Translating for the Customs Agent in Chicago O'Hare

Upon my arrival to the O'Hare airport, I had the great pleasure of acting as translator for the very flustered cutoms agent. There was a couple that were arriving from Madrid, on their way to Toronto, that had a connecting flight in Chicago. They thought their bags would be directly shipped to Toronto (because that is what it said on their baggage slip). However, apparently they had to get their bags in Chicago, and re-check them in after they had been approved by cutoms.

Unfortunately, this couple's flight was leaving in about an hour, and the customs agent was going to make them go get their bags, go back through customs, and then from there they would have to find their flight. Who knows how far away their gate was, and if they actually made it on time. I felt really bad for them, and it seems silly that they have to go through cutoms if they are just getting a connecting flight, and not staying in the States.

I was the next in line, and the agent flagged me over, asking if I spoke Spanish, and if I could act as translator. And of course I did. During the conversation, he asked me to tell them this was not his first rodeo. Obviously I did not translate that.

However, since I helped him, he didn't hassle me at all, and let me pass through when it was my turn. They didn't check my bags at all, which was nice because if they tried unpacking them, I have no idea if I would be able to get everything to fit again.

On my Flight Back and Other Notes

I am currently watching the Big Bang Theory on the plane. I am so excited to get back, but I still have to get on the connecting flight in Chicago. Ugh. But at least the long flight will be over.

I've met a lot of cool people on my trip. It all started off in Marquette, where I met Diane. She was great and gave me a book to read (which unfortunately I never finished). She is a biologist and travels between Marquette and California. She has to travel because he husband can`t find work anywhere else. She has family in Benzie county, and one of her sisters actually works in one of the banks in the area. My mom probably knows her. Another one of her sisters is a teacher at Benzie High. 

I met lots of other travelers in hostels. I can't believe how popular it is for people to go traveling for a year throughout Europe. I met a lot of Canadians in Spain. I have no idea how people can afford to go traveling for so long. Also, traveling is so mentally and physically jarring, I don't know how people can always be on the move like that, and actually enjoy the places they are seeing. My weekend trips from Salamanca were super tiring for me. 

I met a lot of people in my classes at the University. Actually, I am now friends with Saki and Monica from my elective class. Really nice people.

I met Sandra in the Madrid hostel. She is from Austria, and finished school for Tourism. She is working a little bit outside of Madrid for a company for 3 months. She is only going back home once. She had to find a place to live next to the train station in Madrid for work. She ended up finding one, but the landowner lives in the flat, and talks a lot. She also has a lot of weird rules about the house that made Sandra slightly confused. I added her on Facebook too :) I hope she does well. She seemed really nice.

On the walking tour I met an Argentinian, named Adiel. When I first met him, I spoke to him in English, and then he asked me to speak slower because his English isn't that good. But his accent didn't sound like a spanish accent. And when I asked him where he was from, I couldn't understand him. But I soon found out he spoke Spanish, and we continued to speak in Spanish for hte rest of the trip. He works as an editor of a tv channel in Buenos Aires. But right now he is on vacation for a month, so he is seeing Spain, France, Germany, and England. He said he's a little worried about navagating in France, because he doesn't speak French, and apparently the French do not like to help with directions and do not speak English or Spanish a lot. 

Anyways, on the walking tour I felt kind of cool because we were the only ones speaking Spanish. Everyone else was from Canada or the states. So we spoke in Spanish with the guide. One thing that we learned that was strange is that in Argentina, they mandate that everyone in grade school must read Don Quijote, but in Spain they don't. 

I'm so ready to be home!!!! I wish I was there already.

Back From the Prado

So now it is five o’clock, and I have nearly reached all of my goals for the day. I have done my walking tour, gone to the Prado, gotten my magnet, and now all I have to do it go to the Parque del Retiro.

My thoughts on the Prado?

Honestly it was not as exciting as the Reina Sofia. Everything was exactly how I expected it to be. There was the Goya paintings, the Velazquez paintings, the El Greco paintings… I guess that makes me sound really spoiled and ungrateful, but there was no wow factor to the Prado. I guess the fact that I was kind of tired and hungry added to this unimpressed attitude. By the end I was pretty ready to get out of there. But maybe it was just because I was hungry and tired.

Something I did appreciate is that the Prado has captions by all of the paintings. The captions not only comment on the artistic value of the painting, but they also comment on what is going on in the painting. For example, there were several medieval paintings where a “surgeon” was removing a stone from someone’s forehead. But apparently this was a trick that people did to get more money? Like, there wasn’t really a stone in their forehead, they just said there was. Honestly, I didn’t understand it entirely, but it gave me a little bit of background, something to go off from.

I really liked the walking tour, but our guide was a little wacky. He took up through all of the city, and I go to see the first restaurant (ever supposedly), and the Royal Palace, the Plaza de España, the Plaza Oriente, the Puerta de Sol, I don’t even know what else. Unfortunately we did not go to the Templo de Debod, but that’s ok… I’m so tired. I’m so ready to go home. I’m ready to get on the plane and go home. Tomorrow I’m going home. I can’t wait to have a little bit of control in my life. I feel like the whole past month I haven’t been able to eat what I want, do what I want when I want, I’ve been living around other people for too long. Being around other people and trying to be courteous and work around them, and their daily actions. It’s always too cold, or I can’t find something I want to eat, or I can’t relax and do what I want because I’m always around other people. Ugh.

But I really appreciate what I’ve been able to do here. I’ve learned Spanish from professors in Spain. I’ve traveled by myself, and I feel a great sense of accomplishment. To add to this, I still haven’t been robbed! (Knock on wood…) Everyone told me that it would happen, but it hasn’t.

I think I’m going to take a long siesta. I really need to reorganize the things in my duffel and figure out how I’m going to return to the airport. Ugh. I hate how heavy my packs are!!!!

Expectations for my Day in Madrid

    1)  Complete the walking tour. I have no idea what it includes, but I know it’s about 2 hours long. I would hope that it includes the Plaza Mayor, the Palacio Real, maybe the Palacio Santa Cruz, perhaps the Plaza de la Villa, maybe the Monasterio Descalzas Reales, and it’s a long shot but I hope it includes the Templo de Debod. The Templo de Debod is a monument that was brought to Madrid from Egypt. It looks relatively close to the center of the city, so maybe if the walking tour does not include it, I can go there afterwards.

2)  Go to the Prado museum. I absolutely have to go. They close at 7pm tonight, so it’s going to be pretty tough to make it. This is the same problem I had with the Pablo Picasso museum in Barcelona. It closed at 7pm and I never was able to make it. Hopefully history does not repeat itself. Because I feel like it’s pretty much mandatory to go to the Prado if you are in Spain.

  
3)  Get a Madrid magnet. It doesn’t sound as hard as it is. I have pretty high standards for magnets now, and I want to get a good one that fully encompasses what I think Madrid is. Like I said, high standards.

4)  I would like to see the Parque del Retiro. Not super-duper important, but I would like to check it out. Especially since it’s not very far from my hostel. Within the Parque del Retiro, there is the Palacio de Velazquez and the Palacio de Cristal.  

It doesn’t get dark until like 9:30pm. Think I can do it all?? I hope so! 

Tentative schedule:

-Walking tour 11am-1pm.

-Prado from like 2pm-4pm? No idea how long it will take. Its further away from the city center so I will have to really book it to get there in a reasonable amount of time.

-Parque del Retiro at like 5pm.

-Find a magnet (probably after my walking tour, since there’re bound to be tourist shops in the city center).