the trip over

so many details, so little time to write!



The flight:
Okayokayokay...I know! I’ve been a total stinker. I managed to alert the press of my arrival (family, friends, and facebook...fff? no, that sounds bad...) anyways, and then crashed like a rocket shi...um...that expression is a bit tasteless...crashed like a test model car thing (see? so much better now). Anyhoo, I was done for, and without internet to boot. So! now, and without further ado I give you...the journey!
Hmm...let’s see...Okay!
After Daddy dropped me off at airport security, I passed through (with only one dirty look from the security guards, I might add!) and then proceeded to find my flight. Holy cow! LAX has got to be the biggest airport I have ever seen!..ever! After walking for what felt like...20 minutes, I arrived at the gate and watched a bit of Stardust as I couldn’t connect to the internet without paying an arm and a leg (though loosing those might have made the ride over the atlantic a bit more comfy as I would have had more space to wiggle around in...hehe). And after screaming at the suspense of Triston running to the Wall to save his ONE TRUE LOVE...*ahem* the attendants opened the gates and boarding began. Mercy of all mercies! Once I got on board and situated, the plane took off and I realized that the seat next to me would remain empty for the duration of the flight! Huzzah! Extra leg space! (one of like three in my section of the plane. Oh! did I mention the guy in the aisle seat was handsome? he was.) Anyways, the flight was ten hours long, during which I ate a lovely dinner and breakfast, and got absolutely zero sleep (must have been excitement plus highly caffeinated tea). Oh! Elisa mentioned, before I left, that British Airways is true to its name, and she was correct! They served us tea in cute little cups and saucers, and all the flight attendants spoke in proper British accents. I was even doted on by an English granny while I was boarding. ‘Twas legit! As an added bonus of the glorious window seat, I got to see the sun rise over the Atlantic ocean and Ireland. It was absolutely gorgeous! The pink sky contrasted with the pale blue waters and highlighted the chunks of drifting ice along the shores of the isles near the mainland (is that what they call it?). Anyways, Ireland in winter (and from the air) isn’t quite what I was expecting. For some strange reason, I was thinking I would be able to see little rainbows and magical people running around in a field of shamrocks, but it looked quite asleep. The earth was brown, and the shores were coated in thick layers of ice giving the isles an illusion of a distinct outline. ...all that from a plane. I wish I could have gotten off to visit, (both for the chance to see it up close, rather than out of a window, and for my legs! (Don’t worry, Grandma! I got up every hours or so to get the blood pumping, just like you said.)) but alas, there was only thirty minutes left in the fight, so I had to stay put...I made good use of the time, don’t worry. The man in the aisle seat was awake at that point, so we talked for a bit. =D
After we touched down in England, I disembarked (yay! big word!... actually cognate...whatever) from the plane at Heathrow Airport in London...and promptly had an anxiety attack. Totally kidding! No, but the place is HUGE! and by “huge” I actually mean “GINORMOUS!”...It had its own Metro and Bus system. Not Metro/Bus, or Metrobus, but two totally different forms of getting around the place. That...and there were people with shuttles taking the elderly to the Metro so that they could get onto the busses. Yikes!
By some miracle, I managed to maneuver through the endless glass staircases (I could have sworn that I went down one simply to go up another perpendicular to it...) I found the correct bus to the terminal that my plane was supposed to leave from. While waiting in line for the bus, I noticed that the man standing in front of me was wearing a Cuyamaca Firefighter’s t-shirt. ‘Surely that name isn’t very common,’ I thought to myself. I got his attention and then asked him if he was from the San Diego area. Now, I know he said something in English because I caught the words “brother” and “visit”, but beyond that...I have no idea what he said. Based on the accent impressions Juli entertained me with during the road trip up to the Vail wedding, I’m going to assume he was speaking with a Cockney accent...but I really didn’t catch enough to be sure. After he responded, I formulated some kind of response (in my sleepless stupor, non-the-less) and boarded the bus.
Now, as a highly emotional being, I’ve watched my fair share of British romantic-comedies...enough, at least, that I thought I would be prepared for the whole “wrong” side of the road thing. Nope. Holy cow! I giggled to myself when we first left the terminal, but once another bus passed us all bets were off and I suddenly became the silly american braced up against the window in an attempt to shield myself form impending doom...The...the bus driver knew what he was doing, I was fine. eventually. I arrived at the correct terminal, and then promptly got lost. Luckily, the man wearing the t-shirt had navigated his was around Heathrow in the past, and after asking him for help, he pointed me in the right direction...literally...but it was also the correct direction. hehehe. *ahem*
I had to go through security, again. But thankfully, security in the UK is quite different than its US counterpart. As I stood in line, it became very clear who the locals were...and who the Americans were. Several times, the guards told those passing through that it wasn’t necessary to strip down to the essentials merely to go through a door frame with a magnet in it. No wonder Americans have such a bad reputation! a product of amped up scanning, I say!
I passed through quickly, and then turned down the wrong terminal, again. Okay, this was the point that I got lost-er for two hours, so I’ll summarize: I asked eight people for help, and each gave me enough directions to find someone else to ask for more help. The last pointed me towards the Iberia desk, and I checked in. After that, I got lost again, asked more people for help, watched a tired teenager from Germany throw a temper tantrum (and could totally relate) and tell his mom to bleepity bleep bleep bleep bleep (and could totally Not relate). Found a screen, semi-blocked a hallway in front of said screen, drew a crowd of other travelers who couldn’t find another screen, totally blocked the hallway, talked with a sweet Canadian girl (my age), was asked to unblock said hallway by security, found the “central area of terminal 2” and then boarded the plane. Phew! Luckily, I had plenty of time, and a sandwich.
Once on the plane, I finally passed out. It wasn’t a very long ride, but I desperately needed the sleep.
We landed in Madrid around 3:30 in the afternoon (15:30, as they say here). I got off of the plane and handed my passport over to be stamped (Yay! I have a stamp in my passport!) and then headed over to baggage claim. I think all of the cross-country driving marathons my family and I have done in the past must have been in preparation for this trip because it really wasn’t that bad. Some of the other travelers got crazy antsy by the end of the journey (two girls were studying abroad in Madrid and came over on the exact same flight as me, including the British Airways flight from LAX) but I was either too tired of just plain used to it.
I found the belt my baggage was supposed to come off of...and waited. After an hour of waiting and two flight changes on the screen, I went to the customer service desk and insisted that my baggage wasn’t coming anytime soon. At that point, I was feeling a bit crunched for time, as I had arrived over an hour ago, and knew a family was waiting for me. I didn’t want them to worry, and I really didn’t want to get left at the airport by myself.
I collected the forms and headed out the door towards the people pick-up area. I hadn’t paid very close attention to the picture of the family, so several unsuspecting Spaniard received some very warm greetings followed by pure disappointment. Needless to say, after about ten minutes of looking for my friends, I realized that they were no longer waiting at the airport. I got change and headed to a pay-phone. It was at that point that it suddenly hit me: I had no phone number, no address, no access to the internet, and no way of contacting my parents in the states (my phone card didn’t work. Jerks!). How the heck did that happen?! Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. I walked back to the meeting area hoping that I had missed them the first time. Thank God! At that moment, Bethany walked through the doors. Turns out they had been tied up at school for an hour longer than they thought they would be. At that point, I felt like I was supposed to be in Spain. If I could mess up that badly and still be taken care of, then it would all be okay. Thanks for tuning in to the crazy long post. Love you all! More to come!