I was going to just be done with my blog after I got sent home from Spain, but I decided that this will be my last post. The past few weeks that I have been home have been filled with questions from friends and family about what I had to go through to get home. I did not answer a lot of people because it was depressing to think about, but now I am okay. I am safer back home than I would be if I was in Spain right now, so I am just keeping that in mind.
I have started working at Walmart again, mostly because I am losing a lot of money from weekends that I had trips planned. I unfortunately cannot get any refunds for my plane tickets around Europe. Being back at Walmart has been fun and it is helping me have a better schedule. Everyone that works there keeps asking about what it was like to get sent home and how I feel about it. Associates keep coming up to me when I am alone and ask questions in hushed tones, which cracks me up because this is in no way a secretive thing.
I guess people are curious, so this is how it went down.
On Wednesday, March 11, the media released information about Trump's travel ban. But this information did not get to my friends and I right away because we were six hours ahead, already sleeping. I woke up around 4:30 AM on Thursday the 12th to messages in my program group chat. One of my friends was already on his way to the airport.
That day, after my classes, we met at noon with our program coordinators to discuss the coronavirus. My school in Spain told us that they had not made any decision to send us home so we would continue with classes as usual.
But at 6pm, Platteville emailed us and told us we had to get a ticket home within the next 48 hours. They did give us a phone number for a travel agency to book the flights, and they did cover my airfare, which was about $4000. So, I called the agency immediately and I was one of the first five students to call and book my flight. Other students weren't so lucky; they had 50 or more people waiting in front of them.
I spent the night of the 12th packing my one overflowing suitcase. I cried a lot, and barely ate dinner because I was so stressed. It also didn't help that I was really sick from the food I ate in Africa the weekend before.
The morning of Friday the 13th, I woke up, said goodbye to my host mom and roommate (Taylor), and took a taxi to the airport. I flew alone. At this time, Madrid was the most infected city in Spain, so I wanted to avoid it as much as I could. But it is hard to get anywhere international from Seville, so I had to pass through there. Surprisingly, the Madrid airport was a ghost town. From there, I flew to Amsterdam and then to Minneapolis. Amsterdam was a mess; the rest of the flights to America for that night were cancelled and I was on the last one. People were flooding the gate and started to yell and argue. I was not about this so I pushed to the front and got on sooner.
I ended up sitting directly in front of the bathrooms, and in the seat in front of me was a younger couple with two very hyper babies. Let's just say I did not sleep a bit for the 9 hour long duration.
I got off the plane around 8pm in Minneapolis and it was a disaster. There were only a few workers doing passport control, and four international flights unloaded in the same terminal within 20 minutes. When it was finally my turn, I handed my passport to the guy in the booth. I immediately fired off questions and in return, he asked why I was so inquisitive and what my major was (without answering even one of my questions). I told him Criminal Justice and he told me I would be a good fit for passport control and then sent me on my way without even looking at my passport. I passed through another control where the worker did not answer my questions nor say a word to me, and then I got my suitcase. I spent some time wandering around talking on my phone with my parents while trying to find them.
We got to the car and drove two hours home. It was really late when I got back, but that didn't stop me from playing with my very happy dog Ace.
That night, I tried to sleep but couldn't. My body was so messed up from the time difference and it took a few days to get back to normal.
I had a break for a week and then I started online classes the 23rd. I have 13 credits in Spanish, so this is not very easy for me to do online. I tried to do a two-week self-quarantine, but that is really hard in my house because 9 people live here. So, I just avoided being in public and seeing my friends and grandparents. I spent the time with my family, walking my dog, running, baking, and reading. The book I have been reading is called The Stand and it is written by my favorite author, Stephen King. I started this book before I left but it was much too big to fit into my suitcase so I left it at home to finish over the summer. For anyone who doesn't know, this book is about a pandemic that wipes out 99% of the world's population. How ironic.
Before I left for Spain, Platteville had told all the study abroad students that an evacuation was borderline impossible. I never thought that this would have happened to me. To be honest, this sucks so much. I worked my butt off to pay the $12k tuition, and I paid about $2k out of pocket for my new passport, student VISA, round-trip ticket, and other miscellaneous things. Most of this was a waste of money.
This was the only chance that I was going to be able to do something like this in my life--and it is gone. Everyone who has studied abroad rants and raves about how amazing it is and how they "found themself" but the only thing I found out about myself was that I really missed home.
However, I am not the only one that is having amazing opportunities taken away from them. Lately I have been seeing a lot of posts on social media about the losses that people are suffering from. The strangest part, though, is that people are competing about what they have lost. Many people are trying to top each other on how bad this is affecting their lives, and all I have been thinking is "get a grip people!"
This sucks for EVERYONE. This sucks for parents with young children, people who have weddings planned, high school and college seniors, the unemployed, the elderly, college students, study abroad students and it sucks even more for healthcare workers. Keep in mind that people are sick and people are dying. This is not a competition and we definitely do not need to be picking arguments and hurting relationships over this.
In Spain we used the phrase "que sera, sera" a lot which means "whatever will be, will be." I have kept this is my mind throughout all that has happened these past few weeks. Life is uncontrollable, scary, and heartbreaking--but I know that good is going to come. The only way for us to return to normalcy is to stay clean and distance yourself.
One more thing: please stop going to Walmart in massive groups.
Thank you for reading and supporting my travels,
Micaela