Craziness

Each day since I have left, something crazy has happened, each day topping the previous adventures. This makes me a bit nervous about what is going to happen tonight. Let’s recall events since attempt one of departure.

Thursday, May 27^th: I was supposed to leave Cleveland at 7:30pm this day, fly to Newark, then from Newark to Madrid, getting into Madrid around noon on the 28^th, then from Madrid to Palma de Mallorca at 2pm. That didn’t quite happen… Upon arrival, I discovered that my plane was delayed for 1 hr because of “Air Traffic Control” (wtf?), making it very close as to whether I would catch my flight to Madrid or not. So I make it through security, am driven to my gate. I wait there for bout 30min, when this guy that looks more like a drug lord than a airport worker arrives and says, “Miss Lord, follow me”. I was quite surprised that he knew my name, but then figured the crutches were a dead give a way. Anyways, he said that he was going to try to get me on an earlier flight—one that was supposed to leave at 4:30—in order that I might make my connection. It was 5:45, when this happened. Right then I figured this was just foreshadowing the events that were to come. He talked on the phone for a while, which makes me a bit happier until I hear him asking, "Ooh what kind of chips are they?". This was followed my "mmmm". *Shakes my head* FML. I am then transported to my new gate, which I promptly find has been delayed at minimum until 8:30—at which time we will receive an update—because of “Air Traffic Control” once again. There was one poufy red-headed lady working dealing with all of these issues. I, nervous about missing my series of ensuing flights, asked her if she thought we would actually leave my 8:30. Her response, “I cannot say for sure, but if I were a betting woman, and I am, I would say that we will.” This same conversation was repeated throughout the night, to the point that I began to wonder how much money this “betting” woman must have lost in her life—probably a lot. In short, we kept getting announcements that we would be getting further announcements. During this time I met an accountant who knew more about airplane models and makes that probably any pilot, a lady from Romania who was traveling to the middle east by herself as a vacation from her husband. I got invited to a wedding in Valencia and I got a marriage proposal from some boy’s mother because she wanted me as a daughter. So all in all it was a pretty fun and very interesting time, but I missed my ensuing connecting flights and ended up still in Cleveland at the end of the night.

Friday, May 28^th: Ok, so this time I did actually end up making it out of the country. I ended up being rerouted to Valencia because there were no available flights to Madrid or Barcelona for the next 3 days. And although my flight was “restricted” because of competition with volcanic ash, I was able to fly to a different city because the customer service lady was awesome and rerouted me for miscellaneous “medical reasons”. Flew through Newark, sat and drank all day in Continental’s presidential club-so awesome. I then hopped on a plane to Zurich. You guys know my story there.

Saturday, May 29^th: Made it to Valencia. Had an amazing day! However, that night is when things started to turn a bit for the worse. I decided to go on a “pub crawl” that the hostel offered. This is where a bunch of people from my and other hostels get together, pay 15 euros and are taken to 4 different bars, where we would then get a few “free” drinks at each place. So, we went around, had a sweet time. I met a lot of people, yada, yada. I was surprisingly the only American on this adventure, becoming known as Ms. America hehe. I ended up spending most of my time at each bar with a group of Ozzies, my two favorites being Stefan (who I later named “Gloria Estefan” hehe) and Sam. Sam just danced around and said, “This place is shit” everywhere we went, so he became the token hilarious shit boy of the night. Then, Stefan a.k.a Gloria Estefan ended up covering most of my other not included drinks because we made a deal that every time he got my name wrong, he would buy me a drink (2 drinks when he called me Beatriz). He didn’t seem to have the best memory but that’s ok because I started introducing him to people as Stephane (he didn’t like that very much) and then eventually as Stephanie (liked this even less) ;). So around 4:30am, I am still jet lagged and want to go home. Gloria Estefan says he’ll walk me home, assuming that I know the way (I avidly assured him that I did). Well, I couldn’t exactly remember to get back…so after 6:30am when we were still not back, I was demoted from being the navigator. Well, Gloria, as we already know, doesn’t have the best memory either and didn’t fare much better leading the way, even after we ended up finding a map. We ended up making it back to my hostel at 8:45am!! That is how long we walked around the city. Then this poor guy had to walk back across the city to his hostel. I must say though, he was quite the gentleman to stick with me for 4 hours trying to get me back safely, which was pretty awesome and my foot didn't hurt one bit. Yay!

