Game Day.
Well ok, more like Travel Day.
Day starts with Dad and Casey (the dog) barging into my room around 7 am. All happy and excited. They always get up early and go for walks together. Nothing new with today. I have heard that people that get up and start their day earlier are generally happier people. My Dad and Casey would definitely prove that to be true.
So I finally roll out of be around 7:15am and stand up, look in the mirror and say "Well, this is it."
I start going through my morning routine of brushing my teeth, taking a shower, and start thinking this is the last time I'm going to be doing this here for a long time. I saved packing up my backpack for the morning of, but I at least had everything I wanted to bring somewhat in once place. As I start putting things in my backpack I start thinking, dang my backpack is starting to get heavy. Note that I was shooting for a relatively light/empty backpack so that if the opportunity to buy fun things abroad were to happen, I would have a lot of free space. But somehow my backpack filled up so I will have to get creative packing up because I'm bound to at least find a few cool things while abroad.
Backpack is ready to go which therefore signifies that Erik is indeed ready to go. It's a little after 8 and the plan was to leave at 8:15am so I am right on time. I do the nostalgic closing of my bedroom door and saying goodbye to my room that I will not see for four months and head down stairs. My parents are both ready to go. Well physically. Emotionally probably not.
Do a couple last second checks. Make sure I have the ever important passport and into the car I go. Mom, Dad, Erik, and Casey on the way to the Airport. I don't really think I had any noteworthy thoughts or feelings on the drive. Just tried to soak in that last drive with the rents. Enjoying petting Casey for the last time in a while. Thinking about how crazy it was that I was going to Madrid. Thinking how crazy it was that my summer was over and that the day to leave was finally here. My parents were making sure that I was going to contact them as soon as possible. No tears from my Mom though on the ride there. Proud of you Mom.
O'hare airport. Oh baby what a place. We pull up to the departure gate and the car stops. Giant exhale from me and I open my door to get out. One last, huge hug for both my parents and smile and I head out on my way. I do the classic look back as I walk through the doors to go into the airport. Wave one more time and off I go.
So not to brag or anything, but I feel like I am a pretty beast traveler. Whenever I'm at the airport with my family, we always make it look like a breeze never any problems so I was feeling pretty confident strolling up to the sign in/check bag station. So I go to put in my reservation number and quickly get an error message saying my itinerary does not match my ticket. I laugh at myself and think wow not even a minute alone and I already have a problem haha. However, it really was nothing. I got help pretty quick and the lady said that my return flight had changed so thats what caused the error. I said ok and continued on.
Security had a few more bumps. A lady started talking to me about my boot when I was trying to get my stuff ready to go through security and I got distracted and forgot to take out my computer and plastic bag full of liquids so my bag had to get searched. Whoops. Oh well not to big of a deal, but I think I lost a few points on my beast traveler meter.
SO I was in. My first order of business was to find a gift for my host mom. I was going to make a picture frame and decorate it with things that I like, but I unfortunately ran out of time and had to create a nice gift from the airport. I think I managed fairly well with some classic Garret's popcorn and a nice postcard of Chicago with Buckingham Fountain and I wrote a nice note as well.
I make my way onto this tiny plane. The smallest one I have been in a while. Luckily I got this super great guy that sat next to me so I got to make a friend. His name was Amir and he is from England. So that was pretty sweet. We got talking a little bit and he asked if I could help explain American football and baseball. YESSSSSS!!! Spent pretty much the whole flight, granted it was only an hour and half to DC, diagramming football and baseball with airplane napkins and cups. It was quite perfect :) He even taught me about cricket. Makes a bunch more sense now! We landed in DC. We both looked out the window in search of the White House. No luck :( We wished each other well as we both moved on with our adventures and off he went. When we got off the plane, we exited onto the ground, something I have never done before so that was exciting.
I made my way into the DC airport, now knowing I had 4 hours to chill, waiting for my plane to Madrid. No worries tho. I found a Wendy's at the airport (score!) and had a nice lunch. I then talked to my parents for a bit, called my bank letting them know I was leaving for a while so that my credit card would work over here, and listened to a lot of the fray :) so great. Magically all that time passed and it was getting to close to boarding…
I SEE JOHN!!!!
Finally I got to chance to say hello to somebody instead of goodbye. Such a great feeling to see him and know that we were going on this adventure together. Last second bathroom break, a little food for John, a little bit of a delay to fix some oxygen tanks and we were off to Madrid!!!!! HOLY COW!!!!!!
The plane was a 757 and I got the middle seat… #roughlife. But not really. It ended up being fine. We sat down and another husky gentlemen such as John and I sat down beside of us. I would put a lot of money on our row having the most total mass haha. But besides being elbow to elbow and everyone in front of us reclining… come on now, we were seriously pampered on the plane. Couldn't believe it. We got to watch multiple movies of our own choosing. We got got a free dinner and a free snack towards the end of the flight and the drink cart came by at least five times. I couldn't believe it. I gotta do this international flying more often haha. So all in all the flight was really smooth. Didn't sleep, but it went by pretty fast. Well as fast as a 8 hour flight could go.
Before we know it, we are landing in Madrid. WOWOWOWOWOWOW. We were here. I think we spent a good portion of the walk to the baggage claim laughing about how crazy it was and joking about the time deference and how it was morning. Got our passports checked with no problem even though John thinks the security guys were making fun of him. haha who knows. We picked up our bags and then set off to find terminal 4. We started following signs and then ended up outside and realized there were no more signs… thankfully we asked someone and they pointed us upstairs. We then realize that terminal 4 isn't even part of the building and that we have to take a bus all the way over to T4. So we do and hit the roads of Madrid for the first time and finally make our way to T4. We spot the SLU madrid guys and they sign us in and fetch us a cab. Next thing we are in a cab going to our house. So crazy. I still think the cab driver was trying to cook us in the backseat. SO FREAKING HOT. We curve and wind around a bunch of city and finally the cab driver says this is it. We both stare at the building and have no idea how we knew it was the right one.
I somehow manage to press the right button for the apartment. Everyone lives in apartments here. No houses. Interesting difference. We get through the first gate and then we hear this mysterious male voice say "press it again". So we do and we are finally into the building and I knew we were on the right on the bottom floor. The door was open so we walked in, praying it was the right house.
We receive a very warm greeting from Pedro, one of our hosts Mom's sons and then we we meet our Mom Isabel and exchange hugs and kisses. We somehow manage to fit our bodies and all our stuff down the tiny hallway to our room which we are sharing for the semester. After just sitting down for a second and taking a breath we are quickly called into the kitchen and shown are breakfast options. John and I then sit down to have some cereal, which was quite delicious. After finishing up, we get called back to our room and our shown where we should put everything by Isabel. So we get unpacked, get our clothes hung up, get are desk organized and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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