Blunders

Humans are not perfect, and making mistakes are universal. Fortunately for all us humans blunders do not discriminate and we all are subjected to one at any point in time!

Usually our biggest mistakes are our own fault and can usually be accounted for no one but ourselves. To this I say, moving to a foreign country should be my best chance at messing up on the regular. I'm learning as I go, and making mistakes has been the way I've had to learn on my own.

In the beginning of the semester I traveled to Lisbon, Portugal for the carnival weekend. I booked my flight almost a month in advance with Iberia. Traveling with Iberia is usually easy, you can check in at the desk, no need to print out your ticket before hand or stuff your purse into your carry-on.

Perhaps it was because I knew I didn't have to print my boarding pass ahead of time, maybe it was because I was too excited to travel, whatever the reason, I didn't check my flight information before I left Spain. Correction, I didn't check the way my return flight because I was too concerned about getting there. But now I realize I would much rather get back!

After a fabulous warm weekend in Lisbon, I get to the airport and hand the man behind the counter my passport to check-in, and after what seemed like forever he told me he could not find my name in the system. Not only was my name not on the same flight as my two companions I was traveling with, but I was not on any flight that day.

My heart dropped into my stomach. What the hell had I done? No, what had they done? I was convinced it was there mistake, not mine. They told me I needed to get my confirmation number for my flight so we could correct the mistake. Since I had taken the time to put that information anywhere, I was running around the airport trying to find wifi. After failing at that, we found a computer lab and printing station where my heart was pounding as I was logging into my email account.

When I finally saw the flight information my heart dropped again, even further. Instead of booking a flight home for Tuesday, I had booked it for the following Thursday. All I could think about was the fact I was going to be stuck in Lisbon for two more days by myself (which is actually horrifying considering the amount of creepy men and drug offers I got).

However, to my relief and $50 euros later I was able to change my flight for later that day. I said goodbye to my two other friends and waited in the airport for another couple of hours, still jittery from all the nerves I had about not getting home.

From that instance on, I've double, triple checked everything and now I always write flight information down as well. Live and learn, sometimes it sucks, but I know I'll never make that mistake again.

A tid bit of history

Over spring break I was fortunate enough to have my mother come visit me for the full duration of Semana Santa. We spent time locally here in Bilbao and Getxo, as well as traveled to Madrid, Granada, and Malaga.

We made sure to work in a good portion of culture into all of our destinations including visiting museums, historic sites, and tasting traditional foods. I was surprised about all the new information I was learning about Spain, and I even learned something new about the town I live in. I've been here four months now, walked on the path along the Gexto pier countless times, and never once stopped to look at the informative panels along the promenade.

So while I was tying my shoe, my mother began to read aloud one of these panels; come to find out the large and luxurious looking homes along the water are mansions from the late 20th and early 19th century. Walking along the path, you can take your own self guided tour and read about each of the mansions individually.

These mansions started popping up along the coastline, and Getxo became a destination for the rich to have summer homes. Closing my eyes and imagining the mansions without the modern day buildings was like a scene from The Great Gatsby. I could picture it so well, almost feeling reminiscent of the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island. 

As we walked along, we learned that the creme de la creme of architects in Bizkaia region we being brought in to design these mansions. Styles range from traditional English, eclectic, to chalets. On this stroll, which is called Muelle de Las Arenas, you will find the architecture becomes more ornate with each mansion. I can just imagine that during era of these mansions, money was no object to the rich and fortunate owners. The crafted and detailed mansions look incomparable to the modern day apartments which now fill in the gaps between these amazing 20th century structures.