How Long is Too Long in an Airport? and Other Important Questions

Here are some of the important questions I have been asking myself: What have I gotten myself into? How does anyone make money as the owner of a tapas restaurant with such cheap prices?! Why didn't I do this sooner? Should I leave this bus station, or just try to stay the night here?

My brother Matt dropped Abby and me off at the Salt Lake City Airport at 4:00 am on Wednesday. We had a pleasant fight, watching the sunrise and realizing that the thing, the thing that we have planned on doing for so long was actually happening. Honestly, I think we started planning this move to Spain while Abby was still living in China! So it's been on the mind for I while. And now it was happening... despite the excessive heartburn, and baggage just under Norwegian Air's weight limit, it was happening!

And then we waited for 12 hours in LAX.

After 12 hours, we boarded an Dreamliner jet, ate an airplane dinner with no discernible "Norwegian Twist" (their website promised a "Norwegian Twist"), and tried to sleep. When we woke up, we were flying over Greenland. Abby let me lean over her and look out the window to see the beautiful ice and rock of the Greenland landscape.

When we landed in Oslo, we had to go through a passport check. At the end of the check, I asked the lady how to say "Thank you" in Norwegian. In case you need to know, it is "Takk." All of the garbage cans in Norway have "Takk" printed on them in large letters. Even the garbages are polite in Scandinavia. I asked an airport employee where we went for customs control, and told him "Takk" as we walked away. He was surprised.

And then we waited for 5 hours in the Oslo airport.

We made sure to be at our gate an hour early and we got a show. Right as a flight to Madrid was scheduled to leave, we watched the blonde lady behind the desk hurry through the doors, down the walkway and take the stairs down to the tarmac. Abby noticed that there was one of those luggage trucks out there, next to the airplane, with a grey bag on it.
"That's my bag!"
"That could be your bag, but I don't think so."
We saw the blonde lady insist that the bags not go on the plane. Then one of the baggage guys threw a black bag with a blue piece of cloth tied to it on to the truck next to the grey one. Abby and I looked at each other.
"Oh my goodness, those are our bags!"
"Oh my goodness, that was my bag!"
"OUR BAGS ALMOST WENT TO MADRID!"
And then, relieved, we laughed a lot.

The flight from Oslo to Málaga was the loudest flight I have ever been on. I sat next to a gentleman from Singapore who had lived for 40 years in Iceland. He told me that he felt much freer in Iceland than Singapore and told me that I had a lot to look forward to in Spain. The sun was almost set when we boarded; as we flew over Europe, Abby and I mused over how different European cities look from above. After the world's longest descent, we were on the ground in SPAIN! We just had to wait for our baggage and then we were off!

We hired a taxi and headed to the hostel. It was 1:30 am when we arrived. We rang the bell 3 times over the course of about 5 minutes. We discussed where else we could go in this foreign city in the middle of the night, until a Swede came to the door and told us they were closed. We explained to him that we had made a reservation and that we had emailed ahead of time to let them know that we would be coming in around 1:30 am. He grumbled something about having to be awake in 4 hours, and let us come inside. Once he had woken up a bit more, he was actually quite friendly. He told us that we looked trustworthy, and that we could pay in the morning. We were fine with that - after 37 hours of traveling, all we cared about was a hot shower and a bed!

The road from Málaga to El Ejido winds and winds, but has some great views!

In the morning we downloaded directions to the bus station on our Google Maps and started walking. We stopped at a little convenience store for water and pastries and continued to drag our suitcases down the tiled sidewalks. We had to cross a tall bridge over the tracks right next to the train station. Sweat started building up on my forehead. Once we reached the other side of the bridge, the phone told us we had arrived at our destination - but there was no bus station in sight. Ends up the instructions lead us to the street the bus station is on, but not to the station itself. Luckily a panhandler asked us for some change and I was able to ask him where the station was. I gave that panhandler a whole Euro, partly because I was relieved to know where we were going and partly because it was the first coin I found in my pocket.

A view from the mountains north of El Ejido. The line between omnipresent plastic greenhouses, the sea, and the sky is virtually invisible 

On the bus, Abby nodded off and I stared off toward the Mediterranean. The bus stopped at every two-horse town between Málaga and El Ejido. At each stop the ratio of tourists to Spaniards got smaller. After 5 hours on the bus, all we wanted was to take a nap, so we checked into a (surprisingly reasonably priced) hotel. After some relaxation, we went to the Plaza Mayor and ate at a shwanky pizzeria. Then we returned to our hotel room and watched The Princess Bride, because we really needed to hear some English at that point.

