Metro Madness

My Camino friend Steffen is working in Madrid and invited me to meet up with him for lunch. Since his work is really busy and he is going out of the country for a business trip tomorrow he asked if I would take the Metro to the north part of Madrid. I said sure, no problem, when he said that it was at the end of line 10. Sounded easy enough. 

He said it would take about an hour, so I thought I would play it safe and give myself an hour and twenty minutes. I got on the metro near my place and rode a couple of stops to switch to line 10. I thought, "Great, now I will just relax all the way to the end of the line." So, I started to read my book and wasn't paying all that much attention because I knew there was a long way to go. There were only a couple of people in my car and they got off. We started back up but something felt strange. It took me two stops to realize that we were going back the way we came! I jumped out at the next stop and ran up the stairs and around the station to go back in the correct direction. But then I thought, what if the train just stops there and changes direction like it did last time? I pulled out my metro map and saw a strange symbol at the station where the train reversed, but wasn't sure what it meant. I saw that there was another way to go that would circumvent that problem station. But it would mean changing stations and adding about 15 stops.

 I tried to call and text Steffen but didn't get any reception underground. I decided to go for my new route but stopped partway because it was the time that I was supposed to meet him and I wasn't even close. I went out of the station to call him and accidentally called my brother Stephen by mistake first. I'm sure I sounded a bit crazy to him and I told him I'd call him later. When I reached Steffen he couldn't even figure out where I was because I had switched over to the Metro Ligero which is an entirely different thing. We postponed our meeting time to 40 minutes later. That meant cutting our time  shorter which was too bad. It was really fun to see him again and a familiar face in Madrid. He said that I should have gotten off at the Tres Olivos station and crossed the platform to continue on in the correct direction. Since I didn't have any idea that the train would reverse directions and the explanation was only in Spanish, I think my mistake was understandable... I did it correctly on the return trip and it was more obvious because it was a packed car and everyone got off. My only problem then was that I hadn't purchased the correct metro ticket that went to zone B, so it wouldn't let me through the turnstiles. I looked around and there weren't any ticket machines. So, it was either try to climb over the turnstile or press myself up against the person in front of me and go through with her. I opted for the latter and the girl didn't seem to really notice. Now I am back in my hotel room safe and sound. Such drama!!