Episode 1: No la encuentro

Well this is it, my dad and brother have just gone to bed, leaving me watching the rest of MOTD2, knowing that next time I wake up it’ll be to go to Liverpool and then BCN. This would be true apart from the fact that I never did get to sleep, I just lay there awake for hours until I decided ‘fuck this’ and went downstairs to watch TV, I was leaving at 3AM anyway and it was like half two. So come 3 o’clock I hear my parents waking up and we get everything finalised, I’m not tired in the slightest (somehow) and just know that today is going to be epic. We finalise the packing, get in the car and head to Liverpool, no accidents on the motorways, nothing in the centre of Liverpool, this is gonna be one of those days. There was a slight hiccup when my bag was over the 26Kg limit but a quick shuffle around between that and my hand luggage and all was well (EasyJet’s rule on that is incredibly stupid by the way.*) I went through to departures via the boarding card check and security, where I took off my belt, phone, wallet etc. and for some (probably sound) reason my laptop had to go through the scanner on its own as opposed to in my hand luggage, went through the scanner and the various metal parts on my jeans didn’t set it off, which I don’t think has ever happened before, you know that sort of day where absolutely everything seems to go your way? This is one of them. So I put all my stuff back on/in my hand luggage and went to the gates – via Burger King given my lack of breakfast – there was nowhere to sit near where all the shops and stuff were, so I went to Gate 1 hoping it wasn’t too far from my gate and took a seat. It got near 6:20 so I decided to get up and go look what gate my flight was from, and then I noticed the screen at Gate 1: Barcelona EZY7203. Get. In. And when I started queuing, that’s when God or Allah or Chuck Norris or whoever runs things decided to turn on me, “All passengers for flight EZY7203 to Barcelona that have purchased Speedy Boarding are now permitted to board.” So they went to the gate and through the doors. “All passengers for flight EZY7203 to Barcelona travelling with children under 5 are now permitted to board.” So they went to the gate with a considerable numbers of prams, flip-flops and little girls carrying pink suitcases that were nearly as big as them, they went through the doors and towards the plane, 5 minutes later no-one else has boarded and the speedy boarders and flip-flops come back out of the door. Crap. “Passenger announcement, the EZY7203 service to Barcelona has been delayed by half an hour.” Leading half the queue to sit back down and leaving me 2^nd, well screw that I’m not sitting down now. Along comes 7:15 with another piece of good news: “Passenger announcement, we are sorry to announce that the EZY7203 service to Barcelona has been delayed by another 30 minutes.” This wouldn’t be so bad if I was making my own way out of the airport as opposed to getting picked up. As it happened we got on the plane about 7:30, when it should have departed after the first delay, and were off the ground at 7:45, pretty standard flight, nothing really notable to report, apart from that on a flight to Spain in October there were a grand total of 2 Spanish people and they were just in front of me, speaking English to each other half the time anyway.

When I landed in Barcelona (only about 20 minutes late as it turned out) is when the fun really began, you know that sort of day where absolutely nothing goes your way? This is one of them. Went into arrivals, gave the compulsory glare at the smug git whose bag comes out first, and picked mine up, went through the doors and looked for Carme, didn’t see her, kept looking, didn’t see her, kept looking, didn’t see her, this might prove problematic. This eventually led to me going to the tourist information and asking for the school’s number, 4 people, about 8 no doubt expensive phone calls, 2 answering machines, 2 even more expensive emails and a voicemail later, I was told to get a train to Barcelona Sants, so after being directed to the airport station, inventively named Aeroport, I then had to deal with my next enemy: stairs – harmless enough when I have no luggage, or just my hand luggage – absolute murder when I also have what is essentially a cricket bag with 26Kg of stuff. 3 flights of these later and I find myself at a travelator, only it wasn’t, it the handrails for a travelator with nothing but a floor inbetween them. WHY? WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME? The 200 yards to the station suddenly got a lot longer, but eventually I got to the other end, where there was this miraculous device called an ascensor, where you push the button and wait for the doors to open, get in, press where you want to go and it takes you there, I tell you, more airports need to hear about these. So a fairly simple train ride later I came across another ascensor to ground level, and FINALLY met someone from the school, got in an air conditioned taxi and went to the school where they were holding the meeting that I never thought I was actually going to because I’d booked the flight before hearing about it and it started 80 minutes before I was due to land, Carme’s understanding was that my flight and the meeting were on different days, so she’d gone to the meeting instead of the airport, assuming I’d be there. ¿Cómo se dice monumental cock-up en castellano? Anyway we put my bags in Julio’s car and a few of us went for tapas, drinks and coffee, then after several Metro rides (BCN’s Metro system blows any English one out of the water by the way) we were back at the car on our way to Amposta, it was 5PM and 6 and a half hours after I thought I should have been going, so it’s fair to say I was asleep on my feet, and the heat and my jeans weren’t helping. My black jeans. That were tighter than a vice. I have no clue how I was functioning in English, let alone Castilian and Catalan, needless to say I was out like a light once in the nice air conditioned car, so contrary to earlier belief the next time I woke up I was in the back of said car somewhere on the N-340. We arrived at the school at 7PM and I was quickly introduced to one of my flatmates, Vincent, who at that moment was still teaching (and yes I did say 7PM) and a few other people round the school, then back to the flat to unpack, find a pair of shorts, get my jeans off and put some shorts on (after the day I’ve had, that is now my definition of heaven) and cenar con mis nuevos convivientes, and then the very title of the blog was made kind of redundant by the discovery that my other flatmate Alan is originally from Mexico, but hey, he’s called Alan, and I only noticed that connection 3 seconds ago while typing his name, that’s how fried my brain was considering I even watched Two and a Half Men last night.

*You can carry 20Kg of hold luggage on EasyJet for £15 on top of the flight price, you can add weight before check-in at the price of £21 per increment of 3Kg, up to a limit of 32Kg, at check-in it’s an extra £10 per kilogram, and you can add another bag for £8, but if they add to more than 20Kg between them you still have to buy the extra weight, so if you have 9 bags that weigh a total of 31.5 Kg then first of all you’re an idiot, but second of all that’s an extra £127. Your hand luggage however has to be no bigger that 56cmx45cmx25cm, but as long as you can get it into the overhead compartment without assistance they don’t mind about the weight, now I don’t consider myself the strongest person around but I could quite happily do that with 40Kg, so I can’t help but wonder if they have a policy on professional powerlifters.