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Along the Natchez Trace

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Jets and Jet Lag and Long Lines

 Tuesday was ONE LONG DAY!

We got up at 5am...  finished packing.  Rosa doesn't have a bathroom scales so we tried to calculate how much each checked bag weighed.  We left anything we could... toiletries...  that sort of thing.

We really didn't buy much...  a few (very few) souvenirs...  all very small and light weight.  But it's the books that weighed so much.  We didn't want to leave behind our text books...  the learning didn't finish just because the lessons did.  

We were ready when the taxi arrived at 6:30.  Our flight didn't leave until 9:15, but we didn't know what traffic would be like, and also, Bill had trouble getting my boarding pass on-line...  they had us booked several rows apart and we wanted to get that changed.  Besides, we thought we might have to rearrange our bags.  Turned out they didn't even weigh them.
Hmmmm..  I could have bought a few more trinkets....

I think the flight was scheduled for a bit earlier, but we finally started boarding around 8:45.
 When's the last time you walked on the tarmac to board a plane? 
This plane took us from Sevilla to Madrid...  somewhere around a 2 hour flight.  The airlines was Iberia...  they are in "partnership" with American, but I'll mention here that Iberia has much nicer amenities than American.

In Madrid we had an hour or so wait until we boarded our plane for Dallas/Ft Worth...
This photo about got me evicted from the airport...
 When I saw our plane being readied for our flight, I whipped out my camera and shot this photo from the window.  Immediately an airport personnel hustled up to me and told me photos were not permitted.  Heck, my camera is to me like a lot of folks use cell phones...  (if I think about it later, I'll add up the number of photos I took in our 2 month stay in Spain)...  Anyway, I did not have to erase the photo from the memory card...  but I didn't take anymore.

However....
 Bill took this of Madrid as we were coming in for the landing.  He'd taken a couple of others during the flight, but most of the flight was too cloudy to get much.

We had a long flight from Madrid to Dallas...  got in around 6:45 (central time) and our daughter was waiting for us.  However, it took 1.5 hours to get through customs.  They had only 2 officials working and our flight (which was full) and at least another flight (from Mexico) were all waiting in a terribly long line for our turn.  We heard a lot of grumbling as several people missed their connecting flight during the wait.

Celeste had a long wait as we got through immigration and customs, and finally collected our checked luggage from baggage claim.  We got back to our motorhome around 9:30...  didn't even bother to unpack a thing.  We did tote a huge box of mail from Celeste's house over to our rig before hitting the sack.  I guess I was still wired from the flight and just wasn't sleepy even though it was about 3am Spain time, so I sorted the mail into piles of tax info and non-tax info mail as I knew we'd be starting to get our taxes prepared real soon.

One habit Bill missed while we were gone...
His ice cream...
Since I don't care much for ice cream and seldom have any, he doesn't bother with a dish...  one less thing to wash later ;-)
He got to have his night-time treat soon after we got home.

So... at 10:00 Texas time (5am Spain time - exactly 24 hours since we'd gotten up) we headed for bed - our own bed...  in our own place.

On Wednesday I'll start cooking and doing dishes again...  doing my own laundry...  and all those domestic things I've not done for 2 months.  It's been a great trip, but I'm looking forward to being back home again.

That's All For Today!

13 comments:

  1. Welcome home! Those long cramped flights are one reason I'll probably never go 'across the pond' again. When I flew to Barcelona a couple of years ago, it took me three days and nights before I was finally able to sleep more than an hour or so. It really messed up my system.

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  2. Welcome back! Ahhh, the comfort of your own place again & Ice Cream! Life doesn't get any better.
    And how nice to get back at night so you could crawl into bed & snooze the night away.

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  3. I also want to welcome you back to Texas. I enjoyed traveling with you via your blog. You did an excellent job. Now get some sleep and stock up Blue Bell ice cream.

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  4. Welcome home. Bet you're glad to be off that airplane. Bill, you have the right idea. That's one habit I just can't seem to break. I don't drink or smoke but don't stand between me and my ice cream!!

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  5. YOU DON'T LIKE ICE CREAM??? holy moly. I'd weigh 78 pounds if I didn't... that looks like butter pecan but it doesn't look like Blue Bell! .... lol

    glad you're back safe and sound ... wonder why you can't take pictures? interesting.

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  6. Welcome back. And at least Bill is eating "light" ice cream! But as for me, if someone gave me the whole bucket, I just might eat the whole bucket.

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  7. I know your experiences in Spain were wonderful, but there's absolutely NO PLACE LIKE HOME!! Can you tell I'm not much of a traveler??

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  8. Come back. Come back. We have ice cream in Spain!

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  9. I'm so glad you had such a nice time and got home safely!

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  10. Thanks for filling us in on the trip home and glad your photo pop didn't get you thrown off your flight, Sharon. We always sample the ice cream aft bringing it home from the grocery store, doesn't everyone? Bill is eating a Light variety so less calories, right....or does that mean he can have more?
    Welcome home and back to everyday life, but sure you will be off on more adventures and sharing with all of us.

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  11. I think it's Blue Bell Light! Sure looks good and he sure looks happy eating it! Go for it Bill. Welcome back.

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