Yes.

I'm home safely, and now that i'm safely home the horrors of my trip home are slowly being erased. But that doesn't stop me from marveling at the fact that everything that could have gone wrong, did, and I did it all on the three hours of sleep I got in the Barcelona airport.

I arrived at the Seville airport to a blinking red "retrasado" printed next to my flight. Delayed. Well at least I had until 7:30 the next morning to make it to Barç. I checked in and was told my luggage could only be checked through to London and that it was 30 kilos over the weight limit so I would have to pay 400€ to transport it. I got off on that throught a loophole in the system (the luck loophole I suppose), told the woman my luggage needed to be checked to LAX, and set off to wait the extra hour my flight was delayed.

And hour came and went and the airline, being Iberia and being Spanish, didn't bother to tell anyone what was going on. After overhearing talk of technical problems, an announcement moved all of us waiting to the next gate where they were boarding another flight to Barç. After much yelling and confusion in Spanish, they managed to get everyone who didn't have luggage on the flight, which left about 15 of us still waiting. After following an Iberia woman all over the airport like a line of angry ducks we were all checked onto the next SpanAir flight. I was told that my name had been called earlier because my luggage was loaded onto the earlier flight, and that I should ask about it in Barç.

When I got to Barcelona three hours after I was supposed to they of course had no idea what I was talking about with my luggage or the cancelled flight and that it was checked through to LA so that's where it'd be. The Iberia info man was well intentioned, though, and he told me if I was going to stay in the airport overnight I should use my London boarding pass to get to the area by the gates because there are a lot of "ratones" hanging around the main area at night. I had dinner, and hung out by the TVs watching the World Cup and Grey's Anatomy dubbed until I fell asleep.

A couple of hours of sleep later and I was tired but relieved to continue on my way, confident that my trip already had its share of screw ups and it was smooth sailing to LA. I handed my boarding pass to the attendent at the gate and got ready to board my plane to London.

I was asked to step aside and wait while they punched numbers into the computer and made phone calls. They told me that I had been unexplicably dropped from the flight in Seville an hour and a half after I was given my boarding pass and that there was absolutely no more room for me on the flight. No London. No LA. I was sent downstairs. Iberia told me to talk to British Airlines, and British sent me back to Iberia who sent me back to British. I stopped playing their games and the woman at British who understood the problem called Iberia and sent me back over there. No one at Iberia had taken the call and they didn't know what I was talking about, so I was accused of missing my flight until they decided to talk to the British woman in person. After an hour of back and forth I was booked to London on a flight that left in a half hour, and booked to LAXon a flight that arrived six hours later than planned. My luggage, I was told, was checked through to LAX so it would get there.

My flight to London was an hour and a half late in boarding but when we finally landed I had plenty of time to wait in the airport. With a ten hour flight ahead of me and a five-hour layover, I just wanted to GO HOME. My transatlantic was also late in boarding but I was finally on the flight that would take me home.

Of course, as expected, my luggage didn't make it, and I finally stumbled into the arms of my family two hours behind schedule, dirty, exhausted, but amused at the complete and utter chaos that is the airline system. Especially Iberia. Let's not forget that they lost my luggage on the way to Spain as well, and the flight was unbalanced in take off so they sent five people to the back, as if that would make the problem better. Yes, but as with most things, the hell that was my trip home is now a little funny, and i'm enjoying the little comforts of living again in the US. It might be funnier when they find my luggage.