My 24-hours in Madrid

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

I’ve always wanted to visit Madrid. I just never thought it’d be for 24 hours only.

How I ended up spending one night in the Spanish capital, headquarters of Amadeus and home of bullfighting – there’s got to be another story on that – is perhaps typical of the way we live, work and play these days.

So there I was, three days away from taking a flight to Rome on a trip which would take me to Berlin (to attend ITB) and then to Paris (to play) – three cities in 10 days – when I received an email from Tracey Land who is coordinating the Horizons conference asking, would I mind popping into Madrid whilst I was in Europe to be briefed on the event?

Having appointed me as MC of the event, they felt it was an opportune time for me to meet “everyone” and be given a briefing on the event, sessions and my role within the big Horizons picture and since I was on the continent, hey, why not pop into Madrid?

I didn’t hesitate. And so we arranged, by email, my one-day hop to Madrid – an early morning departure from Paris CDG on March 11 and out of Madrid on March 12 morning.

Whilst I was gallivanting round Europe – and getting first-hand experience of what it is to fly a real lowcost airline (Asia’s low cost airlines are premium affairs compared to the one I experienced on Easyjet) and crowded airports as well as frozen toes – my Blackberry was receiving emails from Tracey – my e-ticket, my hotel details, my day’s agenda.

It was all I needed to get there and back. I arrived in Madrid on a day when gale force winds were blowing throughout Europe and England was being battered by storms and big waves. The taxi takes me to Novotel Puerta dela Puente, a hotel located 5 minutes away from the Amadeus office.

Taxi drivers in Madrid do not speak English so my Blackberry comes in handy here. In fact, very few people in Madrid speak English. I think everyone who speaks English works with Amadeus.

I arrive at the office, identify myself to security (the global standard these days) and take the elevator to the 13th floor.

From then on, everything is a blur because it happened so fast. Lunch was talk and tapas, I met “everyone”, was briefed on everything, we shared ideas, thoughts, opinions – I cannot disclose too much here on pain of being gored by a bull because of the NDA I signed – but suffice it to say, I now have a pretty good idea of what Horizons is all about and what I am supposed to do.

One thing shone through though – everyone at Amadeus is very passionate about their patch and everyone wants their patch to shine.

In the evening, John Gunby very kindly showed me a bit of Madrid – we walked through the old city, we bumped elbows with the crowds, we went into a bar (of course) and had tapas and sangria. I saw a pair of pig’s hooves on the bar.

If my European friends ever give me grief again about fish head curry, I will show them the photo I took on my Nokia. In Madrid, pigs don’t fly, they hoof it.

We then went for dinner in the rich area – Salamanca – to a very trendy restaurant where I had, don’t laugh, wok-fried noodles with pak choy. In a Singapore food court, this would cost US$2. I dread to think what it cost here.

The Spanish usually eat at 10pm, I am told. They then party till the wee hours of the morning. What I want to know is, don’t they sleep (a 2-hour siesta is not good enough, I do not think) and how do they work the next morning?

The answer I was given: Spanish do not need much sleep. As for work, well, I won’t go into it here.

This article first appeared as a blog on the Amadeus Horizons 2008 blog