It’s been a little while since I’ve written anything, life has been in a whirlwind for the last 9 days. We have been on some great adventures, seen a lot of things and spent time with some very dear friends along the way.
It all started with leaving Costa Rica. We spent a few days packing up the house, putting non-essential Colorado things in the owners closet (it’s nice to not own very many things..) and getting the house all situated for future renters and other families. Our final morning in Costa Rica, we went to our favorite French Bakery and had breakfast looking out on the ocean that we have seen every day for the past 6 months. It was a quiet morning for our 10 feet. Everyone was feeling excited about the next leg in the journey, nervous about what to expect and sad that we were leaving the town that has become a very real second “home” for us. It was raining the morning that we left, which was nice, it made it just a little bit easier to leave Tamarindo.
Upon returning to the house, we packed up Vino and headed to the airport. Jeffry was kind enough to ride with us so that he could bring Vino back to Casa Colorado with him and we were able to save the cash we would have spent getting a ride to Liberia. Thanks Jeffry!
When we arrived in Liberia in December we heard that the “new airport” was going to be opening in a month or so, and upon leaving we got to experience
the new airport. It was very nice! From that moment on, we were no longer in our “dirty old town” and we were back in the “real world”. I’m not even sure what the “real world” is at this point, but I know that it is very different than what we have been living for so long now. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the airport and boarded our first of 4 planes on the way to Barcelona, Spain.
The first leg was a piece of cake. Nice quick 4 hour flight to Newark. Arriving in Newark was easy, went through customs and enjoyed “America” for an hour or so until we boarded the next plane to London.
The flight to London was long, but was pretty smooth. I haven’t been on a long “over the pond” trip in about 10 years so I must admit, I was very impressed with the amenities that United provided on the ride over. We had on demand television with hundreds of TV shows and another 100 movies at every seat on the plane. We had a plug at our seats (in coach!) so that we could charge ipods, etc. It was quite the production. Our flight was an overnight flight, so we tried to sleep as much as we could, and the kids got a little rest, but Erin and I were unsuccessful.
Our flight was delayed in taking off from Newark because of traffic, so Erin and I were a little stressed about making our next two connecting flights, but the real first glitch in the travel was Jacob puking as we were landing in London. We weren’t surprised, we have kids that do that a lot while traveling… When we landed, Jacob was exhausted, but we had to rush him around as we only had about 35 minutes before our next flight took off to Frankfurt. I knew we weren’t going to make the flight when we jumped in the security line and I saw on the monitors that the plane was boarding. The woman at the entrance of security confirmed it for us. “Sorry folks, plane is taking off in 5 minutes..”
And thus started the minor glitches of the journey.
For the next 3 hours I worked with the agents from both United and Lufthansa to find us another flight and seats, and we were finally able to get settled in and wait for our 5 hour layover at Heathrow. Jacob and Erin slept much of the time while we waited and the rest of us sat around.. waiting. The entire time we waited, I kept hoping that our 5 bags would end up making it to Barcelona, but I wasn’t too stressed about anything else.
Finally our plane was ready to take us to Frankfurt. We all boarded and got settled in for the 3rd flight of the day. It was another uneventful flight for the most part, but Jacob did puke again.. at this point we were ready for just about anything.
Once we were in Frankfurt we had another fairly long layover and it was the first time that we started to feel our jet lag. It was mid afternoon in Germany, but on our body clocks it was early morning after 24 hours of staying awake. We were wired, tired, hungry, full and thirsty. It reminded me of high school when we would pull an all nighter, but we’re not 17 anymore.. We all kind of felt like we were floating through the afternoon.
Finally we got to board our final flight of the day and as the plane was taking off we all were filled with excitement knowing that this was the last plane we’d have to ride in that day. The final flight was short and sweet, no puking and no delays. We landed in Barcelona at around 11 pm (around 3 pm for our body clocks). Waiting at baggage claim, Erin and I kept exchanging glances about whether our bags would be arriving. When we saw the first bag head out onto the conveyor belt, we all breathed a sigh of relief. They made it. 1 – – 2 – – 3 – – 4 – – – – – hmmmm…. Waiting around….. Finally the conveyor stopped and we were one bag short. Crap.
Erin went out to let our driver know that we were going to be delayed again, and Abby and I headed to the baggage help desk. They were very helpful and were able to tell us that our bag was still in London. Oh well. They promised to have it delivered as soon as possible to us, so we filed our claim and left the airport. It was around midnight at this point. After a short 20 minute drive, we arrived at our friends house and were finally done with travel for the day. It ended up being a full 27 hours of travel with no rest. BUT, it was also only 4 pm for our minds, so we ended up staying up till around 4 am talking and catching up with the Kahn’s. It was a blast.
More to come on our time in Barcelona soon. What a fantastic city. Even with severe jet lag.
