We meet at the Segovia bus station at 8:30 a.m. to make sure that we are all there and are positive about the bus we are about to get on. We leave at 9 a.m. and it takes us an hour to pull into the city. We get off, and walk into the station. This station is like the end all be all of stations. It houses the bus station, metro station, urban train station, and train station. (Yes, the last three are actually different things.) We have no idea how to get out of there.
So, we go to the nearest map. The only problem is...um..where exactly are we going? The only person that even thought to get the address of the hostel was Heidi. Thank God, literally, that she was with us. Or, we would have been in a mess.
We probably stand there for about twenty minutes. We walk up the steps. Down the steps. Up the steps. Down the steps. Up. Down. Up. Down. STOP ALREADY! Finally, Heidi, Derrick, Christy, and I figure out that we are supposed to take the metro to a "parada" (metro stop) near one of the roads that we will then have to take to get to our hostel. We, but complete and sheer luck, get on the correct metro. We had no idea how it worked, and did not realize that you cannot just jump on a metro with the color you are supposed to be on: the metros run in more or less two directions. We did not know that you have to get on the metro with the correct colored sign AND final destination written next to it. We were just lucky we got it right on our first try.
We are sitting on the metro, and waiting to get off at our next via point. The stop just previous to our stop, I see man push this round green button on the metro door...hm? That was weird. I wonder why he did that. So, I figure it probably opens the doors. So, I tell everyone that is with us (by the way, there was like 11 of us.) to please push the green button when the train comes to a stop. We need to get off at "Tribunal." I really do not want to miss our stop, and I am sitting in the back, far from the doors. We stop. And nobody moves. The doors do not open. I start saying again, "Please push the green button." They do not. "PLEASE PUSH THE DARN BUTTONS!!!" Nobody does. I am about to pop someone in the head by the time one of the girls finally pushes the button. The door opens. She walks off. The door shuts behind her. We took too long. Now our train is pulling out of the station, and one of our girls is left standing ALONE on a platform with not an idea in the world to where the rest of our group was headed. She is stranded. So, I, being the most intelligent, discerning, and responsible individual start running to the back of the train so I can still see her in the windows. I start signing to her in a caveman-like fashion to jump on the next metro and get off at the next stop. That is where we will be waiting for her.
I am pissed. The rest of the group, with the exception of my close Heidi, Derrick, and Christy, are completely clueless to the danger that this girl is in. Madrid is larger than Atlanta. Everything is on foot. Everybody has access to everywhere. She is an American, with a very limited amount of Spanish knowledge, and she is ALONE. Just waiting for the crazies, drug dealers, and traffickers to pick her up. Never see her again. I am not panicking. Like I said before, as the mature, responsible individual, I just get off the train as soon as possible and wait with the rest of my bone-headed group until the next train pulls in. I am so ticked off. We have no idea if this girl is going to be on the next train or not. Finally, it pulls into the station. She gets off, laughing loudly, and basically screaming in English. If we hadn't recieved much attention from the fact that we already just look American, we sure were getting it now. It's not even that I didn't want to look American, so much as the fact that I didn't want to look like a bunch of clueless, boisterous, rude, and inconsiderate bunch of hooligans that just so happen to be from America. What a coincidence, loud, obnoxious Americans? I hate that stereotype.
To conclude quickly, we proceeded to get mixed up in the metro station, again, finally got to our parada destination, looked at the map again, were given wrong directions, walked twenty minutes out of way to find the angel - sent directly from the Lord - that told us to turn around and walk 20 minutes in the opposite direction. Her name was Raquel. She took us back to the metro parada Sierra Guadalupe, where we got off in the first place. She then told us to take the 130 bus for four stops and then get off, we should see our road by then.
We get on the bus. We didn't know that we had to push the "stop" button, that just so happened to be on every railing inside the bus, for the bus to actually stop. So, our four stops, turned into one stop that just so happened to be about two stops past where we wanted to be. We get off. This really sweet Spanish woman tells us to get off and take the street to the left and follow it around until it comes to the road we want to turn on. So...we start walking. We kept walking. and walking. Finally, we just randomly turn onto a road that looks like we might be able to ask directions from someone. Turns out, we were standing right in front of our hostel. Not bad. It only took us 8 hours, losing one of our girls, backtracking almost an hour, and me about to lose my cool until we finally reached our destination. From now on, I will only travel with responsible adults.
This is a picture after we learned how to use the metro. No frustration here. Just dog-tired.
This smile is the "Thank the Lord we made it!" smile. This was taken from inside of our room at the hostel.
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