Bon Voyage!

So with so many days and so many fantastic places, I figured I would break these posts down by our days traveled. Here is day 1, Thursday, May 14th. We dropped our kids off at Sonny and Patty's house on Wednesday night in order to prepare for our early departure. Our flight was supposed to leave at 8:30 am, which in travel terms meant we had to be out our door at 5, up at 4! Yikes... but we got a call at about 2:30 am saying the flight was delayed, which at first thought is, yeah, we can sleep in an extra hour, but in real life means I get up to go check the internet to find out everything I can until about 3:30, etc... either way, it was an early morning.

We drove up to Nicole and TJ's house in Draper to leave our car and have them take us the rest of the way to the airport. Thanks T for dropping us off early, and picking us up even though it was during a Laker game ;) But we got to the airport, checked in, and got through security, and as we sat down to wait to board... I thought, yeah, we're past our first nightmare hurdle. I had been having nightmares for days that we got to the airport and forgot our passports and they wouldn't let us go, and that when we tried to get on the ship, we had misunderstood some documentation requirements and they left us behind, and that in some foreign country we get mauled by gypsies who steal our passports and we get stuck, and that we don't make it back to the ship from some port and they leave us behind, and that we oversleep and miss our flight home, and that our luggage gets lost with all our souvenirs on the way home, you get the idea. So every once in awhile I would turn to Chris and say, "One more hurdle." So we boarded the plane and were on our way to Minneapolis...

In Minneapolis, we ate at the Wolfgang Puck Express while waiting for our next long flight to Amsterdam. (That's where these pictures are taken). Unfortunately I wasn't in my japanese photographer mode yet, so I don't have pics of us in the airports, etc. like I should to tell the full story, some days I did better than others about remembering to document silly detail stuff...




The funny note about our long flight to Amsterdam was that when we got our seat assignments, Chris and I were not only not sitting next to each other but not even in the same cabin. Once we got on the flight we quickly realized that we weren't the only ones, they were scrambling to get kids sitting with parents, and couples were negotiating seat switches, so I traded with another man so he could sit behind his wife, I was now at least in the same cabin... oh well. I told Chris he should enjoy the quiet while it lasted. He was alright sitting with a window seat, I got stuck in the middle section between two larger older ladies, for more than eight hours, it was a long flight.

One more funny sidenote was that I got the one mean flight attendant in the whole industry! Flight attendants are notoriously patient and polite... not mine. I only say that to establish that you don't ask for anything more than is necessary, so when she asked if I wanted Chicken or Curry, I thought, let's try something different, I'll have the curry. It was after that, that I heard her say it was the Vegetarian curry, and being the carnivore that I am, I was already a little worried. When I opened my meal, I was downright disappointed! It looked like rice separated by slimy spinach and corn goop that was the consistency of some diapers I've changed! And then I thought, duh, don't be brave with airline food! So I took one longing look at the teriyaki chicken dishes surrounding me, and figured I'm a good sport, let's give it a try first... turns out, it didn't look appealing at all but it actually tasted pretty good. Ah, a sigh of relief. So I ate it all and wondered what Chris was eating, wishing I could laugh about it with him. When I got the end, I had some Oreo cookies, and had heard someone else ask for milk, yum, so I asked my favorite attendant for some milk (when she was standing by me serving drinks by the way, I didn't drag her from somewhere else asking for a huge favor) and no lie, she said, "Maybe if I remember, I just want to sit down" then she growled a little and walked away, I never did get my Milk.

Arriving in Amsterdam was exhausting and exhilarating. We arrived about 6 am local time, but for us it was about 10 pm, so we felt very much ready to go to bed and the world was just waking up there... it was a rather weird sensation, now I know what they mean by jetlag.

Our final flight was from Amsterdam to Barcelona, and was the easiest to sleep on simply because I was now really tired. But they serve the best snacks on KLM. Our domestic flight, we could choose between two little cookies or a bag of peanuts- whoop di dee doo! On KLM, they served these great little dutch sandwiches that came in a pack of two, one a herb bread with gouda cheese, and the other a sweeter white bread with Mascarpone Cantucci (like Almond Cream Cheese), and they were fantastic! And then later we got some syrup cookies- yum! And they served drinks about four times (on a 2 hour flight) I just wish they flew around here.

We arrived in Barcelona at what felt like 3 am, but was actually 11 am--- so we had a full day ahead of us. We had originally thought about taking a nap, but figured we should just stick it out so we could get onto a normal schedule there.

First things first, we had read that the train was easy and convenient, funny thing right off the bat was that we found the train station no problem, but they wouldn't accept any of our credit/debit cards for some reason, so we had to hunt down an ATM to get some Euros, strike one.

Once on the train, standing room only, we were travelling with half tourists like us, and helf sketchy characters. This is my first experience in another country besides Mexico, and I thought "we're not in Kansas anymore." Before coming we knew to be careful for pickpockets and heard stories, but didn't expect to experience it so quickly or so blatantly. About three gangster looking guys got up close and personal with Chris, and he stared down the main one and told him no way. They backed off a little, but then he watched them steal right out of the backpack of the guy standing next to him- Welcome to Spain!

After getting off the train, we just wanted to get to our Hotel and started walking in what turned out to be the wrong direction with all our suitcases. We got ourselves oriented, backtracked and walked the remaining blocks to our Hotel, we arrived safe but hot and tired. So it was a quick refreshing shower, and we were off to see some sights now having been awake for about 27 hours already.



This is Chris at the Amsterdam airport, looking ready for a nap. Sorry, I was too afraid to take pics of the pickpockets and too surprised for pics of the corn diaper goo, I mean Curry!