Christmas In the Middle of July

6 weeks ago I arrived in Spain. I sat in the baggage claim area as one by one all of the other passengers had taken their bags and finally I was the only one left. The conveyor belt stopped and I realized that my luggage wasn't coming. That's me waiting in the picture to the right. See my expressionless face? I couldn't believe it was happening. I hadn't checked a bag since I saw a suitcase lying untouched on a runway. But this time, my bag one the one lying on the runway.

The bag contained almost all of the clothes that I wear on any sort of regular basis. After about a week of waiting they told me that I had a budget of 50 euros/day up to 1,000 euros to use on buying new clothes till my stuff showed up. This made me feel a little better, but I didn't want to have to buy all new stuff. I like my old clothes. But over the next several weeks I began to accept that I was never going to see my stuff again. We filed a claim with the airport so that I could get compensated and all that good stuff. Eventually I totally gave up on the bag; I figured some guy in a crappy apartment in London was sporting my favorite Mr. Kleen shirt.

Yesterday at lunch, Jane [my host mom] said that there would be a special visitor later that afternoon and that when he came I would have to answer the door. At first I was really curious but in about ten minutes I had totally forgotten about it.

Later that afternoon, right before the team meeting was going to start the doorbell rang. I had been assigned the job of "door answerer" so I went to open the door. When I looked out I saw a suitcase sitting on the steps and a guy was standing there asking me for my signature. At first it didn't click with me that my lost suitcase had been returned to me, but when I realized it was mine I just about flipped out. I did the thing that Loyd did in Dumb and Dumber when he saw Mary for the first time. The grab your heart and back up slowly into the wall thing...I thought it was funny but I guess the delivery guy hadn't seen Dumb and Dumber because he just looked at me like I had problems.

It was gone for six weeks so I figured it had gotten thrown on some plane to the Philippines and then traveled around for a while. But when I asked where it had been, they said the the whole time it just sitting in the Granada Airport Customs area. Somehow it took them 6 weeks to search a couple of rooms for a huge suitcase. It makes you wonder what those people do all day. I mean they have entire departments devoted to finding lost luggage and it takes them 6 weeks to find a bag when it was in the right airport the whole time. I'd be willing to bet that it was sitting in a pile of bags similar to this one...

But I'm not complaining anymore. Not only did I get my stuff back, my favorite "Mr. Kleen" shirt, my great-grandfathers belt buckle and all of my other favorite articles of clothing, but I bought about 600 euros worth of clothes that I probably don't really need. Some of the big ticket items were...Running shoes (110e) Climbing shoes (65e) And an oxford shirt from Lacoste (84e). So in the end it was like I got paid 600e to be inconvenienced for 6 weeks. The Lord works in mysterious ways...

In two weeks I will be traveling back to the states and I will play "Airport Roulette" again. But this time instead of traveling with one checked bag, I will have two. Maybe they will loose both bags this time and I will get to spend another 600 euros! Cross your fingers for me!