My Airport Adventures

I have literally been in the airport the past 2 days. Wednesday night was the IESE Christmas party. Italian Marco brought his Colombian hats, which I pounced on anyone wearing one. Certainly brought back memories of partying in Bogota, and that made me really happy. All that was missing was the salsa. I left for the airport at 6:00h, without having slept a wink, my head still spinning with a very pleasurable feeling.

I checked in and waited for my connecting flight to Paris, fell asleep a few times on the chairs waiting… but one time, I woke up and the flight was “retrasado” (delayed), and I blinked, and the flight disappeared and reappeared in the next gate. Todavia retrasado. So I went there. But when my turn came up, the flight attendant said that my flight had left at 9:30h, and it was 11:00h. So I argued a bit with Air France, then Continental, then American Express travel to book me another flight, and I went back home to the flat, fell asleep in the cab, in the middle of telling something to the driver in Spanish… When I got home, Felix was knocked out! Turns out he had a fun night too.

The next day, I woke up early to catch a cab, but ended up waiting unsuccessfully for available cabs, which there were none. Guillermo ended up taking me to the airport, but by then I was over 30 mins late to check-in, and was worried about missing another flight.

On the flight, I had to sit next to this obnoxious American guy. He kept rudely demanding beers from the flight attendant, then complaining that 4 EUR = 5 USD was a horrible exchange rate, when in fact it was about a 20% discount. I was so embarrassed to be American. Is this what I was coming home to? Then all of his friends started saying these horrible jokes like “How many Spaniards does it take to screw in a light bulb? JUAN!!!” Oh God. Please. I asked the kid’s friend to switch seats with me so that I could get the heck out of the inanity.

Our flight was delayed from Barcelona to Newark. When I got to the States, I tried to call American Marco on my cell to tell him I was here, but realized my Spanish cell phone only allowed emergency calls. So I snuck into a “Meditation Room” thinking they had internet access there & I could IM him at work… I don’t know what I was thinking, but there was no internet access in the Meditation Room…

My first impression being back in the US is that I felt relatively unsafe. Usually I don’t have any fear walking alone in Barcelona, at any hour of the day or night, but immediately upon entering the US, those old fears came back. (Must be all those stories of kidnapping and murder on CNN.) Plus, there are guns here. I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t want to live in a place where handguns are legal. I miss Europe. On the bright side, I didn’t have to worry about speaking Spanish to everyone… but I was also sad that I didn’t have to speak Spanish to everyone.

So my flight from Newark to Austin was delayed another 3 hours, which made the connecting time a whopping 8 hours. It is currently 23:15h in New Jersey, and 5:15h in Barcelona, and I have been at airports and in the air since 9:00h this morning Barcelona time… I expect to be landing into Austin at 3:30h, day 3.