Hola Hola Coca Cola: A Week in EGYPT!

Let me just preface what is bound to be a very long blog post with one caveat about this trip: of all of the things that happened throughout the week, Rachel and I very rarely understood what was happening and why. We had barely any itinerary for the trip, were told nothing about where we were going, and just seemed to be there to go along for the ride of our lives.

We began our journey to Egypt on Tuesday, after having both arrived in Sevilla from our various travels the night before. On the plane from Madrid to Cairo, we struck up a conversation with the guy sitting in our row who lives in Cairo. About 20 minutes into our conversation of what to do there, we still both believed that English was not his first language. We had heard him speaking fluent Spanish before takeoff, and assumed that his accent was Spanish. Boy were we surprised when he then told us he was Canadian. How I mistook the Canadian accent for Spanish… who knows, ay?

We arrived in Cairo late Tuesday evening after a long day of traveling and were excited to meet up with our tour group and get to the hotel. We did not know what hotel we were going to, who was going to meet us at the airport, if anyone, and how many other people would be in our group, but we were pretty unconcerned with the details. To our surprise, a cute little man named Emad greeted us in baggage claim and proceeded to follow us to help us get our bags. This was confusing us, because shouldn’t there be other people on this program he was also picking up? We signed up for a group trip to Egypt through a Spanish travel agent, and were thus expecting a Spanish group. Well, turns out it was just the two of us. We had no explanation as to why – if other members of the group were meeting us later, or if it really was just the two of us who signed up, and Emad was offering no explanation. Although a very nice man, he was impossible to understand, due to his thick Egyptian accent and not aided by the fact that his lips would move and no sound would come out. Seriously, this man barely whispered. But we eventually got our bag and embarked on a TWO HOUR drive to our hotel. Turns out the hotel wasn’t in Cairo as promised, but out in the boonies in a place called 6^th of October City. Thanks Valentia Travel. We finally arrived at the hotel exhausted, starving, and confused, wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into.

The next morning, things began to look up as we had our first tour – a visit to the pyramids of Giza. Luckily, the great whisperer Emad was not our guide, and he picked us up from the hotel with our real guide, the awesome Andrew. On the way we dropped Emad off on the side of a dirt road (who knows where his destination was or where he thought he was going) and proceeded on our way with Andrew to the pyramids. The pyramids were extremely overwhelming, as was the camel ride we took through the desert nearby. Oh wait, did I say overwhelming? I meant expensive. That 20 minute camel ride ended up costing a hefty $40 each. At least we got some badass photos from it. After seeing the pyramids and the sphinx that morning, we headed back to the hotel for lunch. We really wanted to actually see the city of Cairo, as we were only going to be there for one more day, but turns out we were so far out of the city that the one hour cab ride would cost about $50 each way. That was so not happening. So instead, we sat in the sun by the pool and then napped in the room until dinner.

Thursday, Emad picked us up again from the hotel to head into the city for a full day of fun in Cairo. We got our first taste of the crazy Cairo drivers as we swerved between lanes without signaling and cut off almost every car on the road. This three lane highway was turned into five lanes by cars weaving in and out of one another. It made Spanish driving seem civilized and regulated. We met Andrew at the Egyptian museum, where we saw old statues, burial jewels, and coffins. My favorite, by far, was the floor dedicated to King Tut. We got to see his gold burial mask, which is overwhelming in person, as well as two gold burial coffins and his four burial chambers.

