After a hospitable stay at our Uncle David and Aunt Marla’s house in Chicago, we boarded a plane en route to Madrid. (Note: the handpicked, backyard grown, much-talked-about golden raspberries were delicious, David!) These tickets were bought over two years ago, but for some reason, we waited until two days before the trip to check the reviews: all of which were 1-star ratings. “Avoid at all costs” was the quote that stuck with us the most. Hmm, maybe we should have checked out the reviews of Iberia Airlines before we bought the tickets. We were scared.
Turned out, those reviewers had never flown on THIS plane. This was luxury. Touch screen TV’s at each seat loaded with Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, Taken (a tale of what NOT to do in Europe), a whole slew of games and the Frozen soundtrack! Need we go on? The 9-hour flight flew by. Pun most definitely intended.
We had all heard about the dreaded “jet-lag”, but seeing really is believing. It slowly took us down, one by one, starting with Hannah who put herself in timeout and wouldn’t talk to the family while we boarded our Barcelona-bound plane, and ending with Cedar, who threw a hysterical fit when the Wifi didn’t work instantly at the apartment.
We had all heard about the dreaded “jet-lag”, but seeing really is believing. It slowly took us down, one by one, starting with Hannah who put herself in timeout and wouldn’t talk to the family while we boarded our Barcelona-bound plane, and ending with Cedar, who threw a hysterical fit when the Wifi didn’t work instantly at the apartment.
The family put Cedar in charge of finding a cab from the airport to the apartment because she spoke the most Spanish. But we quickly learned we had to watch her even more carefully than we had originally planned. Following the plot of Taken, Cedar tried to accept a “taxi” ride from a man not in the taxi-line with all of the other taxis and tourists, but off to the side, away from authority and seeing eyes. We yanked her away from the man as she tried to accept his offer, and realized we might need to keep a closer eye in the future. After a shower and a 3 hour nap, we are ready to finally get our first taste of Spain. We’ll keep ya posted. |
*As we deplaned, we noticed flip-flops, or chanclas as they are popularly known here, were not the general choice among the locals for flying footwear. The Slovacek Clan, however, had all adorned their newly-pedicured tootsies with a pair of “chanclas”, and thus we will be known (for one day) as TFFF.
--Hannah and Cedar