Okay. I wanted to document this, and this is a good way to do it and then if anyone wants to know, you can look, and if not, I don't have to force it on you. I have wanted to return to Spain since my first trip here, an amazing school study abroad trip where I lived in the city of convivencia, at one time a place where Jews, Muslims, and Catholics lived in supposed harmony. Though this is an overstatement, they did live in the same city (Toledo) and interacted. I made some friends, travelled around the country, and partied. A lot. I saw castles, and as it was my first time, and I was paying to do it, I got a lot of attention and help.
Two years later, and here I am, back in Spain. But all is the same, and different. I am now in Zafra, or rather, a tiny village close to the town of Zafra. The family I am with for the moment is fabulous, well-off, learned, and artistic. They are completely different and better than the last family. It was truly a relief to finally end up here, because the trip over was almost a tragedy from the very beginning stages. Stop here and wait for the next post if you don't want to read complaining, because I would understand. But this is what really happened to me, and that's that.
The day after I bought my ticket to Sevilla, I learned that there was an airline strike all over Spain, so I had to change the date I left. (People here think its really f'd up the government brought in the military to regualte).On December 5th, the airlines were unable to find my return trip, though I bought the ticket round-trip. After waiting for 1.5 hours in the Columbus airport while Continental tried to fix it, and couldn't, I left for Newark. In the Newark airport, they had issues finding my info anew. They believed me and the paperwork I had with me, and issued me another ticket. From there, it was a flight to Portugal followed by a 12 hour wait-time till my next flight. When I arrived to Lisbon, Portugal, it poured rain the whole 12 hours. I dozed in the airport, sprawled out in a low traffic corner (to the disapproval or amusement of those around me) and then ate, bought some internet time, and read. Then I did said routine all over again about 3 more times.
When it was time to board, I was itching to push people down just to get to the front of the line. While in line, I saw a thought had to be American or Swedish, a tall blond with curly hair in an airtight embrace with a crying, beautiful Portuguese girl. After showing our passports to the airline workers, we boarded a bus to the plane. The boy kept looking at me as though he wished to talk. I looked at his shoes, saw that they were old-school Nikes, and took a chance and asked in English "So, where you from?" he smiled and said Minnesota. We chatted, and it turned out that he was studying in Sevilla. He helped me get my luggage and rode a bus into the city, where he helped me drag my luggage to a cute hostel called Hostel Picasso.
Thank goodness he was there, because when I got out my luggage, it was torn apart with some duct tape strapped haphazardly around it. As soon as we started walking, the tape came unstuck and we had to hold it shut as we walked. When I got to the hostel, the staff was hostile toward me, and assigned me a room on the top floor, so I had to drag my luggage up four flights of stairs to get to the room. All night long caged parrots sang loudly in the corridors.
The next day, everything changed for the awesomeness, and so there will be no more posts like this!
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