We made it to Spain

October 24, 2010

We flew out of Boise on the morning of October 22nd. The flights were pretty unremarkable except for the one couple who had the audacity to yell at both myself and my children for their poor behavior and lack of manners on our flight from SLC to Atlanta, GA. The thing was they were quite well behaved the whole trip, however any time they opened their tray or got into their seat pouches or got up to the bathroom these people gave us dirty looks and had a conniption fit. I won’t go into the whole story but at one point I told this couple that we had limited space my kids were being careful not to disturb them and kindly suggested that maybe next time they pay a little extra and fly first class so that they are less likely to be “disturbed”. I wasn’t pleased. They made my kids feel horrible and cry which was not ok.. What I really would have liked to say is I hope you have a screaming vomiting child that sits next to you on your next full flight. I thought better of this. Our next flight (8 hours long) the attendant commented on how polite and well behaved they were, which made me feel much better.

We arrived in Madrid, Spain at about 9:30 am on the 23rd a little sleep deprived from our flight and jumping 9 time zones ahead. A gentle man was scheduled to pick us up at 11 am to take us to the campervan/motor home/auto caravan rental place. We retrieved our baggage and then waited for him to arrive. The airport reminded me of any city in the states with kids running free, and people meeting and greeting family member only speaking Spanish, not English of course. Shortly after we started discussing who had to call the company and who to ask for help our driver made his appearance. He spoke no English and our little bit of Spanish was not enough to keep the conversation flowing. There was only one man who spoke English at the camper dealership and he did our paperwork with us and then sent us off with a gentleman who didn’t speak a word of English to explain to us how everything worked. It was great. We told him we understood everything and he smiled and off we went only to return 5 minutes later trying to explain to him there was only ½ a tank of gas and them tell us, oh ya your brake lights out. Whew, got that fixed and then we were off again. We got on the highway and couldn’t really figure out how to go the direction we wanted to so we took another J

You wouldn’t think getting gas would be difficult, however it was interesting. Nothing would come out of the diesel nozzle so the gentleman Tob asked for help just used another one, unsure what kind of gasoline actually was put into our tank and whether or not our newly rented home would even run. After starting it up and a few choice words from Tob we were off to find food. We stopped at a nearby mall and headed into a super-walmart type store called Alcampo if I remember correctly. They had food which was great although we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what most of it was. We left the store with some lunch meat (we think) cheese (pasteurized I hoped), cereal, bread, fruit juice and a powdered sugar pastry treat. We made some lunch and got back on the road. It didn’t take long before I noticed Toby’s sleepy eyes and the drifting motor home, realizing we both could use a nap. Soon after that we spotted our first castle and decided to go check it out. While we were driving through the small streets we noticed a line of cars driving up above town nearby what looked like a bull fighting arena to view some sort of horse/bullfighting activity. We followed them up on the hill, parked our home and watched while hundreds of vehicles full of families and friends joined us. Tob and the kids stayed up and watched as they released two groups of bulls from the arena and then 2 goups of men on horses with 4-7 foot sticks. The bulls ran as the horses herded them, with hundreds of people chasing the bulls from behind. They went around obstacles through the fields and streets of Torjia until they finally managed to get them back into the arena. I woke up as they were finishing up and Tob went to sleep before they finished. After the crowds dissipated the kids and I went for a walk overlooking town with a beautiful shining full moon. We opted to just stay put in the field for the night and were tucked in by 8:30pm.

We had a chilly night, one kid with nightmares and didn’t get up until 10;30 am. After getting up we unpacked and organized somewhat and then walked the streets of Torjia to get a few items for breakfast as well as a cup of coffee. After that we went to the castle which tuned out to be a very cool museum, went to the park and then headed out of town towards the Pyranees mountains. The highways are much like ours in the states except with some road signs we don’t understand. All mileage is in km, there are lots of windmills, orchards and large billboard sized black bulls. This is also probably our first international trip that it isn’t obvious we are tourists. Most people expect that we speak Spanish and of course we speak muy poquito espanol. Anyway, we haven’t seen or done much yet but we are here and happy to be. Right now we are sitting in a restaurant in Huesca about 60 km from our first national park in the Pyranees mountains, which we will be exploring tomorrow. We were hoping to find blankets today at a store but most stores even in the cities are proving to be closed on Sunday’s which was true as well in Guatemala. One more night of freezing in our cheap little kids sleeping bags they provided us won't kill us will it? We hope not anyway. No pictures right now, our computer is going to die but hopefully soon. Just wanted to drop a “quick note” and say we made it to Spain.