In Spain, English is sometimes an advertising ploy. Also, I didn't know mannequins could look so guilty.

Saturday morning we explored our new city a little more. We found a pet store, a store where everything is 10 euros, and a GIANT department store called El Corte Ingles. We spent most of our day exploring the 5 levels of the store. After that, we met up with the Bilingual Coordinator at Abby's school, Isabel. She and her family took us around town and out for tapas, and we stayed with them that night.

The next day, Isabel and her family took us out for churros and chocolate, took us to see the city from a vantage point in the mountains to the north of us and to see the resort town of Almerimar to the south.

After churros and the world's thickest hot chocolate, Abby was sure we had moved to heaven.

I cannot wait to jump into the Mediterranean!

In Almerimar, we saw at least 100 motorcyclists stopped at a bar as they toured southern Spain.

This would be a great way to see southern Spain.

Isabel's husband, Joaquin, contacted a friend of his about an apartment that his friend wanted to rent out on the Plaza Mayor. We decided that the price and the location was perfect. We have since signed a contract and are now settling into our apartment in downtown El Ejido with a Beta fish named Finnegan.

Lucky for us, the owner stores some of his classics here. Having so many books around makes me feel at home!

This is Finnegan!

     

We are so excited to start teaching next week, but in the meantime were are just trying to settle in to our new surroundings and the local accent. Hopefully someday soon we will get to the beach! We will let you know when we do!

Yellowstone (Labor Day Weekend - 2016)

Abby and I spent a Sunday with her parents and her siblings in a minivan, driving through Yellowstone National Park. It was Labor Day weekend and we drove in from the west entrance of Yellowstone. After passing south of the wildfire zone, we walked the Fountain Paint Pot nature trail, seeing the bubbling pits, the steaming holes, and multicolored streams.

Steamy.

Thermophile microorganism's paradise 

There's something magical about the bathrooms at the painted pots. Lines of people of all different nationalities, skin colors, political leanings, and creeds reminds one that even here in the national parks, in spite of all the differences that there are in the world, we all have a few things in common. The pamphlet they give you as you enter the park warns that lines might be long due to the centennial. The pamphlet didn't mention epiphanies about America itself. 

Here's a handsome group of strangers in Firehole Canyon

I didn't know Teddy Roosevelt cosplay was a thing at YNP, but apparently it is. 

When we got to Old Faithful we flocked to the boardwalk bleachers with everyone else and found ourselves seated on the edge of the boardwalk. Easterners made jokes about how the water was going to hit them, how it was like being at a Shamu show or a Gallagher show. A German man who has lived in the states for the last 40 years sat next to me. His wife, a Floridian, explained to me that they had come out last year to ride out the storm hurricane that had ravaged Florida that week. I asked him what he studied when he was in Stanford researching. He told me he was a urologist and studied the upper and lower urinary tracts. We sat together and watched Old Faithful do her thing faithfully. There is something about Old Faithful that lends itself to blue jokes, from the crowds of people yelling "it's coming it's coming" to the German man telling me that we ought to have thrown a "little blue pill" into the old geyser. 

We saw license plates from all of these states in YNP

There's something so American about Old Faithful. We drive our cars through the wilderness, stopping to see the bison, the elk, the cranes and the trumpeter swans. And there is Old Faithful, doing it's thing day in and day out, ready for the 20 minute tourists and the perennial Gallagher jokes. A strange piece of nature, conveniently packaged for our consumption.

I didn't get a photo of the large herd of Bison we saw, but I did sketch some.

At the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, we took the short hike down to the brink of the lower falls. From the platform next to the river you can stick your head over the edge and see 1,000 feet of roaring waterfall cascading into the canyon. 

I love how waterfalls create little green microclimates!

When you are on the edge of a cliff, hearing the roar of water falling, and seeing the canyon walls above you, it becomes hard to be too jaded about life. It does, however, become easy to imagine yourself careening over the edge and dying. 

Someday I would like to spend a whole month exploring YNP. Someday I want to apply to fish and hike and see the back country of YNP. It would be nice to get off the park's extremely-well-beaten path. But for now, driving the southern loop was a great way to celebrate the natural beauty of our back yard before Abby and I jet off to El Ejido, 5,400 miles away.