Mom Comes to Spain

So after the most hectic morning on the planet for me, I finally got to the airport and hour late to pick my mother up. She called last night to tell me that her flight was delayed a half an hour, so I reset my alarm for fifteen minutes later. When it went off this morning, I immediately checked her flight status online and realized that even though she had flown out late, she was coming in 40 minutes early. Fantastic. I could just see her sitting at the airport swearing at me that I wasn't there. So I quickly ran around and got ready and was out the door in fifteen minutes. THEN, I went to the cercanias to take the train because I thought it would be quicker, but once I got inside the train station I realized the train wasn't working. So I ran out to the metro and jumped on the first one that came. Then the train broke down, and I ended up having to maneuver all over Madrid on four different metros to finally make it to the airport. Then I realized I was at the wrong terminal, so I had to re-hop on the metro two more stops to get to her terminal to find her. I need to add here also that I was on the metro right after it started running again; it closes at 1 and doesn't reopen until 6. So, I was surrounded by every drunk person in Madrid who had been out partying all night. The train reeked of alcohol and people were making out all over the place. To make matters worse, all of a sudden there were security guards all over the metro. One of them had a dog who I thought was there to sniff out drugs, but I don't think he was very well trained since he came up to me and started sniffing all around me. By the way, this dog was an enormous german shepherd who had a metal muzzle on him and didn't look friendly. Because he had come up to me, the security guards checked me for drugs (twice I might add), and I kept trying to explain in Spanish that I thought the dog had come up to me because I had a dog and he must have smelled her. It was not a pleasant experience. But I made it to the airport none the less.

SO, I finally found her sitting on a bench in the airport. Surprisingly, she had no baggage with her. I was ready to tell her about my horrendous experience when she started talking about her flight. Because of the snow storm in Missouri, she had to leave for the airport at midnight instead of five in the morning. She made it to Springfield and was the only one in the airport for hours. That was, until an entire slew of dog breeders came in with nice little puppies and she got to play with them for a little bit. Then they sent her off on an earlier flight to Dallas, then an earlier flight from Dallas to D.C. because they were worried about the storm coming into D.C. and wanted to make sure she got there. Then she went up to the counter for Iberia airlines and they told her they couldn't find her reservation. Somehow she managed to get that sorted out and then was in the air to come here to visit me. Then she got to Madrid and realized all her bags were gone.

However, with all this said, we've managed to go buy a couple of new things for her to wear for the day, have a fantastic lunch, and go to the store for coffee, which I was harshly critiqued for not having in my house. So we're here, about to watch some movies (I'm finally able to rent movies because I'm legal here!!!), and fall asleep for hours and hours. Aww, Spain . . .