Cursed in Travel, Lucky in Friendship

Yesterday's ordeal began in Dulles airport after an on-time arrival of my flight from LAX to Washington. I was scheduled to fly out on United to Madrid at 5:40pm. At 5, the flight was delayed with a scheduled departure of 6:40pm. At 6, that was pushed back to 7:45. At 7:30, it was canceled.

Fortunately, most airports have these wonderful things called airport bars. I started at Moe's, just down from my gate, at 4pm, where I met Kelly, who was traveling on to Mallorca for business (quelle sacrifice!), and Sean, a Londoner headed home from business. Both nice but both quickly forgotten as I lugged my big backpack back up onto my shoulders and headed off to grab the flight.

Sitting in the terminal I comment on how the flight is an hour late, and this is where I meet José and Martha. They are both converted madrileños originally from Venezuela and D.C., respectively. Turns out they were on the same flight out on Wednesday, but they had to sit on the tarmac for four hours before the flight got canceled, they received accommodation vouchers for a hotel that was already booked, and they were just generally screwed. Waiting for the same flight (and, as rumor has it, the same plane) as yesterday, they were fearful that this delay indicated more serious troubles ahead.

Anyway, so off we troop back to the bar, myself, Kelly the business traveler, and José and Martha, the madrileños. Next up comes Ken, the university professor, who enters the bar and, upon learning that we are all waiting for the same flight, announces that it has now been delayed an additional hour, with scheduled departure at 7:45pm.

As I so cleverly foreshadowed earlier, the flight did not depart at 7:45pm, and most of us broke off to find some way to climb to the top of the pile of stranded travelers to get a flight out or at least a hotel room for the evening. Kelly and I partnered off and I channeled some of my grandmother's relentless enthusiasm for getting customer service reps to give you what you need, successfully securing passage on a flight to Frankfurt and then Madrid, leaving Dulles at 5:45pm today. What's more is the flight's on Lufthansa, which means better service and free alcohol--two points ahead for Lufthansa!

Our initial group of what have been affectionately dubbed "Dulles refugees" ended up on the same shuttle to the same fancy resort on the Potomac here in Virgina: Martha, José, Kelly, and myself. In addition we had another new auxiliar, Chris, and a former auxiliar now on his fourth year in Madrid, Lee. We six shared dinner, drinks, stories, and contact info until well after midnight, after presumably all having been up since some ungodly hour earlier that day to catch our previous flights. I know that not one of these individuals was actually Spanish, but every one of them was open, smart, funny, and a great blessing to be with when you're stuck in the kind of situation we were. And I think that, though they are not Spanish, the fact that they have (almost) all decided that Spain and Madrid, in particular, are where they want to be--well, it certainly says something pretty great about the city I'm moving to.

That is, if I ever get out of D.C.