Arrival In Spain

Well, I have finally arrived in Spain! After a VERY long and tiresome journey (and at times very stressful), I’m here at last. As I write this, I’ve already been here for over a week. So much has happened in that short time, but I haven’t had the chance to blog yet. So, I’ll try to squeeze in my most memorable experiences into a few blog posts all at once. Here goes…

Wednesday September 30 2009
As for my travel experience – that is, getting from St. Louis to my tiny town of Albox – where to begin? Here’s what was supposed to happen: leave on Tuesday midday and fly to Madrid through US Airways, with a connecting flight in Pittsburgh. My flight should have arrived in Madrid around 8am (Spain time, which is 7 hours ahead), giving me 2 hours to get my bags, go through customs, change airlines (to Iberia) and catch my final flight to Almería. Once I arrived in Almeria around 11am, I would have been picked up by Sergio, a teacher (who I met through facebook) who works at another school here in Albox. He lives in Almeria and commutes.

Here’s what really happened: Both flights through US Airways went relatively smoothly. I even sat next to another Auxiliary on the flight to Madrid (auxiliary means assistant teacher – that’s our job title). Her name is Amy, and she’s placed in Oviedo, in northern Spain [ever seen the movie “Vicky Christina Barcelona”? If not, you should; it’s excellent. Oviedo is where much of the movie takes place]. Hopefully I’ll get to visit her sometime soon.

Anyway, things went sour once I arrived in Madrid. We landed about 20-30 minutes late. If you remember, I had a short layover in which I had a lot to do. Now, being the capital of Spain, Madrid’s airport is a huge hub for both international and domestic flights. Lucky for me, my plane landed at the farthest position possible from Iberia, and my next flight (8 Km away, to be exact). So, long story short, by the time I arrived at the Iberia check-in counter, I had ½ hour left until boarding time.

As I’m checking in, the woman at the counter tells me that I can only check one of my bags. The policy in the US is different than in Spain and much of Europe. The US permits 2 checked bags up to 50lbs each, while Spain limits the amount checked to 23 Kilos total (that’s about 50 lbs). She says I can take my smaller bag with me on the plane. So I’m thinking, ok fine. I lug my bags all the way through security, and at the last second one of the employees tells me that I can’t bring the previously-checked bag with me on the plane; It’s too heavy and there are liquids. I explain what the woman said earlier, but he said no way, go back and re-check it. [I’m thinking,?!!??].

So I go ALL the way back to the check-in counter [tick tock…], and give an exasperated explanation to another employee. Now SHE tells me that it’s too close to the flight’s departure time: basically, I can get on the plane but not my luggage. So, I had a choice: leave an entire bag and catch my flight, or surrender the flight and keep half my stuff. Hmm, shitty choices, but I elected to buy another plane ticket for a later flight (luckily the ticket was only €50).

The news gets even better. The next flight isn’t until 4:30 pm, so I had 6 hours to kill. At that point, I was exhausted, hungry, frustrated, scared, and alone in a foreign country. Oh yeah, I also had no phone or internet, so I had no way to contact Sergio and tell him what happened. Finally, I found a café where I could pay to get WiFi and Skype Sergio. A few hours later, I decided to find the departure gate.

Here’s the next issue with the airport in Madrid: the gates aren’t numbered. I was given a plane ticket and all it said was “K.” Once I got to the “K area” – whatever that means - suddenly there were a gazillion options, from K 20 to K 94. So, which gate was it? I look on the departure board, and the flight to Almeria is labeled Gate K 84. Of course, I get to gate K 84 and the sign says the flight is going to a city called Santander. [??!?] So I wait, figuring that I’m just too early and it’ll change to Almeria in a while. Nope. Finally, it’s after 4pm and I’m getting nervous. I look up again and the sign has suddenly changed to “Almeria” and says final boarding call.

Shit! I ran up and explained that this was my flight, and the gate employee refused to let me on the plane. But the sign was labeled the wrong city the entire time up until the last second! Oh well, not his problem. He told me to go to information and they’ll change me to the next flight. I was really pissed. I’m thinking I’m-about-done-with-Spain-and-I’ve-been-here-all-of-7-hours.

The people over in information were just as rude. They almost refused to let me get the next flight to Almeria because I had already missed 2 flights. Finally I got on the plane at 5:30, and arrived in Almeria an hour later. I dragged my feet to the baggage claim, exhausted but glad to have finally arrived. Lo and behold, I’m left standing by the conveyers and my bags never came. Just an endless rotating conveyer belt with nothing on it. Of course, my bags are lost! Icing on the cake. But thank goodness, Sergio found me. He helped me describe my bags, and assured me the whole time that I would get them soon [It’s an interesting ordeal, trying to describe the looks of your luggage in another language while half-asleep and crying uncontrollably]. Anyway, I got to his parent’s house around 8 pm, 9 hours after I was due to arrive.

They were all so sweet. Sergio’s mom is such a typical Spanish mother [or any mother, really]. She kept offering me food and drinks; “come, come” (eat, eat). No one could fathom that I wasn’t at all hungry. Anyway, I took a shower and went straight to bed. An entire day of traveling will do that to you.