1. A disastrous journey
Irene (NI1)
My story happened some years ago at Christmas time. I was coming
back home from Salzburg, where I had spent a semester. And it was
really a disastrous journey.
That day it had been snowing very much and I had a lot of trouble to
make it to the airport. When I arrived, I expected that my flight was
cancelled, because there was an awful snow storm, but they didn’t
cancel it and I flew to Frankfurt in a tiny plane which was beaten by the
storm. I thought we were going to die, but we survived. We reached
Frankfurt very late, I ran to my next flight gate and I arrived just in time! …
just in time to find out that all the flights were cancelled at least for the
whole night. It was two days before Christmas day and the main
European airports were close due to weather conditions!
At Frankfurt airport the situation was horrible: they didn’t provide us a
hotel or a place to stay. There were so many people, that there wasn’t
neither a room for everybody, nor food.
The airport had just closed, the shops were closed, the workers put chains
around the food machines and they just fled from there.
Entire families were walking around the airport or lying on the floor. There
were television screens all over the airport broadcasting publicity so loud
that no one could fall asleep.
At a certain point, some stewardesses took packed snacks that were
about to expire from the planes, they came with a cart and begun to
throw that food to us, as if we were wild animals in a zoo!

2. Finally, I don’t know how, I could take a plane to Barcelona on the next
morning and, from there, it was easier to find another flight to Madrid.
But my baggage arrived 10 days later!"

3. A TRIP TO INDIA
Ángel Fernández Herrera
This happened a few years ago when I went to India with a friend for
summer holidays. We spent two weeks to traveling around the southern
part of the country and we wanted to spend the last week on the
beach. We travelled to Agonda Beach which is located in Goa. Agonda
has the best beaches that we had ever seen.
One day, when we were having breakfast in front of the beach a
strange guy told us about a secret beach a few kilometers from there.
He drew a map on a napkin and gave it us. First mistake, you shouldn't
trust a stranger. We rented a motorbike to go to the secret beach but
neither of us had driven one before. Second mistake, you shouldn't drive
a motorbike without knowing how to do it.
Anyway, there we were driving a motorbike with a drawn map on a
napkin in the middle of the jungle. The road was hard and dangerous
but finally arrived at what we thought it was the hidden beach. But
actually we had got lost. We were walking among hundreds of palms
and trees inshore. We had hunger and opened a boca bit's bag. Third
and last mistake, you shouldn't open a bag with any kind of food in the
middle of the jungle. First came a crow and after that, two, three, four...
until more of thirty crows and later on came a monkey, two, three, four...
My friend and I were not very tall and the size of the monkeys was very
similar to us. We didn't know what to do, they were assaulting us and
they wanted our bocabits.
After two minutes fighting with monkeys and crowds we decided to
throw down the bocabits. Why didn't we think this before? We ran away.

4. We had never been that scared in our life. We thought we were going to
die. At the end, we started the motorbike and rode on it... My friend
looked behind us for a moment and the largest monkey was looking and
smiling at us. Gosh!...

5. A DISASTROUS JOURNEY to the mountains
NI1, JOSE ANTONIO SAIZ APARICIO
This story happened in 2012 in the last day of
August. My wife and I had been on holiday in
a bungalow in Biscarrosse, a tourist village in
the French coast on the Atlantic Ocean close
to Bordeaux. We were going back to Madrid
through the Irun border. We had decided to
come on toll motorway until Spain to avoid
jams in the French coast villages. But we
thought of taking one free motorway or
national road after passing the border. We
used to do this in other trips.
The first part of journey was fine, but, in the
border, I took the wrong exit. We couldn't
locate our position and we were nervous
because we were going in the wrong direction through narrow roads with
many bends and turns. Besides, it was a dangerous route in the mountains with
trees and stones instead of people or villages. My wife was angry. I stopped
and I was able to put our new satnav.
As soon as I began to drive using the satnav, I believed that all was well, but we
got lost again. We didn't know how to use the GPS and, more important, we
didn't know where we were. We stopped again, we took our old map and we
understood that alone we couldn't get out, we needed people to solve this
problem. We had to turn round and go back in the opposite direction towards
the last village we had seen. I asked for some information to two young people
and they helped me.
After three hours, we were able to take the right direction. We lost a lot of time
with this experience which we will never forget. However, it was the last day
and the disaster was of little importance because we had already enjoyed our
holiday in France.

