sometimes you have all the luck, sometimes you have absolutely none

Well, for all of the good luck we had traveling up to Edinburgh for New Years, we are now paying the price. Granted, we did NO advance planning to get us to Edinburgh, and even less for accomodations, which were running about 65 pounds a night with a minimum stay required of three to four nights. So when we got a last minute couch through couchsurfing we were more than grateful. We stayed with a few Polish guys and one Argentine gal and really enjoyed ourselves, until we realized that we somehow needed to get from Edinburgh all the way down to Barcelona, and we fly out of Madrid on the 7th to meet jenny in Egypt.

So we began to look for flights, but being last minute we weren't coming up with the deals we had hoped for. The cheapest option was a day bus (9 hrs) from Edinburgh to London, then keep ourselves awake there from about 8pm until 4am, head to the airpot for a 7:30am flight and be in Barcelona by 11am the 3rd. Well, this is where it begins to go amok.

After arriving in London, we find out they only check bags (storage) until 11pm and don't reopen until the next day at 7am.
Problem 1: we are stuck with all of our bags

We called the Australians who we met in Dublin to possibly leave our bags at their place for a few hours, but they live a bit outside of the city, and the tube closes at midnight, so getting back would be an expensive ordeal.

Problem 2: we still have our bags, and a lot of time to kill.

We go to a pub, get some food and decide to go to a movie to pass the time. We take a cab to the theatre only to realize I read the times wrong and there are no more movies that night. Europe uses the 24 hour clock system and I somehow always manage to subtract 10 instead of 12. So what I thought was a 1045 movie was actually an 845 movie.

Problem 3: it is another 8 pounds just to return to our starting point. And it is cold.

So. We decide our best option is to just go to the airport. So after paying the 8 pounds to return to the bus station (that's 12 dollars), we pay 10 pounds (15 dollars) each for the hour and a half ride, to get there and be denied entrance because the fire alarm is sounding. It is freezing outside, and I secretly hope for a fire inside. My basic instincts tell me fire=warmth. Sadly, there is no fire.

Problem 4: pretty sure that one was obvious

When we finally get inside it is about 1am. Annette finds a freezing spot of floor (reminiscent of the Madrid airport exactly one month prior) and sleeps for two hours. Those floors literally suck any and all body heat right out of you. I stayed awake all night journaling, finishing a crappy book, and doing soduku.


At 5:45am we go to check in, only to find out that the airline saw a possible fraud alert from annette's credit card company (with whom she had spoken and they had authorized the transaction after verifying her identity two days earlier) and cancelled the ticket. Easy jet (the airline) shows they have refunded the money, visa shows they haven't. Welcome to my hell. It froze over, and it's called London.

So, instead of getting the next flight for about 175 usd each, we began the budget travel option instead.

Problem 5: this takes WAY more time.

So we went from the airport back to the city (1.5hrs), then to the coast of England (3hrs), then on a ferry to France (1.5hrs), then a train to Paris (3.5hrs) and are most likely going to miss the connecting train to Barcelona tonight. This leg of the journey involves taking an overnight train to a city in the south of france called Biarritz. Then from here we are supposed to catch another train to Barcelona. So we get on an 11 o'clock train, which is in a sleeper car (yay!) and are supposed to get to our destination at 650 am.

All is fine and good until I have to get up. It is almost 7 in the morning and it is still dark out, which furthers my morning misery. And I thought this was the last stop on the train so when annette was trying to get me to hurry, I snapped at her, only to realize that it was not the last stop. And the train is about to leave. So I stumble out of the coach, my shoes and coat half on, grab my ever important book (dreams from my father by barack obama), headlamp, and the little goody box provided by the train. A woman in our coach had to carry my bag out of the room for me. But finally I get off the train and platform. And as soon as I do, I do my mental check of all the things I am supposed to have, groggily realizing that I left the blackberry. I do the compulsory, haphazard pat down, knowing full well that I left it on the bed, and think *@#!?+#*!!!

It is 7 am, dark, and no one is working at the train station as I am watching the train disappear into the night, holding my blackberry hostage. We go into the station, thinking we can catch the next train to the next town, hoping the woman in our coach turned it in. But the next train does not leave until 930 and there are no cabs this early. So we resign ourselves to sitting with a cup of coffee and soduku.
Thank god for annette. She was so calm and positive when all I wanted to do was bang my head against a wall multiple times.

Finally someone came into work and he called the next station, but said nothing was turned in. We decided to stop at it anyway and met this really nice man who called the big train station again and actually had a friend who worked there and lo and behold! It was there. So we took the train one more stop and were able to retrieve it. So here we were unbelievably lucky despite earlier travesties.

So now we are on a train to barcelona (finally); we have our phone back (luckily) and we have our health and sanity (well, at least one of the 2). But even after all of this, I have to realize how blessed I am, despite all of the murky situations I somehow manage to get into.