Nightmare?

again, portuguese keyboard. deal.


Let me lay down a play by play of my portugal/southern spain trip so far.


It was NOT going well for QUITE A WHILE.

We began in SS, where we hopped on a bus at 12.40pm to bilbao. We arrived in bilbao at about 2pm. Our next bus from Bilbao to Madrid was at 3, so we chilled in Bilbao for a bit. OH, but did I mention that on the way to Bilbao that May realized she hadnºt bought her ticket to portugal yet? Well, we had to deal with that in Bilbao. There was no room on our bus, but luckily for us there was another bus leaving at the exact same time. But, for some odd reason, the ticket lady moved Cassi to Mayºs bus, I guess b-c she was helping her out at the window and assumed they wanted to be together?

Anyways. We got on the bus from Bilbao to Madrid and said ciao to May and Cassi. I went to sit down but there was a lady in my seat and she asked if I could move to hers in the back. I obliged. I fell asleep on this bus, then about an hour into the journey, I woke up and realized the driver pulled over and there were national guards all up in the cargo with some kind of sniffing dog. Drug-sniffing? Bomb-sniffing? I donºt know. All I know is that there was a female guard staring at my window the whole time, holding a machine gun at her waist.

Also, Spain has a law where bus drivers cannot drive for more than 4 hours straight, which means they stop after less than that, which means they stopped about every 3.25 hours. We took our first stop around 7.30 and had to hang out there for about a half hour until the bus left. Apparently when the dogs sniffed the cargo, Cassie woke up May and asked her if she had any drugs in her bag and she was so sleepy and confused when Cassi woke her that she responded by talking about the Advil and Mydol she packed.

Then when we got on the bus, i coaxed the woman next to natalie to move to my seat b-c it was a window seat and it had more legroom, and she happily traded. I now was seated by natalie and alex and jordan were in front of us. They played Ocean~´s 13 on the ride, but i had no headphones and therefore stared at the silent screen until the movie was over. Around that time we were in Madrid.

We got to the Madrid bus station and got off and that was the end of that end of our journey. We got in aroun 9pm and our next bus was at 10pm from the same station, which would then take us to Porto, Portugal. We hung out, got some dried fruits and nuts at some place at the station, everyone but me took a sleeping pill, then we grabbed our stuff and got on the bus.

It was pretty dead since we knew we would make some stops along the way to pick up more people. But, to our surprise, we were only 10 minutes on the bus when we stopped at a different station and they were telling us in spanish to get off the bus and that they werenºt leaving until 11pm. We were so confused that we just took our ´´carry on´´ luggage (the stuff not in the under-bus cargo), and walked to the main station. The driver was like ´´you can leave your stuff behind if you want!´´ but we were so confused as to what was going on, and angry that we were being kicked off and forced to wait. We wandered around a bit, and Cassi was frustrated because the sleeping pill had already kicked in for about an hour by now, and she was groggy and angry. The rest of the group left the station to get burger king across the street. Cassi and I opted to stay, and I grabbed a turkey and grilled onion sammy from the station. We went back to the bus right around 10.50 and saw the rest of our group there. Natalie, french fries hanging out of her mouth, was told that she couldnºt eat on the bus. Therefore, she stood outside and scarfed everything down while Cassi and I got on and returned to our seats. May somehow got on with her BK bag of food, and Cassi told her that Natalie got yelled at. We were feeling the wrath of the driver, so we suggested May eat it off the bus. She went to get up and leave, and they wouldnºt let her off the bus, so she was like ´´okay, then deal with the fact that I am totally eating this right here.´´

Finally we all got on the bus, a few more passengers than there were when we arrived at this station, but it was still only 30% full. THEN, out of nowhere, the bus driver was telling us we needed to get off and that we were on the wrong bus. But really that wasnºt the case. THEY overbooked the bus and just decided to kick off some random people in the front...and guess who they were? ´´Ýou need to get off, ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR´´ the lady shouted as she counted off me, cassi, natalie and may. She frustratingly was like ´´do you have luggage?´´ uh, YEAH, we DO. Why are YOU so mad? We were the ones kicked off our bus 10 minutes in, told to wait 50 minutes, then told to get on a completely different bus and separate from our friends on a journey to a foreign country!!! We got our luggage, put it on the cargo part of the other bus, said farewell to Alex, Jordan and MaryKate, then went onto the other bus.

