A Bag Full of Shoes

I just experienced the most difficult day of my life.

Being stuck in an airport sucks. But being stuck in an airport with no organization, no outgoing flights, thousands of screaming Spaniards, and no bags for 24 hours brings it to a whole different level.

After arriving in Madrid at 8am Friday via my 8 hour flight from Chicago, we (myself and the 11 other Mizzou students in the program) were expecting to have a short layover before my final leg to Alicante. We had no idea what was really in store for us. After 5 hours of delaying our flight, the airport decided to cancel it, and completely shut down. Then an announcement comes on saying for everyone (uh huh, EVERYONE in the airport) to go get their bags in the baggage claim. At first, one carousel was being used. For the entire terminal. When we ventured down to the mayhem, I found one of my bags in the middle of the floor. Just sitting there, waiting to be taken. Seriously? WTF? How are they gonna take my bag and just throw it somewhere? Well, they took a bunch of people's bags and threw them everywhere. Frantic crowds of stranded passengers then went digging through to find their luggage. I guess I was lucky some idiot put my bag in the middle of the airport, because it's the only bag I have as of this moment, and only one other girl from my group has a bag. After waiting on the floor for 5 hours for the bags that would never come, we decided we had to do something to get out as soon as possible, and that something was not continue sitting and listening to the tool-bag security guy telling us that our bags were on their way.

This was the lowest display of humanity I've ever seen. People were screaming, chanting, arguing, crying, running, pushing. We were treated like cattle, and everyone acted like animals. After cancelling everyone's flight every one needed, well, a new flight. This meant lines of people wrapped around the airport, sometimes thousands of people in line for one customer service counter. No joke. Since I actually had a bag to check, I was fortunate enough to go to the much-shorter baggage check line and managed to swing a ticket to match my newly checked baggage. Then the other girl with her bag, Bryn, and I went to find the others from our party and tell them the new scheme: bypass the lines and just go to the checked-bag counter. We got everyone out of the lines and they followed through with the plan. Bryn and I, however, had hotel stamps on our boarding passes, meaning that somehow we had managed to get a free nights stay in a hotel without waiting in line too long. Iberia was handing them out, but that was part of the reason the lines were so ridiculous.

We left and told the others that worst case scenario, we'll see them on our 8am flight the next morning (we all managed to get on the same flight). Well, by this point it was 1:30 am. After waiting in line for 20 minutes for the shuttle to the free hotel, I had a sense that we had made a mistake. Oh, if only I had turned around then and settled on sleeping in the terminal.
The ride was 25 minutes. The hotel lobby (and it was more like an inn) was filled with pushing and shoving people in our exact situation. Passport. Broken Spanish. Why'd you cut me in line? It gets to be 3 am and I am walking up 8 flights of stairs to our room. The key card doesn't work. No. Joke. Back down 8 flights. "Señor, no abre la tarjeta." His face says "you idiot American" his hand gestures how to use a key card (oh thanks, I didn't know), his mouth says Spanish nonsense that I certainly cannot understand. People laugh at me and he re-issues me the key. Eight more flights. One more swipe. Collapse in the hallway outside my locked hotel room floor. Worst day ever, I say. Worst day ever, Bryn says. I have to get a drink because I'm so tired hungry and dehydrated I feel like I am going to pass out. I go down to the restaurant next door and they are closing. I ask politely for a glass of water, even though I know you're closed and you hate me. They laugh at me. Five minutes later I slam down a glass of water and leave.

My whole floor ends up downstairs saying the key cards don't work. What now, puta? So, as he is incapable of fixing it himself, he calls a locksmith. A locksmith. At 3 am. For a keycard door. Bryn and I gather our stuff, place the faulty key on the front desk and leave. "Necesitamos salir. Adios."

Hail a taxi. The shuttle wasn't coming to pick us up until 5am, and at 3:30, it was too long for us to wait at that point. We were miserable. Well, 28 euros and 15 minutes later, we're back where we started, among the lines of thousands of stranded people. We look for our bags again at 3:45 before going through the securtiy checkpoint for the fifth time that day to get to our terminal so we can sleep. The rest of our group is there. "I thought you were staying in a hotel," I hear. "I thought so too," I say and walk to the bathroom with my toothbrush without looking.

I push two rows of connected chairs together to make a quasi, plastic sofa bed with armrests poking through the middle. I curl my body around them, set my alarm for 6 am, and go to sleep for two hours, ending my streak of 39 consecutive hours awake.

I wake up, in the clothes I put on Thursday morning, to trash cans being emptied, flourescent lights, and that damn "bing, bing BING!" followed by Spanish rambling about not leaving your bags unguarded. Are you shitting me? We are elated to find that our flight is only delayed 20 minutes. By 8:30 we start boarding. By 9am I am asleep on the plane. By 10 our plane gets to the front of the line to get de-iced. Shortly after we take off, and an hour later we are in Alicante.
We all foolishly go to the baggage claim, knowing damn well that our bags would not be there. After several cycles of watching the same empty conveyer belt, we sit in line to fill out lost bag forms. Almost two hours, it takes. Finally I get my description in and get a piece of paper with a number on it in return. Spaniard makes comment about how maybe we should go back to America if we want to "be like that," and I dip outta there.

We're in the hotel now in Alicante, and we move into our host families' homes tomorrow. Class starts Monday morning. We have no cell phones, no idea of how to navigate through the city, no specifics on anything, no clothes. But I feel lucky, because at least I have one bag. Full of shoes.