I have to say that I've never liked flying into/out of Dallas/Ft. Worth. This dislike is now even stronger. After delaying our departure to Madrid a half hour, they delayed it an additional hour and a half and then just decided to give up entirely and canceled our flight. Luckily, there were six other ladies on my flight from Minneapolis who were on the same flight schedule as I was and we magnetically attracted every other college student waiting for the flight from Dallas to Madrid, allowing the sheer power in numbers worked in our advantage. After frantic call home to the parents and a hour on the phone with my travel insurance agent finally brought me to the front desk after standing in line for nearly 2 hours. We were entertained by a true Texan who told us he could help us getting the line moving by yelling "bomb"... we declined. Most everyone who was scheduled on the first flight was re-routed to London on a flight that was scheduled to leave at 7:40pm however, since everyone needed to re-book and luggage needed to be tracked down we didn't take off from Houston until after 9:00pm.
The flight from Dallas was, well, long. I watched the movie "Love Happens" and wanted to learn more about flowers since Jennifer Aniston seemed to enjoy her role as a florist. I was also able to test out my new hot pink travel pillow which worked nicely. The swiss cheese that was provided with our meal was really soft and seemed a lot more like a cream cheese.... so I ate all of it.
Once in London we had a lovely 5 hour lay-over (which passed our initial Sevilla arrival time). We spent the first hour of our time in Heathrow going through security (not customs, just security because "Some countries don't conduct their airport security as seriously as others... In fact, many countries don't even have airports let alone security" - quoted from a lovely British airport employee who took our water bottles and through them away from us. He continued to discuss airport security measures with us while we stood in line for an exceptionally long time.) The rest of the time in Heathrow resulted in the massive swarm of American college students on their way to Spain inadvertently annoying every other person in the airport. The people watching and window shopping at Tiffany & Co., Hermes, and Harrod's was great... as was the food, surprisingly. I have now discovered that putting thick-ish slices of cucumber on a tuna fish salad sandwich is the way to go. (***Bailey Curtin: try this!)
Here's our Group Photo at Heathrow:
The flight from London to Madrid was uneventful but was the first real test of our Spanish speaking abilities as we went through customs without first stopping at any form of baggage to claim to have our luggage inspected... (This probably should have been a red flag.) The Madrid airport's ceiling is beautiful but our layover was too short for any real exploring. I spent most of the time there laying flat on the cold marble floors trying to stretch out from all of the flying/sitting... Here's what I saw:
The flight from Madrid to Sevilla was nice and short (think Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis) and once our plane landed in Sevilla a wave of exciting came through the plane. We were FINALLY at the right airport... only 7 hours late!
After running through the Sevilla airport hoping that we could catch one of the last buses into the city instead of having to trying to fit the 8 of us in the CIEE Business & Society program into taxis, we hit another road block: none of our bags were appearing on the carousel. Suddenly, all of the jokes made previously on the trip about losing our luggage were no longer funny. As we marched over to the customer service desk and began describing each piece of luggage to the clerks a pair of beautiful Españoles wearing stunning CIEE sweaters came into the baggage claim (against securities wishes) and gave us instructions for who to not get taken advantage of as silly American tourists when we used the taxi. It was a true blessing and huge relief to see Maria y Miguel... we were fearful they would have forgotten about us since we were supposed to arrive at 12:50 instead of 21:30. ¡Gracias a Dios!
Stepping out of the airport and into the taxi was wonderful - without our luggage we only needed to take two cars and it was 25 euros (split 4 ways) for each. We made it to our hotel and were greeted by an exhausted program director and hotel concierge who gave us a 5 minute re-cap of what had been said at the orientation sessions that evening and our room keys and promised to track down our luggage by harassing the airport. The 8 of us quickly met our hotel roommates (mine is Michelle from Penn State- there is an overwhelming Big Ten presence on this program) and then ate at the only cheap place still open... McDonald's. (Here's Nikki with her Happy Meal):
The "restaurant" closed at midnight - about 5 minutes after we had sat down with our food (after standing in a ridiculously long line) and we all went to bed for as much sleep as we could get.
We spent this morning (after breakfast at the hotel) touring FCEYE (Economics/Business campus) of the Universidad de Sevilla and in orientation sessions about our classes/options of where we will be taking classes. Afterwards we had true "tapas" with our guide (Sergío):
Now we're waiting to go to the CIEE Study Center for the oral portion of our language placement exams.... Wish me luck!
NEWS TO COME: Where I'm taking classes, who I'll be living with, and a night of flamenco!
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