Hello Spain? It's me, Lauren.

I learned my first lesson the hard way of this adventure upon traveling to Spain. Pack light, always! There is no need for the 200 Q-Tips that I packed (they make those here too) or the economy size bottles of shampoo, body wash, and face wash that I deemed an absolute necessity when making my list. As Ryan and I are packing for our flight from Munich to Madrid, we realize that each person is only allowed one carry on of 20 kg (approx 44 pounds). For each additional KG, we are going to be charged 8 Euros. Between the two of us, we have 50 extra KGs…Holeen! So now we are looking at having to pay an additional 400 Euros just to get our luggage into Spain. What to do? Option 1: Ship luggage from the Zagreb Airport to the Madrid Airport for about 200 Euros. This seems like a good option except for the fact that it will not arrive until 2 days after our flight gets in. Therefore, we will have to spend an extra 200 Euros on a hotel for two nights. Option 1 is out. Option 2: Ship luggage from Munich airport to Madrid or desperately search for a Fed-Ex. This was a viable option until we found out our train was going to be three hours late and we might even miss our flight. Option 2 is out and I am near tears. Our only option now is to haul ass to the Munich Airport and pray that they will show us some mercy and not charge us the full 400 Euros. Expecting the worst, we walked up to the next available counter and began the check-in process. I tried to load my bags onto the conveyor belt as sneakily as you can with a 75 pound suitcase. I guess I wasn’t being sneaky enough because they guy looks at us and says “You guys have a lot of stuff.” Oh? (blink blink blink) I guess I didn’t realize this when I was weighing my bags with every different weight distribution strategy I could think of. Note to self: 75 extra pounds is still 75 extra pounds no matter how much air you suck out of those airtight travel bags. But alas (!) he says, “I am supposed to charge you. But I won’t this time.” It took all my self restraint not to give him a giant bear hug or even a high five (my brain: Lauren, keep your arms by your side). Crisis #1 averted, but Lesson #1 definitely learned. Especially when I finally got to the Madrid airport and my realized my luggage had been lost. Madre mia...