Passage I

My Trip to Spain

The following paragraphs may or may not be in the most logical order. Each paragraph is numbered in brackets, and question 15 will ask you to choose where Paragraph 3 should most logically be placed.

[1]

My guidebook said that by May, Spain would be warm and sunny, that forecast sounded fine to me. After a snowy winter in Chicago, I was ready for two weeks of sun.

[2]

My plane landed in Madrid on May 20. When I got off the plane, I had to work my way through the crowd to find my suitcase. It was also cold. Luckily, I'd brought a thin sweater and a plastic raincoat and I encountered a squall. This squall lasted four days, despite that I had to wear the sweater and raincoat constantly.

[3]

The following day, I caught a train south from Barcelona to the Costa del Sol. On the way, I stopped off in Granada, reputedly one of the more prettier cities in Spain. During my three days there, it was easy to see where the cities' greenery came from: it never stopped raining. On one of those days, when, I was exploring an old Moorish fortress, a tour group applauded when a shaft of sunlight briefly split the clouds.

[4]

After Madrid I tried Barcelona. I arrived at night, and by the time I awoke the next morning, the sun was shining. I felt like I'd finally found Spain. When I walked out the door of my hotel, though, my enthusiasm faded. The temperature being about 45 degrees, much colder than Chicago had been when I left. By the next morning, the city was covered by the darkest clouds I'd have ever seen.

[5]

Wearing soggy clothes and feeling miserable with a new cold, Salobrena, the coastal village, is the destination I finally arrive at next. I found a room in a pretty, white house that clung to a craggy hillside. The sun was shining, but colder winds kept temperatures in the fifties. After two cold and windy days, I'd decided I'd had enough. I took an express train back to Madrid.

[6]

That evening, as my train rattled its way northward, I picked up my guidebook and began looking through it. Suddenly, I felt a gradually, increasing impulse to rip it up and toss it out the window, but this feeling passed me soon. After all, there was always the chance I would return—maybe in July.