Sudar from Milwaukee

I am posting my flight adventure below about the last 24 hours from my hotel room in Sevilla that I wrote on numerous buses and airplanes. I've included a picture of myself cracked out from no sleep in the last day. Enjoy. I don't know why I share this blackmail...

Well, all of the goodbyes have been said and endured. Saying goodbye is part of traveling and living abroad that is easily forgotten. Why NOT move across the world for a year to experience life and grow as an individual while drinking wine by the Mediterranean with one of your best friends every day? Well, because it's possible to sometimes miss people you care for. However, I can't help but feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing right now in my life.

Oh ya, I'm flying over the Atlantic Ocean right now. Can't sleep, despite the 3 small bottles of wine I have now consumed. The crappy "Prince of Persia" movie is finally over and I've switched my audio entertainment over to some techno music to psych myself up for the next 9 European months. It's kind of miraculous how gorgeous the stars up are up here at night. Sometimes I can see how being a pilot would be appealing. Flying through the clouds almost as close to the heavens as you humanly can get and being paid for it would be an amazing job. But if you know me, turbulence isn't my thing. So scratch that career path. However, the angry woman (I think because I reclined my seat, sorry, it's a nine hour flight) behind me keeps on turning on her light to read. I'm sorry lady, my long legs don't fit into the space designed for a Keebler Elf. Now, I'm a fan of literacy, but not when it ruins my view of the stars.

I had an interesting time with my seat assignments for each of my flights. I was lucky enough to convince the Iberian Airlines woman at my Chicago gate that I needed to be moved forward from row 50 on my flight (the last row). I only have an hour layover in Madrid in which I have to go through passport control and get to my gate before my next flight takes off. We'll see how that one goes. But I can't tell you how excited I was to arrive at my gate in Chicago with the buzz of Spanish all around me combined with the faces and presence of hundreds of Spaniards. I don't understand why I feel so comfortable around them but it felt like i reconnected with something that has been missing since I left Barcelona 2 years ago.

After the fiasco with getting a seat assigned farther up in the plane, the Iberian gatekeeper was nice enough to put me in row 28 with a nice window seat next to my new buddy, Sadur. I figured I might as well just break the ice in the first 10 minutes and get his story for a comfortable 9 hour flight. I'm actually pretty lucky. He's very kind, about 28, originally from India, and he studied to become an engineer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He lives in a suburb outside of Milwaukee now and says he misses the city, but that he's lucky because his job allows him to stop in India to visit his parents every couple of months for a few days. We had a nice long talk about his culture withdrawals from his home country and the culture contrast with America and he introduced me to some new Indian music and instruments with songs on his Ipod. I'm a fan, he got me a bottle of red wine from the stewardess' without me asking when he went to the bathroom. I can't argue with that.

Sadur made me think, remember and become excited for the best part of traveling; random travel buddies. Nothing is better than meeting people from other places in the world and exchanging ideas on life while both of you are in transit to a new life destination. I can't imagine what all of my past travel and cultural experiences would have been like if I wouldn't have met all of the amazing people that have struggled with me to catch trains or picked up my passport when I dropped it and then bought me lunch (still thankful for that older German couple in Munich).

I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get from the airport in Sevilla to my hotel for my 2 day orientation. I am supposed to have transportation from my program but I haven't really received any further information. Guess I should have checked that out. Oh well, it will all work out.