The girl breathed through her mouth slowly trying not to cry. her obnoxiously loud roommates had kept her up half the night and she wasn’t in the most stable state of mind. She thought she was decent at understanding spanish, but she had been very wrong. The woman at the desk had not understood english and the hotel did not have the girl listed on their roster because she was in a triple room.

This resulted in the young American being unable to eat the breakfast they served to all the other guests. Luckily she had packed a few granola bars in her suitcase, and was nibbling on it halfheartedly. Not only had she been denied food, the girl couldn’t seem to find her spanish teacher who was leading the trip. She felt tears prick her eyes.

It had been nothing but trouble since landing in Madrid. No probably since landing in Europe in general… Her friends had not been able to afford to come with her. Everyone else in the group already knew each other, and she was often left behind with the teachers when the others had free time.

Her heart ached for home. It was painfully lonely for the teenager there. She kept telling herself it would be better in Spain and that the trip was a once in a lifetime experience. But only two hours after landing she longed for Paris. Where the City of Lights had bright and bustling street, Madrid’s were dark and reeked of danger.

At least most of the French had spoken English... The girl had taken four years of spanish and had wished to go to school for languages… It was one of the only classes she did well in. But she couldn’t understand a word they said in Spain. Their conversations were to fast and and her vocabulary too small. After ten minutes of trying to communicate with the frustrated woman at the desk, she felt unbelievably useless and embarrassed. Her suspicions were confirmed then, she really wasn’t good at anything.

With her shattered dream in hand, she had called over another person from her group to translate. Apparently they needed her room key to make sure she was who she said she was, but when the girl went to ask her roommates to borrow the plastic card they had already left. And now she was sitting on the white leather couch in the lobby trying not to burst into tears.

Her stomach growled insistently, not satisfied with the energy bar. At the airport they had trouble with her ticket and the girl had been late to the gate. She had not had time to eat dinner and they only gave out peanuts and pretzels on the flight from Paris. Suddenly her spanish teacher walked out of the elevator and sat next to her.

“Buenos dias! Did you have breakfast? We’re going to head out soon.” the woman told her. The girl smiled weakly trying to hide her depressed mood. She didn’t want to make a scene so she just lied and said,

“Yes it was very good.” As an awkward silence descended between them, the rest of the class began to gather in the lobby chatting loudly. The girl’s teacher jumped up and told everyone to gather round. Their tour guide started explaining what they were going to be seeing that day, but the girl hardly heard her over the grumbling from her stomach, and the pounding in her head. Eventually the group set about heading for the hotel’s falling down door.

The girl pushed herself up slowly and sighed softly and followed them out the exit. She hoped that the rest of her trip would not be this lousy.