Spain 10

This one's pretty long, too, so I'm gonna split it into two posts. We actually get to Spain in the next segment...in case you were wondering. :)

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6/31/92

We flew out from LA at 9:00am on the 29th (an hour late). We arrived in Madrid at 10:00am (45 minutes late- our connecting flight was also late).

The connection out of Newark, NJ was late because the plane was still refueling. A fuel gage broke and had to be replaced so the refueling could be finished.

The pilot hit a bump on the way up and jarred one of those oxygen mask compartments loose. It came down in front of a family across the isle from me. About one minute later the captain, probably having no idea this had happened, turned off the no smoking sign. My immediate thought was, "Hmm. oxygen + lit cigarettes = big boom.

The stewardess came by and told the guy not to touch the masks (pulling on them begins the oxygen flow) so of course he kept playing with the elastic string! I imagine he was just trying to keep it out of his wife's face, but it made me nervous.

Well, aside from that, the flight was uneventful. I'll have to continue my saga later. Time to get ready to go.

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Let's see, where was I? Oh yeah!

Well, obviously the airplane didn't explode and we set down in Madrid 45 minutes late or so.

We got through customs with, literally, no questions asked and finally found our luggage. Then Lezlie and I stumbled out into the main lobby only to find no one we could recognize. We found a couple of chairs, sat down and waited...and waited...and waited...and..."Okay, let's go to the 'meeting point' since we're late. Maybe he is waiting there." 'He' being Prince Parker, Lezlie's cousin, who is the missionary in Daimiel.

So, we went to the "meeting point". No one there. We checked the message board. No message. We went back to the "punta de encuentra" (meeting point). I sank into the chair next to Lezlie. "Let's call the Garcia's," she said.

The Garcia's are another missionary family based in Madrid. It was possible Prince was there.

Lezlie called and called but could not get through. "So, should we hop a train to Daimiel like we discussed with Prince earlier?"

Daimiel is located about two hrs SW of Madrid. Gas over here is about $4.00 per gallon - and you thought it was expensive in the states! A person can't afford to go to the airport everyday. The rest of the team arrived a day ahead of me and Lezlie. Apparently something had worked out though, because Virgil (head of AF) said he had arranged for Prince to pick us up. At this point, however, we were beginning to wonder if there hadn't been some miscommunication.

We were sooo tired we asked some lady at the counter if there was a room we could rest in for a while (sometimes airports have things like that available). She seemed horrified that we would even consider it. Apparently they highly frowned upon sleeping transients.

We discussed the possibility of locating a youth hostel somewhere, and sleeping till morning. We called Virgil (back in LA) for his input. "Stay put!", he said. "Call back in 30 minutes."

Well, by this time it was around 2:00pm. It was all we could do to keep our eyes open. We sat there resting our heads on our sleeping bags, looking very much like a pair of homeless waifs.

Lezlie looked up when some guy walked by. He was two feet away and staring at me before my eyes focused enough to recognize him. Art Garcia. We were standing up to greet him when around the corner came Prince and daughter, Genesis.

Thank you Father, for rescuing us! There had been a mix-up in flight information. The really amazing part of this story is that neither Art nor Prince knew the other was coming, and yet they arrived at the same time, of their "own" accord.

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To be continued....