Barcelona Part One: Rollercoaster

At 5 am last Thursday morning I woke up packed for Barcelona. I walked to East Finchley to meet Gillian with a spring in my step. By noon I would be in Barcelona getting ready to spend the evening with my brother. Our problems started at the St. Pancras train station. The employee at the platforms told us to get on the train at platform 3. Five mintues into our ride our tickets were checked by the man who worked on the train and he told us we should have gotten on platform 2 to get to the airport. He told us we would have to get off the train at the first stop and turn around. "What time is your flight?" he asked. 10:25 and our gate closes at 9:55. "You're not going to make it". When we got off the wrong train and were waiting for the one that would take us back to the airport I called one of our AIFS supervisors. She told me not to worry because the gate doesn't actually close. Phwew. Already my day had me on a rollercoaster of stress levels, and it was only 8:30 in the morning. From the London Luton train station we had to get a shuttle bus to the airport which was said to only be about a 5 minute ride. I would have felt much more relaxed about this if we hadnt been waiting ON the bus for 10 mintues while our gate closing time came and went. By the time we got to the airport it was 10:00. Gillian and I ran up to security and paced around at the end of the line for about a minute until I couldn't wait any longer. I walked up the line and asked everyone if it was okay for us to pass since our plane was to take off in 20 minutes. Thankfully everyone was okay to let us by. Security was smooth. The next frustration was the gate. Our boarding passes didn't say what gate we were to board at. Gillian and I stood at the departures board with our jackets and toiletries baggies clutched to our chests looking dumbfounded. We couldnt find our flight number on the departures board. Gillian waved over an airport employee to help us. We told him our flight number and he looked at the board and said "Hmm Gate 17, final boarding call. You better run." I dont remember if either of us thanked the man because we bolted. I dropped my baggie of toiletries as I ran and the travel-sized bottle of dove body wash flew out in front of me. I used my Jedi mind powers to get it back in my hands and continued to run. When we finally saw the sign for Gate 17 it had an arrow pointing down. WHAT?! Oh.. down those stairs around the corner. Hearts racing, we arrived at the bottom of the stairs at the end of a line 20 people deep. "Is this the line for the flight to Barcelona?" I asked the man in front of me. YES. It was. Gillian and I collapsed on the stairs and heaved sighs of relief. We were going to make it to Barcelona on time!!!