So, Sunday afternoon it was time to leave Barcelona, after another sleepless night, and head out to Israel.
This "trip" was definitely stressing me out, and in the end, with good reason, although everything concluded successfully. I was paranoid about Alex's apartment because I felt like I'd already pissed her off with the key copying situation so I made sure to clean everything and follow all of her instructions to the T. I had scheduled a cab to show up at 3:45 to give me time to take her keys to her friend's place and get to the airport on time. I went to take out the trash a few minutes before the cab was supposed to arrive. When I walked out to the trash, I saw the cab driver there, confirmed in my broken Spanish that he was there for me, and proceeded to the trash can, pushing my bag of trash through. Then I heard a clink, and my heart literally stopped. With the big deal Alex made about her keys, I knew she would kill me and probably find a way for IESE to kick me out if I somehow lost her keys. I tried to reach down, tried to see if I could hoist myself down the shoot, and all to no avail. I screamed out to the cab driver "Ayuda me por favor! Mis llaves!". He got out of the car but seemed pretty much at a loss of how to help me. I went around to the other side of the trash bin and saw that I could lift the cover off from the other side. He ended up hoisting me into the bin, which was mostly empty, and I recovered the keys. Whew!
I successfully delivered the keys to Elie, and got the airport 3 hours before my flight.However, since it was an international flight, I assumed I'd be able to check in and then chill at the gate, watching Sopranos in peace. HA! So much for that. I was about the 5th or 6th person in line, but the Spanair agents did not arrive to start checking people in until about an hour and fifteen minutes before the flight. They were not in a hurry at the least and took their sweet ass time with every passenger. When it was finally my turn, the he/she checking me in looked me up in the system and asked me where my return flight was...I'm not going to go into the details, because I'd rather forget them all, but basically, he wouldn't ticket me without a return flight. I panicked, and bought a ticket on the spot and was freaking out too much to have the calmness of mind to buy a refundable ticket. I caused a scene, with tears and screaming, and had all the nice Israelis, who love nothing more than a scene, coming up to me afterwards to check up on me and telling me that "OK, if the ticket cost $300, its just money, and got will bestow me with 300 blessings". Lucky me!
When I finally got on the plane, I discovered he had put me in the corner in the VERY last row. Thanks buddy. There was a very nice Israeli woman sitting next to me, that gave me the what's becoming a typical reaction when I tell people I'm going to Ashdod. Everyone's like uhhhhh why? Ashdod? There's nothing to do there! The guys in front of me were super annoying, and the flight confirmed once again that Israelis cannot follow directions. When the plane landed, they hopped up 3 times before the seatbelt sign was turned off, despite being yelled at 3 times in 3 different languages that they were not do so!
I got a cab from the airport driven by a female cab driver, who, when I told her the cross streets, took pity on me, seeing that I didn't know where I was going since I had given her two PARALLEL streets. She managed to get me where I needed to go and I actually got a pretty good night's sleep at Drew's, though I doubt he wants me back.
The next day I took a sheirut - shared taxi - to the Central Bus Station with my GINORMOUS suitcase that was a pain in the ass every step of the way. The sheirut driver seemed annoyed by it, the security guard that checks everyone's bags was PISSED at it "You vivitor? Vivitor? Vivitor?" ---blank stares--- he meant VISITOR. They're not big on the s-sound here. There was basically NO signs telling me where I needed to go to catch a bus to Ashdod but after asking 5 different people I finally found the right bus and within 15 minutes was on my way to Ashdod. I took a cab from the bus stop, since I had no idea where I was going, and arrived at home:
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I spent the afternoon wandering around the town, getting to know my roomates, and attemping to make couscous without any salt. This house has cornstarch, flour, and sugar - who would know that they wouldn't have any salt! My roommates are turning out to be quite the characters - the girl I'm sharing a room with, for one, is a super-skinny Ukranian blond with a perfect body and a straight from the motherland accent, and stuffed animals on her bed.
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