Valencia, Some Things Never Change

When I arrived in Spain I thought everything would go as planned.

I arrived at Los Angeles Airport at 5 p.m. May 29, with the intention of leaving at 8 p.m., but my flight was delayed by almost four hours and it didn't take off till 10:45 p.m.

Throughout the eleven hour flight to Madrid on Norwegian Airlines, I wasn’t offered complementary snacks or drinks. I was offered a restroom, a tinted window and a seat that felt like I could only reclined a foot back. By the time the plane landed in Madrid Airport it was already 6:15 p.m. May 30, which meant that I would have to rush to my 6:40 p.m. train.

When I grabbed my bulky luggage at the carousel I asked a man who seemed like an airport employee to point me in the direction of the metro. Sadly, it was on the opposite side of the airport and at one point it felt like I was running a marathon.

When I arrived at the airport metro station, I then asked two metro guides for help because I needed to purchase a ticket to get to the Atocha Train Station, which would then take me to the Sorolla Train Station in Valencia.

During this adventure I was carrying a backpack that weighed 15 pounds and a Samsonite four wheel suitcase that weighed 53 pounds.

It took me about two and a half hours to get from Madrid Airport to Atocha Train Station, which for some locals would only take 30 minutes. I took metro eight and stopped at Nuevo Ministerios, then took metro number 10 and made a stop at Plaza de Castilla to finally take metro number one to end at Atocha Station. At this point I was exhausted from hauling my massive luggage from one place to another, if felt like my arms were going to pop out of their socket.

It was now 8:24 p.m. and it took three people to tell me that my ticket was not refundable or changeable because it was a “promo” ticket.

“Crap! I knew this was going happen!” I said out load in a rage, but silent enough where the echos wouldn’t bring me too much attention.

It was now 8:40 p.m. and at this point I had given up on the idea of getting a refund on the ticket. I thought , “Screw it, I’ll just have to buy another ticket. So much for buying the ticket early.” I was upset that I had spent $106 on a ticket that I didn’t even use and annoyed that I still had to find my way to Valencia, somehow.

I went back and forth from one end of the train station to the other, trying to figure out where to buy another ticket to Sorolla train station in Valencia. I finally found the location of where to purchase another train ticket. I went up to the ticket desk and asked

“Hola, pudo compar un boleto para Valencia?”

The man who was at the desk said,

“Tejame ver, yo creo que todos estan llenos.”

At that moment I was on the verge to have a full-blown panic attack. I was on the borderline. I prayed to God and thought, “please God don’t let it be full.”

“Disculpa, pero todos estan llenos.”

The feeling I got was like the feeling people get when thier boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with them for the first time, with no explanation. The horrible emptiness you get in your stomach when you ride a rollercoaster or when you jump on a trampoline.

But still, I didn’t lose hope. I thought, “Maybe if I get help from someone else, I’ll have better luck.”

As I approached the woman, I had a little hope that she’ll find me a ticket.

“Hola, sera que todos los trenes para Valencia están llenos” I asked her with a shaky voice.

“Yo cero, tejame ver,” she said calmly.

I thought, “Please God let there be seats available.”

“No ay nada, tenias que esperar asta mañana para tomar el tren,” she said.

It was 8:45 p.m. and when she told me that, my face went yellow and I felt like an self-serve ice cream melting down a child’s arm on a summer day. I had no cell service or wifi, I was caring around my fat luggage, my back was drenched in sweat while I carried around my massive backpack and I was in a country I had never been in before with third grade level Spanish reading skills. I felt the warmth of tears rushing out of my eyes and took off my glasses so they wouldn’t be caught is the rim.

She looked at me with a worried face, like when a toddler falls on the floor while learning how to walk and wondering if they’re okay or not.

“Esperate, vamos a ver si ay autobuses,” she said with hope.

“Ay uno que se va a la una de la madugrada, pero tienes que ir a otra estasion que es una parada de aqui.”

As she told me that, my marinating tears simmered in my eyes and I looked at her thinking, “Can you take me there? Because I don’t know anything and feel hopeless.”

“Eso es lo unico que puedes a ser. Esperar asta manana o tomar el bus a la una. No ay otra solucion.” she said.

I looked at her with confusion and said, “Esta bien, como se llega allí?”

She gave me verbal directions at first and then for my sake, I told her to write it on a piece of paper so I wouldn't forget and get lost. She wrote the directions and told me verbaly a second time.

