The journey began at midnight last night when, to my horror, I realised my luggage was 5kg over the weight limit. With only 5 hours before I needed to be awake again to leave for the airport, some rash decisions had to be made. The casualties included my hair straighteners, nail varnish, high heels and jewellery. Maybe I can be less image conscious in Spain.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and as I waved goodbye to mi madre from the other side of the security gate, reality hit me in a wave of terror and nausea. But I tried to keep my cool. I may be a drama queen, but public displays of hysteria are a step too far.
On the plane I bought a copy of El Pais (a Spanish national newspaper) to see just how rusty my Spanish has become this summer. The conclusion: pretty flippin' rusty. I'm going to keep that same paper until my trip ends in May to see just how much more I understand of it then. Navigation between the airport and train station went surprisingly smoothly. I tried to speak Catalan but kept getting confused and switching to Spanish when I suddenly realised I didn't know the right vocab to finish the sentence. I speak fluent Spanalan.
There was a 2 hour wait for the train to Llanca so I went and had a coffee. There I was... Casually reading my book and sipping on my cafe con leche, checking the time on my phone to see that I still had an hour to spare. Lovely. A second later, I heard my train announced. Confusion gave way to the panic-stricken realisation that my phone was still on English time and my train was in fact about to leave. Let me tell you, running up the stairs with two suitcases weighing in at 30kg and juggling a handbag, book and 3 coats (I wore what I couldn't fit in the suitcase) was way beyond the sort of physical exertion that my fitness level allows. I made it with about 3 seconds to spare and nearly threw up.
Since then, it's been great. Sheryl and another old friend Chris met me from the station. By the sounds of it there's going to be plenty to get involved in over the next few weeks, mainly helping Sheryl with a new shop that she's running linked with a project called Love Cambodia. It's all very exciting. More on this later.
Yesterday I was still utterly in denial about my imminent departure and the beginning of this adventure. Now I'm sat in a beautiful square in a lovely Spanish town with a coffee. Can't really deny it any more. It's shell-shocking but also, I must admit, bladdy exciting.
X
No comments:
Post a Comment