Sunday, May 30^th: Beach all day-Amazing!! Pretty much everyone topless, very interesting, especially during beach volleyball. But once night came….things started to get a lil crazy again. I initially intended to just stay in and catch up on sleep, but as we can all see my plans don’t seem to quite work out very well. As I was walking downstairs to check my e-mail round 11:30pm and I was sitting down, I was hollered at by a group of pregamers goin hard on minute 40 of power hour. So of course I decided to join them and go out with them later. Duh. So the group of us Americans ventured out into unknown waters. The rest of the group were big smokers and decided to try and find some mystical green plants. We learned that if someone offers you a beer for a Euro (tons of people do this to tourists) but they don’t have a bag, that means that they are trying to sell you weed. The code for marijuana is “Chocolate” at least in Valencia. So, if you say “Quisiera chocolate” this is code for “I would like some weed”. Amazing what you can learn in 2 days. So they got some weed-I didn’t participate in this adventure. But we continued walking around, this time me successfully navigating this, until…the fall. Let’s preface this story a bit first. In Valencia there a tons of little posts that go almost to your knee that line the street but follow the curbs around turns as well. So, I was walking talking to Nema—a very attractive boy pursuing his masters in Behavioral Economics—when one of these poles jumped out in my path. I didn’t see this pole, tripped over it (it catching on my dress along the way). Given that I was traversing on cobblestone, uneven terrain in a boot and one flip flop, I couldn’t recover and maintain my footing. So, I fell into the side of a building, my face breaking the fall. It was terrible, and my nose is pretty scabby now, with a slight cut above my eye. Hopefully didn’t break anything, not quite sure, but am very glad that I was relatively fine and didn’t chip any teeth. Ok so that is rough overview of previous craziness. Hopefully tonight will be a little more relaxed in Palma de Mallorca. Yay! Finally made it here.

Spain Stop 1: Valencia. I finally made it somewhere over here!

Me at my hostel!! It's so cute and the people are extremely friendly and helpful. But am so glad I know a fair amount of Spanish because no one speaks english here in Valencia! My first time in Spain and my first time in a hostel!

I think I have had the best time ever being lost here. Ended up miles from my hostel, walking in a cast, with no map. Made it back somehow 4 hours later. I love Valencia and have already had too many interesting encounters to count.

Zurich Again

I have left the dungeon. Eventually after not being spoken to for over an hr, when I was directly facing the concierge’s desk or whatever the world you would call it, I finally went up and asked them if I could leave. They said if I would wait another hour they would then take me to my gate or I could walk. I didn’t think I could wait another 5 minutes in this place, so I decided to walk. So, I went through security again. A guy told me I needed to check my bag, which I interpreted as well, that I needed to check my bag and therefore could not carry it on. I asked him why I needed to do this. He stopped what he was doing, looked at me, and said, “Because I said so.” He then turned and walked away. Nice fellow he was. When another man came and asked me to open all the compartments, it then dawned on me that when they said “check” they actually meant “search”. I was much relieved after this discovered fact. Just as I thought security was over and I wouldn’t have to deal with these swiss people much longer, a lady grabbed my arm and somewhat dragged me to room in the middle of the walkway. I had thought that it was too good to be true to get through without being extensively searched, and it turns out I was right. So I was wanded, patted down, felt up, or “searched” while the rest of my belongings waited outside. I got the eerie feeling that as I was being searched, the rest of the workers were secretly robbing me. Thankfully this turned out to be irrational paranoia, for everything was right were I left it. I then proceeded to slowly walk to my gate, becoming a little more at ease with the airport, once I saw that numerous beers were sold at each coffee stand. Although the swiss didn’t seem very nice, everything was over priced, and the design of the building—from the vending machines to bathrooms and drinking fountains—was alienish and difficult to use, I did have to admit that it was cool that cold beer was served every 20 feet, with numerous liquor stores in between, though it was too pricey to make it worth my while. I made it to my gate, to find that everyone around me was speaking Spanish; I instantly felt 1000x more at ease. Well off to help a swiss BA tourism major with some research project. Hopefully soon I will be in Valencia, Spain and fare much better there!

Zurich-Almost to Spain

Well, I tried to get my first cup of shitty Switzerland coffee today, which as “tried” suggests, ended in complete failure. So, after attempt one, I headed back to my seat in what I have now come to term Zurich’s underground space station. For as of now I have been sitting in what I think is the basement of Zurich’s airport, though the vending and coffee machines look like they’re something straight up from the Jetsons, suggesting that I may secretly be in a Zurich underground space station, or—what I believe to be more likely—that I am in a place where the crippled are taken to die. After crutching my way out of the airplane after a 7 hr flight, I was ushered in Italian, Spanish, French, and Dutch (you would think English might be the first choice here) to a tattered looking cart used to transport the disabled. After strapping me in this funny little cart with no English instructions, I was left to wait as a hefty Spaniard made the 100 yard trek with her walker. This took roughly 14 minutes (I started timing after minute 6). The Zurich airport personnel also watched this journey, surprisingly, providing this poor lady with no assistance. After most of the disabled motley crew was loaded in the cart—some were left chasing after it in wheelchairs—we proceeded to sketchy portions of the airport. We were taken outside onto the runway, where a large white van piled us all in. At this point I was highly alarmed, having no idea what was going on and only being able to communicate with poor Spanish (prob should have studied Spanish on flight instead of watching “When in Rome”, in English, twice), and being loaded into a vehicle that tv has taught me general kidnaps people and robs them. My fears miraculously seemed to be somewhat alleviated and somewhat magnified at the same time when a creepily skinny airport personnel lady looked at my passport and boarding pass and then said in perfect English, “Oh, I thought your final destination was Zurich, I’m sorry”. Would have been nice if you had spoken English and asked earlier before we had left the airport. Anyways, I eventually returned to the airport and was dropped off in the basement/space ship/disabled elimination station, and assured that I would shortly be taken to my gate. I have now been here for over an hour deciphering what I believe to Switzerland’s cosmopolitan magazine. I hope this is not my final resting place.

Attempt 1

haha