Thursday, May 11, 2017

And we're off!!


With any international adventure comes an entire day (or more!) of traveling. It was early afternoon on May 9th and the graduation celebrations of the previous day had already been pushed aside to make way for Spain preparations. The Nelsons waited anxiously with our tour coordinator in the international terminal of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson to see if we would all show up... somehow, we all arrived (nearly) on time!


After checking in, we had three hours to kill in the airport and spent them at the gate in a cliche, braiding each other's hair while we mentally prepared ourselves for the nine-hour flight. Eventually we boarded, all 50 of us spread out but seated just closely enough to each other to annoy the other passengers by talking over them. The next nine hours were a half-asleep blur of seatback movies and terrible airplane food, finishing finally with the beautiful landscape of Germany to welcome us as we landed in Frankfurt at 7am local time (1am EST). We had a full five-hour layover in the airport, which we spent eating German Brezeln and Frankfurter sausages to stay awake.


Just when the exhaustion was really starting to hit us, it was time to board our next flight - this time to Spain! We were shuttled to the middle of tarmac to board our plane (see photo) and this time filled up nearly all of the seats in the back half of the aircraft. This was only a three-hour flight and most of us were so sleep-deprived that we were able to pass out for the duration of it. We landed with an incredible view of the city on the water and made our way through the airport to find our courier, Marianne, who would be leading us for the trip.


Then it was another two hours by bus from Malaga to Granada, where we were brought to our gorgeous hotel in a former monastery. We were given a little time to shower before we met again and walked to dinner five minutes away at Paco Martin. There, we were treated to a three-course meal of soup, chicken, and a bread pudding-esque dessert. It was almost 10pm by the time we were finished and at this point, some of us were falling asleep in our seats.

We were excused for the night and some headed back to the hotel for bed while others stayed out a while longer, enjoying gelato while walking around together in the fresh night air. Full and exhausted, we all went to sleep early to rest before our early morning on Thursday.

-Lydia Rautman

Lydia is a rising senior double majoring in German and Environmental Science 

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