After almost three months of traveling through Europe, my last stop was the small town of Bejar in the province of Salamanca, Spain  – about 300 miles northwest of Madrid. 

I couldn’t wait to see Bejar and meet that part of our family that never emigrated – primarily my Grandmother Estefania’s brother, Andres Martin, his family and some of my Grandfather Isaac Izquierdo’s (Grandma’s husband) family, too.

After two weeks of staying with Andres, his wife, Luisa, and their daughter Luisi, it was time to go home to California.  I was, by this time counting the days.  My Spanish was limited; their English, zero. This can put a strain on you

I went to Europe with a return ticket home – flying out of Madrid, through New York, to Los Angeles.  TWA, of course.  It was the most trusted name in the industry back when we trusted airlines.

Although my Great Uncle Andres was an industrious man — he was the town milkman, taught carpentry at the high school, built beautiful and intricate custom furniture, served as the town health “minister,” (he gave everyone the needed inoculations in three villages) — there was no way he could afford a car, so the family hired a taxi to take us to the Madrid airport on my departure day.*  

It was October of 1964, and starting to turn cold in Bejar.  It was a small city at the base of a semi-mountainous area called El Castanar.  Imagine one of those little squiggly things over the n. 

I wanted to take a shower before the day of my departure, even though their washing machine sat in the shower base, and I knew it would be a nuisance to pull it out.    

My uncle thought I was crazy because it was so cold.  Besides, my other showers in their apartment had been risky.  The water could “leave” suddenly, leaving one with soap and shampoo on one’s body with no way to rinse.

I did learn on my trip that most Europeans did not think showering was that important.  Now I believe that they were the smarter ones.  They knew how to conserve their resources.  So what if it was brought on by a couple of wars.  So what if they had a certain fragrance, shall we say.

Uncle Andres, Luisi, and I arose at 4:00 a.m. on the day of my flight home.  It would be a long, dusty ride over 300 miles to Madrid, where my plane was to take off at three o’clock that afternoon.  

The first taxi broke down about fifty miles outside of Bejar.  Somehow my uncle arranged for a  second hired car.  I don’t recall how this happened without a cell phone and no pay phones in sight.

The second taxi got us another fifty miles.  

It would have been lovely to say the second taxi made it all the way, but … 

The third one did.

By now I was officially panicked.

I would like to say we arrived at the airport in the nick of time, but we were way past the nick.

Besides, I wouldn’t have an adventure story, would I?

I ran up to the ticket counter in full, dizzying panic mode and said, “Please let me in (front of line), or I’ll miss my plane!

“Miss, …you already missed your plane,” said the harried ticket counter person.

I almost cried, as the air went out of me.  Then I noticed that chaos reigned at the airport, and there were people all around me who looked angry and upset, if not crying.

I zeroed in on one group in particular of about twenty Americans (I thought) milling about looking as if they were in the same boat.  Intuition?  I strolled over to the group and eavesdropped. They were angry Americans, and their flight had been OVERBOOKED! They were stuck in Madrid, just as I was.

What do you mean OVERBOOKED?  That was the first time I’d ever heard that term.  You mean they sell more tickets than they had seats on the plane!  

I pretended to be with them from then on and no one questioned me.

They gathered us all together and took us on buses to the TWA office in downtown Madrid.  Poor Uncle Andres and Luisi!  They had no idea – well they had somewhat of an idea – what was going on.  They spoke absolutely NO English.  I tried to explain to them what was happening in my limited Spanish, but my uncle was so upset.  He thought he had failed me and was not going to leave my side until he knew I was taken care of.  

Finally, one of the TWA staffers, an actual Spanish person, explained to them that I would be taken care of.  They were going to put all of us on different flights back to the United States, but not today.  We would be fed and housed at the airline’s expense.  What a relief!  At first, they told us we might be there for another two weeks.  Madrid is not such a bad place to be stuck, of course, but as I said, I was ready to go home.

