Turned Around.

Notice a theme yet?  With me and transportation?  It doesn't end well...So I had a five hour bus ride to Granada a head of me, plus a taxi ride from the bus station to the hotel.  Imagine everything that could possibly go wrong, given my luck.  A lot.  Because I was to nervous from the outcome of the previous days, I decided to start the morning out slightly differently.  I started out reading through the Gospel of John, which I had started earlier in the summer, and then journaled for a while.  I didn't instantaneously cured of anxiety, but I certainly felt but than I had on the previous two mornings and it was one of many small steps towards better days.

We first dropped my brother off at the train station in Madrid.  It took half an hour because our wonderful, generous hosts walk him directly to the correct platform so the train could take him directly to the airport.  He's now in Germany being a cool kid. Like he is.  Next it was my turn and off to the bus station we went!  I bought my 2 pm Granada bound ticket with no problem, and found the waiting area and had a good hour and a half to let my anxiety stew.  And stew it did!

1:30 rolled around and I gathered up my big suit case, my little suitcase, my carry on, my purse and myself, and off I strode in the direction of the elevator, faking more confidence than I felt.  As sketchy as the elevators looked, I'd given up on the escalators and was thinking long on how to return with less baggage than I came.  The funny thing about the bus ticket is it doesn't tell you which bus exactly to leave from, instead it will give a group.  Mine, for example said buses 22-26.  But not all buses in 22-26 were headed for Granada.  Just thats where it was parked.  If only one bus at 22-26 was leaving at 2, then there would be no problem.  There were two.

Uh-oh.

Then along came a miracle.  I saw a group of girls around my age, all with equally obnoxious amounts of luggage and popping prints of Vera Bradley carry-ons.  To be perfectly honest, I was intimidated of them.  Extremely so.  They all seemed to know each other really well and where they were going and here I was, probably less showered than I would like to be, terrified to travel, and wishing for all the world that my mother was here to travel with me.  But they knew where they were going.  And were probably english.  Then again, some of them randomly slipped into Spanish.  Really good Spanish.

It was getting closer and closer to two, and the Granada bound bus, wherever it was, was getting closer and closer to leaving.  My stomach twisted into tighter and tighter knots.  My palms sweated.  I looked wildly around for answers and found no immediate ones.  None but the group of girls.  Then most of them  walked down toward the 26 bus, all except one, who stayed behind for some reason.  She was the one with the Vera Bradley carry-on.  I made up my mind and walked up to her.

"Do you know where the Granada bus is?"

She paused and then asked.  "Yes.  Are you with the group from Central?"

I could feel the tension and anxiety physically leave my body, and my knees weakened a little in relief from finding other students who know what they were doing.  "Yes!  And I can't tell you how happy I am I found you!"

Little did either of us know how lucky we were to have found each and already bonded, seeing as we would spend a whole semester bonding in a totally unique way.  See, as we found the next morning, we were roommates.