almostfearless.com

Posted: 02 Jun 2011 04:40 AM PDT

Photo by Papalars

Leaving Barcelona. Finally. The pent up energy spent anticipating Africa, well, it’s made the time in Europe stretch out… and what was two weeks felt more like an endless cycle of work, Spanish food, red wine, walks and more work. It was great, but it wasn’t Africa. And now the day was here. Leaving!

It was a perfect travel day. The sun streamed in through the floor to ceiling windows that line one side of our studio apartment. Drew was up, packing, making coffee. I nursed the baby, then we (baby and I) crawled out of bed and ambled around, poking at things in some attempt to help, mostly trying to shake the sleep out.

Packed. Drew is getting good at this, I don’t even have to remind him to check under the pull-out sofa bed for baby toys. He’s already done it. He smiles smugly. “Good job, sweetie.” I mean it. I give him a kiss and we start our stroll to the train station.

“Oh honey, let’s buy you some pants,” I say and even though we have five hours before our flight, I’m nervous about getting delayed because I know us. Have you met us? Well, if you have, there’s no doubt that we were late for said meeting. That’s how we roll.

The Indian shop attendee switches to English when I ask for a larger size in Spanish. Since leaving India, I see them everywhere now, people who were invisible to me before. Normally, I’d ask where in India he was from, and maybe he’d say, “Not India, Pakistan” and I’d blush. Today, I wait impatiently but silent, while Drew changes into new pants and comes out to the street to show me. “Do you like them?” he asks. “Yes, they are really nice. Let’s get them.”

Everything is going so well. As we continue on our walk to the train station Drew says, “Everything is going so well.”

Woah. That’s exactly what I was thinking. I eye him carefully. “We’re doing really well. No fighting. It’s good.”

It’s so sunny. Hot. The day is stretching on and the sun is moving to it’s highest point over head. We reach the train station. Check the schedule. “Next train is in 20 minutes,” I announce, then respond to myself, as I double check, “Perfect, I’ll run across the street and get us something to eat, you get the tickets.”

We’re efficient. I don’t even have to wait for a response. We just nod at each other and I’m off. The shopkeeper is from Tangier, Morocco, but I don’t mention that we’re flying to his country today or that we’ll be in Marrakech. I pick a chocolate croissant and an almond creme filled pastry. A large water. Two cokes. Pay the man, skip across the street, smile at my waiting husband, grab the ticket and we’re in.

I’m sort of dying to drink something now, but first we have to go to the other side of the tracks to catch our train. We have two suitcases, two backpacks, a stroller and a large camera case. I take the baby and stroller down the stairs. Drew takes two of the suitcases down, runs back up and takes the rest of the luggage down. We go through the tunnel, under the tracks, and I start climbing the other stairs.

The train arrives.

“Drew! Hurry up!” We’re running up the stairs now, Drew drops the luggage at the top and runs down for the rest.

I stand at the top of the stairs and watch 20 or so people jumping the tracks. The train arrived on the other side.

“What! Why would they even have this side open if they are routing all traffic to the other side?”

We sigh. But there is another train coming in 20 minutes. So we climb down the stairs, through the tunnel, up the stairs and over to the correct platform. Drew does all of this twice, and I sit with the baby on the camera case, feeding him cold bottled water. His cheeks are flush.

We eat. We wait. We think. “Hmm, maybe we should ask if the next train is coming to this side or not,” Drew says, because he’s smart.

He asks. He was right, it’s the other side. The side we were on, when it was the wrong side. We have to go back.

“Really? What if they are wrong?”

We look for someone else to ask, to double check. The guy has gone on break. We hem. We haw. We finally start to drag our stuff down the stairs, through the tunnel and back up the stairs. We’re at the top of the stairs now and the train arrives — early again! I run, with the baby on a hip, pushing an empty stroller and people reach for me, trying to help me, but Drew isn’t there. He’s fetching luggage from the second flight of stairs. “Drew!” I leave the stroller and run for him, baby in my arms, and grab a piece of luggage and run back to the train. We made it. Just in…. the doors close. Nope, we have to wait for the next train.

