Wednesday and
Thursday, June 14 and 15, 2017—Valencia to Manises to Frankfurt to
Houston to San Antonio
Wednesday...
Our flight on
Thursday is so early that we booked a room for our last night in
Spain at a hotel in Manises where the airport is located. Therefore,
Wednesday morning was spent eating breakfast, packing up, chcking
out, and taking the metro to Manises.
One problem
occurred. We bought a ticket from the machine for two persons to
make the trip. As I pushed through the opening with my bag and my
laptop, the sensor apparently thought my backpack was the second
person. The gate closed with Wes still outside and the card wouldn't
work to open it again. No one was at the window in the station, so I
went downstairs and had a stroke of luck. Two women inspectors were
standing on the platform waiting for the next train to check people's
tickets. One spoke English. She came up, let Wes in, said our
ticket truly was for two persons and said we needed the luggage low
and in front of us to avoid the sensor thinking that two people have
gone through before two actually have. When we arrived at the Rosas
Station in Manises, we followed her advice, and it worked.
Our Travelodge was
just across the street from the Metro station, and they already had a
room available for us. We checked in and rested in the room for a
while. Around the middle of the afternoon, we decided to check out
the possibility of getting to the airport by foot. Google showed a
route, but the guidebooks and the lady at the hotel counter say it
isn't recommended. As we approached the point where we would have
had to walk along the edge of an expressway, we saw a dirt path up a
hill and people with backpacks coming and going. Many cars were
parked on the street where we were, so we quickly firgured out it was
airport employees avoiding paying the fee to park on the airport
grounds. The route they were following was even shorter than the one
Google recommended. It only had one danger point—one where we had
to cross a two-lane, one-way road entering the airport to get to the
dirt trail. At the top of the dirt trail, there was a barrier to
protect pedestrians the rest of the way. We discovered we could walk
from our hotel to the airport in fewer than 10 minutes!
In the early
evening, we explored Manises looking for a place to eat. It was
pretty quiet, since it was still hours before the normal Spanish
dining time. We found a kebab place that, even though it had no
customers, was open. We ate there and returned to the room to take
care of last-minute business before going to bed early—copying
photos from the camera to the computer and to a flash drive for Wes,
getting out the clothes for traveling, packing everything else away,
etc.
Thursday...
The alarm went off
at 4:00—way too early to have to get up for a long day of travel.
But we were cleaned up, dressed, and out of the room before 4:30. We
walked to the airport using the flashlight on my phone when we got to
the point where we had to cross the road and go up the dirt trail.
And we got checked in immediately. There was a long line for going
through security, but it moved without a problem. Then there was the
long wait for boarding
Our plane leaves
here at 6:35 for Frankfurt. Then we have about 4 hours there, since
we don't leave Frankfurt until after 13:00 for Houston. Finally, we
have about 3 ½ hours in Houston before our flights leave for San
Antonio (for me) and Corpus Christi (for Wes). All should go well
with such long layovers at our two stops. But it will be 23:00
before I am at home and going to bed tonight!
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