Oh the joys of international traveling! I guess it’s never an easy or certain thing and it certainly wasn’t this time around. Last week northern Europe got hit with some snow (what they claimed was horrible snow but was in reality 6 inches…), which caused major flight cancellations and delays. As the kind folk in London Heathrow put it, there was major ‘travel chaos’. I assumed that since I wasn’t leaving until Wednesday morning that they would have cleared everything up by then, but I was mistaken. I got to Madrid on Tuesday night and checked into my hotel after the longest 4-hour bus ride ever! I then proceeded to call my dad to see if he could check on my flights and lo and behold they were already cancelled! I then spent the next hour and a half on the phone with Orbitz, only to be disconnected halfway through, missing the callback because I was on the phone with another Orbitz guy. Luckily Eric at Orbitz was a smart man and called our home phone, which I had left as another contact number when making my reservation. He was able to book me on another flight via my parents so I will be making it home for Christmas! I am not flying through London though. I will be making my journey starting tonight from Madrid where I fly to none other than Casablanca! When the guy first told me that, I thought he was kidding, that Casablanca really isn’t a real city. So I head on over to Africa where I have an hour and a half layover and then from Casablanca I fly to Montreal! I have a 6-hour layover in Montreal and finally make it into O’Hare at 7 am on Christmas Eve morning!
Even with this tiny snafu in my travel plans, things could have been a lot worse. Talking with the second Orbitz guy, he informed me that the earliest I would be able to get home would be the 26th. Clearly I was not going to let that happen and miss Christmas Eve and Christmas! I am staying in a nice hotel with a very comfy bed in Madrid, which has been excellent since I also have tonsillitis! Thank god for health insurance and the absolute ease that going to the doctor in Spain entitles. I found a clinic yesterday that accepted my health insurance and it took me longer to actually get there than for me to get diagnosed and given some medicine, and all for the price of 11 Euros! Sadly I have not been able to see much of Madrid, but am going to try and walk around a bit today before I head to the airport (that is if it’s not raining). It has definitely been a whirlwind of an experience but something that I will look back on and laugh at! I mean honestly, who gets to have a layover in Casablanca and Montreal?? Let’s just hope that my year of French at Miami comes back to me tonight…
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