I NEVER Want to See Another Aeroplane EVER Again...

(Monday Lunchtime:)

Hola a todos! Well, I'm here. It was quite a long journey and I could quite happily not set eyes on another plane for a year, which is hopefully what will happen! Except perhaps a short flight to Sweden. Emphasis being on SHORT.

It went better than I expected, even in San Francisco I didn't have any holdups at all. The only delay was about 45mins when leaving Frankfurt, when an engine wouldn't start. By that stage I was exhausted and quite happy to just sit somewhere for a while, plus there was no connecting flight from Madrid. I enjoyed the stopovers though, Germany was gloomy and rainy (and beautiful from the air) but I didn't have to go out in it, and San Francisco, oh my god! The weather was perfect - perfect!- and I had an hour or so to look round the airport. I really wanted to leave it and have a look at the city but there wasn't time. I did jump on the AirRail (or something like that) which is a little shuttle-train thing that connects the terminals (all seven of them), and there were some nice views from that. I was chatting to an american guy who said he was surprised at how nice the weather was, I think they stole our summer as it was hailing in NZ not so long ago. I got some photos and bought some postcards and I saw the Golden Gate Bridge from the plane as we were leaving, I had a window seat :D.
I was slightly disappointed that the Lufthansa plane we were on didn't have individual screens and movies and things, but I was able to sleep (unlike the AirNZ flight, that was horrible, I couldn't sleep at all, but I did watch some movies! I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral and Camp Rock, and listened to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack which I could kinda watch in my mind as I've seen the movie).

I was excited to fly over the states, I saw a bit of it from the air before it got dark. I'm so keen to go back and travel round. I bought a cup of tea and some reese's peanut butter cups (yum!) while waiting to board, and the guy called them 'candy', and when I looked for a rubbish bin to throw out the wrapper a cop pointed it out and called it a trash can. Everyone was really friendly! Although I guess when you work in an airport you're a bit more aware of travellers. This is gonna sound so naive, but I felt like I was on a movie set or something. It was so cool to FINALLY visit one of these places I've heard so much, read so many books, and seen so many movies about.

On the Lufthansa one I sitting next to this elderly German couple who spoke a bit of english, they had visited their son in the states and were on their way home, so we chatted and I had a couple of games of cards with the husband. When I was talking about my journey the guy in the seat in front of me turned around and said "I've come from chch and I'm going to Madrid too". He went to CPIT, studying cookery, and knows one of the chefs at the Bicycle Thief where I worked for a few months. Weird.

So, I had an uneventful trip on the Metro and the AVE Renfe (high-speed train), turned up at the hotel in Ciudad Real, to hear "we don't have a booking for you". Fortunately they have a room free, or perhaps they found the booking, and the minimum stay is three nights, so I'm sorted for now, and they even threw in breakfast. They're lovely people, and they don't speak any english at all, one of the regulars does (a bit) and the barmaid is french, so I'm learning pretty fast.

The guy who speaks English is called Felipe, and he offered me a lift to the uni this morning as "it's on the other side of town" and he had to run an errand there anyway. We agreed to meet at ten, (I was thinking earlier but the office doesn't even open til 9:30) he hadn't turned up by eleven, I had procured a map which showed the uni two blocks away like I thought it was, and it wasn't -5 outside, so I walked. I don't know if it was a miscommunication but it doesn't matter. At the uni, I was sent to go see the head of the faculty to discuss courses and he wasn't there, so I went back to the Int. Office (abbreviation: ORI) and was introduced to a couple of other people looking for accomodation. The girl was busy sorting something else out and I've already forgotten her name, and the guy is called Javier and hails from Italy. I can hear you guys already: Yes, he's hot. Like pretty much all the guys here! Haha... He has been in Spain since september and his english isn't too bad either, it's funny how people find out where you're from and just start talking in english. Although the people at the hotel thought I was from England for a bit.

So I have to go back to the ORI at 4pm to meet a third potential flatmate and see about some flats. I walked around Ciudad Real for an hour before coming back to the hotel, it's reminiscent of France in some ways, which isn't really surprising, and I'm looking forward to getting to know it better.