” which I think means “where are you going”. Unfortunately if you assumed for just one tiny second that he was trying to speak English this sounds for all the world like “get on the bus”. So they try to take their seats, which just gets him screaming louder. Fortunately a Spanish lady who seems to speak a bit of English intervenes before violence has a chance to take over.

The countryside is very attractive - steep green hills dotted with very cute Basque looking farmhouses - well they might be Basque farmhouses, I’m not actually sure I’d know a Basque farmhouse if I tripped over one.

We stagger into our cute apartment and crash into zombie style dreamland.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

Ah Spain!
Looking forward to this part of your trip. So happy for you that it wasn't a re-infection of the germ that shall not be named.

[DaveandIssy]

Spain
Yes, I dodged a bullet, and fortunately it all went away in a couple of days. We love Spain!