DAMN YOU, IBERIA!!!!!!

Well, it has been a while since I have posted and I should have a good reason. But really, I have just been a tad lazy. Sometimes the idea of sitting at an internet cafe, especially when I am tired, is just not that appealing. I am now typing from the blackberry, so this might not be the most interesting post since the keys are so tiny a mouse would be better suited to use it.

I have spent The last week in Morocco and it has been an adventure. The plan was to fly to Madrid from Brazil and meet up with my friend Alyson and then take a connecting flight together to Marrakesh. This sounds simple enough, but the reality of it was quite complicated.

As Annette and I got off the plane we saw Alyson and I was quite excited. So we went to get our bags and go thru customs. Luckily the lines were not long and we were able to get into line for check-in with almost 2 hours to spare. Enough time, right? Wrong! Of course. The line was unbelievably slow so we asked a representative if we should go ahead so as not to miss our flight. She said that we were fine and not to worry. So we continued to wait, albeit grudgingly. Eventually, annette went to ask, and a customer service rep told annette that they had closed the flight. What the....?!?! In all, there were about 8 of us that did not get in the flight because of Iberia's lugubrious line. Of course we were upset and panicked, especially because Alyson was boarding the flight we were all supposed to be on. So we argued with the representatives for a long while and they would accept no responsibility for the fact that their lines were so damn slow and that we were given wrong information. They were also so unhelpful and would not even try to put us on another flight. We originally bought the ticket thru royal air morocco, but they were partnering with iberia so iberia kept saying we had to contact them; but when we called royal air they said that iberia had to deal with it.

So long story short we spent about 8 hours and over 20 dollars on phone calls and got absolutely nowhere. Annette even cried and the reps did not bat an eyelash. The best offer we got was that we could buy a ticket to casablanca (which was not even where we were going in morroco) for about 750 dollars. Our original ticket cost 92! Eventually we had to buy a ticket thru another airline for the following morning because iberia reps, who are souless and mindless assholes, would do absolutely nothing for us. This new ticket cost us about 200 dollars, but it was worth it to know that we would eventually get to alyson.

At this point it was 7 at night and we had been at the airport since 10 in the morning. We also had little money to spend on any lodging since we had already spent an obscene amount of money. So we decided to just stay at the airport for the night, which is as fun as it sounds. We froze our way thru the night and slept at wooden tables.

We woke up the next morning and had to take a bus to another terminal. I was in flip flops since I just came in from brazil, but it is winter in spain, which is not a good combo. We got to the terminal, quite groggy, only to discover that we had no flight because we were overbooked on this other airline. Never had I felt so defeated. We had to go back to iberia and in the end we had to give the souless, mindless monsters over 200 dollars to get on a plane to marrakesh. But at least now we REALLY had a ticket and for that we were grateful.

Stay tuned for the next part of the saga, wherein we arrive in Marrakesh, only to discover our luggage did not follow. Thanks Iberia.