All four of us were as pissed as one could be. We are in a freaking train station in Madrid, being yelled at in Spanish to get on a bus that we didnºt buy tickets for, being told that weºd get to the same place as our friends. We get on the bus and HELLO we are in Portuguese town. We are the whitest people on the bus, everyone else looks like they are south american and of course, everyone is staring. Every woman had some kind of cotton scarf wrapped around her hair and the men were all wearing denim farm wear and work boots. There were some empty seats, which some younger guys were conspicuously spreading out on so we wouldnºt sit there. I sit by a stranger, then Cassi gets offered two seats together because a married couple told their son to move. So we sit together and by this point Cassi is unsuccessfully trying to hold in her tears of frustration and hopelessness of the situation. Meanwhile, creepy seat-hogger guys are just staring at us. And they are in the other row of seats, about 4 rows in front of us. So yes, itºs EXTREMELY obvious that they are staring. They keep staring at Cassi, while she tries to hide her face as best she can by staring out the window. Natalie and May are at the front of the bus looking at seats before they sit, then when I was looking down, I looked back up and couldnºt see them so I thought of the possibility that they somehow got back on the other bus. I honestly had no idea where they were. Meanwhile, still, the guy is staring. We give up and ignore him and I fall asleep, clutching my purse, scared for the creepy guys and I put my ´´carry on´´ between my feet on the floor. Also, when the bus was boarding, a woman came on with a baby. Cassi and I were seated about 3 rows from the very back, and as she walked by us, I think a couple people groaned or commented that they didnºt want to sit near a baby. She told them, in Spanish, not to worry because her baby wonºt cry.
I woke up about an hour into the trip because I felt movement by my feet. Thinking someone was trying to steal my bag, I quickly woke up and looked down. The busº interior lights were off because it was a night trip, and I thought I saw a sweater on the ground. As my eyes became a bit more adjusted I realized there was a man laying down on the aisle floor trying to sleep. The movement I had felt was his elbow brushing against my shoe. I looked down the aisle to see if anyone else was amazed by this...only to find about 3 more men sleeping on the aisle floor. Also, that baby was crying. And crying. And crying...I somehow managed to fall asleep to the sound of a baby crying and a man snoring by my feet.
At the first rest stop, I got off and went to the bathroom and got on the bus via the front door and finally confirmed, after 3 hours of paranoia, that May and Natalie are in fact on this bus, and they are sleeping in two separate seats towards the front. I also looked around the rest stop for the other bus, but it was nowhere in sight. Finally, after the bus driver started up the engines to head out, the other bus pulled into the stop and I saw Mary-Kate get off.
Our bus rode off once again, and in the next few hours I tried a variety of sleeping positions: leaning my head against the seat in front of me, scooting my butt low on the seat to have my knees lean on the seat in front of me, and try leaning back. The latter was the most unsuccessful, because what kind of crazy person would think to sleep by reclining the chair and resting their head where the headrest is?!
Once we entered Portugal, a national guard guy got on the bus to check our passports. He went through the bus reading them, and he took some people~s passports away, telling them he~d return them in a minute. To one Portuguese lady, he said that her passport was bad and she needed to fix it. Nevertheless, he gave it back and let her continue on her journey. That~s cool...

I also faintly remember there being a part where Cassi told me to lean my head on her shoulder. When I woke up my head was on her shoulder and her head was on my head, and she told me that she had earlier found me leaning diagonally forward in her direction, and she knew that wasnºt comfortable so she re-adjusted my head position.

Finally we arrived in Porto. But whatºs this? Oh, not an actual bus station! Instead we were dropped off in the middle of some business district. Also, our bus arrived early! We were actually unsure of that last part, since our watches were still on Spain time and the bus clock was somewhat off. I am still pretty sure we were at our ´´destination´´ at about 5:30am. So here we were, Natalie, May, Cassi and me, shivering in the darkness of some public park place of some sort, with a taxi stand nearby. However, due to my observation at the rest stop (that their bus arrived as we left), I knew they were at least a half hour behind us. We had to call them to give them the hostel address and number, so we tried doing that for a while, since Cassiºs hands were so cold and she was so nervous that she literally couldnºt aim her fingers on the keys on the phone.
After we got in touch with a zonked-out Mary-Kate, we got in a taxi. Oh, but of course he doesnºt speak English or Spanish. Only French. Thatºs not even one of their top 3 languages spoken here. We took the cab to their hostel and the guy reluctantly opened the doors, let them lock their luggage in the luggage room, then kicked them out, saying checkin was at 3pm.
We called my hostel and found my check in was at 1pm, but I still had all my luggage. We wandered only a block until we found an open cafe. By now it was about 6.30am or so. We hung out there for about an hour and a half, then we found out the rest of our group was nearby. We met up with them and found out that their bus WAS a half hour behind, plus they were dropped off way further away than we were: we paid a 7 euro fare, and they paid a 12 euro fare.
We then loitered in that cafe until about 9am, then we decided to move on. It was about 50 degrees outside and drizzling! Of course, the weather said itºd be above seventy the whole time on our trip, so we were wearing our warmest clothes, which consisted of jeans, short sleeves and a hoodie.
I needed to find my hostel and we knew it was nearby so I used my friendsº hostelºs internet service and they donºt have flash, so google maps was basically useless. I had to use HTML mode which showed the map at about the size of half a playing card.
We knew it was somewhere northwest, and decided to get in that direction by walking along the river. We stumbled upon a street market with about a bajillion people selling stuff. I ended up getting a gift here for Eric.
We finally found my hostel, dropped off my stuff, then ate food next door. Alex and Mary Kate were feeling ultra queasy and throwing up every once in a while due to either the sleeping pills, the Burger King, or a combo of both.
We then went to this church that has a museum and catacombs which was cool. After we went to a place for lunch. We wandered some more until it was time for us all to check in and we parted ways to go to our hostels.
By this time it was about 2.45 pm. The ongoing joke was that we never wanted to look at a watch because time was passing so SLOWLY. We were already in the city for about 10 hours, for Godºs sakes!
We met up again at 8pm, where I found out that the other group took a solid 4 and a half hour nap while I had meanwhile just been hanging out at my hostel.
We went to an internet place to buy tickets to the Alhambra in Granada (um, episode 3 from star wars was filmed there...it also looks like Aladdinºs palace!). We wandered some more, ate at a restaurant along the river, then went home at 10.45 to just sleep.


So let me give you a run through of how much sleep I´ve gotten. Wednesday night i got 7 hours or so. No biggie. then Thurs night, b-c i was packing and then had to wake up early for the teaching thing, i went to bed around 3...and woke up at 6.20. so thatºs about 3 hours.
Then, on the bus i got 1 hour increments of sleep, and only about 5 of them, none of which were quality. Finally I got about 9 hours of sleep Friday night.