It Shouldn't be this hard!

As soon as the whoosh of the double doors closed behind me the realisation hit that following the red ‘A’ channel was the wrong option. The placard telling me to take the green ‘B’ channel flashed into my mind and I questioned my stupid decision to follow a guy off my flight that quite obviously didn’t have a bag to collect from the baggage carousel. Staring back at the heavily marked impassable glass doors, the few meters distance that was between me and where I should be seemed endless – and impossible. I lugged my feet down a long staircase dismally eying the security exit that I certainly shouldn’t be passing through without my suitcase. As I bleakly sought out some help I felt reassured that I wasn’t the only passenger to make this mistake, but duly noted that the young Chinese girl waking around aimlessly was more likely to face problems like this. That said there was me standing next to her, lost and alone. I actually felt succumbed to ask her if she knew how to get to our bags, but that only highlighted to myself just how dumb I was, I could only imagine the smile that would cross anyone’s face should I tell them I was a flight attendant – lost in an airport, it was more than laughable. The prospect of getting my bag back seemed dismal in this unfamiliar airport faced with a language I can’t even utter the word hello in.

Some 10 minutes later and a lot of walking I had somehow managed to get back into the green ‘B’ terminal and through security. Unbelievably my bag popped out onto the conveyor belt at the precise moment my feet landed me in the exact place to reach out and grab my bag. I smiled to myself knowing I hadn’t lost any time, and now exhausted I headed off towards the `Tren´ to Start the next part of my journey. Now being 10.30pm the air wasn’t stifling, not like when I landed in Singapore and felt overwhelmed by the humidity, but it was noticeably warm, and I hoped that the walk to the train wasn’t painfully long, although it was looking that way. I pulled out my notebook where I had scribbled Luis’ details of where to go, but the words didn’t seem to match up with any of those on the foreign ticket machine. For the first time ever I empathised with foreigners in London that hold up busy queues with their lack of Basic English. I usually think how bloody annoying until now at this exact moment I find myself in the same vulnerable position being utterly useless. It doesn’t help that here in Barcelona people are proud of their language and culture, unlike Asia where they try much harder than they should do to accommodate us lazy westerners who are more than unwilling to embrace local languages! Interrupting my train of thoughts and with a now frustrated queue behind me a saviour stepped in to help, and swiftly pressed the correct buttons, selecting my destination. I was relieved to see 2.40 Euros flash up onto the screen which was a hell of a lot less than the 19.70 Euros I had mustered up. Trying to force my shiny plastic card into the reader whilst nearly snapping it into two, my balding overweight Spanish friend quickly pointed out that the machine only takes cash. I laughed nervously as I enquired as to where the nearest cash machine was, and visibly cringed as the word ‘terminal’ spilled from his lips. My mind urged the kind gentleman to offer to pay the 2.40 Euros I needed. I willed and willed him with a helpless look in my eyes but our language barrier seemed to extend to a body language barrier as he failed to pick up on my damsel in distress display.

My mind wandered back to the red zone ‘A’, and that poor clueless Chinese girl I could have helped, but didn’t, and then I felt the slap of Karma hit me square between my toes as the divide on my flip flops dug aggressively in-between my pinkies as I huffily made my long journey back to the terminal. The first cash machine rejected me, but I was blessed with 5 in a row so when attempting cash machine 3 I finally realised that the 10 digit key pad was upside down, and my haste at inputting my pin number was not going to follow the familiar pattern I was accustomed to. I couldn’t logically understand why it was like that here, but given my first 30 minutes in Barcelona I reasoned that anything was possible and nothing was logical, at least that’s what I chose to believe as accepting that I was a useless traveller was not an option. I mean, how could I be? I spend half my life in countries where I don’t speak the language. I re entered the train station and saw that my saviour was still there. I shot him a familiar ‘aren’t I a dumb ass that’s finally got money’ smile, and although I now knew how to navigate around the machine to select my destination - in Spanish, I may add! He quickly came over to help me, again. I boarded the stationed train and to my surprise and relief there were other passengers from my flight that didn’t experience any airport dramas comfortably settling in, so again I hadn’t lost any time, just a whole load of energy that was now resulting in a huge ‘did that really just happen’ smile to spread across my face. Two stops later it was time to hop off which conflicted with the three stops I expected. Assuming I had lost count, I stood and eyed the station name, which did kind of resemble that of the place I had written down. Standing on the platform looking tirelessly lost, my stomach sank as the train pulled away, leaving me with no option but to hope I had made the right decision. I almost dropped my bag, which I was now secretly hoping had vanished in the airport. The heavy weight dug into my shoulder and I felt hesitant of how my lack of any logical planning had affected my journey so far, I hesitated just a moment longer than my confidence should of allowed then another friendly Spaniard came to my rescue; again not the deeply tanned hunk I was hoping would spice up my short trip, but this time a young girl. I recognised her as the person sat opposite me on the train with the noticeably cute boyfriend, but I hastily snapped myself out of that train of thought as she pointed me in the right direction in perfect English. Maybe my luck was finally changing; after all I was at the correct station. Feeling unduly proud of myself I eased through the next part of my journey only managing to drop my phone down a flight of stairs once, and completely guess which underground ticket type I should buy, but as the ticket opened up the exit gate in front of me I over ecstatically greeted my friend at his local station, and finally relaxed.