Our final Friday in Spain we spent at the resort, with a brief trip to the beach.

The kids and I started the day by taking a walk and going to the little playground at the resort.

Then we went back to my in-laws’ hotel room where we (I) made breakfast for everyone. I am not the greatest cook but the bacon, eggs, strawberries, toast, and OJ were a nice taste of home in Spain.

As I started cooking I noticed a pool of water at my feet. I looked under the sink and saw the pipe was leaking. I asked my mother-in-law if it had leaked before and she gave me a blank look and said, “I don’t know. I haven’t used the sink at all.” Based on how many sippy cups and bottles and dishes I had washed in our own hotel room I was kind of shocked she hadn’t even turned on the tap once the whole week we were there! That will be my life someday.

We were within a few short miles of the Mediterranean Sea, and I was determined we would go there.

We took the resort’s free shuttle to the beach.

However, I was the ONLY adult person in our group who wanted to go to the beach. Which meant I had to compromise a little. Instead of spending all day there we took just a couple hours, most of which was spent eating lunch. So our actual beach time was limited to standing on the shore and letting the waves lap our feet. Wes and I had a marvelous time. Everyone else was party poopers and they missed out. I wish we had more time to play and enjoy, but it was still nice to be there at all.

Eating lunch:

Lunch was pleasant and we had time to people watch. Which wasn’t always a good thing, as this was a European beach. Before we left for our trip to Europe I watched a promotional video about this beach to see what it was like, and the narrator was saying how it’s a family-friendly beach. However, even as the narrator said these words, the camera panned over a crowd of sunbathers, including topless ones. Which I thought was funny. And while there, yeah, we saw topless sunbathers. But not many.

We spent about a half hour on the beach with our feet in the water. It was cold, but Wes was CLEARLY in heaven. This man was made for the water. He was sad when it was time to go. Carissa was too timid to dip her feet in, or even to walk much in the sand.

Wes really was the picture of happiness.

My in-laws.

Our family. We couldn’t drag Wes away from the water for the picture.

Back at home we ate pizza for dinner, leftover from dinner the night before at the resort cafe.

We hung out on the bed, playing games on Dad’s tablet.

I caught Wes and Carissa giving hugs.

Friday night was one of those rare occasions whilst on vacation that John and I got out by ourselves for a short time. We walked down the street to a restaurant and ordered a big piece of chocolate cake (which was actually delicious) and ate it outside on a cushy couch while the sun went down. Such a nice time.

On Saturday we hung around the resort again and did things like relax, pack for home, and maybe I took the kids swimming again.

Breakfast:

Wes was up to his old tricks. He does this at home, too:

And, naturally, the kids ate (more) ice cream. These were Magnum ice cream bars, which are distinctly European. You can buy them in the States, too, but they taste better over there.

On our final night in Europe my father-in-law treated us to dinner at a Japanese restaurant where they prepare the food on a grill in front of you.

And that was it! Our time in Spain and England was over; the next morning we had an early flight from Malaga to Paris, and from Paris directly back home.

We stayed up late packing (of course–it seems like no matter how hard you try to be on top of things it still doesn’t get done until the last minute) and making arrangements for our check-out in the morning. Our flight left Malaga at about 6:30 am, so we had to leave for the airport before 5 am. We tried to arrange a taxi service but at the very last second that didn’t work out, and my in-laws agreed to get up early to drive us instead.

At the airport we bought a couple of inflatable neck pillows, recalling how poorly we slept on the overnight flight from NYC to London a couple weeks earlier. The flight to Paris was a couple hours, and once we landed in Paris we had to hoof it to get to our connecting flight. It was in a different terminal, not close by, and we couldn’t figure out the shuttle system signs. So we walked. We made it with just enough time to get in line, use the bathroom, and buy one last, delicious European croissant pastry before boarding our final ELEVEN HOUR FLIGHT home. I am still missing those European croissants.

The kids were awesome travelers. I felt like we always had our hands full, but I think they did even better on this long flight than on our first overseas flight to England. We weren’t sure how they’d do, since this flight left Paris at 10:30 am and we were scheduled to arrive home at 2:30 pm—which, to their bodies, would feel like 10:30 pm. Also, for whatever reason, this plane didn’t have the in-seat entertainment devices like our flight to England had; it only offered the TV sets in the aisle, kind of far away, with the only choice of movie being the one that was playing.

