London and Madrid Day Four

Westminister Abbey

Inside Westminister Abbey

London and Madrid Day Four- Wednesday March 31^st 2010

Ohh what a day today was… We woke up quite early.. around 7 AM, so we could get on a bus to the bus station to take a bus to the London Stansted Airport where we would fly out at 11. Not too hard right? Well soon after we got off the bus at the bus station we immediately started encountering problems…

You would think that after travelling across Europe every weekend for 3 months, we would know how to get around practically anywhere. Well London is a different story. Not only couldn’t we find a bus to get us to the airport, but we couldn’t even find a bus station when the bus dropped us off at where he proclaimed was the right place. We spent entirely too long looking for the bus station.. and when we found it, after asking a couple people, the bus driver wouldn’t let us on the bus. A huge group of us, with our bags and everything, were standing outside of an empty bus for nearly a half an hour before he let us on. The bus ride, which I slept on, cramped next to an italian girl, was almost 2 hours to London Stansted.

When we got to the airport finally, we had nearly two hours to spare, so I grabbed a nice lunch/breakfast because I had pounds left over. I got a nice plate of pasta and a desert served to me. It was then when I decided to check my boarding pass… and realized that the departure time on my boarding pass was entirely different than the time we got in the confirmation e-mail, which Melanie checked the night before. I wasn’t too worried about it, in fact at the time I thought it was just a typo. Regardless, I asked Melanie and Justen about it. They were surprised to see it, and thought the same thing as I. But once they checked their boardling passes they realized it said the same time as well. Out of concern, Justen and Melanie went to go check to see what time our plane did leave… 7:40 AM or 11AM.

After waiting in line to talk to a flight assistant for almost 45 minutes… our day was unfortunately ruined when she told us our flight in fact left at 7:40 AM, and the next flight for 3 people wasn’t until Friday evening, and would cost 100 pounds. Apparently, our flight was rescheduled.. and even though our confirmation e-mail, which only Melanie and I got, said our flight was at 11, we also got another rescheduling e-mail for 7 that morning… which was sent to us all the way back in January. I guess the reason I forgot about it was ive been on 10+ trips since then and its hard to keep track of them.. I only checked my confirmation e-mail. You would think they would send you an e-mail closer to the flight day to remind you right? Ohh well… it’s our fault and we had to pay for it… 100 pounds. But I refused to wait around at the airport for two and a half days. We started asking her about other flights to areas along the coast of Spain… and unfortunately, there weren’t any departing soon. Then I mentioned Madrid, and she said, luckily, that there was a flight leaving that evening at 7 for Madrid, and there were only 3 seats left. Perfect. So after paying 100 pounds for a boarding pass, we waited around the airport for nearly 10 hours. During that time we bought an all-day internet pass so we could cancel our hostel for the night, research a bus to get on- from Madrid to Barcelona, buy tickets, check our bank accounts, skype our parents, and possibly look into places to stay in Madrid. Let me tell you doing all of that was a hassel. Under the pressures of being stuck at an airport with little money and little sleep, we quickly realized how much this mistake was going to cost us. On top of the flight we missed, which we couldn’t be reimbursed for, we had to pay for a new flight, a bus from Madrid to Barcelona- which we found out later required a bus to get to the bus to take you Barecelona. Then once we got to Barcelona, we would have to take the metro to our hostel, then walk for an hour before we would finally get to our hostel. The whole process… in the end, was over a day and a half of travelling… trains, metros, buses, and planes, and a whole lot of money in tickets for them.

So lets back up… even though it kills to think about. At the airport, I slept a little, read a little, ate a little, and pretty much did a little of everything. I was SO bored. When going through customs, I got my face wash confiscated because it was more than 3 oz. As if my day wasn’t already bad. The plane ride wasn’t that bad… I mean, ive been on a plane with Ryan Air before, and it was pretty much the same as the rest. I was just glad to get out of that god forsaken airport… not that I wanted to deperately leave London or anything… but I was sick of sitting around waiting. But that was only the beginning…

When we arrived to Madrid.. quite possibly the biggest airport ive ever been in in my life. In My Life. We had trouble, of course, finding the bus to take us to Barcelona. When we asked the staff for a bus to Barcelona, which was about 8 hours away, they almost laughed at us. Due to the fact that we were the only ones around and it was 11 at night.. they thought we were crazy. There was one lady, however, that would help us out. She directed us to both a metro and a bus line that we could get on to take us to a bus station that would get us to Barcelona… so we followed her directions.. and after walking through the Madrid airport for nearly 20 minutes we tried to get on the metro, which closed 7 minutes prior, of course. Then, when we went back to get on a bus.. we missed it by 5 minutes, no lie. So we had to sit around and wait for the next bus to get on. At this point, I don’t remember how long we waited… ive been on so many buses and trains I cant tell you how we managed to get tickets and even get on the right bus… but we eventually did, and we eventually got to the bus station. Okay.

So the long bus ride from Madrid to Barcelona was of course the most uncomfortable bus ride you could imagine… we were stuck on a bus with foreigners, and we stopped every 2-3 hours I don’t know. I think we were the only ones who spoke english. The plus side to the trip to Barcelona was that I got a seat to myself… and so I managed to sleep most of the time. Long story short, the bus ride cost 28 euors. 28 euros we didn’t have to pay if we would have double checked our boarding passes. As you can tell, im still not over this mistake. Ohh well… everyone makes mistakes.