Day 1- Language Barrier

As we de-board the plane in Barcelona, we stop to look over our itinerary to see which airline and flight number we have for the connecting flight to Sevilla.  We were already nearly the last people off the plane and stopping to check our itinerary meant we were the last ones at the gate.  We follow the signs to the domestic flight area of the airport and are stopped at a security checkpoint.  We get through and are standing in the middle of a large open area with no idea of where to go next when 2 policias stop us and ask to see our passports.  They take them and pace around looking at them, then hand them back and tell us to go ahead.  (I think this is what they said, as they speak very rapid Spanish, and I've only conversed with very patient speakers until now)  They then walk away.  We have no idea where to go so we find the nearest glass door and walk through.  No one stops us.  We wander around, trying to figure out where we should be, and finally stop at an information booth.  A nice woman tells us we need to go to concourse B and points us to the policia booths at the end.  We walk over and a rotund, grumpy policia stops us and asks for our passports.  This guy looks like every other mean, non-helpful American policeman I've ever met who only became a policeman in order to have an excuse to be a bully.  He then says something, we have no idea what, that leads us to believe that we are not leaving.  I tell him in Spanish that I don't understand; can he say it in English?  He says "No hablo Ingles," Adrian and I think this to be a bold faced lie. He points us back to the information desk.  We go back to the same lady and she walks us back over to the booths, but ignores grumpy policia and goes straight to two young Spaniards, presumably explaining our situation.  At this point, I decide we've run into a situation like the one in The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks.  They won't let us leave and we'll be forced to live and eat in this international area of the airport until it's time to go home.  That would be a grand Spain vacation.  The grumpy guy saunters over to the group discussing our plight and joins in.  Finally, she comes back and tells us that we need a stamp.  We then are escorted back to the information desk and through another door that leads us to right outside the gate where we deplaned.  We are finally taken through the security check point again; this time they let us go through the metal detector with our bags and all and then over to these other unmanned booths.  The two younger policia show up, look at our passports and stamp them.  They let us through and we are finally released from the airport limbo.  What I gathered from the situation, but which has not actually been confirmed by anyone, was that we were not supposed to go through that first door, even though no one stopped us.  We still have no idea why the first policias we came across would look through our passports, not stamp them, and then just walk away.  I didn't start crying through this whole thing until they stamped our passports.

 

As I write this, I am sitting next to an open window looking over the rooftops of Sevilla, Spain, while some street party below plays the song Strangers in the Night.  Adrian and I are strangers to this beautiful city, but we have 7 days to get to know it well.