Lesson #1: Patience

I said that I would tell the story of the awfulness that was my flight to Spain so here it is:


Sunday, January 10:
My flight to Spain was supposed to leave last Sunday at 4:45 pm from O'Hare. I had to get there 3 hours early because people want to put explosives in their underwear... So, I'm at the airport at 1:45 only to find out that the flight is an hour late. Luckily, a quick stop at Target and Panda Express with my family made the time pass quickly. Back in the airport, I meet 9 other U of I students who are going to Bilbao with me. (Thank God they were there because I could not have survived this crazy trip by myself.)

Fast forward... we don't start boarding for the flight until 6:30! At some point, I fell asleep on the plane and woke up expecting to be in the air. Nope! At 8:00 the door to the plane was still open and the passengers were being soothed by drinks and the instrumental version of classics like "Endless Love." At 8:30 the captain announces that we all have to get off the plane, we will get vouchers for a free meal in the airport, and we should come back at 10:00 to check the status.


After eating dinner at Chili's, we go back to the plane, board again, and finally take off around 10:45. Apparently, the gas in the plane kept freezing... That makes no sense to me since planes fly in colder temperatures all the time and other flights from O'Hare were leaving, but what do I know about planes?

Yea right...

Monday, January 11:
After the 8 hour flight and 6 hour time difference, we finally arrive in Madrid, Spain a little after 1 pm local time. Our connecting flight to Bilbao was supposed to leave at 11:55 am. However, the Madrid airport was basically shut down because of bad weather and snow. So, the flight we were supposed to be on kept being delayed and still hadn't left by the time we landed. Instead of waiting in the long customer service line to find a new flight, we decide to go straight to our gate and try to board.

We get to the gate and find out *surprise surprise* the flight is delayed again and there is no representative at the gate to answer questions (Iberia Airlines is not so big on communication). After sitting around for a little while and meeting some students from a school in Virginia who are in our same program , we look to find out that our flight was completely CANCELLED.

At this point, the customer service line was at least 100 people long, I kid you not. Luckily, we found a gate where another flight to Bilbao was boarding. God was definitely watching over us because the flight wasn't full and they let everyone who had a ticket for our cancelled flight get on... But without our luggage.

When we finally got to Bilbao, I called my host family and spoke to them in broken Spanish, they came to pick me up from the airport instead of making me take a taxi. They were sooo nice and helpful which made me feel much better after over 24 hours of traveling and misplaced luggage (which came that Wednesday).

Well, it's after midnight here and classes start tomorrow morning! More posts about my first week soon. And I promise these will be happier :)

- Kassandra