After the museum, we drove to Old Cairo, or Coptic Cairo, which contains old churches and a synagogue from around the time of Christ. In order to get into this heavily guarded area, Andrew told the police that we were Spaniards, because apparently they can and will decide on a whim not to let in Americans. Viva España I say! The first church we saw was decorated and built in an Islamic style of architecture, with the small additions of crosses and figures of Jesus and Mary. It was a very interesting mix between east and west. The second church was a bit more plain, but was apparently the site where the holy family (Mary, Joseph and Jesus, in case you didn’t know) stayed while they were in Egypt. Finally, the synagogue was apparently the site where Moses spoke to God about leading his people to freedom. Pretty cool history lesson! Next, we headed to the citadel on a hill that contains Muhammad Ali’s beautiful mosque. Not only was this mosque overlooking all of Cairo, but it had hundreds of lights hanging from the ceiling giving it a beautiful glow. We next grabbed a quick lunch with Andrew before heading to the essences, or perfume shop. We learned about how the essences are made, got to sample a few scents, and decided to each buy a set when we were told that they were not expensive. Well, we thought the price was 100 Egyptian Pounds, which equals about $20 – a bargain for four rather large bottles of perfume. Once they were all packaged and we got to the register, however, we were horrified to learn that it actually was 100 US dollars each. Woops. For that money, this perfume better be the best thing ever. We ended this great day in Cairo by seeing the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, where pretty much every shop owner had something to say to us, including but not limited to: “oh my god,” “come spend your money here,” “I’ll give you good price,” and my personal favorite “is that your Egyptian husband?” when referring to Andrew. Yes, in fact, he is collectively both my and Rachel’s Egyptian husband, thanks for asking. This actually worked to our advantage when haggling, however, because Andrew could tell them in Arabic to “give my wife a good price”.

Friday, we sadly had to leave Cairo and take a plane to the south of Egypt, or Upper Egypt as it is called. The airports in Egypt operate a bit differently, where you have to go through security immediately after walking through the entrance. Luckily for us, however, the metal detectors they use are what we have deemed “Egyptian metal detectors,” meaning they don’t actually work. So no fumbling around with our belts outside the airport! Emad, our little whispering friend, accompanied us to the airport, where we almost peed our pants laughing at his antics. He insisted on carrying our bags himself, and then dropped them. And then told us all about our tickets, down to pointing out our seat numbers. Maybe this was a good thing after all, as we didn’t even know which city in Egypt was our destination (I guess we could’ve looked more into our non-existent itinerary…). We however arrived in our destination, Aswan, where we were greeted by Muhammad, Emad’s slightly less friendly and burlier counterpart. For this part of the journey, we were traveling on a boat down the Nile River. When we arrived at said boat, our jaws literally dropped to the floor. It was ridiculously ritzy. I don’t think we paid for a ritzy cruise vacations – but hey I’ll take it! Muhammad then told us about our itinerary for our day in Aswan. Back in Cairo, Andrew had told us that we would probably want to get up at 3 am to embark on the 3 hour drive to Abu Simbel, a temple south of Aswan. We just laughed at him, exclaiming that there was no way we would have to leave that early. Well I’m sorry Andrew, but you were right. Muhammad informed us that a car would be waiting for us at 3 am, and he will arrange our wake up call for 2:30 in the morning. I’m sorry… but 2:30 am is a bedtime, not a wake-up time!

So the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed hours before the sun to embark on our journey to Abu Simbel. Turns out a convoy runs from Aswan to Abu Simbel only at 3 am every morning, and that every car, bus, or coach travelling this route needs to move together. Why? Because the drive is 3 hours of desert, and nothing else. We did get to see some beautiful stars, and a beautiful sunrise over the desert, but that hardly made the drive worth it. The temples themselves were really cool with hugely impressive statues towering over us at the entrance. By the end of the short visit, however, I was ready to pass out, which I did on the car ride back. Before lunch, we took a ride down the Nile on a motorboat, and were once again hassled to buy things. I figured, might be worth it to spend the $2 not to have to swim back to shore, so I made a small purchase and we headed back for lunch. After lunch, we went to another temple called Kom Ombo, which was okay. Once you’ve seen one temple with paintings and hieroglyphics and statures and columns, I kind of feel like you’ve seen them all, and this didn’t have much to boast.

Sunday, we sailed to Luxor for most of the day, and got to shore just after lunch. We were greeted by the travel agent representative Mustapha and our tour guide Mustapha (it wasn’t confusing at all). Mustapha the second took us to Luxor temple, which again was another monument of old stuff and gods whose confusing names we could not remember.

