*These blog entries will be a description from my point of view and only my point of view. The students who were traveling with me may have different viewpoints or ways of remembering.
**This first entry will cover two days for reasons that will be clear from the writing. Most entries will discuss one day at a time.
It's a cool day at the peak of the afternoon here in Iowa City on June 30, cool for late June anyway, and I'm in my garage still trying to sort through the physical and mental disorder that a full school year, an inopportune cold during finals, and a whirlwind trip to Spain has left me.
Well, let's be honest. This disorder here in this garage is almost completely caused by my tendency to not want to clean up after myself, to leave all my gaming components where I last actually used them and not organized and not dispose of things that need to be disposed of, such as this dusty black fan that has not worked in over a year. That sort of thing.
But the mental stuff, that's real. That is what I'm really trying to sort through now, to put it down on paper (well, on a screen) before I forget it all. After nearly two years of planning, Spain went by so fast I feel like I couldn't capture it between my fingers.
So now it's time, 3 weeks after it all started. Exactly three weeks ago right now, I was in the passenger seat of a van being driven by John Martinez, a father of a student who would be traveling with me, on our way to O'Hare airport....
Monday, June 9, 2025
The meeting time was 1:30 PM in the West Liberty High School parking lot. I was there early, early enough to do a little reading and drink some coffee, and at 1:15 I rolled my suitcase outside. One student and his parents had arrived and I went out towards them. We made small talk, just the four of us, for a few minutes, but strangely it felt like somehow we had gotten the day wrong before a second car showed up.
And then the sensation was gone, as the other students arrived, one on top of the other, and before I knew it, all nine of us were there, saying good-bye to our loved ones and loading our suitcases into the vehicles that would take us to Chicago. Nobody seemed to know who was riding with who, so I made an executive decision, the first of many I would have to make over the next nine days: Boys with John, girls with Katie.
We made sure we had our passports, loaded into the vehicles, and BAM! My eight students and myself were driving east to meet our plane to Barcelona.
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Four hours later, after the obligatory stop at the DeKalb Oasis, we were at O'Hare. We parked and took out our luggage. As John and Katie stayed behind, it was very quickly becoming real. I was alone with eight students--two seniors, two sophomores, four freshmen, four boys, four girls--as we maneuvered our way through one of the world's busiest airports.
We got to the United desk and I asked the kids to stay together with all our luggage. As always, nothing was quick in an American airport; they kept wanting me to do everything via automatic kiosk. I patiently kept explaining my situation until someone finally realized that an adult traveling alone with eight minors may need special attention. I collected the passports and then each of us was called one at a time to check in and check our luggage.
"Let's keep moving," I said. "Once we're through security and at our gate, we can set up a little headquarters and you guys can do what you need to do."
Security was fun, as it always is. But we made it through and walked who knows how far to gate C10. It was about 6:45 and our flight wasn't until 9:30; we had arrived early; C10 was still full with people leaving for Frankfurt in the next hour, so we moved across the way to C11 where there was more space.
International travel is a lot of "hurry-up and wait". We waited. I encouraged the kids to eat something good because Barcelona was a long ways in our future and a good meal even further. I myself downed two personal pan pizzas and then, sensing some boredom from the students, went and bought a couple decks of cards and taught some of the kids how to play gin rummy.
Eventually, the plane to Frankfurt left and we made our way across to C10. The kids started to get silly as the hour advanced and we continued to wait.
Soon enough, though, it was time to board. We were not seated together, but spread out throughout the rear of the plane (otherwise known as the cheap seats). Once I made sure everyone was sitting, I settled into my own seat. "Settled" is not exactly the right word: I despise being in an airplane and as the plane made its way towards the runway, my stomach somersaulted with increasing frequency. As we powered to take off, a strange mix of sensations hit me: the nerves that always attack me at takeoff, the excitement that we were FINALLY in the air towards Spain, and a quiet satisfaction: once we arrived in Barcelona, I would have adult help in the form of our tour director. And we had just successfully pulled off Step 1 in what I hoped would be an incredible trip for all.
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Between time zone changes and flying eastward, I'm not exactly sure where we were when the date changed; my best guess is somewhere over Ontario or Quebec. Wherever we were, I was asleep.
When I awoke we were most of the way across the Atlantic, just in time to eat a surprisingly good pizza roll with a glass of orange juice. I was in the middle of the plane so there was no way I could see out the window, but I could watch the screen in front of me as we approached Spain:
We landed in Barcelona right on time: 1:30 P.M. local time. We did everything in reverse from O'Hare: There was a line at Customs, but nothing excessive; we were basically waved right through. As we waited for our luggage, I collected the passports from the kids and put them in my red canvas pouch I had purchased exclusively for this purpose. It's a little nerve-wracking being responsible for 8 passports other than your own.