As she was reading the directions to me, I tried to comprehend her Spanish. It felt like she was speaking a forign langauge to me. I took the little piece paper from her hand and told her thank you and walked my way through the Atocha Tain Station once again, passing the botanical garden that was in the middle of the station for the forth time.

I saw a police officer and asked him where I could purchase a ticket to the station that was written on the paper. He pointed to the ticket machines and said,

“Cualquier rojo puedes usar.”

I walked to the ticket machine confused, worried, anxious and scared. Again for the twelfth time I asked someone for help. The man was sweet, helpful and polite. He helped me purchase my second ticket to a train station. His energy was calm and in that moment it was exactly what I needed.

He introduced himself as Alonso. He was a local and had been living in Spain all his life. During the the train ride, Alonso told me to not worry and that I was going to be okay. As we were talking he guided me through the train station I was going to get off at. He told me how to get to the bus ticket booths and in what direction to go in.

As we approached the stop, he helped me with my luggage, which at this point felt like a 50 pound dumbbell underwater, told me that it was nice to meet me and hopefully we’d meet again in the future.

When I got off the train I walked towards the direction he pointed in. As he walked inside the train I was walking along side him on waving goodbye on the sidewalk and wording out “gracias” even though he couldn’t hear me.

I made my way around the station, going in the wrong way once, missing a level and approching a dead end. I figured out shortly after that I was going the wrong way and road up the escelator one more level. I approached a desk that seemed like a ticket booth.

“Adonde puedo comprar un boleto para Valenica,” I asked the clerk at the glass covered desk.

He looked at me with a smile and said,

“Aqui!”

“Perfecto!” I told him relieved.

“El único bus que tengo para Valencia es a la una,” he told me.

“No ay otro,” I asked him, knowing that there were no earlier buses.

“No,” he told me with confidence.

“Esta bien,” I told him not having any other option.

It was now 9:10 p.m. and I had purchased my ticket for 1 a.m. on May 31. Even though I had purchase my certainty, my anxity was still stressing me out. I felt like the bus was going to leave me and I would be stuck in Madrid forever. As I made my way to the bus stop, I decided to try relax on the cold dirty gray tiled floor. Somehow I was able to contact my family and let them know I was okay.

While I waited for the bus, I bought salad and an AriZona Green Tea. Unfortunately, the salad had tuna, I hate tuna. I didn’t realize that the “Mediterranean Salad” came with tuna. Somehow, I made myself eat half of salad, since I had not eaten anything in almost 14 hours.

There I was sitting in a corner of bus terminal six, disappointed that I couldn’t enjoy my salad, disgusted by my smelly clothes and exhausted of caring almost 70 pounds of luggage all over Madrid.

By the time it was 1:02 a.m. the bus was on it’s way to Valencia. As it traveled through Madrid I noticed the abundance of Burger Kings’ around the area and clean roads that had no evidence of trash.

At around 5:25 a.m. the bus arrived at the main bus station in Valencia. There was a taxi cab waiting for me there holding a white piece of paper that read, Emily Curiel, but I couldn’t even read the paper, since it was written in pen. I felt so relieved to finally be in Valencia even though it took me a day and a half to get there.

As the the taxi cab drove around the city, the streets reminded me of a scene in one of the Harry Potter movies; small, narrow, clean, a one way direction and of course they were empty, since it was 5:30 a.m. I thought to myself, “I can’t believe I made it to Valencia, I can’t believe I’m here. Finally!”

I didn’t go to sleep till 7 a.m., thinking about everything I had gone through in the past 19 hours. I took every type of transportation in a single day, asked at least 20 people help and somehow I made my way through.

I woke up almost eight hours later, still tired and worried that my class had already started, but my roommate reassured me that class wouldn’t start till Monday. Later in the day, our whole class that came on the same trip, went out for dinner. We had Tapas, Bravas and Aqua de Valencia. We sat by a busy street that was thriving with people, cars, motorcyclist and bicyclist.

By 9:30 p.m. the sun was on its way down and the sidewalks were beginning to crowed. I noticed that Spaniards smoke a lot, drink a lot and don’t really say “excuse me” as they pass you by. They’re very blunt and have a different ways of speaking than I am use to, since my dad is Mexican and my mom is Guatemalan, we have different customs and ways of communitcating.

As I went to sleep that night I thought about the day I got lost in Tijuana, Mexico when I was a little girl. Somehow, I found my way back home. Funny how some things never change.