Flight Home

So the trip home began on a Saturday afternoon....

Saturday:

-Two hour bus ride from Logrono to Bilbao

-No openings at the hostel we had stayed in when we got stuck there before

-Dan ran around the city a bit and found us another hostel which was even better

-Left our stuff at the hostel and went to see the Guggenheim Museum and the rest of the city

-Dan nearly panics as we cross a narrow bridge which wasn't nearly as high or scary as the stairs at the Eiffel Tower.

-Back to the hostel to eat some of the Nutella and raspberry jam sandwiches we'd packed for dinner and to sleep

Bilbao is gorgeous.  It was Dan's favorite place of anywhere we went on the whole trip.  It has these gorgeous rolling mountain/hills and great buildings.  Many of which made me feel like I was walking around Disneyland.  Dan wants to live there. 

Sunday:

-Woke up around 5am to get to the bus station in time to take a bus to the airport

-Flight delayed, what else is new.

-Take our tiny cramped flight to Madrid

-Take another tiny, cramped flight to Dublin

-Hooray for 20 hour layover!

-Find a place to store luggage and head into town to check out the Temple Bar area

-As we are starving, we walk into the first restaurant we see, which happens to be a Hard Rock Cafe.  So lame of us, you may mock.  But there was a ton of stuff donated by Bono AND Sting so it was awesome.  And our waitress was Canadian.

-Walked around some shops and things, snuck into the last part of a tour of some castle, went and sat in a nice little park next the castle to hang out for a couple hours (Not much going on at that time on a Sunday)

-Began a game of Crazy 8's.  As we had two more days to get home, we thought we'd keep it ongoing and play to a thousand points.  When we got up to go, discovered all the gates out of the walled park had been locked.

-Finally found an open gate behind some trees and around a corner. 

-Explored Dublin a bit more then back to the airport to pick up our bags and find a piece of floor to sleep on

Right as we got back to the airport they were cleaning all areas with any sort of benches, etc so we had to stand around about 45 minutes but it was totally worth it.  The restaurants closed for the night so we found a booth to sleep in.  It was awesome.  

Our flight was set to leave at 10:30 Monday morning.  We were to fly to Atlanta, then New York then New Orleans where we had an overnight layover before finally heading to Salt Lake Tuesday morning.  Don't ask.  All I will say is from now on, I will be booking our flights and not Dan.

Monday:

-Woke up around 6 am (five Spain time) and got ready in the bathroom, spent 11.50 Euros on two muffins, two bananas, and ONE cup of orange juice for breakfast, and continued our game of Crazy 8's.  Which I was badly losing

-Dan decided he couldn't handle more airports so went to see how much it would cost us to cancel our flights and try and get something more direct.  Way too expensive.  However they asked if we would be willing to be bumped off our flight to Atlanta and instead take a later flight directly to New York.  As we were only flying to Atlanta to fly to New York, we took it.

-More crazy 8's

-Found out that because of the "inconvenience" of being bumped from our earlier flight, they were putting us in first class.  This was not the first class you generally see on a Delta flight.  I could put my legs strait out in front of me and not touch the wall (We were in row 1) I had a chair that fully reclined with a foot rest that extended or shortened to meet my needs plus a full sized pillow and quilt.  I had my own personal television with free movies and tv, which came with nice noise reduction headphones, a remote control, and, in case I needed it, an outlet to charge my computer.  I was brought a hot towel twice, warmed mixed nuts in a glass bowl endless drinks in an actual glass, and about four meals.  We were given a menu to choose our appetizer, main course and dessert.  I had carrot and ginger soup, a salad and grilled squash and scallops, main course of chicken, spinach and potatoes, and for dessert I had an ice cream sundae.  Then for the end of flight meal I had a toasted ham and cheese with something else and then a warm chocolate chip cookie and chocolates.  It was quite difficult to go back to normal people class on our next flight.

-Landed at JFK where we missed seeing girlfriend/Nicole Cecil by about an hour.  Our flight left from La Guardia so we took a shuttle there where I got all sad seeing signs etc for streets I'd driven on with my little boys.

-La Guardia had not a long line but the slowest line ever.  We stood in line to get our boarding passes for over an hour.  Some strange little man came and talked to Dan and helped him out with tips and stuff on how to get our bags shipped for free and set up sky miles for us etc, while we waited in line

-Through security to wait some more.  Crazy 8's.

-Awoken in the terminal by the same little man who had apparently still been working on getting our sky miles all together for the last hour and a half and came searching the Delta gates for us.  Random.

-Flight to New Orleans takes off at 8:40 pm (2:40 am Spain time).  Awesome view of the city just after sunset as we flew North on the East side of the city then West and back down on the West side of the city.

-Landed in New Orleans at 11:00 pm and found some nice floor to sleep on.  Most freezing cold airport ever.  Trying to sleep in that was miserable.

Tuesday:

-Woke up around 5am and found a bathroom to get ready in.  Then sat at our gate.

-Crazy 8's

-Plane left at 7:30am (2:30pm in Spain) 

-Slight delay as the plane wouldn't start... Lost at crazy 8's.

-Completely passed out on the plane with the wonderful old down pillow I stole from the Bronson's

-Landed early in SLC so had to just sit on the runway forever

-Finally left the plane around 10:30 am only to find that somewhere between New York and Home, they had sent our bags to Atlanta

-They won't deliver our bags to Logan, it's too far away.

-Dan took the Bronson's truck and trailer up to Logan as oh ya, while we were gone, we decided to move as soon as we returned.  I stayed behind, showering at my parents, and collecting packing boxes from my grandmother while waiting for 4 pm when the Atlanta flight flew in

-Had my dad drive me to the airport so I could just run in and grab the bags then went to the Eldredge Manor to help him dip strawberries for that night's wedding as I had delayed my dad with his drive to the airport.  
-Finally arrived home to begin packing at 6:30pm (2:30am in Spain)

Bilbao

I got scared of the flames

The Guggenheim Museum

Bilbao

Large Flower Dog

Bono's handwritten lyrics

The Castle Where We Sneaked Into A Tour

Dublin

Crazy 8's!

Locked In

Dan was pleased by the Spanglish happening