Day 10 - 6/1/2003 - Homeward Bound (with 10 minutes to spare)

Temperature: 18-20° C = 64-68° F
Weather: Partly cloudy and chilly
Location: Barcelona to Madrid to Philly

Well, this is the end of the road, but I do have one more journey to talk about: How we got home! We planned plenty of time to get to the Barcelona airport (2 hours early) and we went through the usual steps of getting on a plane.

1. Get there
2. Check your luggage
3. Go through security
4. Wait at your gate for your plane
5. When plane arrives, get on it

Now, this went off without a hitch, but when we landed in Madrid, we had to catch our connecting flight to Philadelphia. If we missed it, we would have to wait a day for the next US Airways flight to Philadelphia.
Normally, the connecting flight procedure is even easier than the initial boarding:

1. Get off the plan you are on
2. Find the gate for the connecting flight
3. Walk there in a calm and collected manner to that gate
4. Get on the plane

However these are the steps that we took to get to our connecting flight, and we only had an hour to do these 51 steps.

1. Get off the plane you are on
2. Go to the information desk for boarding passes because Spainair couldn’t give us the boarding passes for our connecting US Airways flight to Philly.
3. Discover the information desk is unoccupied
4. Wait 5 minutes, staring at watch repeatedly while shifting weight from one leg to the other in a nervous manner.
5. Decide to find another source of information at another desk.
6. Find desk with a human behind it and get first version of instructions and directions to the location of your boarding passes.
7. Walk briskly in that direction.
8. Get lost when signs to that location disappear.
9. Ask security guard for second version of directions.
10. Follow his advice
11. Get lost again and wait in line at another information desk to ask for more directions. This time, pace back and forth in line and mutter under your breath, “come on… come on … come on …”. Notice only a half hour before take-off.
12. Get third set of direction from desk.
13. Roll your eyes
14. Throw your hands in the air
15. Run back the way you just came from
16. Pass the security guard who gave you bad (version 2.0) directions
17. Give him a scowl. That will teach him!
18. Retrace steps back to another separate information booth to receive fourth set of instructions
19. Follow version 4 of the instructions and leave the secure area. Note, this means you have to go through security again. This is covered in later steps.
20. Wait in line to get a boarding pass
21. Receive instructions to see representative for connecting flights
22. Wait in line for representative
23. Notice that when you are in a hurry, everyone in front of you must speak as slowly as possible. (Notice the use of “uh…” and “ummm …” for example.)
24. Hop different lines for different representatives, hoping that one line will move slightly faster.
25. Befriend other Americans on the same flight in the same situation as yourself. You’ll recognize them by the sweat dripping down their heads and a “You’ve GOT to be KIDDING me” expression on their faces. You never know when you could use an ally in international travel.
26. Answer questions about your luggage that you already checked on the previous flight. You don’t have access to it, but it just might be possible for the answers to change since the last time you were asked.
27. Receive a sticker on your passport, which is a lot like the gold-star you used to get in grade school for answering questions correctly.
28. Go back to get your boarding pass. Notice that your seats aren’t assigned.
29. Worry.
30. Sprint to the security gates
31. Get in the back of the line
32. Grumbling to yourself about the fact that you should never have had to leave the secure area of the airport for a connecting flight to begin with.
33. When you get half-way through the line, spot your newly-made friends.
34. Wave. Shake their hands like you were meaning to catch up with them, thus allowing them to cut in line. (Like I said, it never hurts to have an ally in international travel)
35. Go through metal detectors
36. When it beeps, remove sunglasses from your pockets and go through again.
37. Repeat steps 35 and 36 until you go through the detector without it beeping.
38. Collect all of your possessions
39. Look at your watch. You should have 20 minutes until take-off, but it’s really 10 minutes, because they close the gate 10 minutes prior to take off!
40. Sprint at your fastest speed possible. Take all the bags from your wife to help her run faster.
41. When the gate is in sight, abandon your wife or loved ones.
42. Get in line to board.
43. Breathe a sigh of relief
44. At the front of the line, ask for seating assignments
45. Receive instructions to do that at the desk for that gate five feet away.
46. Go to the desk
47. Explain steps 1-46 to the employee behind the desk and beg for two seats next to each other
48. Watch employee flinch at the results of his/her computer screen.
49. Begin planning in your head what you’re going to do tomorrow in Madrid.
50. Receive your seat assignments and notice you’ve been bumped to first class!
51. Get on the plane!

Who hoo! So there you have it! We got to ride home in 1’st class seats, and have 1’st class meals and as I write this, I’m a true believer in the phrase, “sometimes things work out for the best.” I just hope our luggage had an easier time than we did!

~ The End ~

Introduction Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10