Our dear friends from the Tuna de Derecho de Valencia insisted that we needed to come for a weekend visit. Between beach weather and personal tour guides who play guitar and look great in tights, Erica and I needed no further convincing. After emailing back and forth with the boys, we gleefully wrote them, saying we had put a deposit on a hostel for that upcoming weekend and had purchased bus tickets. Our tickets were incredibly cheap - only 22 euros each way. We thought it was strange, we didn’t know exactly how far Valencia was from Valladolid, but on the map it appears as far away as Barcelona, and our bus tickets there and back were far more expensive. Allowing our excitement to overshadow our common sense, we didn’t investigate the situation, nor did we look closely at our tickets. The bus company we’ve been using for all of our Spanish travels goes all over the country, and Erica and I simply assumed they offered a bus directly from Valladolid to Valencia.
Now that I have set the stage for disaster, it is now bright and early on a crisp Saturday morning in Valladolid. With my backpack filled with clothes, sandals, and my swimsuit, I met up with Erica and we were off to the bus station. We had to purchase two tickets for each way; we had a layover in León, which was very strange, since León is in the opposite direction of Valencia. Upon arrival, Erica and I camped out in the freezing cold León bus station to wait out two hours before our next bus to take us to Valencia arrived. We watched a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother ( I miss American tv more than I anticipated) and bought celebratory cafes con leche and croissants before the bus came. When it finally pulled in, the bus driver had no list of people who had purchased tickets; the dozen or so people boarding the bus were simply buying a ticket from the driver. Boarding the bus turned into a whole ordeal involving us and three other passengers trying to explain to the driver that we had purchased tickets online and our names should be on the list. He eventually had to call the company and use our passport codes to find our names and ticket confirmation. So frustrating and bizarre since every other bus we’d taken in Spain (which by now is too many to count) always had a list of passengers. We sat down, thanked the girl that helped us communicate with the driver, and she asked us what we were doing going to Valencia. We told her we had friends at the university we were going to visit, and were looking forward to some nice weather away from Castile-León. She looked perplexed, we could tell her mind was churning, trying to make sense of what we were saying, and then, it clicked.
“You’re going to the wrong Valencia,” she said. My stomach dropped to the floor. I couldn’t believe it for a minute.
“We are?!” Erica’s eyes were huge.
“Yeah - you’re on a bus to Valencia de Don Juan. It’s a pueblo only 35 kilometers from here. The Valencia you want is hours away, you have to travel through Madrid to get there.”
“SHIT!!” We exclaimed, jumping off the bus seconds before it pulled out of the bus station. All we could think to tell the driver was “necisitamos ir... es incorrecto autobus!!” Pitiful translation, but my mind was racing, and apologizing to the bus driver was the farthest thing from my mind.
The bus left, and there we stood, on the sidewalk, in freezing cold León, sans Valencia bus tickets, and my dreams of an amazing weekend vacation quickly slipping away.
“Okay, we’re not panicking yet,” said Erica, pulling out her laptop to get on the bus station website. I raced to the city map of León inside the station, and saw the RENFE train station was only a couple blocks away. We asked the man at the window of the train station how much it would cost to get the next train to Valencia, the man said there’s a train leaving in an hour for Madrid and we’d change trains there, and it’d be 200 euros. Not happening. We thanked him, and in utter desperation I walked to the car rental kiosk next door and explained our situation (in Spanish... be proud). To rent a car for the weekend, with a 250 kilometers per day limit would also cost around 200 euros. That’s not taking into consideration the hundreds of kilometers away Valencia is past the daily limit, and the fact that I’d have to re-learn how to drive a stick shift in the process. Also not happening.
Defeated, we stood outside the station, completely out of resources besides finding our way back to Valladolid. I called Esteban, and, completely humiliated, told him what had happened. He chuckled, and then apologized for laughing. I told him it is kinda funny, but at the moment, completely shitty and depressing. He told me that as much as they all wanted us to come visit, by this point, we were too far away, it would cost too much, and there wouldn’t be enough time left in the weekend for it to be worth the trip. He insisted that we’d stay in touch and wished me good luck and to be careful getting back home.
Back to the bus station we went, and exchanged our bus tickets home from Monday to the next bus. Erica and I treated ourselves to a pity bottle of wine and whiskey cake (delicious) while we waited for the bus to take us back home. After returning to Valladolid, and having to explain the story to our friends, roommates, and Spanish families, we went to see a movie (Luna Nueva, in Spanish) and the next day saw a Real Valladolid futbol game. It was a relaxing weekend, but couldn’t help but think about being in the sunshine in Valencia instead of barely above freezing Valladolid weather, and hanging out with our new-found Spanish friends,who probably think we’re inept American students incapable of taking care of ourselves.
...And yes, we did double-check and make sure we’re flying to the Paris in France this weekend, not Paris, Texas.
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