This Long Days Journey Into Chaos

So I am paranoid about missing trains at this point and we need to catch a train to get to Madrid to catch our plane to Istanbul. So we discuss it the night before. Our train leaves at ten from Barcelona Sants which is about fifteen to twenty minutes by Metro. I think we should leave the hotel at half past eight and get breakfast at the train station. Lea wants one last breakfast at the Mercat. Ok we agree to get up at seven leave the hotel at eight and have café and tostada at the Mercat. I'm scurrying around worrying from seven to eight because I'm ready to go. The night before I got all the tickets and information together for the train, the plane and the hotel in Istanbul. I checked us in online and got our boarding passes on my iPhone with a scan tag. We start to leave the hotel and Leea suggests we should leave our luggage and get it after we eat. This mean retracing steps and I'm counting minutes like a miser counts pennies. But I agree. We eat, get the luggage, take the metro to the station and and we are there by quarter past nine. We got to the gate for our platform and sit down to read for a bit. The boarding people come and a line forms. We wait it out because we have assigned seats. About quarter to ten we go to board, I hand the lady my ticket, she scans it, she frowns, scans it again, looks at it and tells me the ticket is for September 14. I explain I just exchanged it on Tuesday and the clerk must have typed in the wrong date. She talks to her supervisor and then tells me I have to go back to the ticket count and exchange the tickets again. You remember the ticket counters with the long wait. So I go where she tells me. There are about twelve people ahead of me. That's not too bad. But now there are about twelve minutes left until the train leaves. I get to the window with about eight minutes left. I explain the problem and the guy tells me yes I can get tickets for that train, but I have to buy new ones and get a fifty percent refund on the bad ones. I tell him I have no choice I need to get to Madrid. He processes al the info and gives me the tickets with about five minutes left. I tear through the bus station suddenly rembering I have to go back though baggage check because of my purse. I cut in front of people who are dawdling, apologizing as I go. I thank my lucky stars this is one time I don't have trouble with security. And I get back to the gate with two minutes left and Leea and I tear down to the platform and jump on the first car we can just to get on the train. Then we travel inside the train to get to our actual car. We get to our car, catch our breath and realize our seats our not together. We find this curious because the train is only half full. So we find two empty seats together and sit in them. What we realize before long is that the train we are on makes about five stops with people getting off and on. We play musical seats for the whole trip and manage to sit together until the final leg. We arrive at Atocha train station in Madrid and decide to eat before we catch the Metro to the airport. We have a very nice waiter, he asks the usual questions about where we are from, and he tells us he wants to go to California to surf. After we eat we buy our Metro ticket and hop the next train. It's probably about a thirty minute ride to the airport with three changes of lines of the metro. We have already decided not to check our luggage after our last experience. So we head for security, scan our boarding passes from the phone (it's really slick and fast since they have a special line for doing this and hardly anyone does it yet. We get through security and take our tram down to the area where our gate will be. We get on the plane and have an uneventful flight except for the baby across the aisle from me who screamed most of the flight. It's become a joke with Leea and I that if there is a cranky or annoying child on any public conveyance they will be close to us. We wager now on whether they will be in front or behind us. We land in Istanbul about eleven pm. There is supposed to be a driver from the hotel to meet us. This was booked months ago and I sent an email telling. The fellow from the hotel that we were on the plane and looking forward to our transfer to the hotel. We land and getting the visa, money from the ATM and going through passport control went smoothly and quickly. We get out into the waiting area and there is no driver. We wait for a while and he doesn't show up. Worse yet my phone won't work in Istanbul for some reason I cannot fathom. It won't even get a signal. So I can't call the hotel. Finally we decide to get a cab and I show the driver the address of the hotel. He looks uncertain and asks a couple of his buddies. He takes us on a long wild ass ride and then suddenly pulls up to a place that has posts prohibiting cars, tells us he can go no further and waves vaguely up the street and tells us the hotel is "that way," there was no dealing with him and it was clear he had no friggin idea where the hotel is. Our favorite new expression comes in handy here, "he really was kind of a dick." There are hundreds of people out, so it was scary. Well to shorten this part of the story we dragged our suitcases around for about an hour getting directions from various people, including four cops. We finally find the hotel. The manager is there. He doesn't seem to want to talk about the lack of a driver at the airport. He is more interested in telling us our room is not available because there is no water, but we can have it in a day or two. Mind you I kind of splurged a little on this room. It is a deluxe double with an ocean view and from the reviews I had read was really sweet. But, he has arranged a room for us at another nice hotel and his bell boy will takes us there. At this point it is one am and we have been at it since seven am and I'm kinda shell shocked from the crooked cab driver, wrong date on the tickets, and I just nod my head and shuffle off to the other hotel. I am trying my hardest to remember my spiritual tool kit, but it is an uphill trudge. The whole lemons and lemonade thing just makes my mouth pucker sometimes. To be honest, we were given a serviceable room and one I would be happy with normally, but I had booked and was paying for something much better. I had trouble sleeping. Next day we are told we will be able to move onto our room, so we pack back up and they will transport our bags to the other hotel. We went on the hop on hop off bus sight seeing. Then I needed a nap. We go to our hotel only to be told, so sorry, it still isn't ready, so we traipse back to our alternate hotel. I unpack enough to take a shower and the water makes me think about the Camino and how many challenges I'm going to face. If I get this twisted over a little thing like hotel room, I will never make it on the Camino. I mean we have a room, it's not like we are on the street. Get a grip, Nancy. So apparently God thinks I've got the basics down on this lesson, because the phone in our room rings just as we are getting ready to go out to eat. The manager of this hotel asks if we can change rooms to a double room, because we are in a triple, which means there is a twin cot pushed in a corner against the double bed, and he needs the triple room. I agree, so we pack again and go out to eat leaving them to move the bags. We go to a restaurant with an amazing view and have a lovely supper, then hop on the hoppy bus and go to see an exquisite sunset from a hill overlooking Istanbul, while drinking Turkish coffee and eating this yummy rice pudding. We get back down the hill, everything is lit up, it's like Disneyland on steroids. As we get off the hoppy bus there are two guys throwing some stuff in and out of cartons and we decide to investigate. It turns out they are making a performance art piece out of selling ice cream cones. It was fun. There was music everywhere I the square and surrounding area. It was a pleasant walk back to our alternate hotel. We have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but right here, right now, everything is ok.