Across the Pond: June 2012

So we had our first holiday (aka vacation) since we moved. Seeing as the weather has been quite dreary here, we decided to make it a beach holiday. Yay! I can finally unpack some of my summer clothes. And with fingers crossed...they still fit!

After searching online and being overwhelmed with all the different places to go, we snagged a last minute deal to Spain. Estepona to be exact. It's in the Andalucia region along the Mediterranean. It was a package deal...flight, hotel, meals, drinks. Mark loved the idea of eating all day and with his appetite, this in itself was worth the money. Our flight left on a Monday and we were booked till Friday. I checked us in online Sunday night, printed our boarding passes and set alarms for an early morning wake up. We were all very excited. But even better was the fact that we left for the airport on time which rarely happens. Steve and I even high five-d each other on the drive to the airport at the thought of how smooth our departure was. We even reminisced on some of our other, not-so-impressive travels where we forgot things and had to turn around or missed entire flights, etc, etc. Little did we know that this trip was going to unravel in an epic manner.

The first thing we did was to return our rental. We have decided against buying a car here and are sticking to rentals (more cost effective and less hassle to sell one when we move back). Newcastle is not a large airport and it only takes about 10 minutes to get to it compared to the hour in Atlanta. The timing couldn't be better we thought with an hour before departure. Mistake one. We headed into the airport and got in a line which we thought was the Jet2.com ticket counters. After a few minutes we realized we were standing in the line for an entirely different airline. Mistake two. We then moved into a Jet2.com line that turned out to be for check-in, which we had already done the night before. Mistake three.

Finally we got in the check bag line where we wound our way through rather quickly. We got to the counter and after providing our boarding passes and passports the man proceeded to pick up the "red" phone. Panic set in as neighboring passengers came and went at the counter. After what seemed like forever, he tells us the flight has closed and we can't get on. But we already checked in online last night I breathlessly said. "Yes, I appreciate that" said the man with the "Happy to Help" button on his shirt. "The flight closes 45 minutes before departure." I checked my watch....it was 40 minutes to departure. He said there was nothing he could do and pointed us towards the customer service desk to try and rebook our flight for tomorrow. We walked away from the ticket counter with our luggage; hanging our heads in shame. How could this be happening...again??

The customer service agent, who was also wearing a "Happy to Help" button (which now just seemed to be mocking us) poked around on the computer for a few minutes and said that there are were no flights from Newcastle to Malaga later that day or even the following day Tuesday. She could, however, get us into Murcia on a 3pm flight on Tuesday. Murcia is a "neighboring" airport. We'd have to rent a car to get to our hotel seeing as our airport transfer would now not work. The car ride would take about 6 hours. But that was our only option at this point. After paying to rebook our flight we walked out of the airport, into the drizzle and fog only to be faced with the fact that we now had NO CAR!

We hailed a cab and rode home in complete silence. I'm sure the driver was wondering who died. We got home and I went straight to bed to mope and to wait the long 2 hours until customer service opened so I could plead my case for them to extend our holiday by the day we missed. The agent on the phone said there was nothing we could do at this point (I'm guessing he wasn't wearing a "Happy to Help" button). So basically we not only lost a night at the hotel, but we were also going to loose a day because of the lengthy car ride to get to the hotel from our backup airport. But not one to give up, I called again the next morning and got a different agent on the phone who said it would be no problem to bump our departure by a day and that we would just need to extend the room with the hotel directly. She changed our return flight (with fees of course) and I called the hotel to book another night. Success! Expensive success.

We were on our way, again by cab to the airport Tuesday afternoon. Check in went swimmingly and we boarded our flight. I even had an empty seat next to me. I wondered if someone missed their flight like we did the day before!? We arrived, with the time difference into Murcia around 7pm. We got our rental and began our trek to the hotel. Not really the way we wanted things to happen, but it worked out well because we got to see some of the beautiful countryside on our drive. We decided to stop somewhere for dinner along the way. This was quite difficult as we passed one small town after another with only houses and some closed up shops. Finally we came into a town that looked large enough to have a place to eat. We pulled over to the first place where we saw people sitting at tables outside. I walked in and asked the lady "Habla Englishl?" She said no, and asked her coworker to come over with his iPhone where we proceeded to have a conversation thanks to an English to Spanish translator app. Turns out they didn't serve dinner until around 10. I wasn't surprised as I knew that Spaniards ate later in the evening. What to do? Then like a beacon in the night we saw a Burger King sign. Yes, I know you all are rolling your eyes right about now thinking Burger King?! You flew all that way, to another country, to eat Burger King?! But it was late, we had a long drive ahead of us and the kids were hungry.

All my middle school Spanish came back to me as we walked into BK. "Uno numbero ocho, con queso y Coca Cola Light por favor." Whatever I couldn't pronounce or remember how to say I just pointed to the signs overhead. And did you know that you can substitute beer for a soda? I didn't of course, but Steve was thinking it if he hadn't been the one driving.

With all of us fed we hit the road. We wasted almost an hour with that side trip so we didn't arrive at the hotel until 3am the following morning. We all crashed into bed, but not before unpacking a bit and realizing that one of the suntan lotion bottles exploded all over Steve's clothes. And yes, we did bag it but with our luck the bag broke too. I was too tired to cry at that point.

The next couple of days were relaxing to say the least. Reading by the pool, eating, walking along the beach, eating, sunning ourselves, eating. You get the picture. One night after dinner we headed into town. It was so pretty with flowers everywhere and little shops and cafes lining the pedestrian only streets.

On our last day there, after lunch we headed towards Gibraltar. You could see "the rock" from our hotel and then further down the ocean you could see the tip of Africa which is owned a bit by Spain and well as the country of Morocco. How cool.

Upon arriving to the border of Gibraltar, which is British territory, we saw a sign selling tickets for a gondola ride up the rock to see the world famous apes that reside there. I quickly got out of the car to buy the tickets while Steve waited in the car line. But our lines didn't move at the same speed and he was well past the the border control before me. Luckily I grabbed my passport before I left the car so I just walked in myself, but then I couldn't find him anywhere.

In my search for him and the kids, I walked across, get this, the airport runway. Gibraltar is so small, that even though they have an airport, you have to walk/drive across the runway to get into town. So every time a plane has to take off or land, they hold up the traffic. Afterwards, they lift the gates and people start crossing again. I was lucky enough to witness this and I've posted the video.

Steve and I finally found each other and we made our way through the winding narrow streets to the gondola station to take our ride up. The view was utterly amazing. To witness the sole point of entrance (before the Suez Canal was built of course) for ships carrying people and goods to countries like Italy, Greece, Turkey, Algeria, Libya just to name a few. A place that has been fought over and changed so many hands over thousands of years. I couldn't believe that I was standing there on the Rock of Gibraltar, looking at the Mediterranean Sea with Africa in the distance. And an ape trying to steal my purse. :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking the city streets, doing some duty free shopping and enjoying the warm weather. We headed back to the hotel to pack as I said "farewell" to my summer clothes and suntan lotion. The return to the airport (the closer one this time) went off without a hitch as did the flight back and drive to our house. It made us want to book another trip somewhere else to see if we actually get one vacation right.

So we did...to Paris!