Crossing The Pond

So... Jet lag is fun...

Dan and I technically started the trip to Spain by first going back to Salt Lake from Cancun on Friday. We got to the airport around one (noon mountain time) and the plane left around four thirty. We had a quick layover in Denver where I was surprised by how flat the land was and disappointed I couldn't just go see Anna. We got to Salt Lake I believe around ten thirty and then stayed up til two thirty doing laundry and repacking for Spain. The Bronsons took us back to the airport about eight Saturday morning and our plane left at ten fifteen. This I feel, is when the fun truly began

I do not understand, even teenagers, who don't realize they are not the only ones on an airplane and that it is in fact, quite a small space. We were fortunate enough to be sitting surrounded by a group of teenagers and their chaperones from Washington who were headed to New York for Jesus Camp. Yep. They were the loudest group of kids. They spent the entire five hour trip playing this trivia game on their tv screens, yelling about wrong answers, cheering and clapping over right ones. "Yelling back and forth about the answers, and my personal favorite; punching the back of my seat when they answered wrong. You'd think the two ladies sitting next to me, one of whom was the mother of the seat puncher, would clue them in to the fact that they needed to be quiet. But they were too busy yelling out answers to the trivia game. And talking to the other chaperones three aisles back. I was running on four hours of sleep. I was not pleased.

When we landed we came in somehow from the East and so flew in over Long Island. It made me miss my Jews who are now 10, 9, and 5 years old. But then the Jesus boys cut into my thoughts in observing that because of all the trees on Long Island, this was "God's farmland" and decided this would be the appropriate time to start singing some Christian Revival songs, and of course, clapping along. Then when the houses stopped being mansions and started being the crammed streets of Queens, they decided "We must be flying over Compton now." What special spirits. To say the least, I was glad when we finally landed.

Five hour layover at JFK but that may be the shortest amount of time I've ever spent there. We left around ten thirty NY time to Dublin. Landed there at ten thirty in the morning their time. The flight mostly consisted of sleeping and eating our complimentary dinner and breakfast. The movies were actually complimentary but of course the tv's weren't working... We were on a 767 in the middle row of seats and we sat by a man from Ireland who has lived in New Jersey for like thirty years. He was fun to talk to. He taught us about Irish Football.

Our layover in Dublin was about four and a half hours. No time to go see the city. Boo. Dan's favorite part of Dublin was the "Mind your head" sign. Mine was going through customs. Which consisted of a doorway that said customs over it that pretty much was just the door to the baggage claim and had absolutely no airport/customs workers around. It made walking through with my lemur on a leash and 27 kilos of weed that much easier. Dan and I have decided to be Irish and he even thinks he made up some Irish song. The actual Irish people were not amused. Oh and also, until we flew into Bilbao, the Dublin airport was the most gorgeous airport I have ever landed at. Just so green and pretty as we were landing, with quaint little farmhouses and such just right off the runway.

"Ah whiskey!"

A common occurrence. This one in Dublin.

We are outside in Dublin. It counts.

Dan was just really excited to be reading Sherlock

Holmes while in the UK and sitting next to

people headed to London.

From Dublin we flew to Madrid. I don't even remember that flight as I was sleeping. The Madrid airport is really cool looking and seemed to be just one long building. Our final flight from Madrid to Bilbao was delayed just over an hour. Europeans have not caught on to the fact that putting up ropes would make forming a line a lot easier. (Or they just don't care.) Everyone was lined up mostly so we lined up too. Then came the announcement that boarding was to start and kaboosh! It was like eight year olds at the ice cream truck. Pushing and shoving and what I'm sure were some choice four-letter words in Spanish, while everyone crammed their way to get through the gate. Come to find out, the airline had cancelled a few flights to Bilbao earlier so it was pretty much a free-for-all where tickets were worthless and if you could find a seat you could go. Awesome. Anyway, we made it on for the 55 minute flight to Bilbao. Bless this grossly misshapen pillow which the Irish man made fun of and that I stole from the Bronson's basement. It might be the most wonderful thing to happen on all of my flights. Dan and I could just stick it between us and both sleep as it formed each time to the contours of our heads.