The kids played and ate (we got two meals–lunch and dinner) and even napped. I think John and I got a little sleep, too. I have to say, the meals on AirFrance were so yummy. It’s that European food advantage. For lunch we had turkey sandwhiches, which in the States would be served on bread, but because this was AirFrance, were served on fresh baguettes. Oh, my yum. They were good. And for dessert there was ice cream, so Wes was happy.

The only thing about this flight is that we were feeling ready to be home, and the sooner the better. About three hours before landing, while we were still over middle southern Canada, we hit a patch of shaky turbulence. If you know me, you know I do NOT do well with turbulence, any level of it, and this was on the higher end of shaky, enough to bounce you out of your seat. I like to travel but I don’t like heights, and I prefer to be on the ground. It’s a good thing that John takes it in stride and the kids are too little to know any differently because it means I’m really the only one scared by it. The pilot took the plane higher because (as he later reported on the PA) that’s what the FAA controllers told him to do, but the air was worse up there. He did eventually pull us down and out of the bad air, but I was even more ready after that to hurry and get on the ground.

And, at last, we did.

Our pilot actually managed to cut the flight time down to less than 10 hours, so we got in early. We waited a long time in customs, but the kids handled things well. We were the very last people to get our luggage and leave the terminal.

My brother Matt picked us up and brought us home. I felt like my eyes were going to crash any second. We tried to keep the kids awake as long as possible, but they were out cold by 5 pm or so. It was so nice to be home. What wasn’t so nice is that the kids’ body clocks told them it was time to start waking up around midnight for the day (which would have been 8 am in Spain). Although I was so tired, at 1:30 am I gave up and got up with the kids. They watched TV for a bit, and at 3:30 am we went grocery shopping together at Walmart (open 24 hours!). We survived that first day home, which included a 7 am nap by Carissa (which I had to wake her up from), all of us going out for breakfast at Carl Jr.’s (just so we could have something to do to help pass the time until actual nap time), and an early bedtime that night. It took about two weeks for our bodies (mostly our kids’) to adjust to being home again and sleeping more regularly.

Well, it took me five months but I have successfully blogged about every day of our England and Spain Adventure that we had last May. We have so many good memories and are so glad that we had that time together as a family.

On Thursday in Spain we took one last road trip from our resort to Granada, Spain to see the ultra-famous Alhambra.

If you’ve never heard of it, don’t feel bad; I hadn’t, either. But it’s the #1 tourist attraction in Spain, and that combined with the fact that it’s run by the government makes it one of the hardest places to get into to see.

Granada is about 2 hours northeast of our hotel. We aimed to get there around 10 am to try to get tickets for admission in the afternoon. The government only allots a certain number of tickets for entry each day. If you get there and they’re gone, you’re out of luck. The tickets also regulate your entry time to the more famous part of the Alhambra called the Nasrid Palaces. You can visit the other parts of the Alhambra, but you need to line up and be prepared to visit the Nasrid Palaces at your designated time.

Our experience at the Alhambra was good, but initially very confusing. Not only was the tickets situation confusing to us but we had a hard time even finding where to enter the place after buying our tickets. And the place is giant, so we ended up walking around a lot in the hot, hot sun trying to find an entry point. Finally we found a way in on the south side and John and I enjoyed walking through the Alhambra Museum, which has some cool artifacts (but no pictures allowed), and the Charles V Palace.

After we finished there we hiked back up a hill towards the entrance of the Alhambra to eat lunch at a neighboring restaurant, La Mimbre. I remember looking at the menu and not feeling particularly excited about the items offered. I ended up getting one of their specials, which was soup followed by steak and potatoes, followed by a cake dessert. I also remember how pleasantly surprised I was at the food’s quality (except for the soup–I didn’t like it). The steak was tender and delicious and it came with fried potatoes that I couldn’t get enough of, and the coconut cake was too good to share. Carissa ate a lot of steak and French fries. These are the only pictures I have from lunch:

Following lunch (and diaper changes) we walked through another section of the Alhambra called Generalife (“Garden of the Architect”), which was a summer palace and gardens. We never made it through the palace, but the gardens were AMAZING. However, it was also very, VERY HOT, and so we didn’t want to spend too long here.

