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You are here: Home / Articles / From Bimbo to Barajas Airport: Some Surreal Moments and a Ticket Home

From Bimbo to Barajas Airport: Some Surreal Moments and a Ticket Home

August 1, 2010 • By David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD

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David S. Pisetsky, MD, PhD

Editor’s note: This column continues Dr. Pisetsky’s saga to travel home to the U.S. from a rheumatology meeting in Europe after the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland erupted. We continue here with the van ride from Nice, France, to Madrid, Spain.

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At 9 p.m. on the Saturday night after the volcano erupted, we took our dinner break at a truck stop in Spain. The sandwiches were remarkably tasty. The Spanish are wizards with jamon and, for Americans used to washing down a roadside dinner with a Big Gulp, San Miquel on tap or a small bottle of Sangre De Toro was a great treat. There was even an espresso machine that our truck stop barrista used to make cappuccinos. All was not well, however, since the restaurant was filled with a thick cloud of cigarette smoke that looked a lot nastier than the ash cloud that was supposedly jeopardizing Nice.

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After dinner, I went next door to a convenience store to restock our supplies. When I entered the store, I was greeted by the shrill blast of a radio as the play-by-play announcer narrated a soccer match in a furious and overcharged way. Soccer broadcasts in Spanish—you know, GOOOOLLLLL!!!!—are a revelation to Americans used to the languid pace of baseball where a spit, windup, and pitch can consume an hour or two. Soccer broadcasting is hot stuff. Even a simple pass is described with the passion of a close play at the plate. I was amused to see that a major cookie company in Spain is called Bimbo.

The dancers seemed in perpetual motion, as if driven relentlessly by an unknown force.
The dancers seemed in perpetual motion, as if driven relentlessly by an unknown force.

Traversing On

The next part of the trip was quiet as another game of Geography fizzled after a promising start with Barcelona. The more technologically connected among us kept us informed of our location and the meanderings of the ash. Someone joked about a Mayan prediction for the end of the world in 2012. With knowledge that a dark cloud could block out the sun for serious global cooling, I was not sure that this was a matter of levity, even if one of our jokesters said it would be tough on any remaining dinosaurs.

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We then entered a mountainous region and, as the terrain became rugged, our driver Salvatore eased off the pedal. In the ascent over the mountains, we hit a dense fog that slowed us down to 10 kilometers an hour. I must confess I felt a certain anxiety about the visibility and probably would have felt much more if I knew that, next to the road, a precipice dropped sharply.

Pages: 1 2 3 | Single Page

Filed Under: Professional Topics, Profiles, Rheuminations Tagged With: Annual Meeting, Meeting, Natural disaster, rheumatologist, TravelIssue: August 2010

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