¡Ha llegado la mochila ! the adventures of my travelling backpack
I burst into my appartment this Wednesday announcing the good news ´la mochile ha llegado´ or the back pack has arrived because at last after about five months of travels my small backpack had decided to join me in Lugo. The rather complex story starts when I left my appartment in Ottawa at the end of the October carrying two bags. One bag was for the pilgrimmage and the second smaller bag had various items I thought would be useful for working in Spain. Flying first to Paris I left the small bag with my friend Mary in her university residence room and I planned to return and pick it up after my walk. By the time I had finished the pilgrimmage Mary had moved into a new appartment and gone home to Canada for the holidays to visit her family. Then come the end of January I had started to work in Lugo and happened to be talking about Paris to colleague of mine at the English school and learned that she had a brother living there who was planning to come visit her during the next month. It sounded like a good solution, so he met Mary in Paris and started to look into dates for his trip to Galicia. First the trip was going to be in February, then in March and then he started a new job and the trip planning was put on hold.
During this time I made friends with a girl named Cristina in one of my Spanish classes and she had a sister living in Paris, but she also had a husband who was a truck driver and travelled to France every so often to make deliveries. On Easter weekend I learned that he was travelling to the outskirts of Paris on a trip and I tried to arrange for him and my colleague´s brother to meet up. Unfortunately it was a busy weekend for everyone and it was not to be.
At the same time my friend Stephan from Bilbao was travelling to Paris and I gave him the backpack´s host phone number in case he had time and shortly after I got a call telling me the backpack was now in Bilbao.
As the story was getting more and more complex I asked my friends to ship the bag to Lugo by bus. I wasn´t so much that I needed anything from the bag because I was starting to forget what the important contents were, but I thought it would be best to try and conclude the story. I was told the bag will arrive on an Alsa bus Tuesday at 8:15pm, so I went to the bus station to wait. I thought about making a sign ´Welcome Backpack!´, but instead I sat quietly on the bench and waited. My friend Cristina came and joined me. When we saw a bus which read ´Galicia - Pais Vasco ´ we jumped up and started taking photos. As the driver went around the side of the bus opening the luggage compartments I was right beside him with my camera to take an arrival photo, but sadly there was no bag. I asked the driver if he had seen a small grey backpack and he explained that he was actually travelling to Bilbao and not arriving from the Basque country. I sat back down to wait and two other bused pulled up arriving from Madrid and Leon, and no backpack. After waiting about 45 minutes and talking with just about everyone in the bus station I decided to go home to come back the next day.
Then at last Wednesday morning around 2pm ( I am in Spain remember) I went to the station and carried my heavy little bag home. Back at the appartment I announced that we were going to have a fiesta the next day and have a special lunch to celebrate the arrival of the bag. Only one of my housemate´s showed up because the other hadn´t thought I was serious, but the two of us had a very nice meal with the little grey backpack sitting at the table with us.
I burst into my appartment this Wednesday announcing the good news ´la mochile ha llegado´ or the back pack has arrived because at last after about five months of travels my small backpack had decided to join me in Lugo. The rather complex story starts when I left my appartment in Ottawa at the end of the October carrying two bags. One bag was for the pilgrimmage and the second smaller bag had various items I thought would be useful for working in Spain. Flying first to Paris I left the small bag with my friend Mary in her university residence room and I planned to return and pick it up after my walk. By the time I had finished the pilgrimmage Mary had moved into a new appartment and gone home to Canada for the holidays to visit her family. Then come the end of January I had started to work in Lugo and happened to be talking about Paris to colleague of mine at the English school and learned that she had a brother living there who was planning to come visit her during the next month. It sounded like a good solution, so he met Mary in Paris and started to look into dates for his trip to Galicia. First the trip was going to be in February, then in March and then he started a new job and the trip planning was put on hold.
During this time I made friends with a girl named Cristina in one of my Spanish classes and she had a sister living in Paris, but she also had a husband who was a truck driver and travelled to France every so often to make deliveries. On Easter weekend I learned that he was travelling to the outskirts of Paris on a trip and I tried to arrange for him and my colleague´s brother to meet up. Unfortunately it was a busy weekend for everyone and it was not to be.
At the same time my friend Stephan from Bilbao was travelling to Paris and I gave him the backpack´s host phone number in case he had time and shortly after I got a call telling me the backpack was now in Bilbao.
As the story was getting more and more complex I asked my friends to ship the bag to Lugo by bus. I wasn´t so much that I needed anything from the bag because I was starting to forget what the important contents were, but I thought it would be best to try and conclude the story. I was told the bag will arrive on an Alsa bus Tuesday at 8:15pm, so I went to the bus station to wait. I thought about making a sign ´Welcome Backpack!´, but instead I sat quietly on the bench and waited. My friend Cristina came and joined me. When we saw a bus which read ´Galicia - Pais Vasco ´ we jumped up and started taking photos. As the driver went around the side of the bus opening the luggage compartments I was right beside him with my camera to take an arrival photo, but sadly there was no bag. I asked the driver if he had seen a small grey backpack and he explained that he was actually travelling to Bilbao and not arriving from the Basque country. I sat back down to wait and two other bused pulled up arriving from Madrid and Leon, and no backpack. After waiting about 45 minutes and talking with just about everyone in the bus station I decided to go home to come back the next day.
Then at last Wednesday morning around 2pm ( I am in Spain remember) I went to the station and carried my heavy little bag home. Back at the appartment I announced that we were going to have a fiesta the next day and have a special lunch to celebrate the arrival of the bag. Only one of my housemate´s showed up because the other hadn´t thought I was serious, but the two of us had a very nice meal with the little grey backpack sitting at the table with us.
1 comment:
Very funny story, it's unfortunate that the backpack didn't took pictures as the Bear (remember the picture?) or the Gnome of Travelocity!
LOL,
Edgar, Alexandra, Lauren Sophie
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