It had nice views of the city.

Another reason we didn’t roam the gardens too long was because we had a specific entry time for the Nasrid Palaces, and we had a bit of a walk to get there from the Generalife.

The Nasrid Palaces, specifically, pulls in the most visitors, and it is carefully regulated by many rules. We couldn’t bring in our stroller (never a convenient thing, as usually we had at least one child asleep in it) and we had to wear the diaper bag backpack on the front of our body instead of the back. Why? Still not sure. We also had to stand in line in the hot afternoon sun until they let us in.

The highlight of the Palaces seemed to be the intricate engravings and architecture which, yeah, were really neat but we didn’t feel like we were blown away by the experience in general. Some pictures:

This is the Lion’s Fountain. It was being restored when we were there so its area was not open, except to pass by it. It’s from the 11th century. The lions represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Two of them have a triangle on the forehead, indicating the two chosen tribes Judá and Leví (similar to, but different from what my own faith believes).

After the Nasrid Palaces we took a little rest (actually, we did this a lot during the day. Have I mentioned how it was HOT?). There were several locations in the Alhambra with vending machines that offered water, soda, milk, and sandwiches. We went through all the water we had brought with us (and we thought we had brought plenty) pretty quickly and had to buy more.

The next stop was the dungeons (ruins of them, anyway). Bano = “bathroom.”

And from there we went to one more area, the Alcazaba: the military fortress. This was maybe my favorite place, just for the views of the city and surrounding mountains.

We were kind of tuckered by now, which was late afternoon, and we headed home. When we got back, the kids ate pretzels and milk on the floor…

…played with the toys from the SuperSol supermarket…

…and jumped endlessly on the bed.

By Wednesday we wanted to give our kids and ourselves a break from the many hours we had spent in the car, driving to and from Seville and Cordoba. We spent the day doing laundry, getting groceries, and just playing.

Our first order of the day was groceries. We had been eating breakfast at the resort’s small cafe, which served a continental style breakfast including croissants, bread, fruit, and cereal. It was fine but we thought we could save money by getting our own cereal and croissants. Plus, John was hankering for bacon.

Our resort offered a free shuttle to a SuperSol market down on the main stretch closer to the ocean. It’s a good experience to shop for food in a foreign country because it’s always different than shopping at home.

For starters, you can buy sombreros in the entry.

The grocery carts cost money.

So we used the handheld pull carts, which were free. The kids each took one, and they LOVED it.

Some of the big differences in food between here and Spain:
1. The eggs are in the aisles, not the refrigerated section (as seen in the video above).
2. The milk is reconstituted dry milk, which I think tastes awful. It’s the same in Mexico. We only bought milk that was imported from England and came from actual cows. SO much better. And we bought a lot of milk. Between John and the kids and a pregnant woman, we drank a ton.
3. We had the hardest time finding pretzel sticks, which if you know Wes, you know are kind of a major part of his diet. John finally tracked some down.
4. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is available, but it costs about 7 US Dollars. (And I bought one anyway.)
5. As we were checking out the clerk gave each of our kids a little package of party toys to take home, for free. I thought that was really nice. Until I opened it and found one of the main toys in each bag was a horn they could blow.

Afterward we waited outside for the shuttle to come pick us up again.

A peek at our fridge after groceries…

Yeah, we drink a lot of Fanta in foreign countries! We did in Mexico, too. It kind of grows on you.

After the kids’ naps I took them to the kiddie pool at the resort. It was great because it was about 18 inches deep and it was often in the shade. The water was a little cool but that didn’t stop Wes from getting in and wading across. Carissa was more timid, but after a while she got in, too. They both had a lot of fun. We took our beach ball, and Wes enjoyed kicking it around.

Right by the kiddie pool there was a small playground area that the kids liked playing on. It was also shaded. Wes actually kicked the beach ball over the fence here into an area of wilderness I couldn’t reach and I had to work up the courage to ask the front desk employees to send someone out, into the brush, to get it back for me. But they did!

So much of a vacation is making it fun for the kids, and I’m glad we could.

Back in the room for a change of clothes, Wes was reading my Spanish/English dictionary. So smart!