I had $20 to my name after my travels through Europe.  Believe it or not, I started out with only $700 — $400 of my own and $300 borrowed from a dear friend of our family, plus my book, “Europe on $5 a day.”  I think the updated guidebook would be called “Europe on $500 a Day.”

After reassuring Andres and Luisi that I would be okay on my own, they left.  I later learned that on their way home, the (now fourth) car they hired flipped over on the road outside Madrid.  Did they curse me?  Probably, but they never complained to their American cousins.  Fortunately, they were not seriously hurt and came out with minor scratches.

That night, the airline put us up in a gorgeous and posh hotel next to El Escorial – an historical monastery and royal palace about three miles outside of Madrid.

I and my new best friends were treated to a wonderful dinner in our beautiful hotel – one that I could never have afforded on my own — not on $5/day, for sure.

The waiter came around and whispered sweet nothings in my ear, thinking he could seduce me?  He asked me to meet him after dinner.  At this point in the game,  I had had enough of the smooth European men who apparently thought American women were easy.  I must admit I’m a bit nostalgic for that attention now, but I digress.

We were an interesting amalgam of people. The woman sitting next to me said, in a phony  eastern seaboard accent – like actresses in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, “I only have to be in a country a few days before I pick up the language of that country.  I’m not sure why I have this gift or where it comes from.”

I can tell you where it comes from.

Yes, we were kind of a motley crew, utterly fascinating personalities.  Funny, isn’t it, the people you get to meet in a lifetime?

Before going up to my room, I asked the desk for a phone so that I could call home and let them know I would NOT be home on the flight they were expecting me to be on.  I asked the hotel to “reverse the charges.”  I had enough Spanish to say that…or so I thought.

I guess they did not understand what I was saying, because I was presented with a bill the next morning charging me exactly twenty dollars for that phone call.  As I said, that was my last twenty dollars.  Now I could say I made it to the end of my trip by the skin of my teeth and not one red cent.

My new friends and I were loaded into busses at the hotel and taken to the airport, where they dropped us off in small groups at different airline terminals.  I ended up on Alitalia with a lovely couple from Oklahoma City – the Barneses.

We were in our seats when I noticed the ONE flight attendant – only one – walking up to the cockpit with dinner on a tray for the pilot – one pilot; no co-pilot.  Dinner AND a bottle of wine.  Are you kidding me?  That wouldn’t happen on TWA.  I began to worry about our safety.  

That same flight attendant was also stuck with helping many immigrants – mostly Italians going to Montreal – fill out volumes of paperwork.  By the end of our trip, she did not look as put together as when she began.  Her hair was askew, and her blouse was untucked.  I felt for her.

Then I noticed a sort of handsome man cruising the aisles.  He had wavy black hair and a lovely smile on an open face.  He was an Italian who worked for Alitalia  and was flying back to Montreal, where his family and, most importantly, HIS MOTHER lived.

He struck up a conversation with me and then asked me to walk with him to the back of the cabin.  In those days, you could get up and roam around a bit without the stewardesses scowling at you, and you weren’t crippled by size of seat and rows.  The Oklahoma couple thought this was great and encouraged me to go with him to see what he had to say.

“Come with me to Montreal and meet my mother,” he said.

After meeting her, and a short courtship, if his mother approved, he wanted to marry me.  This was not an uncommon approach with European men – marriage or sex.  Not shy and a less inhibited population, which we first learned in France.  Ooh la la, did we ever.

I was tempted to have one more adventure by getting off the plane with him in Montreal, but by now I really wanted to go home, and so it was that I left a broken-hearted  Annaballi Mammoni in Montreal and traveled on to New York and then home. (I just needed to get his fabulous name in this story.)

The Barnes’s gave me $20 when we at last landed in New York.  To add to our adventure, the plane circled the New York area for over an hour before landing, which now put Mrs. Barnes into panic mode; “There must be something seriously wrong!”  

I survived my adventure, as you can see, as I am still here, a number of years later.  And no, you can’t know that number.

The End.

*There were about three cars in the entire town, but they did have a traffic cop at the traffic circle, and if you crossed against his hand signals, you were admonished severely.