6. TELLING A STORY: DISASTROUS
JOURNEYS!!!
NI1, Tatiana Fernández
This story happened in 2002 when traveling with some colleagues. We spent 2
weeks in Sofia (Bulgaria). I had been there 2 years before and I had had a
great time in a good hotel, but this time all was different and confusing.
We stayed in a horrible place and our neighbours were a little bit dangerous
and inhospitable. This was a kind of a big, dark and dirty building. It was nothing
attractive. We ran into people like drugs addicts, prostitutes and thieves.
One day, when we came back to the flat, we discovered that we had been
stolen!!! Thieves had stolen our documents, passports, money and some
inexplicable objects. We went to the police station to report it and we were
surprised when the police told us that we couldn’t do anything because we
were from a “richer country“ and this was the reason why we had been
stolen!!! Three days later, we saw some of our own possessions in a street market
which was in front of our flat. There people used to sell really strange things like
medical drugs, old arms, clothes and things like that. Some of us, bought their
own things again!! Anyway, I didn’t. I was convinced that it was the way to live
from some people, but I preferred not to be in the game. Two days before,
coming back to Spain our passports appeared at the main door.
Finally, we came back to Spain safe and sound. I lost money but I won an
experience!!! I strongly believe that we have to take the positive thing from
everything. And I did it!!!
I always remember a view of the city when the plane was taking off and I could
see mountains holding the city. And I remember too, the smiles of the children
every day when we left the flat and we said to them “Hi” in Bulgarian while we
gave them some typical chocolates.

7. A TIME WHEN I GOT LOST
NI1, Marina Uruñuela Gómez
It happened when I was living in the Canary Islands. At that time, I studied at
University and I didn’t have enough money to go out with my friends so I looked
after a child called Mario.
Mario was a charming child and it was so nice to look after him, but he lived in
another city. When I started to work, I had to take the public transport every
day because I didn’t have a car. It took me more than an hour.
Luckily Mario’s mother lent me an old car to pick him up. As soon as I had the
car, I started to drive in Mario’s city, and I realized that I didn’t know the place, I
didn’t know where I was. At that time the satnav didn’t exist so I asked many
people for directions. Although I asked time and time again, I finally got lost
going to Mario’s school.
I was going in the wrong direction. I couldn’t find it and I was going in circles in
the same place all the time. I was exhausted and very nervous.
In my despair, I stopped a motorcyclist and I told him: “Please, you have to help
me. I need to get to this school but I have been lost for more than an hour…”
Fortunately the motorcyclist was very nice and went with me until the right exit,
however I couldn’t pick up Mario on time!

8. Telling a story of a time you got lost
NI1, Marisa Anguita
My story happened ten years ago. My family and
I went to Paris on holidays. As all tourists, we spent
a long time sightseeing. One Sunday evening my
husband had the great idea to do something
different. He planned to visit the tomb of Jim
Morrison, singer of 70s The Doors rock and roll
band.
When we went to the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, the sun was setting but there
was still one hour to close. When we saw all those tombstones, we were scared
and we asked ourselves if we had time to achieve our goal. My husband tried
to calm the kids, who were ten and six, with his natural confidence. He had
drawn a map to locate the notable tomb. In fact, the cemetery was so famous
that also the Parisians used to walk at summer time. After two hours turning
around, we got lost. We only had the singular company of crows that
fascinated the children with their cries and unexpected jumps.
At last we managed to find the artist’s tomb which was nothing special at all,
but we will not forget the silhouettes of the angels which were guardians of all
those dead ones and the immense silence that filled throughout and between
narrow paths that we were crossing. When the cold began and the night fell
down, only the flashlight of the night watchman made that the breathing
returned to us after two extensive hours that we were lost.
**