The next day, our final full day in Egypt, we took a visit to the West Bank of Thebes, where we stopped at the Valley of the Kings, a valley cut out of a beautiful desert mountain full with tombs of ancient kings, including King Tut. For me, the scenery was the most impressive part, with huge desert mountains rising into the clear blue sky. We got to enter inside some of the tombs to see some interesting cave paintings, but unfortunately could not take any photos. Next, we saw the temple of Queen Hatshepsut (pronounced like hot chicken soup really fast). The scenery here, again, was breathtaking, and made the temple that much more interesting. We headed back to the boat for lunch, which was our final meal there. At this time, we had made friends with some of the staff and crew, as we were the only guests under the age of 50 onboard. One jokester greeted us at our table by chanting “hola hola coca cola!”. I guess he found out about our cocacola addiction…

After lunch we saw another temple, Karnak temple, which had this cool labyrinth of 130 huge pillars, and went to the bazaar in Luxor where we got some henna and perfume bottles (to decorate our $100 perfume of course). It wouldn’t be an Egyptian bazaar without being hassled and ripped off, and both obviously occurred here as well. First, the henna guys wanted us to pay $20 each for our small tattoos. I’m sorry, but that’s not happening. As we were negotiating, the artist told us this is special henna that lasts for 60 days. Finally we got the price down to something more acceptable (where’s our Egyptian husband to help us bargain?) and we started getting the henna. The artist then told us again it was a special henna that will last 30 days. Say what? He first said 60, and then 30? Well played old man. From the bazaar we headed straight to Luxor airport to fly back to Cairo, where we were greeted once again by our old friend Emad. He whispered his hellos to us, and helped us with our bags. Our one wish was to get a photo with him, which was denied by the driver who wanted to get a move on it, and we had to say our hasty goodbyes to Emad at the curb. We had hope that this time we wouldn’t be in a hotel that was 2 hours away from civilization… but we were thwarted once again by Valentia, who put us up again in our favorite 6^th of October City hotel. We spent a quick night there, and then it was back to the airport again to end our Egyptian journey and make our way back to life in Spain.

Teaching 6th graders how to dance hip hop

Before leaving for Boston tomorrow, I thought I would update once more on the Spanish holiday season. Before Christmas, Spaniards all eat dulces called Mantecados and drink shots of Anis, which tastes like licorice. Rachel, Rachel’s sister Liza, and I went to Antonia’s for lunch the other day where we were introduced to all of these Spanish Christmas goodies. Antonia told us a story about how her grandmother loved drinking Anis, and just before she died she asked for one last shot. Since it was summertime, however, Antonia’s family had to search high and low for the traditional Christmas drink. Finally finding a bottle, they gave her grandmother her final shot of Anis. This is one example of how important the drink is in their culture. The same goes for Mantecados. When we answered no to Antonio’s question of whether you can find mantecados in the US, he looked like a little boy who had just had his Christmas taken away. His face was a mixture of shocked, unbelieving, and as though the world as he knew it was crashing around him. Of course, at this point, he didn’t understand why we burst out laughing at his response.

This wasn’t the only time we burst out laughing at Antonio’s antics. During lunch, he began one of his usual monologues, this time on the history of Sevilla and the patron saints Santa Justa y Rosario. Needless to say, we were all bored out of our minds. Ten minutes into his speech, long after Rachel and I had given up translating to Liza, Antonia looked as though she was going to fall asleep, and Jose Alberto, Antonia’s son, started to blow his nose. This sent Rachel into a fit of silent giggles, picked up quickly by me and Liza. Soon we could no longer contain ourselves and burst into hysterics, causing Antonia too to catch on and start laughing. Throughout even this, Antonio continued trying to plow on with his speech, but finally realized that he was fighting a losing battle and admitted defeat.

For my last day of school before the holidays, I watched the kids perform the Christmas carols that I have been teaching them for the past couple of weeks. I got to the auditorium first period with the sixth graders, and we watched as the adorable first graders sang a song about Christmas trees with cute choreography. My sixth graders were singing the Destiny’s Child version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, which they nailed perfectly. The only issue with their first run through, however, was that despite the hip hop melody of the song, they were standing stiff as boards as they sang. So I showed them a few moves and helped them loosen up, and they performed again with a funkafied hip hop performance. My second period fifth graders performed Deck the Halls, which proved to be a little difficult for them given the old English lyrics. They carried it through with some fun dancing, though. For my last period, my favorite class of fourth graders performed Santa Claus is Coming to Town. After their performance, as it was nearing the end of the day, we went back to the classroom for some treats brought courtesy of the three wise men. Upon leaving, they all ran up to me and we shared a huge group hug - me and 25 fourth graders. They then individually had to run up for hugs and besos, and to give me little Christmas cards that they made. This parting made me realize just how sad it will be at the end of the program to say goodbye to these kids. For now, I still have five months to go with these little rascals, and am looking forward to heading home tomorrow morning!

