Spain

The Spain trip was a blast! We all enjoyed it so much that none of us wanted to come back. Too bad we had to anyway. V and I have been posting about it on E's blog, and we've got more to say there coming soon. She took over 500 pictures, which you may or may not be able to check out on her flickr (see other blog for details on that). I still wanted to post some thoughts of my own here though, and so now I shall do just that.

Great things about Spain:

the sun doesn't set until around 10pm, meaning more time to go out & do things.

time doesn't matter - we rarely saw any clocks and if you're out for food/drinks nobody rushes you off your table to fill it with more customers.

if you're out, the main source of entertainment lies in the people you're out with. . .TVs aren't plastered across all the walls, and people congregate in parks just to hang out with their friends.

the food is both excellent and inexpensive compared to here, and doesn't taste like it came out of a package (veggies especially).

beautiful views in every direction.

the Metro - in Madrid it cost us 2 Euros to get from our hotel to the heart of downtown and back again, cheaper than any taxi, bus, or even the price of gas there & back.

the weather, at least while we were there, was never too hot or humid. . .there were warm days, to be sure, but they weren't oppressive in any way, and the nights were very nice & often cool.

they have these window-shades/shutters that block their windows and glass doors completely from all sunlight, which is great if you're sleeping during the daylight hours (and good for energy costs too).

on Fridays and Saturdays there are many places that stay open until 4am serving food and drinks & providing entertainment (even the malls).

I believe it's also common elsewhere in Europe, but everyone leaves work to eat lunch & siesta before dinner time. . .also, during the summer they shorten their hours but still get paid the same as if they worked their regular hours. . .I'm down with that.

to encourage you to return your shopping cart (or luggage cart at the airport) they charge you 1 Euro to unlock it from the others, then return your 1 Euro after you lock it up again. . . after seeing that DFW charges $5 for the use of a luggage cart I'm thinking Spain has the better way of doing things.

tipping isn't expected because servers are paid well enough to not need them.

the use of roundabouts instead of traffic signals seems to make for faster travel times.

if your Spanish isn't very good, it's not too difficult to find someone who speaks English (though I found that the longer I was there, the more Spanish that came back to me).

cellphones are not omnipresent - we rarely saw anyone on a cellphone, and the only time I saw someone texting they'd parked their car to do so.

forgot this one previously - unless you're in the downtown area, you can stop your car & turn on your hazards just about anywhere and that means you've parked. . .beats waiting for a spot to open up!

Not-so-great things about Spain:

motorcycle riders - basically from what we saw & heard they abide by none of the traffic rules, but if you're in an accident with one it's your fault somehow.

roundabouts, the rules of which I'm still not sure I've figured out.

driving in traffic in general, which often made me think of driving along the highways of Houston. . .how we didn't see more accidents is beyond me.

they're worse about billboards than we are.

if you want to sit outside for food &/or drinks and enjoy the wonderful weather, you have to endure smokers who seem to be omnipresent & travel in packs.

Rodilla, sort of the Spain equivalent to Quizno's except that everything is already prepared so you can't make any modifications to your order (all sandwiches drowned in mayo, which is no good if you're like me & can't stand that crap).

if there's a good radio station in Spain, I never found it (not that I like the radio in the first place).

Stradivarius, a store in one of the malls we were at which played awful electronic music that all had the same beat and must clean their store with some kind of perfume because the stench was overwhelming. . .I know other stores do that too, but it was the main offender & V & I regretted walking in there.

8 days wasn't enough to see all that we wanted to. . .clearly we need to go back. ;)

Other observations:

when it comes to food, the pig is king.

they don't believe in using carpet on their floors - marble and wood seem to be the top choices.

the younger people are the most likely to speak English - each time we asked our servers if they spoke English, they called over the youngest employee to assist us.

every mall has a full supermarket inside of it. . .kinda odd to be grocery shopping & look over to see a Claire's.

one mall had an area where you could ski, snowboard, or go tubing down a snow-covered slope inside the mall. . .crazy.

children are out with their parents at all hours, which I think is pretty cool especially since that meant nobody seemed bothered to see the 3 of us out at 2am.

customs wasn't as much of a hassle as we'd been led to expect; in fact, it went very smoothly on both sides & the only long wait we experienced was on arrival in Spain (which seemed to be due to our arriving shortly after the airport opened that morning).

On top of all that it was great to spend some time with Allie & her family, as well as cousin Alex, and we appreciated their willingness to take care of E sometimes so we could have breaks (including a much needed date). E's refusal to adjust to the time difference meant we missed out on some morning activities, but I can't say I had any complaints with being able to stay up late & sleep late the entire time. The schedule she kept us on felt like vacation to me. She was an awesome traveler, happy most of the time & making people smile &/or laugh by sticking her tongue out at them one minute and waving at them the next. She's so much fun right now. V & I managed to watch a few movies waiting for her to go to sleep while we were in Spain, & caught a couple in-flight movies while she slept on our way home too.

The only real downer of the trip was our final flight from DC to DFW, which I have deemed "plagueflight". Once we found the gate for our flight I noticed that ours was one of 4 flights scheduled to use said gate. They eventually moved one or two to other gates, then announced that our plane was in a hangar for "maintenance" and would therefore be delayed. About 2 hours later we were told they'd found another plane to take us instead of the one we were supposed to be on. I decided this was a good thing, because if our original plane was still being worked on then nobody should be traveling anywhere on it. So now we've been waiting 4 hours (so fun with a 9-month-old), and we finally make our way down toward the gate. . .at the end of which we go down some stairs, out onto the tarmac, and then climb the plane's stairs to get inside. At this point I've got a bad feeling, but I'm trying to ignore it by reassuring myself that this plane is still (somehow) better than the other one. Our seats are all the way at the back. More fun. Then as we're getting ready to take off, the woman across the aisle from me starts coughing. Then her daughter coughs. Then her husband, who's sitting farther up the plane from us. V & I exchange worried looks. After we're airborne and making our way toward DFW more people start coughing, and I figure out that about 1/3 of the plane has been coughing. At which point I'm thinking we've all been infected & am wondering how bad it's going to be. V has had a cough ever since, and my throat has been irritated (though it was most of the time in Spain too, so maybe it doesn't mean anything). E coughs sometimes too, but half the time she's just playing so who knows if she's really got a cough or not. So if you stop hearing from us, beware. ;)

And with that cryptic warning I'm off to bed.