(The first person we got to help us.)
Now here’s the good part, the part where you must find humor in unfortunate situations out of your own control. It was a touch screen very similar to NYC or any other transit ticketing machine. You touch the screen to start…a map appears…touch the destination (zaragosa)…it asks you to pick a seat, where you touch the available/open seat on the bus. It asks you to pay (credit/cash) and the ticket prints. That’s the way it was supposed to work. NOT!!! All the steps worked up until the payment part. It wouldn’t accept ANYTHING. Credit or Cash! (and this is the ONLY machine in the airport by the way…Aye Dios Mio!!)
So, here is where we just start gettin’ humored instead of angry. There are all kinds of people walking around in airport employee attire, badges and all, and when we ask for help, they conveniently shook their heads…not to say i WONT help you..but like..”Naw..I dont speak English homeboy..you’re on your own.” I also found that their feet and legs moved a little faster when they blew us off…like something much more urgent in the distance needed their assistance more then we did.
While we’re trying to get help, Tone is constantly and hopefully trying to get us a ticket, and he’s noticing each time he checks the assigned seats on the bus…the seats are diminishing rapidly..like from 12..to 8…to 3…FULL!! We hadn’t left the machine the entire time…and no one has come to purchase a ticket while we were there…but the seats on the screen were FILLING UP with passengers …>??? What in the damnation!!???
The buses only ran every 2 hours or so…and we missed two because of the machine’s quirky behavior. Do the math…”Heavy-Wait Champs”…
(The second guys we got to help us)
So finally, these two guys above come over to the ticket machine. The guy without the uniform had tools, passwords, receipt paper rolls and everything…he was clearly coming to fix the machine,right?!! So we tell him what the deal is…he doesn’t speak English, we try our best to communicate…he opens the machine and starts pushing buttons, and whatever else he was doing inside there…then he closes it as if its fixed. Cool! Tone, for one last time, with them standing there, goes through the steps, gets to the end…STILL CAN’T PAY!!
Both dudes shrug their shoulders, and I think they just went to take a lunch break!
….oh..and we missed that bus too!!
