Day 36, April 4.

After coughing all night and getting only about 3 hours sleep Peppe drove me to the airport early in hopes I could book some flight out.

I was willing to fly to Alicante, Valencia, Barcelona or Madrid—and take a train from there. In fact, if it wasn’t for my commitment to finish up my 6 month Extended Professional Training, I would have cancelled the entire rest of my trip and just flown home, I felt so bad.

Finally got something to Barcelona for way more expense than I would be willing to pay under any other circumstances (meaning, my entire trip may end up in the red), arriving in the evening (which meant hanging out in the airport all morning), which is where I am right now, and embarrassingly, coughing. It’s horrible!

Plus, when I arrive in Barcelona I have no idea if there’s a train that can get me to Amanda O’Shea’s house (my massage therapist student) in Javea, Spain, and I don’t know if she’ll even want a coughing, sick person in her house, which I would totally understand. So I called her and left a message.

At this point I can only take one step at a time. But when I think back to visiting the Concentration Camp, am I really complaining about this?

At Barcelona all was going like clockwork until the train to get me from the airport to the train to Valencia was delayed and I missed the train by minutes.

Stranded in Barcelona!

And I started feeling lousy, and no one could give me information about hotels, and I couldn’t track down Amanda, who was supposed to help me, and I was running out of energy. Turned out Amanda’s car broke down.

So I sat down in a cafeteria to gather my thoughts, and what to do think came to me: Call Ms. Life Saver: Sheela Masand.

I was right.

Sheela looked up hotels near the station I am at and booked a room for me and all I had to do was walk there and flop down. And then Amanda called with trains for tomorrow to get to her house. If I get up in time I’ll take the 7 AM. I’m better in the morning.

Thank goodness for these life-savers.