Then we took the kids back out for miniature golfing. This was their first time. Good thing the course wasn’t busy because it took a while with two kids, and all rules were abandoned. We only had one club and one ball to share, but it was enough. The kids took turns, and occasionally Mommy or Daddy got a turn too. It took Carissa a while to learn that after someone hits the ball she shouldn’t run over and pick it up, but leave it there. The kids loved mini golf.

(Our room is on the third floor overlooking the course.)

I love how Wes is jumping up and down in this picture. He is such a great cheerleader in sports.

While we stayed home today John’s mom and stepdad took an organized bus tour to Gibraltar, which is a British territory only about an hour and a half from our resort (think: Rock of Gibraltar). We were happy to stay and take a break, and were even more so when they got back and we heard all the drama of the day involving John’s mom accidentally leaving her purse at a rest stop on the way to Gibraltar and having to abandon the tour to retrace her steps and find it again. It was not their most restful day. But we had fun!

It helped us get ready for one last road trip together, to the famous Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

On Tuesday (day 13) we drove about two hours north to the city of Córdoba, Spain.

Carissa was our navigator.

After our first day in Spain, spent getting lost in the small, impossibly narrow streets of Seville, the first thing we did when we drove into the Córdoba was stop and get a map. Lucky for us we parked near a tourist information kiosk that had maps readily available. And while we picked that up, John went in search of a SIM card to convert his tablet to a cell phone (he found a store, but waited ridiculously long and never get helped).

Córdoba was an interesting place to visit, in part because of its history and in part its age. Right now there are only about 300,000+ residents but in around the 10th and 11th centuries it was the most populous city in the world, and for a time it was considered one of the most advanced cities in the world. There’s a strong mix of Roman and Muslim influence due being handed back and forth between the two peoples.

One thing I loved about the place is that it’s so OLD. I mean, just look at these pictures. I snapped these just as we walked from our car to our destination, the Córdoba Cathedral/Mosque. We were on some narrow streets among the locals and saw some school children in uniform walking back from school (not pictured).

The first item of business was stopping for lunch. The thing about Spain is that businesses commonly close around 2 pm for siesta time and don’t open again until 4 or 6 at night. So we made sure to eat early and get it done. We found a nice place inside a hotel. We ate in the courtyard.

I loved visiting the Córdoba Cathedral. It was unlike any other cathedral I’ve been to. It started as a place of Roman Catholic worship, but when the Arabs stepped in it was built up as a Muslim mosque. And later, after it returned to Roman hands, became a Catholic cathedral again.

Some cool beams hanging near the ticket counter from the original structure.

The inside of the cathedral was so beautiful, but I had a hard time picturing myself attending church there. I think I’d be staring at the red and white arches the whole time.

The place was giant. HUGE. You can see it a little better in the video.

Even the door to exit was big and grand and ornate.

Across the street, of course, were tourist shops. My mother-in-law and I enjoyed browsing the shops but John and Guy were ready to move on pretty quickly.

The kids? They ate ice cream (“helados”), of course.

After leaving the mosque-cathedral we walked across the old Roman bridge (I mean OLD–built around 1st century BC), crossing the Guadalquivir River to see the historical tower on the other side. It was hot. H-O-T. We passed some street performers (bridge performers?) along the way, and I can’t imagine how miserable they must have been under the sun.

You got a good view of the cathedral from the bridge:

Here is the tower on the end of the bridge. We bought water from the smart people selling it in the tent to the right.

And its moat. I don’t know what it is about moats, but they are just so neat.

We stopped at one more famous landmark in Córdoba, the Alcázar (which means “the palace). It was the residence of Queen Isabella and Ferdinand. It has a rich history including Isabella meeting with Christopher Columbus before his sailing to America, hosting some of Napoleon’s troops in the 1800’s, and serving as a prison. In the 1950s the Spanish government turned it into a tourist attraction.

The actual Alcázar wasn’t bad but the gardens were lovely, definitely worth the visit.

Alcázar entrance and statue of King Ferdinand, maybe?

There was one small bathroom that we waited around to use so I could change the kids’ diapers. No toilet paper, but at least we had baby wipes. Wes waiting on the rocks outside the restroom for his diaper turn.

Like I said, the gardens were the best part.

The kids liked playing in the dirt. We had to drag them away.

