New life, no clothes
2006/11/12 No comments yetLately, I’ve been flying often. At first, low cost flights across Europe exclusively, but now also transoceanic flights. It turns out I never lost a single bag. Until now…
From BCN to LAX I was allowed to carry 2 32 kg. suitcases, and I obviously filled them up. My guess is I was traveling with above 50 kg worth of clothes 
. But the luggage never made it. After waiting for two hours in the airport at 1 o’clock in the morning I simply filled a report and went home. I found myself in a new country, starting a new life only with the things I had on. Moving to another country is a hard thing to do. You know you will feel lonely, and that you will have to struggle to find your own place. That is why, you bring things you care about and that at some level define you. Favorite clothes, gifts from friends, or maybe some familiar pictures that remind you of home. If those are left behind (as in my case), you will even feel more lonely. It’s like you’ve been stripped down to your bare soul, and you have to start building yourself again.
Is that the american dream? Dream or not, I had a huge feeling of impotence (I guess like this people).
Apparently, this is a common a situation (losing the luggage), yet usually the bags are recovered in less than 24 hours. On the other hand, in Spain chances are you never see your stuff ever again. In my case, 2 days later and after several calls I still had nothing. Although the inconveniences, I felt somehow lucky because I wasn’t completely alone and I knew that in case I needed something the catalan community in Irvine (my new yet to be friends ) would give me their support.
The third day, when I am pretty sure I had already started to smell I finally got the magic call saying they had located my bags which would be delivered that same day, yey!! I’ve been told that if the delay is longer than 24h you are entitled to some kind of compensation, but at that point I was just relieved to recover my lost belongings and didn’t file for a claim.
I know this is not the best start one can wish for, but finally things seem to start getting right on track.
