The first weekend in November I was lucky enough to go to Madrid with 5 of my friends to celebrate T.’s 40th birthday. It was a fabulous weekend, seriously more fun than I ever dreamed it would be. Although it didn’t start off so great…
Our flight was leaving pretty early in the morning, so we could have as much time as possible in Madrid. I am using that as the excuse for what happened next. We checked the board, found our gate, and went to wait to board. How strange, our flight is delayed, and they didn’t even make an announcement! Went to hand over our boarding passes, finally! only to discover that our flight wasn’t delayed at all. It had left right on time, 45 minutes ago, from a completely different gate! Yeah, that wasn’t what we wanted to hear.
But the panic and sadness didn’t truly set in for me until we went to the Swiss ticket gate and were told 1) we couldn’t transfer the tickets to a different flight since they were non-transferable, 2)there would be no refund of any fees or taxes on the original tickets, 3) if we still wanted to go to Spain we would need to buy whole new tickets, and 4) they would cost 300 Francs each. Gulp!
I just couldn’t justify spending that much more money, no matter how bad I wanted to go on the trip. So it was with a heavy heart that I informed the ladies I would not be accompanying them. Three ladies were going to go ahead and buy new tickets anyway, one was on the phone with her husband, very undecided, and T. was also on the phone off in the corner, explaining what happened to her husband. I was waiting til she got off the phone to tell her my decision and give her a hug before I left to go back home.
She walked over and before I had a chance to say anything, announced that the trip was on her husband, as his gift to her and us. He was buying us all new tickets! What?!?! That is when we all just lost it and started sobbing right there in the airport, whilst giving each other a huge group hug. Even now, I am getting tears in my eyes remembering how much his generosity affected me. After that, how could the trip not be anything but fantastic?
I have no photos. I didn’t bring my camera, and don’t know how to copy photos from my friends’ blogs. I am a bit technologically impaired. 🙂 But here are some of the many highlights, in no particular order, and just so I don’t forget them.
J. making friends with the American girl who happened to live next door to our apartment/hotel. She took us to the BEST churro and chocolate shop in town, and it’s a good thing we had a guide. I don’t think we would have found it without her.
T. being our tour guide and human GPS for the entire trip. I know I would have seriously been lost without her amazing map reading skills. And wouldn’t have even known about most of the cool things we saw and did.
Bob!
Megan and her boots!
Flamenco spit!
Hurdles in the park, and a long night of sharing, and crying. It was a wonderful weekend and I am so looking forward to the next one. 🙂 When I got home Sunday night at around midnight, this was waiting for me on the front door.
Sophie and Alexandra drew them for me. I’m not sure, but I think they missed me just a little bit!