Cold Weather bringing out the Crazies

For the past couple weeks in school I have been teaching the kids all about Santa Claus, elves, reindeers, and Christmas carols. In Spain, the 3 wise men bring gifts to the kids on the 6^th of January, and then a big parade is held through the streets (anything for a parade, right?). A lot of them have heard of Santa, and were eager to answer my questions of where he lives (“el norte – que frio!”) and what he looks like (“fat man! fat man!”). Since the Spaniards celebrate the more religious aspects of the holiday instead of inventing a secular, jolly fat man to deliver their gifts, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the giant nativity scene that arrived magically at our school one morning. This is honestly the largest scene I have ever seen. In the US, typically the nativity scene consists of the key members – people who you have actually heard of and have names, who were said to be present at the birth of Jesus. This scene, however, contains those key players, with about 100 of the local townspeople who I suppose just happened to show up for the big event. It is about 20 feet long, and includes scenery such as houses, grass, trees, and a river (yes, there is real water).

Upon first glance of this nativity scene, I began talking with the other American, Brett, about how bizarre it was to see a scene so large, and to see it in a public school. Another teacher soon joined our conversation, and became very confused as to what we were saying. Struggling with the correct Spanish translation of “secular” or “politically correct,” we told her that it simply wasn’t allowed in public places to show any sort of religious scenery. She was astounded, and could not understand why. When we explained that it is because not everyone was Christian, and people would get offended that their kids were being brainwashed by Christmas, she responded, well, at least the majority is Christian. Isn’t that enough to overrule the minorities? Honey… I’m sorry… but no. Our Spanish skills, however, were just struggling to explain this complicated nuisance of American society, so I’m sure she left the conversation extremely confused and most likely offended that we were knocking her traditions.

This was just the beginning of a bizarre day. During recreo, which is the 30 minute “breakfast” period at 11:45, one teacher ran into the staff room with both of her hands behind her back shouting “close the doors!” From behind her back she pulled two huge bottles of brandy, and starting pouring all of the teachers shots. When I said no thank you, as it was 11:45 in the morning, she responded “don’t be ridiculous, it’s cold outside”. Hmm, am I gonna get force-fed shots of nasty brandy every time the temperature drops below 60 degrees?

After this bizarre recreo, I walked into the hallway to see a boy being escorted down the hall by two teachers, screaming bloody murder. Next, I walked into my next class to find one of my favorite students, Enrique, icing his knee while sitting in a wheelchair. I asked another student, Angel, what happened, and didn’t quite catch his answer, except that something happened during recreo and he hurt his knee. The question that wasn’t answered, however, was where the heck the wheelchair came from. Does the school have a child-sized wheelchair lying around somewhere? And how did they get Enrique and his wheelchair upstairs without an elevator? Such questions are never answered when you’re talking with Spaniards. The teacher soon entered the classroom, along with two boys, Sanchez and Carlos, who were screaming at each other. Carlos kept yelling “I didn’t start it! Don’t listen to him!” while the always-misbehaving Sanchez just wore his usual sly smile. Is it something about the cold weather in Spain that brings out the crazies? Seems that way.

This class (fourth grade) is the very same class that my Chinese friend Luis, who incidentally is now, without explanation, addressed as Hitao, is in. The teacher first starting calling him Hitao at least four weeks after he had started at the school. Which makes me wonder, who started calling him Luis in the first place? Did they even ask him his name or did they just come up with the first Spanish one they could think of? And how did he finally get them to switch to Hitao? So many unanswered questions, that will most likely continue to go unanswered.

Endless airport lines to snowy wonderlands to freezing feet to a horror movie set… Cheers!

