I have arrived!

Well, 24 hours ago or so I was in Roanoke and now I am here, awake and very time-challenged... man time zones and air travel can mess with your head.

I am pretty tired right now so I will try to just hit the main points of my travel and perhaps elaborate more later when I get my computer up and running... something seems to be wrong with the ethernet card connection and the wifi is out at the house for some reason, but I hope to get things resolved in the next day or two. I feel bad hogging Merche's computer.

Leaving Roanoke was extremely difficult for me... It was so hard to turn my back on Jay and his mom, and I won't lie, I cried.

I arrived in Philly in no time at all and found myself wandering around the massive airport. I finally figured out that I needed to take a shuttle to my next gate so I boarded the bus and heard some familiar sounds of Blacksburg... ye ole BT. The bus was the exact same make, the same engine sounds, the same layout... I felt strangely at home, and it made me feel a little better.

I found a Travelexx booth to exchange what cash I had on me and it dawned on me that my hostelling international membership included some sort of discount... I got a decent exchange rate, and since I was a member, no commission charges and no extra fees. Just straight up cash. I totally win.

Once I arrived in Madrid, the hilarity began. I thought Philly had a big airport... boy was I wrong. This place was madness. I had to laugh though as we landed, because apparently there is an airline called Pron Air. I'm not kidding. A huge airplane parked next to us with Pron Air printed on the side of it. Hilarious.

Upon my arrival I had to look for the Iberia counter to check in since I was changing airlines. After a lot of confusion, I figure out that I actually have to physically exit the airport to get to the check in counters, which means going through security again. Meanwhile, I ran into a Hokie who came up to me and said she saw me in Roanoke and Philly strangely enough but didn't get a chance to get a hold of me. Speaking of Philly, I was really amused at how much Rocky merchandise there was in the Philadelphia airport.

I found an Iberia counter among the sea of people and seemingly endless lines, and of course... it is closed. I waited there for about an hour with a few others that were gathering around me and finally I ran to the information desk to ask if there were any others open elsewhere. I'm told that in fact there are others, and that this was an old counter and Iberia has since moved to another terminal entirely... they just never took the sign down.

So I hop on a bus, where the trip actually took about 20 minutes to get to the next terminal... and this was on a highway! I arrived to the correct terminal and stand in a HUGE line of people, but it moved rather quickly, and finally make my way up front. The lady at the counter asks me where my baggage tickets are... Huh? Tickets? I wasn't told of any such things in Roanoke...

After the lady explained to me that I was basically up shit creek without a paddle and that I would never see my bags again if I didn't have a number, I pulled out every boarding pass, ticket, envelope, anything at all having to do with tickets that I had and laid it all out on the counter. As luck would have it, there was a copy of the number on some random envelope that was crumpled and nearly disentegrated... I had very nearly thrown it away earlier, in fact. Away I went.

I was looking for Puerta F to find my gate and seeing G, H, I, J, and K.... no F. Turns out, my ticket was printed kinda wonky or something because the text didn't line up to the labels on the paper correctly and there in fact, is no Puerta F. In fact, turns out that my gate was "JFK", which also incidentally doesn't exist.... more on that later.

So, apparently I have to go through security a second time... oh the joy. I got my liquids in a baggie, I'm good to go, right? Well, I had forgotten about the water leftover in my nalgene bottle. After having waited for no lie, 20min on the two girls decked out in bling-bling who were somehow dumbfounded as to why the metal detector kept going off (still wearing the massive jewelry and high heeled boots with metal buckles...), the TSA guy holds up my bag and shows me the nalgene bottle with water. He tells me I can either step out of line and dump it out in the sink in the bathroom, or they will throw it away.

I took the bottle from him and my belongings in the trays and stepped past the metal detector on my way to a bathroom when it dawned on me that I could simply just chug the water and not have to stand in line again. So away I chug, and back through the metal detector clean, and the TSA security guy looks up at me a bit confused as to why I was back so quickly, and he smiles at me and says, in Spanish, "What did you do, drink the bomb?" "Yep, does that work?" "Indeed it does, go through!" Atleast he had a sense of humor.

Okay, about the mysterious missing gate... I found an Iberia airline customer service desk after wandering around for a bit and asked the lady where my gate was located. She tells me that she doesn't know where the gate is because the pilot hasn't arrived yet. She explained that apparently the planes don't have assigned gates for each flight, the pilot just more or less parks the plane somewhere and then they figure it out. So, in this huge airport, I have no idea which side of the airport I am supposed to be hanging around, and I have 1 hour to go before my flight leaves.

Meanwhile, I had been wondering how to get a hold of people to let them know I was in Madrid. I found a payphone, put one of the two coins I had received form the exchange, which happen to both be worth 2 euros a piece. I dialed the number and such, and it turns out the information page I printed out with my phone card did not actually include my pin number. Doh. So I hang up, expecting change, but no such luck. Turns out, the machine just eats whatever you put in there regardless of how much you actually use. Grr...

So I boot up my laptop and think hey, atleast I could get an email out and find that pin number right? I find a wifi network, connect, and as luck would have it... it isn't exactly free. In fact, the cheapest is 1 hour for 10 euros. I found an internet kiosk where you could just put in how many minutes you wanted and charge it to a credit card. Perfect, right? I only needed 5 to get the pin. I try and try, but to no avail... the credit card reader is broken.

The other option is to put in coins and again, not receive any change back. I was running out of time before my flight and rather far away from any stores to make change, so I decided just to go with it. I ended up with 20min of internet time and wrote a few emails, got the pin, etc, and got it all worked out. I was still angry about it though.

I finally get on the plane to Oviedo, and I started to feel sick. I currently have a bit of a sore throat and I am a bit dizzy, but that is probably just because I haven't slept in a day or two. I get off the plane and look for my luggage... it isn't there. Thankfully right about then I happen to look up and realize that they stuffed the international luggage in a seperate room behind a glass wall, no signs, no nothing. I see my bags, grab them, and away I went.

I saw Merche and Pedro waiting for me and they take me to the little cafe in the airport for a little tapa.. like a mini ham sandwich of sorts in this case. We talked for awhile, and wow, Merche loves to talk. They are all really lovely people actually, and apparrently I am their 6th exchange student.

Once we arrived at the house (after a slight detour through the city to show me a bit of the town) we had some delicious coffee and they stuffed me with all sorts of little pastries and such. I have my own room, my own bathroom even, and once the internet gets fixed I´ll have that too. Tomorrow we are going to the international relations office to get all my classes worked out and whatnot, and well... I suppose that is all for now. Guiness the cat really likes the smell of my bags, apparently.

Well I think I need a shower... That is all for now :-)