When we were walking back to the car we stopped to let the kids play at a playground. It was just what they needed. Kids need to play.

The funny thing is that we were at the park for a while, but it wasn’t until we were back in the car and driving away from the park that we noticed a sign on the building across the street from the park: “La Iglesia de JesuCristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias.” (Or something like that.) It was an LDS branch meetinghouse. Kind of fun to see.

It was a two-hour drive back to our hotel, and I thought our kids handled the car time pretty well overall. We had books and an electronic toy (for Wes), but it was often near bedtime by the time we headed home. During our time in England and Spain Carissa was just starting to develop a more independent and chatty nature. Here she is chatting as we neared Malaga.

The next day was Wednesday, and we had enough of road trips. We were going to stay home, do laundry, and play!

Our first day waking up in Spain. …That is, John was just waking up. I’m pretty sure Carissa had been awake and playing for a while already.

We had about seven days in southern Spain. We picked three cities we wanted to be sure to visit while there: Seville, Cordoba, and Granada. They were all a bit of a drive (minimum 1-2 hours) each way, and with kids we knew that would get tiring quickly. So we picked the city farthest from us–Seville–and started there on our first full day in Spain. Seville was at least a 2.5 hour drive to the northwest from our hotel near Marbella.

Seville is the capital of the Andalusia region and Spain’s fourth-largest city (about 700,000 people in the main city). Spain had these trees everywhere that reminded me of wisteria, although I’m not sure really what they are.

Seville has a famous area dead central in the city known as “Old Town.” We were aiming for this area, as it houses the two main attractions we wanted to see: The Seville Cathedral and Alcázar of Seville (a palace).

And herein we learned our very first, very important lesson about using GPS in a city as old as Seville: NEVER, EVER set your destination as “Seville City Center.” John’s mom was in charge of the directions and she assumed we could get to the center, near the two attractions, and then find a hotel or parking garage to park in.

The city center is Old Town. Are there roads in Old Town? They’re ancient, but yes. Are they drivable? They’re narrow and one-way but, technically, yes. Is it a good idea to try to drive them if you’re clueless Americans in a mini-van on your first day in Spain? NO.

We got loster than lost, really fast. The streets are NARROW. They’re a maze. They’re meant for horses and wagons of ancient days, and maybe pedestrians and motorcycles or small European cars of modern times. Not meant for a minivan full of Americans unsure of their directions.

This is just entering the Old Town streets. You can see they’re one lane wide. But this was a wide street compared to some of the others.

Once we found ourselves lost in the Old Town streets it seemed impossible to wind our way out again. This was maybe the most stressful part of our entire week in Spain. After a while we noticed a small car behind us that seemed to know its way. We forced John out to go and ask directions (he was the only one fairly fluent in Spanish). The driver, fortunately, was able to help and followed us until we were safely back on a two-lane street again.

I videotaped a few minutes or our driving. There’s one point in the video (at about 1:00 in) where we are going around a slight bend and you can hear some gasps because we came really close to scraping the wall. I mean, REALLY close. For some reason I didn’t follow my eyes with the camera, but we were probably four or five inches from the wall. At about 1:35 you can see how close we are. John’s stepdad was driving, and I give him props for navigating us out of there successfully.

Phew.

The next most stressful moment was maybe trying to park the minivan in a typical European-sized parking space.

After all this, we were ready for lunch. And more than ready to finally try some real Spanish food.

We picked a street cafe around the corner from our parking garage. The food was delicious. We always tried to order things the kids might be willing to eat, too.

I had croquettes (fried breadcrumbed roll filled with chicken and cheese) and fried potatoes with some sort of creamy side for dipping.

John had fried chicken with fries. (Notice the huge bottle of water. We bought water everywhere in Spain.)

John’s mom had a tortilla española (Spanish omelet), which is made out of fried potatoes.

And John’s stepdad had the most famous dish that I know of in Spain, paella. It’s a rice dish mixed with all sorts of stuff, in this case–seafood. Honestly, it doesn’t look good to me in this picture because I’m not a big seafood fan, but I tasted his rice and shrimp, and it was well made and good tasting.

