up till now... (part i)

I'm a little late getting started on this, but better late than never, I guess.

So here I am in Cádiz, España...something I can hardly believe. Getting here proved to be so difficult I was almost convinced I just wasn't meant to go at all. Naturally, the first flight from Portland to Chicago couldn't have been smoother. And when I arrived in O'Hare, my only surprise seemed to be the cost of food. But after splurging a little on a caesar salad, I decided it was time to venture over to my terminal. Which I couldn't find. I walked, and walked and couldn't find it. And strangely, my flight was not listed on any of the screens throughout the airport. After much wandering, it finally appeared. My flight. Which was cancelled.

After a minor meltdown and learning that apparently there was snow in Madrid (what??), I finally gathered myself together and made my way to the endless line at the Iberia counter, where I appeared to be the only American, only to discover that this wasn't the line, it was "that one, way down past [fill in the airline]." Great. An even longer line. And still, no one who spoke English (which theoretically shouldn't have been a problem, except that I still had not grown accustomed to the Peninsular Spanish accent). A woman finally came and stood in line behind me, evidently American, and complaining loudly about how slow and lazy Spaniards are. Umm, helloooooooo? I didn't know what to say...

Finally a man came up to me (apparently part of Iberia) and asked for all my information. I gave him my only copy of my itinerary, my baggage claim ticket, my "boarding pass," everything. And he left and didn't come back for at least a half hour. And I started to think I was the biggest idiot in the world...

When he returned, he told me that I was going to fly to London in about an hour, and from London to Madrid. I'm convinced they were just trying to get rid of as many people as possible, because when I finally arrived in London, the flight to Madrid was "delayed," but no one knew anything at all. Not even if the airport was open. I spent 8 hours there, frantically calling the program director, my parents, texting, trying to figure out how to get on the internet, how to charge my quickly dying phone... It was the time of my life. But I finally got on an airplane to Madrid, where I found several other people from the University of Washington, and ultimately boarded a plane to Jerez de la Frontera...

...where I discovered that they had lost my bag.