Days 10 and 11

Day 10 was a bit of a disaster. We got up super early to go to the airport. We filled up the rental car at the gas station, and unfortunately discovered - after we filled the tank - that their credit card machine wasn´t working. No problem, the lady said. Use the ATM. Well, the lines that were down for the credit card machine were also down for the ATM. We didn´t have enough cash to pay. So we got back in our car and started searching for another ATM machine. The first one we found was also down, and then we got a bit lost. But finally, we found another machine, got money, drove back to the gas station and gave it to her.



We got to the airport only 2.5 hours before our flight to Madrid, which made us a little nervous. We waited in a 30 minute long line to return our rental car without being served. Finally we just handed the keys to someone and left. Then we got to the airport, and discovered the line for our flight, which we waited in for more than an hour before being able to check in. (3 counters for three flights, all big ones leaving at 8 a.m. Oops.) But we checked in, our bags got on the plane, and we also got on the plane with plenty of time to spare.

Unfortunately, the plane wasn't ready to go. We waited and waited on the runway, finally departing a good hour after our original departure time. This wreaked havoc on our schedule: we were going to be left with about 15/20 minutes to connect to our international flight. When we landed in Madrid, we broke into a dead sprint, especially after noticing a sign that said our terminal was 25 mintues away. We felt very Amazing Race like. I was wearing sneakers, so I was all set, and though Matt had on flip flops, he was quite the trooper. We arrived at the gate as they were doing final call. The plane was to leave five minutes later. We were so excited... until they said that our luggage didn't get there in time, and they wouldn't let us fly without our baggage. We argued for a few minutes, but saw it was going nowhere. So we settled in at the customer service counter, discovering that we wouldn't be able to leave until a day later. Better people than us might have taken the opportunity to explore Madrid. Not us. We were exhausted, crashed in our Iberia-Air-provided-hotel, ate our Iberia-Air-provided-dinner, and generally did nothing.

We woke up the next morning and the trip was much more uneventful. We checked in without a hitch. We wandered the duty free store, had some coffee (Matt finally found iced coffee!) and chatted with a few of our new friends, many who had the same baggage problem as we did. We boarded our on time flight and after eight and a half hours, we were back on the ground to Chicago.

So: We are home, for real!