Snow, I love you, But...

HELLO!!! It's been a while since I last wrote so first of all, I'm sorry for neglecting you. I hope you've all had a wonderful christmas and that you're managing to relax a little. Here's looking at you, Dad :-).

As you might have guessed, this post is about SNOW!!! One day during the last couple of weeks of uni (I've forgotten which one) I walked out the door and it was about ten times colder than normal, and there was all this white stuff everywhere. You would probabl have worked it out faster than me, but in my defence my room looks out into a well in the middle of the building and I couldn't see anything before I left my flat. Anyway, it wasn't just snow on the tops of the cars, it was actually snowING, and it was the most peaceful weather I've ever experienced. Maybe not the most comfortable (athough I'll take it any day over 30+ degrees), but it was very tranquil. It never settled on the ground but the roofs of cars and rubbish bins, trees, the church looked lovely... I enjoyed it once I warmed up walking to uni. It snowed all morning, stopping around 4 or 5pm I think. I didn't have my camera and I didn't feel like venturing out twice so I didn't take any photos, but there's lots on Faceboo that I can steal from other people. Keep an eye out!

So I finished uni, with some very decent grades (I am most proud of my 9/10 in Arabic (yay!), I was a little worried about that), packed my bag, and headed to Madrid. I had an early flight to Milan then on to Nantes, so I went to Madrid the night before and had dinner with a uni friend (Yasmin) and her husband and their friend, who were in Madrid that night too. They were very good to me actually, they took me to dinner and then dropped me off at the airport which is quite a drive. I was going to take the metro but that stops running about 1am, and dinner took a while. Thanks guys!!

So I spent the night dozing in the airport. I later wished I'd made more of an effort to sleep properly, but I'll get to that. When I tried to check in, the girl at the desk looked at my visa, which had expired, then my residency card, which had also expired, then my letter confirming that I'd applied to renew my card and saying it would take several months, then turned me down saying the letter didn't count. Madrid had never looked at the residency card before. I had a minor panic attack, and went to the customer information desk where they told me I only needed a valid passport and stamped my boarding pass, then it was bag to check-in to drop off my bag. She accepted me with a little bad grace, and I headed to security. I got on the plane ok, but it was not a good start to the day. I was worried that in Milan for the next flight they'd refuse me too, as last time I was in Italy they checked the visa, but that turned out to be redundant.
It was snowing when we boarded the plane, and it was deep enough to close the airport. We sat on the runway so long that it became clear that I was going to miss my connecting flight from Milan, so I asked the Stewardess, who said that if I wanted to get off the plane they could arrange that, but since the delay wasn't Ryanair's fault I would get little in the way of assistance from them. So I had a choice. Go to Milan, and hope to find a flight to Nantes from there, or abandon the plane and look for a direct flight to Nantes from Madrid. With no information available, other than that there were no other RyanAir flights to Nantes from Milan that day, I felt a bit stuck. What to do? In the end I left the plane at Madrid, as Madrid is a bigger airport ad therefore I figured that it would be more likely to have flights to Nantes, and also, if I was going to be stranded anywhere I'd much rather it be Madrid, where I can have a decent crack at the language and I know there's food available 24 hours a day!
I got lucky; in that there was ONE flight to Nantes that day, at 9:30pm. It was with Iberia, so I went to enquire. This was the point where I wished I'd got more sleep, as I stood in line for an hour. This was actually my shortest wait of the day (apart from food) as the snow had stranded lots of people and it was CHAOS. Anyway, the guy who I finally spoke too taught me the value of a smile, as with so many frustrated passengers I'm sure it was a day from hell for him to. So I smiled and asked politely if he spoke english (people hate it when you just assume they do!) and he gave me a REALLY good deal: 361 euros for a return ticket. It was 900 one-way! But he gave me a deal that closed two months ago. THANKYOU!!!!!!!!!

The rest of the day was spent sleeping on the ground in a corner and wondering if a) the airport would be open that late at night (I thought ice might ground the planes again) and b) the airport at Nantes would be open, as even once Madrid was going again there were lots of flights cancelled due to bad weather all over europe. However, all the waiting paid off, and after the almost two hour wait to check in I finally headed through security in the new terminal, Terminal 4. I'd never taken off from there before, and I have to say it is impressive. It's like a shopping mall, and the gates area has pillars painted in the colours of the rainbow, red fading all the way throught to purple down the other end. Purty.
Then guess what? My 9:30 flight was delayed...til at least 11, I suspect because the plane was delayed at another airport. I headed off for a cup of tea, and 20 mins later got a boarding call. I guess they found another plane. I didn't believe it until we were actually in the air but we finally landed in Nantes at pretty much midnight. I was beyond exhausted. Waiting I can do, and worrying I can handle, but doing both all day was something I'd never done before.

And then ANA MET ME!!!!! I have never been so glad to see anybody in my life. Especially not a family member I haven't seen for three and a half years. She and her boyfriend, Harold, picked me up and we went back to their flat in the centre of Nantes. It's gorgeous, yellow walls, pretty furniture from ikea, one bedroom so I have the couch but it's actually pretty comfortable. They have a goldfish called Bob.

See the next post for family and xmas talk!
xox
Katie