Welcome back to my blog! This is my second post (look back on my page just in case you missed the first), and boy do I have a story for you.
This crazy adventure began months ago. Shortly after we applied and got into the SAIIE (the Spanish-American Institute of International Education) program, it was brought to our attention that the three of us would need to obtain student visas from the consulate of Spain in Chicago because we will be there for more than 90 days. We were assured that this process would be simple and manageable, but still spent a lot of time trying to figure it out anyways. Little did we know that this was going to take hours of questioning ourselves and stressing over minuscule details. The visa process required a fairly new passport (to put the visa in), the national application form, a letter of acceptance from our school, proof of health insurance, and proof of expenses to fund the semester. We also had to provide a 2x2 photo, a money order, and a driver's license. We did have the option to ship our passports back to us once the visas were approved; however, our study abroad advisor did not support this plan. With the amount of time required to process the application and the appointment being in mid-December, the study abroad advisor was worried the visas would not be in before our departure. So, we decided to pick them up ourselves.
The visas were processed and completed in one week.
One week? Seriously? I spent so much time worrying about the completion date being too close to the day I leave that I didn't realize that the process might be faster than what the website said. After receiving the email on December 20, I immediately felt like I had made a mistake in not mailing my passport home because it totally would have been there in time. But that was no longer an option; so Kelley, Taylor and I had to go to Chicago near the start of January to pick the visas up.
The original course of action was to drive my car there, pick up our stuff, and then stay at my aunt and uncle's house to get some rest. Then, we would drive home the next day and take our time. However, Kelley came up with another option. Her cousin works for an airline and had a few free standby tickets that she offered to us. We gratefully accepted them in lieu of paying for gas, tolls, and other expenses we would have had with driving. After little debate, Taylor, Kelley, and I decided that we would make this a one day round-trip. We hoped to depart at 5:41 AM from Minneapolis to Chicago and leave O'Hare around 5 PM to make it back by 7 PM.
Unfortunately, that plan crashed and burned.
We woke up at 2:45 AM to get to the airport to make the 5:41 AM flight. After going through security with only our backpacks, we made our way to the gate to meet an unpredictable fate: 16 people in standby (for 8 open seats) with us at the bottom of the list. So for the next 10 hours we filled our time with Chinese food, card games, sleeping on the floor, crying a little bit, and I had many, many shots of espresso. The flight attendant at our gate suggested that we split the group up on different flights; after all, a group of three is tough in any situation, especially travel. But we did not want to split because we were in it together. Finally, around 1:45 PM, there were enough seats open for the three of us on a plane. Taylor and Kelley quickly grabbed the boarding passes, but where was I when this happened? I was in the bathroom. I went back to the gate to meet the girls in a frenzy of excitement and quickly boarded the plane. I like to think it was my excessive peeing that was the good luck charm that got us that flight.
At this point in the day, it was impossible to make this a one day trip because the Consulate of Spain in Chicago is only open 9 AM-2 PM and we would not land until after 3. Aware of this, we stepped off the plane to navigate the craziness of O'Hare. Thankfully, my uncle LC gave me directions on how to train it to my aunt Erin and uncle Wally's house. We paid $5 to take the Blue Line directly out of the airport to the LaSalle Street Metra Station, which was about an hour long ride. After braving that grimy train and the weirdos that were yelling on the train, we quickly got off where LC directed us to. There, we paid $8.50 for the hour long ride to Joliet. When we walked into the station, I remember that I heard a whistle but didn't think anything of it. We were taking our sweet time going down the escalator after purchasing our tickets when it dawned on me that our train (which was the last one out for the night) was about to leave. So, I ran to the train and the girls followed suit. We jumped on and took our seats as it left the station. At that time, I thought that the rest of the trip was going to be really lucky.
But it wasn't.
We were picked up at the Joliet station around 6:45 PM by Erin and Wally. There was a short drive back to their place, but we were grateful for anything at that point. We ended up watching the Bachelor premiere and ate pizza before we passed out completely. The next morning we woke up and took the train back to Chicago. However, this time, we only had to ride to LaSalle station because the Consulate was much closer to that than O'Hare was. We found our way to our destination across the street from Millennium Park.
Picking up our visas was perhaps the easiest part of the trip. We went to the 15th floor of the building and waited for about 5 minutes. Then the lady who has helped us apply for them took our IDs and handed them with our passports back to us. Our journey was complete! But the crushing sense of reality hit us: we still had to get home.
After researching the amount of seats left open on all of the leaving flights to Minneapolis and the amount of time it would take us to go across the city to O'Hare, we decided that flying was too risky. If we did not get on a flight, there was no chance of us making it back until the next day. Then, we would have to go back to my family's house to sleep and it would have been quite a bit messier to plan. Our only option left was to pay $30 and take a Greyhound bus back. We really were not lucky anymore.
We asked the person working the desk at the Consulate to give us directions to the station and then made our way over. There, we waited about an hour and a half to get on the bus. Thankfully, Kelley, Taylor, and I sat near each other for the ride. The entire ride wasn't terrible. In fact, there was a little, old Hispanic lady that did not speak English on the bus. We quickly made friends with her and helped her order food at one of the stops. We chatted with her in Spanish and she felt much more relieved to have us there. It was definitely good practice for Spain!
Near the end of the ride, about 20 minutes out from Minneapolis, someone took a massive dump in the bathroom. Really dude? You couldn't hold it for a little bit longer? That was downright disrespectful because even the driver could smell that. All the people on the bus started hootin' and hollerin' at this guy because they knew who did it. Meanwhile, I suffered in the back because we were near the bathroom. Once the bus pulled up to the station, we spilled out into the city and I had never loved smelling city air more in my life. Kelley's sweet parents picked us up and drove us back to her house in Hudson, WI. I warmed up my car, said goodbye, and then drove an hour and a half home where I took a broiling hot shower and passed out in my bed.
My reflection of this chaotic trip is as follows: we needed this. My friends and I are leaving to brave another country in less than two weeks and I believe that this was a great opportunity to put our communication and team work skills to the test. If you travel with your friends and are not confident that they will stick with you, then you should probably not travel with them. But Kelley and Taylor were with me through it all. In this post I wrote about all the things that went wrong, but honestly, a lot of things went well, too. We became closer, shared a lot of laughs, and we all pushed ourselves to be positive throughout the process. These girls are great friends to have and to travel with, and I am so excited for what experiences we are going to share in Seville.
Here are some photos!
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-Micaela