As the title suggests, this is not what I was expecting my first post to be. I was going to skipt he travel time and begin tomorrow when the tour officially begins. But, the trip got off to a bit of a rocky start. Which lead me to think about the first thing I always tell people:you have to go in with the expectation that something will go wrong at some point.
Any large trip has so many flights and luggage transfers and reservations that there’s bound to be a hiccup somewhere, and that’s without factoring in weather. You can’t control any of that, but you can control how your attitude and how you react. So far, this trip is challenging me to practice what I preach.
I woke up Saturday to a text telling me that my twelve o’clock flight was now a 12:45 flight. Then shortly before leaving for airport, there was another message that it was now a 2:00 flight. It was going to make my layover tight, but the ticket agent thought I’d be able to make it when I checked in. Then, while waiting I got a message that it was now a 2:37 flight. That put my original flight landing at JFK at 4:01 and my connection leaving at 4:15. I rescheduled for a 9:45 PM flight. Longer delay than I would like but I went to a restaurant instead of food court, and had time to walk around, read and chat on the phone with my mom. Of course, during this time my Gate was changed three times. At least they were at the same terminal, unlike last time I was at JFK. The flight was smooth and it seemed the tide had turned. We even landed a little early. Then I saw my luggage coming down the conveyor belt. I’m not sure if the picture will post here. But, all I can say is no person could’ve done that kind of damage to a piece of luggage. The side was torn and dangling with wires hanging out. My best guess is it got caught in a conveyor belt.
This is where the attitude comes in. I was standing in line laughing at how ridiculous it looked and how much has already happened. At the end of the day, I made it to Barcelona, it’s beautiful and there’s lots of fun activities ahead in the next couple of weeks. I’m going to say the laughing is because of my positive attitude, and not because I haven’t slept at most an hour in the last 24 hours and am on the edge of insanity