I don’t even know how to begin this blog of my epic trip to the UK. I guess at the beginning. I left Friday afternoon on a 2 hour train to Malaga to fly to Liverpool. My friends Rachel, Julia and Jan took an earlier flight because they do not have to work Fridays, and I was going to be meeting them at the hostel in Liverpool. When I got to Malaga airport, I noticed that all of the flights to London were being cancelled due to snow, so I thanked my lucky stars that I was going to a place without snow. Upon getting through security, however, I discovered that my flight also was cancelled, and I began to panic. There were no more flights that evening to Liverpool, all flights to the UK were being grounded, and I had nowhere to stay in Malaga. My parents were able to get my refund for the ticket and book a ticket for the next morning to Glasgow, but I still had to figure out where to stay. So I stood in the EasyJet line… for two hours. Finally, they told me that there was a shuttle taking people to a hotel for the night, so I got in line number two. The bus dropped us off at a nice looking hotel and proceeded to take off into the night. When all 60 passengers got to the reception desk, however, we learned that the hotel had no vacancies. So we were all stranded on a dark and chilly Malaga sidewalk, waiting for a second bus to come along, unsure if it would. About an hour later, we were back on bus number two, and I was ready for business. The second we were dropped at another hotel I was going to book it – if there was only one room in that hotel it would be mine. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea and it turned into a stampede, as if the doors had just opened for a sample sale at Neiman Marcus. I expected this behavior from the Brits, but the Spaniards, who can barely saunter down the sidewalk, I expected to take their grand-old time. I got my place, however, and went to bed awaiting my flight the following morning.

Luckily, I got a message to my friends that I wasn’t gonna make it, and that I would meet them at our second destination, Edinburgh, on Saturday evening. I like to think of this as just the beginning of a trip where everything possible went wrong. I made it to the Malaga airport for the second time to discover that ALL outbound flights were cancelled. The air traffic controllers of Spain had decided that today was the day to go on strike. Panicked again, and unsure as to when the strike would ever be resolved, I got in the EasyJet line for the second time and waited another two hours. They told me that I could get a flight Sunday morning to Belfast, which I noted was across a body of water from Scotland but figured, those are just minor details, I’ll take it. So I was shuttled to EasyJet hotel number two. I got a connecting flight from Belfast to Edinburgh, and told the girls that I would hopefully be meeting them in the hostel Sunday evening at 6:30.

The next morning I arrived at the Malaga airport for the third time expecting the worst. I did not think I would ever see Scotland. Miraculously, however, my flight was scheduled, and I was on my way out of Spain. Upon arriving in Edinburgh, I was welcomed by freezing temperatures and snow, which led my flight to stand on the runway after arriving for an hour so that they could de-ice the area by the terminal. I grabbed a taxi to the hostel, as at this point it was already past the time I said I’d meet my friends, and the taxi driver started giving me a lecture about the city, which I may or may not have understood due to his thick Scottish accent. I arrived at the hostel, finally, after 60 hours of attempted commuting, and was ready to get my vacation started.

We went out for dinner that night at a Thai restaurant, and our fun began. Unable to control ourselves, we went into giggles over the foods that we were ordering (including the words poo and thong) as if we had never had any Asian food before. We are four years old. We called it an early night, however, because they had had a long day of sightseeing and I had had several long days of sightseeing in the Malaga airport.

Monday morning, we awoke to the lovely sight of large, fluffy snowflakes falling to the ground. The city was magically covered in a beautiful white coating that was a sight for my sore eyes. The city of Edinburgh is basically the most charming and beautiful city, aided only by the blanket of fresh snow. We got a breakfast of bagels in a cute café before heading to our first destination: the castle. Well, the castle was closed due to weather, we found out. So, standing in the snow with cold feet and wet coats, we decided to hit up the Scotch Whiskey Experience – a tour and a tasting of scotch. Turns out none of us are destined to become Scotch connoisseurs, as we could barely choke down the tiny glasses we had. But the warming sensation as it hit my stomach felt quite lovely, and made my wet socks feel not so cold against my feet.

