Plan C

I am exhausted, and it is not from five months of traveling, but I have just lived 48 of the most crazy and unplanned hours of my life. Twenty four hours ago I was in a back of a Fiat Punto, the equivalent to a 4 door VW golf, but not the back seat the hatch, the trunk or what ever you want to call it laying on a bed of backpacks so I wouldn't be seen by the Spanish high patrol and identified as the sixth passenger in a five passenger car, on our way back to Madrid. By this time all I was thinking about was my bed and how I haven't slept in it for the last twenty for hours because of a crazy assignment to eat churros with chocolate at four in the mourning with the rest of Madrid's drunk population, which wasn't completed eventhough I pulled an all-nighter something that shoul donly be done when at Cheever, but I am a long way from that place. Ok, now I will fill in the missing hours between not eating churros and chocolate and riding in the back of Fiat Punto on a bed of backpacks. To start we missed our eight o'clock train becaused we, a few, six of my classmates and I had accidentally fallen asleep while watching the Cleveland, Yankees game on the internet, to soon be woken up by a knock at the door which led to the realization that we had missed our train when someone looked at the clock. I then got out of bed and ran down to the lobby to check on train times to Valencia, our destination for the day, to figure out the next possible train which would was at 11:20 a.m.. Back in the room now, it is 9:15 and we have now missed three trains that were headed to Valencia and the 11:20 was the last reasonable train left for a day trip. After this news had left my mouth, and had been understood by my hotelmates they quickly roled over and went back to sleep, with the idea that we would all catch a train at 11:20 and be in Valencia by 3 in the afternoon. By now sleep was not on my mind, I had just scored some valuable time to run to th epost office which is located about 3/4 of a kilometer down the Grand Via and mail a wonderful gift to my parents, then run back intime to wake up my hotel mates and catch the 11:20 train. To make this already long story short the post office took forever, which should have been anticipated, and I arrived back in the hotel room at 10:50 panting with 30 minutes left until the 11:20 train (so popular in this story) would leave for Valencia. In the next ten minutes four of us six were in the elevator yelling at the other two to hurry and on our way to the tram which woul drop us off just under the train station just in time, NOT! Yeah as you know or have probably figured out, we did not make the 11:20 train and the two left behind caught up to the four of us already in the train station trying to figure out where to go or what to do next. It took us about an hour to come up with one simple solution which would lead to a great journey half way across Spain, rent a car! And that is what we did, rent a car not just any car but a sky blue Fiat Punto. After trying many seating configurations for getting six persons in a five persons car we were off and on our way to Valencia, one full grown male in the trunk three in the back seat one shot-gun and the other driving. This configuration proved to work well and lead to many laughs, but also the cause of one big problem it is illegal and we got caught, and what made it worse we only had 15 more kilometers until we were at or final destination. All six of us were trying to communicate with two Spanish patrolmen who did not speak a lick of english or at least acted like they didn't, about or travels and why we had six peopel in the car. We did not get any sympathy for being international and nieve, and ended up with a 42 dollar ticket which we had to pay on the spot to keep traveling, but durring these ten minutes we learned of a Spanish law that you can not be a on the shoulder of a highway in Spain outside of your car without a pertective vest, and if we wanted to not get caught again whoever was in the back must keep there body out of site. The question must have run through your mine by now, " Why would six architecture students want to go to Valencia, Spain on their day off?" Here's the answer, cool architecture, I won't describe it but just check out Santiago Calatrava's City of Science. So we came we saw and we conquered, well not really. We spent six and half hours in Valencia getting close to a hundred cool pics a peace there, while exploring its' streets and buildings. Durring this whole entire time we had left our dear Fiat Punto in a parking place that was wierdly marked we didn't know if we could park there but we took a chance. Walking abck in the dark from the City of Science we were all going over what we would do if we arrived at our parking spot a half hour walk away and it was gone. For sure we would have to find it but how? That is where the questioning stoped and the hope and praying began. As we came up to our spot we all held our breath hoping for what we saw, the Fiat had made it through the day and even without a ticket, and again we were on our way half way across Spain to Madrid at 10:45 in the evening with six cramed into a Fiat Punto, me in the back this time on a bed of back packs wishing for my bed so I could get up and go to my first bull fight the next day. This is the story of me and friend's plan C..................in Europe.