Gran aventura del día

My afternoon mission yesterday was to obtain a Carnet Joven card (youth discount card for train tickets and such) and my Taylor Swift ticket. For the CJ card, I read online that train stations usually have them (this was in english, not spanish, so it was not a problem of me misunderstanding). So I go across town to Estacion Delicias, take a number, wait my turn, all to find out that no, they do not have them - you can only get them at banks. Banks? Really? Defeated, I ventured back out into the frigid wind to the bus stop, got on what I was sure was the right bus to Carrefour (a Walmart-type store where I could hopefully pick up my concert ticket), because I HAD checked the location online, after all, only to be told by the bus driver that it was actually the opposite direction from the bus route! However, I was not going to give up, as Taylor Swift was at stake, so I walked about 2 miles down the road in the unrelenting wind to the Carrefour. At least streets are walkable here; there is no way in hell I would walk to Walmart or Kroger from my house in Athens - complete lack of sidewalks once you get out of downtown and campus. But anyway, I asked this old lady at the Carrefour info desk, in spanish, where I should go, and she had no clue what I was talking about. Luckily, another, more knowledgeable employee came to the rescue and directed me to the Carrefour travel agency office, where I successfully got my ticket. I wonder why things are sold at the oddest places here - concert tickets at the travel agency (the concert is in Madrid, hardly what I would call 'travel'), stamps and phone recharges at the tobacco shop, bus card recharges at the grocery store. It's like they do it that way on purpose to confuse foreigners. I am figuring out the system, however, so soon I will pass for a local and world domination is mine! Mwahahaha...

Travel tips of the day: don't trust everything you read online, and when trying to make complicated requests, like 'where can I get my concert ticket,' be sure to bring along a friend who speaks the language better, or at least locate a store employee who looks like he/she would know about such things (i.e., not a sour old lady).