After the experience, we went to lunch at The Elephant House, which boasts being the birthplace of Harry Potter. This is the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the very first pages of Harry Potter, coming every day to buy one coffee and spend the entire day at the window overlooking Edinburgh. From this table, you can look out on a graveyard that includes the visible names McGonagall and Moody – inspiration? The food here was great, and I obviously loved the elephant themed decorations. My favorite, however, was a Harry Potter toilet seat, at which people inscribed messages to J.K., thanking her for changing their lives. Pretty cool.

After lunch we tried to go to the National Museum of Scotland, but it was also closed due to weather. I’m sorry, but how can snow affect artwork? I don’t get it. So, figuring that most attractions would likewise be closed, and sick of walking around in wet shoes, we went to the movie theater near our hostel to see Harry Potter, which was pretty cool to see at his place of birth. For dinner, we ventured out to find a cozy Italian restaurant where we had an amazing meal and warmed up from a cold day.

Tuesday was our last full day in Edinburgh and we had lots to see, so we headed out nice and early. We stopped for breakfast at Elephants and Bagels, the twin restaurant to the birthplace of Harry Potter which, as the name suggests it, had bagels. We then headed up to finally see the castle. The views of the snow-covered city from the castle were amazing and made up for the not that interesting museum inside. After the castle, we did a little shopping and headed to lunch for some haggis and fish and chips at a Scottish pub. Although the description of haggis sounds revolting (hint: it includes the word “innards”), it was actually quite good. After lunch we still wanted to see the palace, but soon decided against it when the alternative of getting a tasty treat was suggested. We went to a place called Choclate Soup, where we got breakfast the day before, and got some munchies before heading back to the hostel to grab our bags. We went to the bus station to get a bus from Glasgow to Edinburgh, as we were flying out of the Glasgow airport early the next morning, but all buses had been cancelled due to weather. At this point in the trip, we were all hoping against hope that our flight would be cancelled and we would be stranded in Edinburgh forever. Don’t get me wrong, Sevilla is a great place, but Edinburgh stole my heart and I did not want to leave. We sadly found out that the trains were running, however, and decided that we had to say goodbye for now to our new favorite city.

If you thought the train ride would be smooth sailing, however, you clearly haven’t been paying attention to our horrible luck this trip. The board said that the train we intended on taking at 4:30 was delayed and there was no boarding platform mentioned. At 4:29, the platform appeared, but the status still said delayed, so we sauntered outside to the platform… where we learned that the train had just left. Even though the platform number was not added until a second before. I’m pretty sure an empty train was just sent to Glasgow. So we had to wait for another half hour in the freezing cold for the second train. When they let us through to get on, we all started running, eager to get on before it left again. Little did I know that the real motivation for our running was the stampeding crowd of people that seemed to form out of mid air behind us, all racing towards the same door. We did make it however into the car with no heat, and remained freezing cold for the hour long journey. This is when things started to go downhill. Fast.

Getting off the train, we were eager to get into a warm bus or taxi that would take us to our hotel near the airport. After noting the taxi cue, we decided to wait for the bus… which after several minutes of waiting and a chat with a nice woman, we were convinced wasn’t coming due to the snow. So we got back in the taxi line, which we waited in for what seemed like forever, freezing cold, with no taxis in sight. At this point, Rachel got the idea to try for the bus again, which was miraculously rounding the corner and we ran to like fools. Now, our first hint that something was fishy with the hotel should have begun when the airport bus driver had never heard of our so called “airport hotel.” We decided we would just get to the airport than get a cab from there. Our second, a bit more obvious hint that something was up with our hotel occurred when we asked the taxi driver if he had heard of it and he replied “unfortunately”. Our third and most blatant hint that we should have run away screaming for the hills did occur when we pulled up to what we individually described as “a mental institution” and “the kind of place that you enter and never leave.” Somehow, even joking this aloud as we walked up the icy steps to this haunted mansion, we still rang the crooked and falling off doorbell. Now, before the door creaks open, let me set the scene for you all. A foggy, cold, snowy night in the middle of nowhere Scotland. A cab that had just driven us up a long alley filled with nothing but abandoned factories, that has now skidded away to get the hell out of here. And a creepy, Victorian-era structure that looks to be held together with tape. And then the door creeps open, and a man so far gone he could only half open one of his eyes is there to greet us. Why we did not go running after the taxi, I do not know. The signs were all there: the creepy alley, the creepy Lurch-esque door opener, the foggy night, and four innocent American girls. The stage was perfectly set for a horror movie.

