As I sit here and reflect on my time in Spain, I have nothing but gratuity for my experiences.
Hectic?
More so than you could possibly imagine.
The number of times I had a flight cancelled on me requires two hands to count. The hours spent strictly on getting back after the news of the travel ban hit were greater than 48 hours straight. I thought the Sweden issue would hold the title of "most significant close call" for at least a couple years... guess not.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself here! Lets talk about the fun!
5:30 Friday morning and I'm outside Enrique's house. We take the rail into hauptbahnhof, bus to the airport, and it's Madrid here we come. Once we land, I part my ways with the rest of the group and meet up with some long-time friends from home. Three of my best friends from middle and high school, John Paul and Matthew, were having themselves a semester abroad as well, so there was no question about it when it came to me visiting them.
The following day my roommate Jonas was landing. Paul and I are up bright and early to go get him, and we are back at the apartment. Jonas was having some difficulty when it came to adjusting his sleep schedule, but we made sure to get that fixed right away the only way we know how...
By partying at a 7-story club until 4:30 in the morning!
Definitely the most intense night life experience I've had so far. Loved it! Unfortunately not all of us had as great of a time. Katrina got pick pocketed at some point on the dance floor, and it is quite dangerous to be without a phone in a foreign country where you are even further removed from your professors who would be able to help you. So the next day we spent getting the phone situation worked out. The real exploring of Madrid came on Monday, when Jonas and I made it out to El Parque Retiro, El Museo del Prado, and a few other big landmarks! Plenty of pictures I'm sure you can imagine.
Funny side story here:
One of my favorite things about Europe were the tremendous discounts to flat out free tickets when it came to student museum admission. One of my not-so favorite things about Europe? My roommate forgetting his TAMU ID in the United States... Nice.
So surely enough, being the problem-solving engineers we are, we formulate a solution: I would use my international student ID card that I received in the mail prior to coming to Europe, and Jonas would use MY university identification. Fool proof, I know. Don't you think we just look exactly alike???
So I'm up first. I walk up, hand her my ID, and there she is asking for my drivers liscense to cross examine... uh oh. That's not good.
We continue on with our plan anyways because what have we got to lose, right?
Apparently nothing at all. She gave him a funny look for sure, but no euros were spent on the admission of these fellas!
That night we hopped on a train bound for Sevilla. We would be taking the remainder of our day trips from that location as it proved the perfect spot to hit Granada and Cordoba from. We pull in around midnight and we don't take very long at all to get to bed as we'v got a 3 hour ride to Granada the very next morning. We would be on our way to check out the Alhambra and all of its beautiful architecture. Now I definitely do not recommend doing this, but funny story: forgot to buy the tickets till the night before... and it didn't cause any issues! woohoo!
We spend our day touring the Alhambra Palace with a guided tour where we were able to learn all about the history of the city. Very interesting information! Did you know the Alhambra was completely self-sustaining? No need for anything in or out.
After a long day walking around in the heat, we are ready to hit the hay for an even earlier morning the next day! Of course our train to Cordoba never even came in the first place, so waking up as early as we did was completely unnecessary. We hopped on the next one in the same direction though so it ended up being no big deal.
Cordoba was my favorite by a lot. So much to do in so little time!... But we always pull it off. We made it to roughly 15 different landmarks across the full day, ranging from delicious eateries to more wondrous monuments! Check some out below...
For lunch, we got to taste some bull tail, a local specialty! Very tasty I might add. In addition to that though, I tried swordfish for the first time! Best dang piece of fish I EVER had.
My favorite spot was definitely the Royal Palace of Alcazar! It was a huge garden with some of the most beautiful landscaping work I have ever seen. True art where nature and humanity collide!
We finished off the day with a few drinks at a nice little bar, and then got a few dozen more when we made it back to Sevilla for the night! Thank goodness we wouldn't have to be waking up early again tomorrow. Would've preferred that to what we DID wake to however...
Lockdown. Overnight, Trump issues a travel ban for all US citizens to Europe, and now TAMU is finally taking the blade to our program abroad. In the blink of an eye, the entire world is collapsing in front of me and I'm nothing but heart broken. Why in the world is it that when I decide to spend a semester abroad, it just so happens that this is also the semester that a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic breaks out and literally everything comes to a standstill?
