Work trip to Madrid, Spain - 11th to 12th September 2007

Off to Spain for a day for work, and this was my first trip to the country since the Champions League run of last year - which of course took in a very memorable trip to Madrid along the way. With the weather in London unusually good given that it is mid September (and that this year has been awful for weather so far), I was also looking forward to some 30-degree heat for a day or so.

My plane landed at the new Terminal 4 at Madrid airport, which I later discovered has won architecture awards. It was an absolutely massive building, which took an age to get out of once we got off the plane. There seemed to be endless escalators, moving walkways, and glass corridors. The whole place was really spacious, and I couldn't work out whether that was deliberately so because of the huge size, or whether it was because the airport was just pretty empty. Probably a bit of both. When I thought we had finally found our way out of the terminal, we had to get a train to the real terminal - we were in the "satellite terminal". After a short train ride which reminded me of a ghost train, we had a load more escalators and corridors, before eventually finding the REAL exit to the airport.

The new terminal building is certainly architecturally very special - it is a beautiful building, flooded with lots of daylight, and it seems really calm and serene, which is amazing for a busy airport terminal. But, with all the moving walkways to navigate, and the train between 2 separate buildings, it just didn't really seem to work all that well as an airport building - it seems to take ages to get through (although the Lounge in departures was absolutely incredible).

Out of the airport and into a taxi, and I was reminded firstly how bad Spanish driving can be (although, compared with Dubai, China, and I'm sure there are plenty of places that are even worse than those - it isn't THAT shocking); and how almost all Spanish taxi drivers like to talk to you constantly, throughout the journey. This is always in quickfire Spanish, and is always completely regardless of whether you understand a word they are saying. I didn't understand a word, didn't say a word back to the driver, but still the Spanish chat kept coming!

Given that it was 30 degrees outside, it was great to get to a bar as soon as possible, for a lovely cold beer, and some nice jamon serrano. Then off for a good spot of dinner.

My hotel and my office were both very close to the Parque del Retiro, a massive park which is right in the city of Madrid. On the way to work in the morning, I had a lovely stroll through the park. The office was also very close to the Prado Museum, the famous art gallery which is probably the most obvious tourist attraction that Madrid has. The Prado building (or at least the part I saw) didn't look all that remarkable to me, but then I guess nobody is too concerned with what it looks like from the outside, when there is so much good stuff inside.

After a long morning's work (I didn't realise the Spanish could work so hard!), we went out for lunch at just after 2pm, and didn't return to the office until after 4pm. This took me until the time I had to head back to the airport. A very brief trip, but one I'd like to repeat. When I came for football, I didn't think there was that much to do here, but it seems I was just looking in the wrong places.