My friend had lent me a Spanish-English dictionary that I took with me everywhere in Spain. It came in quite handy at times. John speaks Spanish pretty well but I wanted to be able to do it myself. So while we ate lunch I looked up and practiced pronouncing (with John’s help) some key phrases, like “Dónde está el baño?” (“Where is the bathroom?”) I was pregnant, after all, so that was an important one to know. I was also able to look up words like “fork” and “pepper” and ask the waiter to bring us these things.

While we were sitting at our sidewalk table, eating, I noticed a store opening for business a couple doors down. I pulled out my dictionary and discovered a new, beloved Spanish word: “helados.” It means “ice cream.”

So guess where we went after finishing lunch? John is sweet to put up with me and my love for ice cream when he’s not a big fan of the stuff. We got a cup to share with the kids. Spanish ice cream is DELICIOUS. My favorite flavor was turrón. I didn’t know what turrón was but it tasted and looked like peanut butter. We got a second flavor for Carissa to eat (she’s allergic to nuts). Which was a good thing because later I learned that turrón is actually a Spanish candy made out of honey, sugar, egg whites, and almonds or other nuts–and on top of nuts she’s allergic to egg whites, too.

After lunch and dessert we got lost again trying to just WALK through the Old Town streets, searching for the Seville Cathedral. I chose to stop at a Yogurtland to use the bathroom and change Carissa’s diaper. I took that opportunity to use my amazing (NOT) Spanish skills to ask the employee how to get to the Cathedral. I was really grateful for his help because his English wasn’t so good, and my Spanish wasn’t so good, but he smiled and worked through it and helped me understand basically which way to go. It’s a good experience trying to use a foreign language, especially when you need help finding something. It’s the quintessential traveling experience.

Meanwhile John let Wes play on a playground that was just outside Yogurtland in the plaza. He was sad when we pulled him off to go find the Cathedral.

The streets were narrow little, lovely pedestrian walkways. At least we weren’t driving.

Loved the orange trees. Not something you see in Utah.

Finally we made it to the Seville Cathedral. There were lots of horses and carriages out front selling rides.

This is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest church in the world. Yeah, it was giant.

Big, but not the most amazing cathedral I’ve ever seen. The York Minster in England was more beautiful, in my opinion. But it had some interesting things to look at, like:

You exit into a courtyard filled with orange trees.

Following the Cathedral we walked practically next door to the Alcázar of Seville, which is a palace that used to be a Moorish fort.

My favorite part was the beautiful gardens outside.

Carissa loved the fish in the water and didn’t want to leave.

Before heading back to our hotel we stopped for churros and chocolate. It’s part of the Spanish Experience. Churros are like fried donuts (which, I quickly realized, was a bad idea since I had fried food for lunch and fried food doesn’t actually agree with me when I’m pregnant). The chocolate is a thick, dark hot chocolate.

The kids liked it.

We got home after the kids’ bedtime and prepared for our next day trip: Cordoba, Spain.

On our second Sunday in Europe it was time to leave England and fly to southern Spain, to the area known as Costa del Sol.

We checked out of our Marriott in Leeds and got a taxi to the Leeds-Bradford airport. It’s always nice to drive around the countryside in a car, to see more sights. About halfway to the airport I looked out the window and saw the ruins of a castle or something just off the side of the road. I asked the driver about it, and he said it was Kirkstall Abbey that was destroyed by King Henry VIII in the 1500’s following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A piece of history, just there, by the highway. That’s England for you.

We decided to use the European airline Ryan Air to fly from Leeds to Malaga, Spain because it was by far the cheapest way to go. Ryan Air is purely a budget, no-frills airline. I did some research about them before purchasing our tickets and read up on their strict baggage policies (stricter than Delta’s, so we had to make sure our luggage would meet Ryan Air’s standards) and also their seating policies, which is that there are no assigned seats. I had read complaints from parents saying that they were separated from their young children on the flight because no other seats were open. So we splurged and paid about £10 more per seat to purchase assigned seats at the very front of the plane (only seven seats are available for purchase).

So glad we did! We thought we had plenty of time when we arrived at the airport to make our flight, but wow, Ryan Air’s check-in service was SLOW. Only one person was there at first to serve a long line of people and the express check-in machine was broken. Finally a second person showed up. They kept asking people not on the Malaga flight to stand aside and let others ahead, but virtually everyone in line was there to get on the same flight.

