After a series of odd problems with shoes, glasses, gift cards, traveler’s cheques, and cellphones during my last week in the States, I was hoping this random surge of bad luck would not jump on the plane and ride along in the seat next to me. Sure enough, it seems to have stayed home.

When my uncle dropped me off at the airport, there was only one person in the American Airlines check-in area. Being the chatty/social/often-too-nosy person that I am, I asked her where she was flying to. “Madrid,” she tells me. “No way! I’m going there, too! To study abroad?” “No, I go to school there.” “Ooh, I see. What school do you attend? I am just going abroad for the semester at this really small university that you’ve probably never heard of.” “I go to SLU, St. Louis University.” You’ve got to be kidding me. What are the chances of that? Good luck, here I come! Adios USA.

We hopped on the plane to Chicago and waited together for the 6 hour layover, taking turns watching each other’s bags so we could go to the bathroom without lugging them all into the tiny, “public bathroom”-clean stalls. I asked a million questions, per usual, and she gladly guided me in the right direction. I can’t even remember what I asked her, but it was really nice meeting someone who already knew the campus and the school.

I should add that we were transferring onto the SLU sponsored “group flight” to Madrid, so the gate quickly filled up with girls clad in Uggs and North Face jackets, squealing when they saw someone they hadn’t seen since before Break and chatting about matching leopard-print luggage sets or how heavy their bags were. It was like a giant, caddy slumber party. Ugh. I’m not sure what type of student I was expecting, but I was glad to hear the girl from SLU-Madrid assure me that these girls were the “home campus” girls that gave all the Americans visiting the school a bad reputation. “Trust me, not everyone at school is like this.”

With that steady streamline of advice in my head, I confidently boarded the plane to Madrid. She was sitting in a different section than I was, so I was on my own for the next 8 hours, hoping that I wouldn’t have to make conversation about Gucci bags or the legality of buying alcohol in Spain. Again, luck strikes.

While the other students harried the flight attendants about changing seats to be near a friend or to squish huge carry-ons into the overhead compartments, I found myself sitting in a window seat next to a hip, older woman. She was reading Angels and Demons (in Spanish) and, to complement her bleached-blonde hair, wearing a chic, checkered newsboy cap, black cargo pants and layered black tank tops with fringed seams all around–obviously a Spaniard. Phew. I whipped out the best Spanish I could and we talked on-and-off throughout the flight. There were times when neither of us understood the other and I did a lot of head-nodding, despite not knowing what the heck she was talking about, but it was good.

“Enjoy your stay. You’re going to love Madrid,” she told me time and time again. I could understand that much of it. I’m sure I sounded like a fool, mixing tenses and dangling modifiers here and there, blushing when I didn’t understand or realized that my pronunciation was confusing her; but at one point she went as far to comment that my “Spanish is very good.” If you say so...I’ll take that.

Adele then guided me through the (empty at 7am) newly-remodeled airport, flawlessly passing through Customs (the guy didn’t even look at me or ask a single question as he granted me entrance and stamped my passport) and retrieving our bags from these nifty conveyor belts that used some sort of sensor to detect if there was a bag in the way on the carousel before pushing the luggage onto it. Although they definitely looked like they had a long journey with their roughed-up fabric and dirty sides, my bags all arrived without any sign of being searched. (I was very worried about the needles and such setting off the detectors and I hardly was able to get the things closed, so I wouldn’t want to be the guy who has to try to put it all back together.) And the security in Philly was also uneventful with 13 bottles of liquid insulin and a host of electronics not causing any trouble, though my pump triggered the alarm and a “female assist” as usual.

Now the only other worry I had was finding my host family. Had I actually bought the group flight ticket (and paid about $400 more), I would have been guaranteed a seat on the bus from the airport to campus, where I’d meet my family. Instead, I was told that “if there was room” on the bus, I could come on, else I’d be left standing at the corner to wave down a cab that hopefully would cost less than the 30 Euros that I brought with me. Well, based on the theme of this post, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that my host dad was actually waiting for me (and two other girls I didn’t know at that point from the group flight) just outside of baggage claim. Wahoo!

I did the typical Spanish greeting of one kiss on each cheek (or maybe it’s supposed to be to the air–still not sure about that one yet) and the four of us wheeled over to the parking garage. Now let me paint the scene for you: one 4-door Saab sedan + 3 girls studying abroad for 4 months + their corresponding luggage (i.e. 4 big rolling suitcases, 3 duffle bags, 3 backpacks, 2 handbags) = slight problem.

Since the other girls either don’t speak Spanish at all or haven’t studied it for at least 4 year, I did my best to translate and figure out what was going on. My host dad was so nervous about meeting us that he initially lost his car in the parking garage, but I think he also realized this “equation” was not in his favor. “We’re going to have to get a cab for these extra bags,” he explained after only being able to fit 3 bags in the trunk (which you normally think of has holding the bulk of everything). “I want you all to come with me so I can show you around the city and we’ll have the bags meet us at the apartment.” That certainly sounded interesting and nothing short of quite complicated.

The three of us looked at each other questionably. None of us wanted to part with our luggage in such a sketchy way, but it wasn’t looking good. Well, we started handing him bags to fill the cab and he stacked three on top of each other in the middle backseat. “I’ll hold this in my lap and if we put this under our feet and that in the front seat…” We fit, though I couldn’t see anything but luggage or tell which direction he was pointing when he gave us the tour. Oh well. We survived, no thanks to that bad luck in the States. Hello Spain, here I come! I think I’m going to like it here!