Traveling can be very tiring – traveling abroad is exhausting. But when you add in a significant flight delay and pressure to jump right into activities upon arrival, you might just be straight up delirious. Because my family likes to leave a TON of time before flying internationally, we left the house 6 hours before the flight. After waiting for another hour past the flight departure time, we were told that the landing gear wasn’t working properly and the flight might be cancelled. This was very worrisome because our tour was set to begin the next day and could potentially leave without us. We were eventually shuttled to a local hotel and told that the flight might leave the following morning. And just as I was starting to finally relax and go to sleep, I was woken up and told that the flight was going to leave after all – at 2am. All in all, it was a total of 18 hours between when we left our house and when the plane actually took off. By the time we got to Madrid, we had 20 minutes to shower, change, unpack, and get ready for the tour.
Pro-tip: If you plan to go on a tour, give yourself an extra day to account for traveling complications and an opportunity to get over your jet-lag.