I left RDU on January 8th with the hopes of making it back to Granada by the following day. Of course, with a layover in London and Madrid, I knew anything could happen and I joked that I would be lucky if I made it back by the 9th. It was a bittersweet goodbye to my parents, who actually were allowed to wait with me in the terminal. I knew spring semester would be eventful with visits from both of my parents, but leaving home again was more difficult than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, I flew to JFK and from there I flew to London. The international flight was fairly smooth, although it didn't compare to first class! I sat beside an interesting guy who is an american journalist in Russia. When we arrived to Heathrow, there was slight confusion about where to go for my flight to Madrid, but I soon figured out what to do. Then I made my way to the terminal waiting area. In Heathrow they don't post the gate numbers until 10 minutes before they start boarding your flight, so I had several hours to eat breakfast/lunch, browse the airport stores, and just relax. As I mentioned in a previous post, after having a bite to eat, I could not keep it together. It was pretty bad, and I even tried to make myself feel better by buying a cute Westie dog souvenir in Harrod's. It didn't exactly help, but I'm really glad I was smart enough to buy it when I had the opportunity--who knows when I'll be in London again! I started to grow concerned about the status of my flight when the gate number was still not posted 10 minutes before the boarding time. Finally, the flight showed cancelled, and I realized I was in for another adventure. As soon as I saw it was cancelled, I raced to the British Airways customer service desk, knowing a line would form fast. I was the second person in line, and a nice lady informed me that the Madrid Airport was closed due to snow. There was no way we could fly to Madrid that day. I tried to get on a flight to Barcelona, but I wouldn't have been able to get to Granada if I flew to Barcelona. While the lady was telling me this information, many people were growing angry at the customer service representatives. Again, I would never want to work for any type of customer service. A family was talking to a young british guy working for British Airways, and he was telling them the same information everyone else was hearing. The mother of the family started yelling at the guy saying she had been walking all around the airport lost, and now the flight was canceled, and British Airways had to do something for her. After the British Airways representative explained it again, she continued to pitch a fit. Finally the man said, "I'm sorry miss, but I don't know what to tell you." And the woman snapped back, "how dare you!" I was at the far end of the counter astonished at how this woman was acting when an older man beside me said, "she shouldn't get so upset over a problem due to weather." Before I left customer service, a man came up to the lady helping me and asked, "flight to Madrid?" The woman said he would need to wait in the "queue" before she could assist him. He interrupted her saying he was a first class passenger upon which she said "well wait after this girl" (talking about me). The rest of the queue grew angry and a man shouted that he didn't care if he was first class or not, he could still wait like everyone else. After this episode I made my way to baggage claim to pick up my bags and book a hotel for the evening. I quickly found my bags and booked a hotel nearby, and then waited for the hotel shuttle bus outside in the cold! Of course I hadn't dressed super warm since I hadn't intended to be outside for long periods of time. After a good 20 minutes, I finally saw the shuttle bus pull up behind several other buses at the hotel shuttle stop. I thought that the driver would wait for the other buses to go and then pull up to the stop. Wrong! He waited less than a minute without even opening the door and quickly sped off. I wasn't too terribly upset until I realized the bus only comes once every 45 minutes. I made sure to get on the bus the second time around. I did have slight trouble boarding the bus with two fifty pound bags--at this point I started to regret bringing two bags back. People were fairly helpful, though, so it wasn't too much of a burden. I made it to the hotel, and got settled into my room and I soon lost it. Alone in a hotel room by myself, I felt I could release all those tears I had been fighting in the airport terminal. I tried to use my phone card and call home, but it didn't work unless the hotel desk dialed the number. I'm sure by the end of my stay, I had bugged the hotel to dial the phone card number at least 10 times. I used the internet, ate dinner, and cried the whole night, only sleeping about 3 hours. I got up early and took the shuttle back to the airport where I waited in the same terminal as the day before. The flight was on time and the gate number showed up. We boarded the plane at the scheduled time and waited on board while mechanics worked on the plane. Two hours later, we were still on the plane continuing to wait. Finally we were sent back into the airport to wait for an hour with food vouchers. I hung out with some girls who were studying abroad in the north of Spain. We finally boarded the plane and took off, only to arrive in Madrid several hours later than planned. I found my flight to Granada and it had been delayed so technically I could make it. While I'm trying to find my way to the gate, I run back over to the departures screen and I no longer see my flight. I frantically ran up to an airport worker and ask what happened to my flight. He pretends not to speak English, and so I start raddling off my problem in Spanish. He responds by saying in English, "see you're Spanish is really good when you're under pressure." He then informed me that the flight to Granada had been canceled and I would need to talk to Iberia. I made my way to the Iberia customer service, the same place where I had been before Christmas, and I am greeted by a long line of people. Because the Madrid airport was closed the day before, many people had flight issues. The airport was actually nice enough to provide rolling chairs for customers to sit in while waiting. I talked with Iberia and they rescheduled my flight to Granada for the next morning, and put me up in a hotel for the night. A bus load of about 50 Iberia passengers went to the hotel. Iberia also paid for everyone's dinner in the hotel restaurant. At dinner I sat with a table of Spaniards and a french guy. It was the most random group of people, and it was when I started to wonder if things could get any worse. A French guy sat beside me and his English was very limited. Nevertheless, he tried to carry on a conversation with me, "you...Spain...why?" My lack of sleep and all of my flight problems didn't exactly make me eager to meet new people. Anyway, I soon was out of this situation and made it back to my room where I was able to use my laptop. I got a little more sleep than in London, but I was still not rested. I was back at the airport by 6 AM and my Granada flight was scheduled on time! I would finally make it back to Granada. But things are never as easy as we think. I soon found out my Granada flight was delayed and there was a good chance it would be cancelled later. Iberia decided to send passengers to Malaga and then by bus to Granada. I saw the girl from New Mexico who was with me going home for Christmas. Suddenly I felt like I had never been home for Christmas, and here I was again having crazy problems in the Madrid. I did make it to Malaga, where we were told to pick up our bags. We waited and waited for our bags before we were told that we would get our bags when we got to the Granada airport. And so off we went by bus to Granada. We got there and our bags weren't anywhere in sight. All of the passengers camped out in front of Iberia customer service, which was closed. An Iberia representative told us that our bags were still in Madrid and they would be sent on the next flight out of Madrid. We were told to leave our addresses in Granada and Iberia would get the bags to us when they arrived. I took a taxi back to the dorm and went to my friend Marta's room and broke down yet again. Here I was back in Spain, a place still so foreign. It took several days to catch up on my sleep and several weeks to feel all right about being here. My bags arrived several days later, and I was secretly happy that I didn't have to carry them all the way to the dorm. And of course, I was so thankful to be out of airports.
RDU Terminal Pictures:
