Trip Home

My trip home was quite exciting. I left my apartment at 6am, and even though I was only a few blocks from the bus station, I called a taxi (my first time calling a taxi in Salamanca) to take me there because I had 2 suitcases, a carry-on bag, and my backpack. One of my suitcases was full of rocks and books, and although it was very small, it weighed over 100lbs. A few weeks before I left, I found out that there was a new bus service to the Madrid that went directly from Salamanca to the airport, which was excellent, because I had way too many bags to worry about. When I got to the airport, I found out that my small bag was too heavy to legally fly, so I switched a chunk of eclogite with a pair a sneakers, and that did the trick. The person who ended up checking my bags was in a hurry, and didn't charge me any over-weight luggage fees, even though both of my bags were over-weight. It was really annoying when I was at the counter getting ready to leave, and the people started speaking English to me as soon as they saw my passport, because their English was hard to understand, but I wouldn't have had any trouble understanding their Spanish.
The flight to the states was pretty uneventful. The person I was sitting next to was really friendly, and it was a pretty pleasant trip for 9 hours in an airplane. We left an hour late, which is perfectly normal when you're flying out of Spain, and had to change our flight path to avoid a big storm, so we ended up getting to Dallas 2 hours late. It took forever to go through customs, and by time I was ready, my flight had left. I was really tired from my trip, and I didn't know what to do, so I ended up at the information desk looking lost a bewildered. Fortunately, there was the really nice woman named Dianne who helped me figure out what to do. I ended-up flying flying to Minneapolis, but there was a mechanical problem with the plane, so that flight was delayed an hour. When I finally got to Minneapolis, the airport was nearly empty, and my flight to Madison was going to leave in 20 min. I ran through the airport, and got there just as they were boarding the final passengers. I got to Madison after midnight, and got home at 1am, after more than 24 hours of traveling. My bags didn't make it with me, but they got home the next day. So it was a successful trip. 8 months and 30 days, and it was quite a challenge, but exceptionally rewarding.

Adios España