DAY 117

I got to sleep-in since my hotel that I stayed at was in the city and it was close to the airport and it wasn't till 2pm anyways. I wish I could say that my morning was smooth, but it wasn’t. So, I’m at the front desk trying to pay and my card won’t go through. I’m like shit… I have to be on a plane in a couple of hours and now my card won’t go through and it’s not like it’s something that I can just put back on the counter and leave, I sort of have to pay. I then have the ingenious thought that it’s not working because there is little or no money left on the card. See for security purposes I have most of my money in my savings and then only transfer a couple hundred over at a time. I remember that I hadn’t transferred money over in a while so I was probably just in need for another transfer. This is where the fun began….. I first had to find an internet café that was open this early on a Sunday morning, LOL, that’s a joke. I ended up just going to one of the bigger tourist hotels and using their internet that they have for guests. I then went onto the bank’s website and transferred some money over and headed back to the hotel. I get back to the hotel and give them the card to try again. No such luck. It still wouldn’t go through, ugh… SO ANNOYING!! They tell me that the card isn’t going through, and that it’s not saying that I have insufficient funds like the last time. So I then get the ingenious thought of just going to an ATM and getting money out, since sometimes I can still take out money from the ATM even when I can’t use it at a store. So I walk next door to the train station and tried at both the ATM’s. Well with no avail I went back to the hotel to think of something else. I then try and call both parentals, NEITHER OF WHOM ANSWERED!!!! I then called Raviv, SINCE HE ALL WAYS ANSWERS!!! to see if he could think of anything. To make a long story short, we ended up just having Raviv pay with his credit card. PHEW, SO GLAD THAT’S OVER WITH!! THANKS RAVIV FOR EVERYTHING!!!!! I get to the airport and find the ticket counter the TV is displaying my flight and wait in line, which was thankfully not that long, so I got up to the counter quickly. When I got to the counter everything went fine and I got my ticket from Madrid to Johannesburg, but not the one from Marrakech to Madrid. This was because for some reason I had to wait for like 20min then come back to get the ticket. Though when I came back I wouldn’t have to wait in the line, just go up to the ticket counter and pick it up. Which I thought was kind of weird, but whatever. Since I had all this free time I decided to walk down to the end of the terminal. The whole 5min it took me to walk down. There was this little café and I was a little hungry from this mornings events. After sitting at my table with my Fanta and Pain au Chocolat and looking at everybody checking their tickets or eating something or talking to their friend, etc… I got up and started on my journey down the corridor, remember, all 5 min of it. I passed this little souvenir shop and bought this little wooden camel and a salt & pepper tajine. I then continued down and went back to the counter, picked up my ticket and then walked to the other side of the room, filled out my customs forms, gave it to the customs man, and then went to wait in the boarding hall. While standing in line, looking at my ticket, I noticed that it said business class on it. YEA!!……THANK THE LORDS, at least one good thing has happened to me today. Even though the flight was only 2hrs long, I was still happy that I got to be in business class. I arrive in Madrid and go check the monitors to see which gate my flight to South Africa is leaving out of. When I find my flight on the screen it says new time leaving at 9:00. My first reaction was yippy; my flight’s leaving early….. then I remembered that outside the US they use the 24hr clock. Which means 9:00 is 9am, not 9pm. Which means instead of having only a couple of hours to wait now I have to spend the night. I walk over to the customer service counter and ask them if their putting people up at a hotel or something. They said yes they were and sorry for the inconvenience and then gave me this special piece of paper that I was supposed to give to the hotel at check-in. I then asked if I could get my bags since I had been in the same clothes for a couple days and I didn’t want to be in them any longer, let alone another day. They said to go down to Lost Luggage and that they would be able to help me out. I go down to Lost Luggage and explain my situation; the lady said that it was possible to get my bags but that I would have to wait an hour to get them. Well I didn’t care, it’s not like I had anywhere else to go. So I took the slip from Lost Luggage to give to the security so I could get through. While I was waiting next to the luggage carousel I called my folks just to say hi and see what’s up. When an hour had come around the carousel they said it would be coming onto starting moving. Then a couple minutes’ later people started arriving. Thankfully my bags were one of the first to come off, so I didn’t have to wait long. After getting my bags I quickly go to the restroom and use the wheelchair stall to change and freshen up a bit. I walk outside and look for the shuttle bus to take me to the hotel were I would be spending the night. I wait a couple minutes and then it appears. I arrive at the hotel with everybody else on the shuttle being from my plane. I check in and head up to my room. Iberia definitely knows how to hook you up……. This was a damn nice hotel; I read in one of its pamphlets that it was a 4½ star hotel, HELLS YEA!!!! I take a nice long nap and when I wake up I watch a little TV before going down stairs to dinner. I go back upstairs, and as soon as I hit the pillow, I’m out like a light.