The Madrid airport.

Anyway by the time we got to the Bilbao bus station to take a bus to Logrono, (our final destination) it was 10:04 and we were informed the last one for the night left at 10:00. So we wandered around for a bit with no clue and then ended up at a hostel with beautiful lime green bed spreads. It was awesome.

Being nervous in our hostel.

Our lovely view.

We took the 7:30 bus the next morning and Dan even made it for the last bit of orientation. Cheers!

** I'm going to attempt to upload some pictures. Pretty sure I don't know how to do it so that it looks how I want but oh well. Also, pictures from my DSLR won't open except thru photoshop which I don't have on this computer so most my pictures will have to wait til I get home and then they can go on facebook.

Dan ripped a hole in his pants trying to

limbo at the airport.

Some Mayan ruin. Tulum?

Dan was literally scaring a clown fish repeatedly.

Practicing for our scuba diving later that day.

This is the bay where the crocodiles lived.

Watching the Crocodiles.

This was the medium sized croc. He was about

six feet long. I like to call him Lenny.

Dan feeding Lenny fried chicken.

Yes, the water was always this blue.

Some zipline action

This was at Chichen Itza and it was definitely the hottest

day of the whole trip. Most days it was around 90 degrees,

I think.

Hazzah for Spanish hymn books. Oh and don't

worry that Dan's sisters were the pianist for

sacrament meeting.

Our Hotel

Currently I am in Cancun watching Enchanted in Spanish. I pretty much understand none of it. Kyndi would be so mad. This morning we went with all of the Bronsons to do a zip line. It was pretty fun but then after that we went through this river that I'm pretty sure had crocodiles in it, on this boat with a jet engine. We pretty much came within inches of rocks as we sped up and down this ravines at fifty miles an hour and then we'd do 360's and get drenched. It was hilarious. I'm sorry, I'm a really boring blog writer. After that all but Dan, his dad, and I went to go swim with the dolphins at some resort. I had no desire. So after laying out for four hours, this is what we are doing now. Don't worry though, tonight we're going across the street to the bay to feed the crocodiles leftover chicken from dinner.

The day we got here and the next day was just spent swimming and laying around. We're at an all inclusive resort with five different restaurants and food around every corner plus there's about five other hotels we can go to and eat at their restaurants. We went to one Saturday night and rode bikes there and climbed a rock wall, where my foot got eaten by red ants. Sunday, we went into town for church and wandered around downtown a bit. No clue what else we did that day. Yesterday some of us went to Chichen Itza. (I think I spelled that right.) It was interesting but somehow we missed the observatory completely and my dad will be so displeased with us about that. We had a really miserable tour guide and oh my, it was hot. It's been around 95 degrees the whole time we've been down here.

Tomorrow some of us are going scuba diving. Dan and I did that on our honeymoon, so according to Mexico we only have to go one more time after this and we're certified. (The training they do lasts about a half hour.) We'll also probably get massages tomorrow. Thursday we're going to some different Mayan ruins and then we leave Friday afternoon sometime.

This has been a boring post. As I'm sure they will all be. I apologize. I'll post pictures later if I decide to figure out how and ever get them off my camera. Also, I love vanilla Mexican ice cream.

So I created this blog with no actual intention of ever really writing on it. What was a I supposed to write really? It's not like I have kids to talk about and my whole family is not all that far away, so who really needs to read about all the mundane details? However, with no guarantee that I'll keep this up while I am there, I will soon embark on a trip with Dan to Spain. We will be leaving this Friday and first head to Mexico with the Bronson family. Then after a week of that, we're off to Spain. Dan will be doing a study abroad and I will be having fun. So the plan is to maybe write while I'm out there once or twice. If I have the time and feel like it. So there ya go.