The Rain in Spain

The Rain in Spain

A thought popped into my head while flying out of Spain on Sunday: That if it were raining – but it wasn't on my last day there – said rain would not land mainly on any plane. This is because, looking out of the little oval window, you can see white peaks of snowy mountains with steep slopes and deep valleys or earth-toned hills dotted with brick-orange Spanish houses, so amongst the land that is Spain, there not at all that much plane. The sun was rising, and the beautiful panorama embodied my feeling of gratefulness for a perfect week in such a cliché way that I had to scoff at these thoughts smiling. The journey there had been the antithesis of this amazing good-bye to this Iberian land

Friday of last week, everyone was leaving to spend Spring Break in places like Italy, Greece, or France. The AIB was filled with eager doctors and engineers ready to eat up Europe in handfuls, going to as many as nine different popular cities in the nine days that made up our vacation time. I however, would leave on Sunday. I said my good byes to the group after class, wishing them my best, and then I went home to wait for my turn to travel in two days time. The weekend in Bonn was one of the most fun, however, knowing that on Monday, a torturous systems & signals class didn’t wait for me, but some paeya and a sangria. Friday and Saturday went by quickly, and Sunday morning was the start of an unforgettable 'adventure'. Tania and I booked our flights to Barcelona with Ryan Air – the cheapest airline known to Europe. To Barcelona and back for 60 Euros. But, to misquote Uncle Ben, with great savings comes great frustration. Having left the house running to catch the bus, Tania and I forgot to check in to the flight, so when we got to the Ryan-Air booth we were surprised with an technically-on-time-but-still-considered-late check-in fee that doubled the price of the whole flight. Fine, we paid it. A 130 euro round trip flight is still pretty cheap. Walking away from the booth, we muttered about how we should have checked in earlier, how we couldn't have known, that retrospective sight is always 20-20 etc, we were naive to think that the worst was behind us. After going through airport security, we boarded our plane half an hour early. And the plane separated from the terminal and rolled for a while down the runway. Inside, we were excited to take off and begin our spring break. But queue the pilot in a mumbled voice, “We are having some technical difficulties with the aircraft... [mumble mumble]... sit tight [mumble]... engineer to take a look [mumble mumble]... it won't take long...[mumbled German]... thank you.” Looking at Tania, I told myself that the situation was not that bad, and that we'd be in Spain in no-time. After an hour of waiting, the pilot makes an announcement again. The engineer never showed up but he has reset the system and everything seems to be okay; we will take off soon. Pushing aside thoughts of the dangers of flying in a faulty plane, I kept high hopes of finally starting the trip. Nope! seems it was a joke because an hour after that we were still in the grounded airplane, and then the noise of the air conditioning stopped, signaling the beginning of a new kind of torture. The pilot's voice once more sounded through the plane's crackling speakers; he let us know that we would be brought back to the terminal to get on another plane that was being brought either from Ireland or Finland (I couldn't tell). But still, the plain remained unmoving. Having Tania next to me was the only thing that kept me sane, even if to the people around us we looked like escaped mental patients - making outlandish noises and speaking mixed English, German, and Spanish to keep ourselves entertained. Another hour passed before we were allowed back in the terminal. I was still wearing a smile, knowing that we would complain and at the very least get our 'late check-in' charge refunded. Like a bad joke, as we entered the terminal a man handed us a 5 Euro voucher to be used inside the airport. Really?! 5 Euros? for 5 hours inside a cage with wings and no air conditioning? I stopped smiling and directed myself to the Ryan-air counter. We were told that we would be allowed to skip security on our way back to the terminal; knowing that to be a lie made me more upset. And to break the camel's back, we found nobody at the counter. The whole of the Ryan-air staff had gone home. We called the service number, and nobody answered, but a machine asking to call again tomorrow, during business hours. I let out my anger on a Bonn-Koln airport employee who sincerely did not deserve it, arguing with him that the airport itself should not let things like this happen on its grounds. The excuse that everyone seemed to give me, that Ryan-air was cheap, so I should not expect more from them had gotten old long before this poor employee mentioned the words. I exploded my frustration on him, and even after he apologized, I would say that it wasn't alright. Tania pulled me away and giggled, knowing it is a rare thing to see me angry at all. We hadn't eaten since  before we chased down the bus at 11am and it was now 5pm. We found a Maredo stake house without thinking of touching the filthy 5 euro bribe. I wanted to buy Tania something good to eat, and get myself a beer to calm down. After the waitress took our order and brought me a beer, and we got a salad we noticed that we might have to skip desert because our new plane was scheduled for 630, and we didn't want to be late for boarding since there was a possibility of not sitting together anymore. After our salads, an hour passed before we heard from our waitress again. She had forgotten to put in the order. We left still empty-stomached, for our gate. We had guessed that we needed to pass through security again, but when we got to the ticket check at the start of security and presented our ticket stubs - since the tickets had been torn when we entered our faulty plane 5 hours before - we were told that we couldnt pass. We were exhausted. We asked the guy at the info booth, who we now knew by name, to see what he could do, and after a phone call, he got us across the ticket-checking part of security. When we got to our terminal again, worried that we might be late for boarding, we found that the plane was not even there. Only after another hour did we get to board (730pm) and take off to Barcelona.

Ive written enough for this blog already, so I might finish the story of my awesome spring break with my girlfriend Tania on the next one.

Tschööö...!