“Okay, so we’ll catch this train, and then it’ll be fine. We have plenty of time.”

Drew’s shirt is sopping wet with sweat.

We catch the next train. We go 15 minutes north to catch a bus. We miss the first bus because we hesitated and then confidently grab another bus 20 minutes later. Cole has missed his mid-morning nap. It’s hot. Too hot to breastfeed, too hot to sleep, too hot to exist. He screams. Arches his back. I comfort him, sing to him, whisper offers of “Do you want some boobie?” very quietly to him and stroke his head. He relaxes a little and l feed him. He’s asleep instantly. I carry him off the bus sleeping and we check the schedule for our final connection: Ryan Air airport in Girona, Barcelona. Next bus: 2:00PM. Arrives at airport at 2:40PM. Our flight: 3:40 PM.

Oh. crap.

That is extremely close. The anxiety is ramping up. I tell Drew, “It’ll be fine, don’t worry about it,” because he worries more than I do. We paid for priority check-in. We’ll be fine. This is going to really suck if we miss this flight. There is no re-book on Ryan Air. You miss it, you lose it.

We check in. We’re going to make it! We head towards the gate and wait in line for security. The women speaks to us in Catalan, something like, “No, you can’t, you need a stamp, you are not from Europe, see, look, no stamp, go away, or something.”

Oh. crap.

Okay, so it’s now 3:00 PM. Flight leaves at 3:40. We’re okay. We run to check-in, get the stamp, run back, and go through security.

3:15 PM, Drew has finally stuffed all our cameras and laptops and cords and loose change back into their rightful places and we hear the announcement: “Ryan Air flight to Marrakech, final boarding, please proceed immediately to the gate.”

We run. Baby, two backpacks, a camera box and a stroller. The husband is still sopping wet with sweat and our faces are moist and red. Panting.

“Here.” We shove the documents to the passport checker and he lets us into the gate. We hand our documents to the flight attendent. “Here.” She lets us through. We’re waiting behind some people who are flinging belongings around, trying to get their suitcases to fit in the maximum size restrictions.

We are the last ones in line. The gate is closed.

“Um, you can not have three bags, you can only have two.”

She’s talking to Drew and his two backpacks plus camera case.

F- me.

I put Cole back into the stroller and help. We’re taking our $2,000 camera lenses and memory cards and anything else of value and shoving it into our over-stuffed other bags and into pockets and trying to figure out how to check a bag without risking our gear.

We pay 40 euros to check a nearly empty backpack.

Now we’re really late. We run towards the plane. “Hurry up!” someone shouts at us.

Drew panics now and sprints ahead with the silver video camera box perched on his shoulder, like he’s running into battle with a rocket launcher, leaving me and the baby plus stroller on the tarmac. “Dreeeeeeewwwwwww!!!!”

I take Cole out of the stroller, attempt to close it, but everyone is so amped up, they jump in to help. I use my foot to press down the latch that allows it to be collapsed, but as I do so, two airline guys jump in and start closing it down, trapping my foot in the half closed stroller.

I have a baby on my hip, a husband running away and no doubt already sipping cool beverages on the plane and wondering where his family went and now I’m trying to pull my foot out of a stroller as two guys push down harder, trying to figure out why it won’t close.

“HEY!” They can’t hear me. I push one away and open the stroller, removing my foot and just drop the half open stroller and start running. Screw it.

“Hi.” My husband says sheepishly when I catch up to him.

“Did you know you just ran like a madman down the tarmac, leaving me and the baby behind?”

There’s a pause. We look at each other. And very slowly we begin to laugh. “Well, we made it.”

“Good travel day, huh?”

“Yeah, spec-tac-ular.”