The journey to Spain

Preface: I wrote this the day I arrived and have only now had internet. I'll do another update the next time I have internet. It's very long, I apologize.

Well. It’s official. I’m in Spain.
Other than that, there’s not much to show for my trip. I realize that once I relay the story of my journey over here, it’s going to seem as if I had never really traveled before, which is far from the case. Simply a series of mishaps that managed to pile up like a snowball, burying me along with the avalanche that came down with it.

It started of innocently enough. My bags were at a good weight, and I only had to leave 2 things at home to bring them right under the 50lbs limit, neither of which will be missed (they were last minute adds anyway). Although I had requested a window seat, neither of my US flights were assigned as windows. A bummer, not life ending.

Got to Philadelphia on time only to wait for an open gate on the tarmac. Fortunately, my two gates were fairly close together, and the delay wasn’t an issue. On the flight to Barcelona, I managed to snag a window seat in an open row, and I thought: what a good omen!

Haha. Joke’s on me.
Because of weather in Philadelphia, our flight didn’t take off until an hour past schedule. We arrive 45 minutes late. According to my itinerary, I originally had a 1hr 50min layover.
I found someone coming off the plane with me that is also doing the CIEE program and is also taking the same flight to Sevilla.

T-60 minutes until my flight to Sevilla. I get to immigration. I can’t find my passport. Fast forward 15-20 minutes, I find it. No big deal. I’m not worried yet because I get through immigration quickly and to the baggage claim where most of my flight is still waiting for their luggage anyway.

After 15-20 minutes of waiting, the luggage belt stops and my bags are nowhere to be found. I’m thinking they might have missed the connection since my flight was late coming in. I go to the desk. Whoops. Bags are supposed to be picked up in Sevilla. What?! Granted I haven’t traveled internationally extensively, but my experience has led me to believe that passengers usually go through customs in the first city they land in another country other than the one they departed from (as also confirmed by my ticket agent in Phoenix). Obviously, today was not the case (is this common in Europe? Can’t say I’ve done many flight transfers in this continent). At this point I’m upset because of my passport debacle, I was separated from the only other person that might have gotten me on the right track from the beginning.

T-15 minutes. I book it to the check in counter only to find a long line and manage to get to a side agent who checks me into the flight (already thinking it’s probably closed, but telling me to run anyway).

T-10 minutes. I had never run with such purpose in my life. I get through security relatively quickly. On the other side, just can’t find my gate. I look everywhere for it and finally find someone to ask for directions (I usually pride myself on my ability to get around any airport - a total blow to my ego). Turns out, it’s at the end of the concourse and I get there just 90seconds before the plane pushes off. IT WAS AT THE GATE! Just too late. I figure, not a huge deal, I’ll get the next one.

Haha. Joke’s on me.
Turns out SpanAir has no more flights to Sevilla, and I must contact my booking agent and book/buy a ticket on Vueling, which has the next (and last?) flight from Barcelona to Sevilla (my feeling was that they were the Southwest Airlines of Spain with much hotter flight attendents).
I run around, find a phone card. I run around, find a telephone. I call CheapOAir (yes, I purchased my tickets from a website called “CheapOAir”. Now is not the time to comment. Snickers will suffice). Waited for 15 minutes to get a hold of a man from South East Asia whom I can barely understand. Had to purchase a ticket . I gave him all my info and credit card number. As I’m waiting for it to be processed, we’re disconnected.

You have got to be kidding me.
Called again. Tried using a different touch-pad number to hopefully get through to someone faster. Wrong. Waited 20 minutes with no answer (but I thoroughly understood that my call was “very important”).

T-80 minutes to next flight departure. Hung up and tried again through the original route. Didn’t wait as long (thank goodness!) and got through to the same person (thank goodness!) who assured me that he had been trying to contact me the last 20 minutes and had been leaving messages (um… guess he didn’t catch on when I told him I was stuck in Barcelona). Regardless, transaction processed. A pretty penny later and I’m on my way again.

Haha. Joke’s on me!
I run around trying to find where I can get my ticket issued. A kind woman at information directed me towards an Iberian Air desk on that side of security that should help me. Sweet, I’m thinking. Don’t have to go through security again.

Haha!
I get to the counter, they have no record of me purchasing the ticket (even though it’s been the allotted 10-15 I was told it would take to issue the ticket) and now they are asking for 102 Euros. I’d have to go outside of security to the actual Vueling check-in counter to figure it out.
T-60 minutes to departure.

At the check-in counter, they can’t find me either. Thankfully, all is not lost, and after a few phone calls, I am found in the system and my ticket is issued. I ask them if there’s anyway a call can be made to the Sevilla airport/baggage claim as my luggage should be arrive their on my original flight, and if something could be done to make sure it was in a secure location where I could claim it when I finally did arrive (as I had been able to do on occasions in the US, as flying standby this had definitely happened to me before). Unfortunately, no such call was able to be made, and I was just told that I’d have to wait and see when I got to Sevilla (but they did see to make sure I was aware that if there were any problems with my bags not making it, that I was to take that up with SpanAir, NOT Vueling).

Whatever, I’m thinking. I’m sure they’ll be waiting for me.

Haha. (You know the cue).
Our flight to Sevilla is delayed by nearly an hour because of a change of aircraft (the pilots make good time and squeeze the window down to just 40 minutes late). Phew. I’m here. But where’s SpanAir? Well, apparently, because they don’t have anymore flights in an out of Sevilla for the rest of the day, they all went home for siesta and aren’t even answering their given phone numbers. I don’t blame them, except it’s highly problematic that my luggage may or may not be locked away in their possession (best case scenario).

So here I am. In Spain, in the hotel, immensely grateful I brought along a couple changes of clothes and my toiletries. I sweat so much today from all the running around, I already changed my shirt once at the airport (I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass while I was waiting the 20 minutes for a booking agent and realized why everyone had been looking at me strangely – it literally looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water at my back. Not pretty. The upside was that I was probably fitting in quite nicely as I most likely smelled like an infamous European too.

Sitting for my last flight (the one I finally made), I did make a striking comparison. Being that our flight was almost an hour delayed, without many updates from the gate agents as to the status, I was remarkably encouraged by the fact that no one seemed to be the slightest bit irritated or inconvenienced. In fact, many of the travelers seemed to be in a relatively good mood (maybe they had more information from the start than I did, but I’d like to believe this was actually evidence of their good nature). And that wasn’t just at my gate. Overall, the airport just didn’t seem to be full of the frustrated and frantic people that dominate US airports. It was refreshing and definitely put in me in a better place to roll with the punches today threw at me. And there were certainly enough of them! Bottom line is: I'm here, and it's gorgeous, and I'm so happy to begin the next 10 months!

Update: I received my bags 36 hours later! I couldn't have been happier. Phew!