Perdida

Our travels to Spain began with a bit of rocky start thanks to good-ole Gustav, that wonderful little Hurricane/Tropical Storm.  After sitting in the Memphis International Airport for about 4 hours, and nearly missing our plane, we finally were on our way to Chicago packed like sardines in a tiny, crusty plane flying through Monsoon Gustav.  Our model airplane weathered the storm pretty well, but unfortunately we missed our connecting flight.  And as a consequence running barefoot through the Chicago-O'Hare Airport has become a great talent of mine...yes, I did say barefoot.  Before leaving for Spain, I purchased, what I thought, were the essential Spain walking shoes made by Clarks...needless to say I spent a good deal of money one them.  But after a few sprints, I soon realized they were drawing blood...you know a shoe is rubbish when you have pools of blood in the heels of your shoes.  So my only viable option was to run barefoot, yes, I know...I got many, many looks, but surprisingly enough, I was never asked to put my shoes on.  And even more surprising than that...my feet weren't that dirty, so thumbs up to the O'Hare environmental services department...my feet are a testament to a job well done!  After running from counter to counter and tram to tram we finally made our fabulous British Airways flight to London....highly recommend flying British Air...the only way to fly...wink, wink..."why yes, I would like an upgrade to first class for that shameless plug, thank you."  Made it to London, and had to sit on the floor in the dank section of the fabulous Heathrow Airport, where apparently they haven't shampooed the gum-caked carpets in about twenty some-odd years.  Hopped on the plane to Madrid, flew a couple of hours crammed in between two men who wreaked of cologne, little did I know this was my first introduction to the smells of Europe.  Finally arrived in Madrid...we arrived, as in Carie and Nancy...our luggage, well that's something else altogether.  After watching a plastic bag circle the near empty luggage claim ramp, we soon realized that our luggage hadn't made it and no matter how long we stood there and waited, those bags weren't going to magically appear.  So we stayed in Madrid for a couple days with the hopes that our luggage would come...wearing dirty, dirty clothing. We finally had to break down and buy some clothes.  We got three of our bags back the morning we left for Sevilla, and Carie's poor bag didn't come for another week.  Try to avoid Iberian Air...not soo good.  They are definitely not British Air!  Never-the-less, we are currently living and loving Spain!