Huevas Are Not Huevos!!

I have been in Sevilla for a few days now! Culture, discussion, and grammar classes have started at the center and I move in with my family later today. I have started exploring the city..................

An Eventful Beginning

I am finally in Spain!!! It seems like it has been weeks since I hugged Mom good-bye in Detroit but really it has only been a few days – a few days of one disaster after another! Everything was going smoothly up until we were on our way to the airport, but then the first minor hiccup in the plan occurred. Apparently my backpack that I stuffed to the brim didn’t fit airline carry-on regulations. FREAKOUT! After a mad dash to Target with the family, all was well because mom bought me a new carry-on and I managed to cram almost everything in it on the drive to the airport.

The flight from Detroit to Frankfurt went by faster than I thought it would; although, that isn’t saying much as I had built it up to be this big horrible nightmare! The fattest baby I have ever seen spent most of the flight screaming in the seat in front of me but headphones work wonders. Because of all of the ice and snow, our flight was delayed and we almost missed our connection to Madrid. That excitement aside, we finally landed in Madrid ready to start our Spanish adventure, or so we thought.

The Frankfurt airport managed to misplace 9 bags and a Gayle… How is that even possible?! We waited for hours and hours at the airport for Gayle’s flight to arrive and prayed that our baggage would come with it – all in vain. In our desperate search for somebody – anybody – that could give us some sort of concrete information, we managed to make three trips to different baggage claims, numerous jaunts between various terminals, multiple trips to Spanair and Lufthansa service desks, and two illegal attempts to sneak into other restricted areas only to be yelled at by fat security guards. Our entire marathon through the airport managed to yield the meager info that Gayle’s plane was delayed 6 hours and that our baggage would arrive at midnight. How lovely!

Exhausted and stressed to the max, we checked into our hostel and waited for Gayle to find us. The hostel provided a much needed comedic relief as the walls were plastered in ‘artistic’ hand drawn porn. Only in Europe!! By 1 AM, everyone and everything was accounted for and we managed to snag a few hours of restless sleep before catching our train in the morning.

The train ride went smoothly and after discovering that some taxi drivers in Sevilla can be downright assholes (they made us take 4 cabs with our luggage even though we managed to cram into 2 on the way to the train station in Madrid!), we finally made it to Hotel Becquer – home for the next few days!! We survived our international trip from Hell!!!!!