a warm spanish welcome
What else should we expect? We spent two wonderful weeks in the U.S. Seeing friends and family, going to restaurants, enjoying the efficiency and laziness of american life.
So after only two weeks, we had already forgotten enough to be annoyed (if not sincerely pissed off) at all the promblems we ran into upon our return. In general, things here in Spain run just as smoothly as in Kentucky. In fact, because we're in a much bigger city here, we enjoy the benefits such as great public transportation and never being bored. There are many little things, however, that snowball into serious frustration. For example, after 17 hours on airplanes, all we wanted to do was go home. At the Barcelona airport we went to buy our train tickets and ALL the credit card machines were down. ATM? Nope! had to walk all the way back to the terminal. Biggest airport in Spain. Cash only for the train. No ATM in the train station. nice. Okay, so I needed a bottle of water. I had a 2 euro coin. The water cost 1 euro. Okay, cool. No... wait.... the machines (all 3) only take exact change! great. Okay, We're on the train with all our big, heavy luggage. All we have to do is get off the train in Terrassa and catch a cab home. Simple. Easy. Not so much. The taxi stop, usually full of bored cabbies looking for fares, is a curbside void. Not a cab in sight. Lucky for us, there was a bus to take us home. I almost couldn't believe that we found the apartment to be as we left it. After all we had been through, I wouldn't be surprised if we had come home to find it cleaned out by robbers, or burnt down, or emploded...
But we made it. And very gratefully so. I'm sure everyone has heard about the plane crash that happened in Madrid. at least 100 ( I think closer to 150) people died. It happened the day we flew. And while it did make me more nervous than usual, I had to think about all the people that were affected. How terrible! and how scary! Most of them were families going on vacation, since the plane was flying from Madrid to the Canary Islands.
I know flying is supposedly the safest way to travel. Everyone says it. But plane crashes DO happen. They are not so rare as we like to think. I hate flying. I think it's one of the scariest things you can do. But I think it's a good lesson. Nothing we do is without risk. And I refuse to be limited by fear. I am afraid of a LOT of things. But if I let those fears dictate my life... I'd probably be curled up in the fetal position in a dark room somewhere :) Alright. That was the inspirational message of the day.
Due to untrustworthy computers, who knows when the next post will be...
