Au revoir little cousin

My young cousin left yesterday and, yes, she was really nice and sweet and yes, it was a pleasure to have her as a guest. As much as I moan, I do love to have guests. I hope that she managed to improve her Spanish and English
Of course, this being my life, things never go smoothly and simply, there has to be some drama to everything and this was not the exception.

I did promise my dad that I'd take her to the airport despite my quite busy schedule and the summer heat that made a nightmare to drive for 2 hours on the motorway. I don't like driving on the motorway as the people here simply don't know the rules and do whatever they feel, it's very stressful. I used to hate driving on it but now experience and the GPS help a lot and now is bearable. But to drive to Barcelona airport and back in the middle of a working summer day, though, is not something I was looking forward to.

I went to my early class at 8am in a local industry park at around 20 minutes from home. I'm replacing the usual teacher in a multinational company's factory. Because this was my first class there I arrived a bit earlier and parked my car in one of the many places there. I went to reception but had to wait until the receptionist arrived.
Here when it says that the opening time is 8am it actually means that the employee arrives at more or less that time, but first goes to say hello to somebody, grab a coffee and only then actually goes to his/her desk. So I waited for the receptionist to arrive and tell me where my class was and so on.
Let's just mention that also my students are always late for classes, I know this but I'm very professional and I'm always on time, don't know why I bother. Even when I go to their own offices, they'll still find a way to keep me waiting. It's not rude but is just the way things are here.
Anyway, eventually my class started and then the phone run and the receptionist ask for me. She asked me where did I park the car and when I told her there was a long silence on the line and she said that there was a huge crane blocking my car and that she didn't know how long that was to stay there.
OK. I told her that I needed the car but that I'd finish the lesson and we'd worry about it latter.

When the class finished I went back to the car park and, yes, there was a huge yellow crane there totally blocking my car, which was nicely parked behind it and with no way of getting out. I checked everywhere for signs to make sure that it wasn't my fault and then I headed to reception. The receptionist was truly apologetic and told me that it was really her fault as she supposed to warn everybody and she did... by email and in person the day before. She didn't even put a sign there.
As the situation was sinking in, I became more desperate. By then it was 10 o'clock and I was expected to pick my cousin and take her to the airport on time, then I there were 2 more classes on the afternoon.

I was aghast.

The receptionist apologised and told me that she had already called a taxi in. I was about to burst into tears thinking of the expenses. Then she added that as it was all her fault the company will put the taxi at my disposal to go to wherever I needed for the rest of the day if necessary and that she'll call me as soon as my car was freed so I can go back and collect it. In fact, the taxi was already waiting for me.

With great caution I told her that I needed to go to the airport, to El Pratt, and back and then to different places. I just wanted to make sure she knew that the bill was going to be huge. She said not to worry about distance or time, the taxi was mine for me to use it as I had planned to use my car.

All of a sudden the situation wasn't as bad as I thought.
It was actually pretty good.

So without much ado and before the very nice and, all of a sudden, very eficient receptionist had the chance of changing her mind, I jumped into the taxi. The driver was very pleased to hear the whole story as he was going to get a lot of money out of it. As he said: "some body's misfortune can be the good fortune of another", taxi drivers are usually very philosophical here.

Then I went home, the taxi waited until we were ready and my little cousin and I chat all the way to the airport in the comfort of the air conditioned taxi, I think there were some traffic jams on the way but I didn't care a bit. It was the most comfortable and relaxed ride to the airport ever!
After I boded farewell to the young cousin I bought a coke and went back home. Nice.

Then at noon, the receptionist called to tell me that the crane was gone and my car was free, and she offered to send me another taxi. I asked to send the taxi at 1:30 pm so I could be on time to my next appointment.

I finished the day extra relaxed as I didn't drive as much as I expected.

It's really great that what started as a disaster turned to be my lucky day. Great!
I choose to think that this was good karma.