Asher Johnston: The Pre-adventure Misadventure
It’s late. I’m cold and tired. My bus leaves in five minutes, and I still have no idea where it even is. I’m not going to make it to Sevilla.
These were my thoughts as I was holding back tears of frustration and exhaustion. When I decided to study abroad in Spain, I instantly planned on traveling everywhere I could, seeing as much of the world as possible. With cheap flights, an extensive train system, and even busses offering trips to any part of Spain or Europe, I could visit an entirely different country—just as a weekend trip! This seemingly unlimited number of opportunities was more than a dream come true, and I took every one I could.
But dreams often take unexpected and undesirable turns.
It was my fourth week in Madrid, and I had just come back from a very successful trip to Valencia. I had a lot of fun traveling and exploring a new city in a foreign country all on my own, so I went straight into planning my next trip. I looked to Sevilla, a city in southern Spain that is one of the most popular places to visit. Searching my options on how to get there, I found some buses that were going overnight. It was a three-hundred-mile trip that would take seven hours, but I knew I could handle it, especially with how much cheaper it was.
I realized, however, that the tickets said they departed from Madrid-Barajas Airport, which confused me a bit, so I waited until my host family got home to ask them about it. When they did, I told them my plans for the weekend, and my host mother’s daughter asked if I was taking a flight, train, or bus. When I told her I was taking a bus, she asked which of the common bus stations I was leaving from, and I told her I was departing from the airport. She replied, “Huh? You’re sure you’re not taking a flight?” I showed her what the ticket said, and she remarks, “Well, it says you’re leaving on a bus from the airport, but I’ve never heard of buses leaving from the airport.” This unsettled me, and then she cried out “Mama! Have you ever heard of buses leaving from the airport?”
My host mother entered and said, “No, I did not know that.” This really unsettled me, but I calmed my nerves and assured myself that I could figure it out. On the internet, I found that I should go to terminal 4, so I had a start. My bus left at 11:15 PM, and I tried to get there around 30 minutes early, so I left to take the metro around 9:45 to make the almost hour trip to the airport. I was only a minute out of the house when I realized I hadn’t grabbed the cash I meant to bring, so I turned around to go back and get it. That minute nearly cost me my trip.
I needed to take the metro to get to the bus that would take me to the airport. As I entered the station, a train was leaving, which was fine because they normally come in every three minutes. If only I had gotten there one minute earlier. The metro had encountered some issues and there was a ten-minute delay. I had no choice but to wait, with every minute feeling like an hour. The train pulled into the station, and I got on and rode to the station closest to my bus stop. The ten-minute delay caused me to miss the first bus, and the next was fifteen minutes behind it. Again, I had no choice but to wait, each minute getting closer to my departure time, each making me more and more nervous.
After what felt like hours of traveling through public transportation, I arrived at the airport at 11:00 PM, just 15 minutes before my bus was scheduled to depart. I didn’t waste time trying to find it myself and instantly went up to some security guards and asked if they knew where the buses depart from. They said they didn’t know about the buses, and my heart dropped. They told me to go and ask the person at the desk, who told me it was down and to the left. I was glad to have received some sense of where to go, and I hurried towards where they directed me. When I left the building, I was at the drop-off or pickup line. I turned to the left and walked down, looking for any more hints of where to go. I made it to the entrance ramp, and I had not found anything. I asked some more people if they knew anything about the buses, but they also didn’t have any clues. I searched around a little more, hoping for some sign of anything. At this point it was about 11:10, and with the bus leaving in 5 minutes and I still had no clue where to go, I felt defeated.
I decided to try one more time, so I asked the people in the drop-off area, which had slowed to a stop. The first lady I asked said she had no idea where the buses were. The second man I asked also said he didn’t know. I asked one more man, and he knew what I was looking for. He pointed across the street, behind a fence and a line of trees saying, “Usually they’re in the parking lot over there, that’s probably it.” I looked to where he was pointing and saw a bus that was from the company I had booked with. I ran across the street and around the fence, reaching the door of the bus at 11:13.
I looked at the driver and asked, “You’re going to Sevilla?”
He answered calmly, “Yes, what is your name?” I breathed a sigh of relief, told him my name, and took my seat on the bus. The past hour had been the most chaotic, nerve-wracking, and exhausting experience in Spain up to that point. I would certainly be sleeping well on that overnight bus ride.
That night I learned that travel is not always the fun times and cool adventures that get posted on social media. Traveling, especially in a foreign country, can come with a great deal of challenges and stress, and it might not always go as smoothly as you’d hope. This story is significant to me because it captures a side of travel that’s often overlooked: confusion, stress, and feelings of loss and defeat. However, it ended up being one of the most valuable learning moments of my study abroad experience.
Asher Johnston is double majoring in Cyber Security and Spanish. He studied abroad at TANDEM Escuela Internacional in Madrid, Spain, for his sophomore fall semester. He plans to graduate in the Spring of 2027 and find a job in the Cyber Security field.