idiotita

Once upon a crisp Friday morning a young American student, awaken by the whispers and patters of feet of her host family, arose a little tired from the night before but excited nonetheless to see her fellow Domers in Barcelona. Her grand plan was to take the fast train from Toledo to Madrid and then take a quick and painless flight to Barcelona. But Katie Peralta, the idiot, did not realize the necessity of carrying a passport when flying. In her utter naiveté, she thought the same was true in Europe as in the US of A- where it is completely necessary to carry a passport only when flying out of the country. Alas, she thought, a drivers license surely will suffice.

Wrong.

Díos, que una disastre. The flustered and ignorant girl darted through the station, desperate to purchase an immediate ticket back to Toledo to obtain the precious document. The next train, of course, was not to depart for another two hours, roughly ten minutes before her flight was to take off. She called the United States Embassy asking for consejo, then the airline, both which more or less laughed in her pathetic face at the prospect of flying sans pasaporte. Moreover, a rebooked flight that same day, she learned would cost roughly 150 euros, aka maybe three days of summer hell at CPK.

Finding her center and taking a deep breath, remembering everything she had ever practiced at yoga class, young Katherine bought an Ave ticket to Barcelona for later that same day, giving herself plenty of time to return to the casa and retrieve the passport. These things happen. If this kind of thing had happened two years ago, all of Madrid might have witnessed the meltdown of the century.

So is the story of today so far. I am currently sitting in the kitchen of my house, where we have Internet, and about to take off for the train station for the second time in just 8 hours. I have never felt more stupid in my entire life. But, as I was able to articulate (rather well I must add) in Spanish to my host madre, you live and you learn. These things happen and you just have to laugh at it in the end. Of course I think I am going to punish myself for this by forgoing the trip to Sevilla at the end of next month. Way to go, Katie.

Have to admit a little something. I am kind of glad this happened. I got to go home, go for a nice run and get a shower in, then hang out with my host family a bit. I think my host dad had a good laugh at my expense, but I laughed with him. Also, I learned that my host hermano, Alvaro, who is 15, is an avid coin collector and he showed me his hundreds of centavos from all over the world. Does not sound like much but this is huge progress— they said Spanish boys of that age aren't big talkers and what not. It was such a moment.