This done, we exited and I looked for a sign that said "Explorica". I couldn't find one; I knew there was supossed to be one, but, as we say in Spanish, "ni modo". I escorted the kids down to where it said shuttles. Still nothing. Luckily, our tour director had texted us via WhatsApp a few days before and I was able to give him a call. He was in downtown Barcelona but game me the number of the guide picking us up. After a bit of confusion we located each other. Turns out, there was another group, from Texas, that had arrived on the same flight and he had been with them.
We boarded the bus to our hotel. The world is small: the guide was from originally from Venezuela, so we had much to chat about as we headed to the hotel, clearly out in a suburb; later I found out it was called Molins de Rei (King's Mills) (Spanish-speaking readers may astutely notice that is not Spanish; many people are surprised that in Barcelona the principal language is not Spanish, but Catalan, and the people of Barcelona are very proud of this. Most signs are written in huge letters in Catalan, medium letters in English, and smaller letters in Spanish. I knew this, but it was interesting to see first-hand).
We entered the hotel, put our luggage in a storeroom, and then boarded the bus to head into Barcelona proper. It was about 3:00 PM, and we were SO EXCITED!!
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As with all big cities, Barcelona only gradually revealed itself to it. We went from small road to freeway back onto smaller and ever-more crowded roads, our final destination being the Plaza Catalunha.
We also met our tour director, Javier, who would soon become a dear friend to myself and the kids:
We also met the other groups on our tour: 6 other schools in total. We had the second biggest group (but I was the only one on solo supervision 😜😜😜). Some of the other groups had been in Barcelona since nine in the morning and they were exhausted. It was hot and humid as the kid roamed the plaza and played with the pigeons. That's about all we had time to do, because dinner was set for five o' clock. Javier guided us through some streets until we arrived at our restaurant.
I don't think it was until we sat down that I fully realized it was real, because we ate authentic Spanish PAELLA!! It was all suddenly so real: the bus ride in, the fountains, the plaza, and now PAELLA!!
By the time we finished dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel, get checked in, and settle in; it had been a long two days for all 51 of us (students and adults combined). I got an unexpected surprise at the hotel: I thought I would be sharing with another adult, but I was given an individual room! This would do wonders for my mental health as the trip surged along.
As I climbed up the steps to my room, I saw a bunch of Domino's delivery motorbikes outside my window. There was also an Aldi just two blocks from our hotel. "Soft imperialism alive and well," I thought.
After we had all settled in, I walked with the kids over to Aldi so they could buy snacks, health care items, or whatever else they might need. Then, finally, I was in my room. I unzipped my big suitcase and began to arrange things, trying to keep in mind we would only be here for about 36 more hours.
Then, the most sacred part of my day: the shower and donning of pajamas. I opened up my journal and began to write. It was finally time to relax....until my phone started pinging and the knocks at my door.
"Mr. Plum, can we order Domino's?" "Daniela can do it right from her phone!" "We don't even need to leave the hotel!"
Finally I gave in. "Order your pizza, meet the guy in the lobby, eat, and go back to your rooms." What with it being the first night, I wasn't going to leave them alone, so I waited with them in the lobby...and we waited...and we waited. "Daniela, are you sure you put the order in correctly?" "I think so...."
After an hour of this, I was done. "Daniela, you and one other person walk over to Domino's with me. Everyone else wait here." When we got to Domino's I explained our situation to the woman who appeared to be in charge. "We didn't receive any order," she said, "but we're not very busy. Give me 15 minutes and I'll make your pizza."
It was approaching midnight and we finally had our pizza. We carried it triumphantly into the lobby of the hotel. The kids, more excited than hungry, opened up the box...and the pizza had not even been cut! I don't even remember what the kids did next, but somehow they found a way to divide the pizza into eight pieces. It was gone in under five minutes.
"Okay, guys, upstairs. I need to SLEEP," I said, and they were blissfully obedient.
Back in my room, I lay down with my journal again, but I was just too tired. It was after midnight and I would have to be up at seven thirty for breakfast; we would leave at nine for our day in Barcelona. "Crazy kids," I wrote down. "We flew across the Atlantic so they could eat Domino's pizza at midnight."
But as I pushed the journal aside and closed my eyes, I was smiling. These were the memories these kids would have--Domino's pizza at midnight in the lobby of their Barcelona hotel. "This," I realized, "is why I arranged this trip. I got paella, they got Domino's."
"And after all," was my last thought before falling asleep, "after two years of anticipation, we are in BARCELONA FREAKING SPAIN. HELL YEAH!!!"
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