"Jamon!" I proudly proclaimed to the same woman at the counter. She just nodded and a few minutes later gave me the same thing as the previous morning, the coffee and the ham-in-a-bun. Not even a smile! Well, I thought I was cute.
I took my luggage with me and got onto the 22 bus, the same as yesterday, hoping it would take me to Santa Justa station. Sooner or later as we got downtown and kept going, ignoring the mustard yellow street signs that pointed elsewhere to Santa Justa station, I realized this bus was not going to take me there.
I end up at Prado San Sebastian again, because it's the end of the line, and probably after 10 minutes of wandering around studying the maps, I understand I need to get on the 22 bus. After another 15 minutes, I find the island and stop where the 22 is, and get on as the drivers switch to a young woman with short, dyed black hair. After I find a seat, I observe her settling-in ritual, which involved reaching up to turn on satellite radio, and immediately James Blunt's You're Beautiful blasts through the bus's speakers. We listen to American pop for the rest of the ride and I wonder if Spain has their own pop music. (The answer is, not really).
At Santa Justa's ticket counter #10, I spend the initial two minutes trying to buy a train ticket using only the words "Cordoba" and several strategically paced "Si"s, to no avail. In a strain of rapid Spanish from the teller, I hear "Quantas horas?" I recognize 'quantas horas'. I repeat it back to him. We stare at each other significantly. I want to tell him numbers, but I only know how to count to 5 in Spanish.
He tries a different tack, and on the back of an invalid ticket he writes '12:35'. "Si." Underneath that, '17 euros'. I take out the money. He gives me my ticket and change. "Platform six," he says in merciful english.
I hustle all the way to the platform for my train that departs in four minutes, and have to put my bags through the x-ray. "Coach numero uno," the person who rips my ticket says, and those words mean nothing until I see lights on the car closest to me blink "coche no. 4", and I realize my car is all the way at the end.
A whistle blows through the station and I start running, dragging my luggage, trying to gain some traction with my Rainbows on the slippery floor. The last person through the door, a man wearing an orange polo and a wide grin, leans back out and helps me lift my bag onto the train as I arrive, panting. "Gracias," I mutter.
"De nada", he smiled. "Casi, e?" He continued with rapit short streams of Spanish in a tone that sounded like he wanted to be acknowledged but not necessarily answered, so I said "si" in politely hesistant intervals. I put my bag up and after I settle in my seat, I see the grinning man loudly cracking jokes with the people around him.
Then, I get kicked out of my seat by an old guy in a suit because it turns out trains have assigned seating.
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