Mother´s Day - continued

My fellow Americans and I had travelled over the period of the clocks going forward so when we arrived in Madrid we didn´t know what time it was. Our confusion was over wether the time stated on the ticket was the changed time or time without daylight savings. Also we though we might be a little late arriving. We had lost the fourth girl sometime in the middle of the night in the north of Spain. We recieved our passports back and disembarked. I dragged myself and my luggage out onto the platforma nd said goodbye to the Americans for the first time. I then thought that I would skip breakfast (it was 10.00am) as I wanted to arrive at my final destination in Spain as quickly as possible. This turned out to be a mistake.

I wandered around the station, lapping it and the Americans several times before finding the right directions to the subway. Below, I waited at a nice new subway station for a train to Plaza Castilla where I was to catch the 182 bus to Valdeolmost. I think I must have arrived there at 11.00am with all the wasted time at Chamartin. I followed directions for the buses until I reached a subway crossroads. To my left was a sign for ´autobus subterráneo´and to my right a sign for ´autobus terminal´. I went right as all logic pointed to a bus terminal for buses out of the city than some metrobus thing.

On reaching the surface I found I had arrived at an old, smelly bustation with very little busses passing through. I had been told that the busses left at ten to the hour so I sat in that place for just under an hour for a bus to come. A bus didnt come, I had been waiting 2 hours when I thought. shit I could be in trouble here. I asked a Spaniard (pleased to be using a language I had a basic knowledge of) where I could find my bus. However understanding the Spaniard prooved more difficult than previously expected. He kept on saying ´bajo, metro´and I kept on saying ´no, quiero áutobus, no metro´. And the conversation went round in circles. It took me two other attempts with two other people to understand that what they were referring to was an underground bus station or áutobus subterranéo. Silly me for thinking that busses ran on roads on the surface, in daylight. I managed to go back underground and once there, finding my alloted bus place was easier. It was new and modern but the time was 13.00, I was hungry, there were no food places near and the next bus out was in 50 mins. I survived those 50 mins on half of the last of the chocolate from the Channel Islands. Don´t underestimate the importance of chocs when travelling.

A phone call to the Parents on a ridiculously overpriced, supposingly easier, global simcard mobile connected me to the sain world. The bus eventually came. I told them where I wanted to go and asked to be told when we arrived as I did not know what the place looked like. That´s why I don´t like busses - it is way too easy to get stranded as did happen to me in ´The Bus Story´of 2000. But that´s for another time. The journey took 40 mins and it was a fight with my eyes to stay awake for that time. Then, the last on the bus, I got off in a quiet, dusty but established village called Valdeolmos, N.E. of Madrid. My instructions were to go into the Restaurant and ask for the location of farm where I was to spend the next month. I did so, sort of, in broken Spanish, and a presumably semi-drunk guy came out and told me where to go in Spanish, and pointed. Out of his conversation I understood Church and right. And I could see a church and a road bearing right so I was happy to set off.

However the road quickly turned into rubble track behind the church and I had absolutely no idea in which I was heading. I was meant to be able to see a windmill but for love nor money I could not make one out in the skyline. Maybe I was too tired, I was low on sugar and water and starting to panick. Being in the middle of nowhere, heading nowhere with the weather closing in on me. I trekked back, directionless to a shop and asked. A guy pointed and talked which I got nothing from and headed further down the unmarked road than before. But I stopped thinking I was heading in the worng direction as I could see no sign of life for miles so I turned back and asked at the shop again. This time the guy who had told me before took me to a high point by the church and pointed several, shouty times and I spotted a windmill. Oh thankgod I could see it I thought. Off I went down that same unmarked road only this time my eyes were fixed on that windmill. I frustratingly overshot the entrance to the farm thinking it just another road but reached the place just in time before the heavens opened.

I had arrievd in siesta time which is why I did not think it odd their being a deathly silence as I traisped past little garden patches and old bbq table and chairs, befitting the organic lifestyle I had come to learn about. A porch door was shut but I opened it and entered to the main front door. I knocked. No answer so I knocked again, louder. Nothing, so I knowcked and said `Hola´. Nothing still. Rain poured and it was enough to drag my stuff into the porch. Phone rang. Mother suggested I ask someone. There was no one to ask and the thought of going all the way back to village in rain whislt allready cold was throurally depressing. As we talked though I noticed a van drive up the side of teh farm land to the back where several huts were. The rain had eased up and I rushed out to ask teh stranger where he thought the familly was. He confirmed though that I was at the right place which was a plus but didnt know where they were and when calling them, they did not anwer.

My mother decided to try and solve the situation UK side and I sat in the porch, on my bags, cold and wet and hungry and thought - yep this is it! This is the nightmare. I´m going to be stuck here all night. This is my life now - no one, nothing, no hope. All has been lost. I had to go back into village to bar to get something to eat but my hunger had turned into sickness and it was a sturggle just to keep some food down. The bar was a feast of life and traditional with bull fighting on the 70´s TV. Being there in any other situation would have positively uplifted me but I was in no mood for anything but sleep. On returning to farm I had hoped that the note I had left for the familly in the doorway had been moved by someone returning. But no, there it was, in the same place I had left it. I waited for some time, god knows how long before my mother rang to tell me she had made contact with familly and they were now returning home. How she managaed contact and I didn´t I don´t know. Five minutes later they had arrived, host, his wife and 5 year old daughter and I was welcomed inside. A chocolate in my hand I sat with a tea and then asked if I could go to sleep. It was 5pm. It had taken me 7hrs to do a trip I now know can be done in 2 because of a miscommunication (he thought I was coming the following weekend), panick due to lack of food (I should never have skipped breakie) and little preparation.

I made an appearance in the evening to watch the end of Muriel´s Wedding in Spanish (shame as the beauty of that film is really the glorious Aussie accents) before retiring for good. The next day brought about the start of life on a self-sustainable farm.