So!! Fun times all round, we got up this morning and had an amazin all paid for Continental buffet breakfast, then we packed our daysacks, sat around a bit talking to Carla and Barbara our new English-with-Chilean-family friends made during the madness of "are we flying?! aren´t we flying?! Who understands what-is-occurring?!" and caught up on the news of when they would be going, and where on earth their luggage is!
We then headed for the airport ourselves in search of answers...
First stop - Iberia helpdesk... re-issued tickets....
Second stop - Lost Luggage... a description, a printout, a hunt in a little room and a chat with a man who learnt to speak English by watching Little Britain later...
and...
Rach came to collect Sam, Kirsty, Linz and Helen from where we waited (´cos she´d be able to sweet talk security if needed!)
A walk through the Arrivals doors the wrong way, a lot of funny looks, questions from a security lady (full marks on security at this point!) and a short walk later we were all together again in the baggage reclaim area.
We sat next to conveyor belt 6 (as per instructions) and waited for candidates of our luggage description to circle us...
1 hour, 8 suitcases and our *cough*healthiest*cough* lunch so far(!) later.... the suitcases were getting dizzy as they were going round and round and round us.... 1 more hour to wait we are told...
1 more hour later... many many many bags/cases passed us by... none of them were ours!
We managed to fit in a few card games here to keep eachother occupied.
Another extra hour later (more because we couldn´t get to the end of a card game quick enough rather than because we felt our bags would appear) and we decided it may be time to vacate our cosy space in the baggage reclaim so we headed back to the hotel.
If the airport locate our bags we´ll get them delivered to us at the hotel tonight or tomorrow morning... if not... we phone up...
Good news however! We ARE going to Chile! On the 4th August, we now have had proper tickets issued. All we have to do now is survive until then in the heat of Madrid in our Chile-prepared winter clothes... literally (for the moment) only what we stand up in... Shopping anyone??!
TTFN xx
P.S A special mention has to go out here to Rach for her amazing Spanish skills. She has corresponded in many ways (face to face and phone) to help make sorting all this out quicker and easier for all of us... who knew her Spanish would be so amazing??! AND she claimed to be rusty... hurrmpf! (I wish I was as rusty as that at Spanish!!!)
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Make sure you get to see some of the Madrid sights while you are there - once you've got some weather appropriate clothes, of course!
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