The terminal

This post will feature two musical performances that help sum up the last roughly 48 hours of my trip. Firstly, Leaving on A Jet Plane (you can listen to it as you continue reading, no need to watch it, don't worry!). The second, an amateur performance of The Terminal Song, covers a young man's adventure in the airport that lost both his bags and his wife and is consequently stuck in terminal 5 for 15 hours. But more on that later.

In my book, there is nothing better than an international flight. While others may dread a long trip in airplane, I look forward to all that comes with the jumbo jets and an international flight. I catch up on bad movies that have come out over the last couple of months, get some concentrated reading in, and generally enjoy recycled air in a cozy, dark cabin for 8 hours. Other perks include the hot face towel before meals and excellent people watching.

However, the obvious flipside of all the excitement of going on such a trip is saying goodbye everyone at home. But, despite this, everyone held up well at the airport as Mom said she had heard it was very poor form to cry at the airport so would do her best to avoid it. I'm just hoping that I don't return home to find that Mom has bought another puppy to replace me.

But no travel story would be complete without lost baggage. So as not to rob us of any memory-forming experiences, the airline managed to lose a total of 9 bags and 1 Gayle. As of now, (7 hours after landing in Madrid), we know the location of all of our missing items and will be collecting them in a series of trips from the hostel back to the airport. To find out that our bags would be arriving at midnight tonight and that Gayle had been delayed and would be arriving at 8:00 tonight required:

• 4 trips to the Lufthansa ticket desk
• 3 trips back and forth from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2
• 3 trips to the lost baggage claims desk
• 3 illegal entrances into prohibited areas to look for Gayle
• 2 trips to the SpanAir ticket desk
• 1 trip to the airport information desk

In summary, an approximate total of 5940 miles walked back and forth over 6 hours. Since then, we've checked into our hostel in downtown Madrid and, after returning to the airport for our bags at midnight, we will be ready to crash and get some sleep before finishing the final leg of our trip to Sevilla tomorrow morning!