I am way behind...

Well, it has been nearly a month, again, since I have posted..oops, mi culpa! My last two weeks in Barcelona were amazing! I was able to do so many things with Megan and with Isaac, and had many great adventures. Megan and I planted ourselves in a great hostel with apartment style rooms after we moved out of our residence. We went to an Espanyol game with Isaac, Jaime, and Jose on Sunday afternoon and had a great time watching them beat Valencia. We left the next day on a road trip to Granada, where we ate good tapas, visited Sarah Hartenberger, explored the Alhambra palace and gardens, and walked around the beautiful town and its gardens as well. When we returned to Barcelona, we left the next day to go on a trip with Isaac and Jaime's university to Lluret de Mar for a 'meeting' of engineering majors from all across Spain. This 3 day meeting was actually a sports tournament during the days and going out in the evenings. It was really fun, and my volleyball and basketball teams both got 2nd in the tournaments. I was in a beach volley pairs team, and also had a good time playing, although we were out in the first round. On Sunday, when we returned to Barcelona, I had a very chill afternoon and ate lunch and went to a park with Isaac. My next three days were a blur; I went gift shopping for the friends I hadn't gotten gifts for quite yet, I saw bits of Barcelona I had not made it to yet (including dragging Isaac to a park that was not so much a park as a forest on a hill in the middle of the city, to our surprise), and spent as much time as possible with Isaac. Wednesday went by so fast, it seemed to pass right before my eyes! I wanted it to last forever...but, Thursday morning came and I said hasta luego (NOT good-bye) to Isaac (it was the most unpleasant good-bye I have ever had to say) and checked in to my homeward flight.

However, the story does not stop there! Megan and I had the most miserable flight home IN THE WORLD! FIRST, our flight out of Barcelona was delayed by over 2 hours. This meant that when we reached Amsterdam, our flight from Amsterdam into the US had already LEFT. Now, we were already down because we had just had to say a very hard good-bye to our novios, not knowing exactly when we would see them again, and now we just wanted to be home again with our families. So, when we found out our re-booked flights were for 10:30am THE NEXT MORNING, we were very distraught. Then, we found out we got a 10€ meal voucher, a 5 minute phone call voucher, and NO hotel. Stupid KLM/Northwest. We walked away from the ticket counter crying. Megan proceeded to talk to 3 more people before giving up and accepting our fate. So, we booked a close hotel and went there after using our meal vouchers. The hotel was actually very nice and the bed was uber comfortable. We both managed to use skype and call home before my computer died. I lay down on the bed to read a magazine afterward and fell asleep within 15 minutes and was out for the next 10 or 11 hours. Our flight the next morning left on time and everything seemed good. Then came customs and immigrations in Minneapolis. I talked to almost every single person there before I was let out! First, I was randomly chosen to have my baggage checked by the agricultural, etc, control. Then, when going through the final checkpoint, they asked my age because I had claimed a wine bottle in my checked luggage. Oops. I went through another line, but the man there was nice, said I looked like an intelligent woman, and got me out of customs, with my wine! I made it to the flight and everything seemed awesome on our final flight! But...a storm was in KC..GREAT! We circled above for 45 minutes, then flew to Omaha, Nebraska until 8 pm (I was supposed to land in KC at 4 pm). I walked into the KC terminal at 9pm. Ohhh but the story's not over yet. Megan and I's baggage was put on the late flight to KC, instead of our own, so it didn't hit the terminal until 10:15 pm. Then, there was a long line in the parking lot, but we finally got onto the interstate at 10:30 or 10:45 and I made it home by 1 am. Thank the lord!! Sadly, the next morning I couldn't sleep late because my sleeping schedule was all messed up and jet laggy..OH, what a coming home story!