Oh well. What are you gonna do about it, ya know? We get ourselves out of bed and make our way to a nice ceviche bar for some breakfast. I'l have you know, ceviche is probably my favorite dish, and this place did NOT disappoint. Literally ordered one to go even after I was already full just because it'd be my last opportunity to do so.
We then spent the next two days exploring our beautiful temporary home. Making it out to Plaza Espana, another beautiful Alcazar Palace with more beautiful gardens, an enormous park to relax through the afternoon in, and plenty more. An electrifying trip coming to a close.
Told y'all I'd be coming in hot with the photos for this one! Favorite destination in Sevilla was of course Plaza Espana A.K.A. the Star Wars city of Theed! After spending 2 days straight familiarizing myself with the legendary films before coming to Europe, this palace became all the more exciting.
At the end of the day, we hopped on a train back to Madrid to meet up with my buddies one last time before heading back to the US. We had a fun night of kicking back and socializing non-distantly with one another one last time before it became outlawed. The city of Madrid would be placed on lockdown the following day, with nothing open but grocery stores and pharmaceuticals. Jonas was up for a 6 am flight and I had one last day with my guys before it was time for me to find the door as well.
As soon as the sun was up, I was dealing with travel issues. Tickets are cancelling, borders are closing, and my parents are losing their heads. Halfway through the day my friends and I make our way out to Retiro Park to try and unwind a little, but alas: closed. With nothing to do but sit at the apartment and worry about if we were going to be able to make it out of Spain in time, that's exactly what we did.
John's dad was there with us as he was visiting John when the whole situation began to unwind which really helped in taking some of the stress out of the situation... temporarily that is. Sunday morning comes and they're "wheels up" by 9... My morning flight got cancelled and rescheduled for that afternoon... 5 separate times. I'll tell you what. Nothing will have you on your knees praying for some divine intervention like this will. I spent my whole day at the Madrid airport where the only available food was from a vending machine.
Anyway, well I finally get out of there and am on my way to connecting in Munich. My flight from there to Bonn obviously had to be rescheduled after all the previous delays (due to a passenger present with symptoms might I add), and funny enough, it put me on the same flight as Enrique. So we grab a beer at the airport as a celebratory "at least we are in Germany" drink, and then we wait.
We don't get to the airport till roughly 1 am, and we literally have to sprint off the plane to catch the bus to Bonn in time... We clutched it, don't worry.
Coming back to Bonn was one of the saddest events I have had to experience. I knew I was going to be devastated when I would have to leave... never would have predicted this though. Hurts my heart to think of all the experiences this group was going to get to enjoy and grow through together that will not be taking place. The hardest hitting part is never getting my last ride over the gorgeous Rhine river.
That being said, I am so very grateful for the time I did get to spend with my newly made friends, and these are going to be some of my strongest memories through my life.
That night was spent in the apartments above our old AIB classrooms, and I have to say: it was very nice being able to see this building, where so much of our time abroad was spent, just one last time.
The next morning we are bused off to Frankfurt to be shipped back to the United States. Initially I wouldn't have even been leaving until the next day, but after my Tuesday flight had been cancelled, my parents and I decided to take it as a sign. Katrina and I were on the same flight back, and all was smooth sailing except for one tiny issue: We had exactly an hour to transfer flights in Atlanta... while also making it through the "advanced health screening" process.
So surely enough, we bust some booty making it through security, and just before we are all the way through... boom.
My bag gets stopped.
What in the world could possibly be in there...
Oh yeah. Maybe it's that Hennessy I bought at the Frankfurt duty free... oops.
All ends well and we run into Jackie and Carlie at the gate! So very nice to see some familiar faces!
Once we are finally back in Houston, of course fate felt it needed to cut me short just one last time: one of my bags didn't make it on the plane. Seriously. After 2 1/2 days straight of airports and train stations, I'm just ready to find a bed. I get them to agree to dropping off my luggage at the Tiki Island house my friends and I would be quarantining at, and then the guys grab me from the airport. I say my goodbyes to the girls and then it's off to the new hip lifestyle of not seeing anyone other than those of the same household for 3 months straight.
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