Conditions did not improve upon our entrance. The drugged out man did not have our reservation, and yet still had a room waited for us, and asked us to pay in cash up front (20 pounds each). I still do not know why we paid him, but we did, and started heading up the windy staircase to our rooms. Jan had her own room, because she booked separately, and only opened the door a crack before running over to our room screaming “I can’t do it, it’s The Ring. I CAN’T DO IT.” The room, indeed, looked like a scene out of The Ring, complete with suspicious looking stains on the rug. Nothing thus far however prepared us for the bathroom, which I can only describe as downright terrifying. The toilet was overflowing with what smelled like month old potent urine, spilling over into the tub, making both appliances unusable. Is it too much to ask to be able to shower and pee? I don’t think so! Luckily we took the situation well, and started hysterically laughing for about 20 minutes. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my entire life. We then decided to take photos to document the experience, which Jan noted will probably reveal creepy ghosts or demon in the background. I honestly would not have been surprised in this setting. At this point though we decided to get real: we could not spend the night here. Unless we wanted to start becoming cannibals, which probably would have been fashionable in this hotel, we had no food, and no potential for dinner in this creepy slum. So we decided that we were going to get the hell out of this place, and ask for our money back. We decided that Rachel should do the talking, and she did a great job, but this man would not budge. He even lied, saying that we paid online when we all just handed over cash about ten minutes ago. Eager to head outta this place and never look back, except to take this man and his hotel down, which we are working on btw, we asked him to call us a cab so we could leave. Bad news was the cab was going to take an hour to get there, so we figured screw this, and started walking. After taking a few steps out the door, thinking the night could not get any more ridiculous, Julia’s legs flew out from under her and she landed on her ass on the ground. We all immediately started dying of laughter, and said that this moment was probably the 14^th cherry on top of an epic trip.

Walking down the dark alley, I think our adrenaline took over and we were booking it, trying not to think about how crazy it was to be walking around aimlessly on our own. There seemed to be some sort of civilization up ahead, so we headed towards it, and ran into a teenage boy eating chips. We asked him how to get to the airport, and he told us no buses were running and we should call a cab. Yeah… already struck out doing that. He told us it would be about an hour walk, which we did not want to make in our frozen shoes. So we headed towards the lights, where we found another line for taxis. The first guy in line was clearly on something, had a black eye, and was shouting things in a crazy Scottish accent. We were pretty glad when he got into the first cab and drove away. So we found ourselves again, in the freezing cold night, waiting in a line for a taxi that may never come. It did, however, and our destination was the Ramada hotel that we saw across the street from the airport. When we told our driver where we were coming from, he responded, “Lomond hotel? That’s a shit hole.” Too bad he wasn’t there to tell us that in the first place. We instructed him to never bring people there under any circumstances.

To say that the Ramada was light years better than Lomond is an understatement. I cannot begin to describe the sight to my sore eyes that was food, a working toilet, a shower, and beds that didn’t look infested. We heardon the news in the hotel that the Scottish infrastructure was falling apart due to the snow, and that it was a week that would soon not be forgotten in Scottish history... just our luck! We grabbed a dinner in the lobby, took showers, and went to bed, not really hoping anymore that our flight would be cancelled after the day we had had. I would have loved to go back to Edinburgh, but I was ready for some warm Sevilla weather to thaw my bones.

So the next morning we got up bright and early to get to the airport, which of course did not run smoothly. To think that it would have would have been foolish given our weekend. However, looking back on it, it was all the crazy incidents that made our trip what it was. Sure, I would have saved some money by not having to go to the Ramada, but what a great story does the Lomond hotel give me? I also would have liked to not sit in an airport shuttle on the runway for half an hour in the fog at 7 am trying to find our lost plane… but it sure was an experience. So, to finish up, all that can be said was that it was an epic trip indeed.