Fuck the Mallorca airport. Also, Easter is annoying

Finally got into Vienna, after around 30 hours of being in airports and on planes. I left Madrid in the afternoon for my flight to Palma Mallorca. That flight, while being only an hour long, just happened to be on the most cramped airplane I've ever been in. I'm a fairly small person, and I was having to contort myself to get into my seat. How the hell is a normal-sized person supposed to get to their seat? Let alone a more heavyset person.

Now, when I booked this series of flights, it was inexpensive but came with the drawback of having to spend the night in the Mallorca airport. I was ok with this because the terminals I've been in have all been fairly comfortable and had shops where I could get food and drinks. I'm also fairly good with sleeping in strange or uncomfortable places like floors, chairs, or pool tables. I was feeling pretty prepared for my 8pm to 6am stay.

Then Palma Mallorca happened.

This airport sucks. Hard. The floors are all marble, which looks nice but is a terrible insulator. That's nerd speak for "cold as fuck". Additionally, the benches are all metal and every seat has a considerable curve to it, meaning if you lay down then you have 3-4 seat edges putting pressure on your body. Not comfy. Then I got the worst news I could have expected: The airline I booked my flight in didn't do early check-in. Meaning I couldn't get my boarding pass. ...Meaning I couldn't actually get into the airport. So I spent the night on the bench by the check-in booths, with both of my bags and the blinding lobby lights. My food and beverage options were limited to vending machines, which sold stupidly overpriced crap. Time to count my losses and hang out in the airport for 10 hours, right?

Screw that, I took a bus to the city and went to pubs.

Not speaking any Spanish made this pretty difficult, but I hung out with a few people at a bar that spoke a little English, but the night consisted mainly of visual communication. After I had a little fun and had gotten a few beers in me, I returned to the hellish airport, resigned to my fated bench. From 1am to 5:30am I got maybe 3 hours of crappy sleep. The Thai man pacing around the lobby yelling into his cell phone at 3am didn't help, nor did the fact that it was the most poorly stocked airport I've ever been in. None of the bathrooms had paper towels, and a large majority of the vending machines were empty. It was a crappy night.

The rest of my journey was relatively uneventful. I finally arrived in Vienna and made it to my dorm. I'm not really settled in yet, all my crap is just laying around. The unfortunate thing is that I need to get so many things in order to actually live. I need to buy my own dishes and silverware, I need school supplies, food, beverages, a water bottle of some kind, and numerous other things I'm forgetting. Problem is, Europe completely shuts down for Easter, so I'm out of luck until at least tomorrow. Time to grab some grub from a street cart.

But not all is bad. Last night I met up with some of the awesome people in my group here and we went to an awesome bar to officially welcome me to the city. Czech beer and Wiener schnitzel, excellent. We walked around the city today, seven of us. Clearly tourists, right? I got mistaken for a native Austrian twice. Awesome. A man promoting a concert talked to our group and learning we were from Seattle, he turned to me and said, "But you're from Austria right?" Then I took a picture for a woman and her husband (they were speaking to me in German) and when someone in the group spoke to me in English, the woman said, "Oh, you speak English? I thought you were from here". I don't know what it is, but I either look or act Viennese already. This should be a very fun trip.

Tomorrow we have our oral exams, followed by a tour of the city, which ends at a Heuriger, or a wine bar of sorts. I really need to dust off my German for that exam in the morning...

Bis Später