~ The Journey is the Best Part ~

Buenos Dias, Madrid!

My journey started yesterday (May 16th - so DEFINITELY ignore whatever the pictures say) when I boarded a flight at Reagan National Airport in D.C. that went to JFK in New York. I got to shake my dad down for money eat lunch with my parents one last time. :) 

Mis padres 

Gracias, papa! ;) 

I was beginning to worry that fate didn't want me to travel to Spain when my flight was delayed FOUR times! My flight was supposed to leave at 2:45pm but didn't leave until 4pm! I met a girl who was studying abroad in Italy but her connecting flight was at 6 and by the time we landed in New York she only had 5 minutes to run to the next terminal...yikes!

I had never experienced riding a seat-less bus to then board my flight without a terminal at JFK! I, of course, was excited so I took pictures of that. ;)

From JFK I boarded a flight (probably around 7ish) that lasted all night and brought me to Madrid. My flight landed at about 9am Madrid time. :) Since then, I've tried cleaning up as best as possible (sorry for all the ratchet photos leading up to that – I just spent a night on the plane. IF YOU HONESTLY ARE READING THIS AND GENUINELY CARE ABOUT MY APPEARANCE...WELL, ILL PRAY FOR YOU :))


NOW TO THE BEST PART OF THE STORY: Carlos!

I boarded my flight to Madrid and was beginning to wonder if the seat next to me would be empty...until Carlos came along. I don't know what led me to do this but about 10 minutes into the flight I turned to this late-20-something year old guy and said, “Te hablas Espanol?” and he said, “Si!” and started talking to me in Spanish. However, he was speaking so fast and the accent was so different that I almost had a heart attack and made a face that I wasn't quite following what he was saying. That's when he started speaking to me in English. We ended up talking about Spanish culture – going back and forth in English and Spanish as he guided me through the differences when it comes to speaking in Spanish in Spain vs the Spanish I've been learning in my classes in The States.

But holy chicken fries! Carlos definitely calmed my nerves about traveling to Spain alone and, toward the end of the flight, gave me his telephone number and Facebook name so that I could contact him if I had any further questions during my time in Spain. (Since he essentially spent the entire flight telling me that everything I've been learning in class is wrong...and that barely even scratched the surface of my misunderstanding)

Naturally, I asked this nice gentleman to take a picture with me so I could blog him and never forget that amazing flight where I taught him what “Cool as a Cucumber” means (although I'm still not sure of the origin??) and where he taught me basically all of Spanish all over again.

Mi amiga primera en Espana

FINALLY ~ enjoy some pictures of the airport. I'm going to go grab some breakfast and pray that I make it to Jerez de la Frontera and Cadiz in one piece!

Airport :) 

"you obviously didn't moisturize, young son"

When you smell something weird and can't tell where it's coming from

"EY, YO GURL!"

"This is where I'd put my girlfriend...IF I HAD ONE!" 

Until next time!