Somehow, miraculously, we got checked in and dashed through security. Then we followed everyone outside and walked along the tarmac to find our plane. It was kind of a long walk. Again, so glad we had assigned seats so we were all together.

Once on board I didn’t feel like the flight was “cheap” or “super budget,” except that there were no pockets on the seat in front of us to stow books or toys, and you had to pay for anything you wanted to eat or drink. They also offered merchandise for sale, which I’d never seen on a plane before.

The kids were good. They really are little troopers.

On our flight to Malaga:

About two and a half hours later we were in Spain! My first time. Our first task was to get our car rental, but I what I really wanted more than anything was some water. We drank all we had on the plane and were too cheap to buy another bottle on board. After we landed we exchanged money (pounds to euros) but we didn’t have any small change for the vending machine with drinks. Oh my goodness, that water looked amazing sitting in that machine, all shiny and cold and drinkable. I watched other people get water from it and it was the coolest machine, with a special robotic arm that reached inside and picked up the drink before dropping it down the shaft.

Arranging the car rental took a long time. In the meantime, Wes and Carissa got their wiggles out. You can see my coveted vending machine behind Wes.

Finally we got everything sorted, picked out the appropriate sized car seats for the kids, and found our car. A minivan, actually–emphasis on MINI. It seats seven (we had six) but wow, it was a tight squeeze. Especially considering our luggage. With our strategic specialist (John) in charge of packing the car, we managed to fit everything in. Barely.

Southern Spain reminded us at once of Southern California. It’s warm and dry and right on the water, except here instead of the Pacific Ocean it’s the Mediterranean Sea.

A bit of desert and mountains…

…and palm trees.

And we saw something Spain is famous for: lots of white cities.

Because we went to England AND Spain, we had to pack clothes for the 50-degree wetness of England plus the 85-degree sunniness of Spain. Now in Spain the kids finally got to pull on their sandals.

In England we stayed overnight in three different cities, but in Spain we stayed the entire week in one place. It was a timeshare that John’s mom had access to, and it was one of the main reasons we decided to take a trip to Europe in the first place.

Our new home was a small resort called Club Marbella by Crown Resorts, 25 minutes from the Malaga airport in Sitio de Calahonda.

It wasn’t a bad place to stay. It was on top of a hill with some restaurants and small shops down the hillside.

We were super surprised when we arrived in southern Spain and discovered its huge British influence. Many of the restaurants advertised “Full English Breakfasts” and offered traditional British fare like kebabs and afternoon tea. But we met a lot of British people, so I guess it makes sense. If I lived in a cool, damp country like England I would probably want to vacation in sunny Southern Spain, too.

Our little hillside had a restaurant style to suit pretty much everyone–Asian, British, Spanish, even American. On our first night in Spain we opted for, of all things, Swiss fondue.

Our hotel room had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living area, dining area, kitchen (with washing machine!), and a balcony overlooking greenery. After being in cramped hotel rooms in England it was nice to spread out and let the kids play more freely.

I didn’t think to snap photos of the place while it was actually tidy.

Living/dining area. The kids loved taking the cushions off the sofas. It was definitely the play area. The TV offered a mix of Spanish, English, and German stations, but the English channels were very British and not American. The kids found a British children’s show they liked to watch in the morning, and sometimes there were decent shows or movies on at night for us. And sometimes not; it was hit and miss.

Our 1-bed room with attached bathroom.

The kids’ room. They did well sleeping in the same room together. If they were both awake when we put them in there they usually were awake for a while; we’d hear giggling and Wes saying, “Dissa!” (“Carissa!”). But they always settled eventually and went to sleep. It helped that Carissa was in the crib.

The other bathroom (with bidet).

Kitchen. It was small but it had everything we needed.

The balcony. The balcony was a wonderful feature; it let in lots of fresh air and had a nice, peaceful view. It was a pleasant place to sit and eat breakfast. But we used it cautiously because of the kids.

It also came with a drying rack that we used for laundry. After doing laundry in the bathtub in England and strewing wet clothes around the room, having a washing machine and drying rack was pure luxury.

And, oh yeah, there was a pool. They offered Aqua Zumba (although not by name, that’s what it was) everyday, but I was always either putting kids down for naps then or we were out on a road trip. This is a picture I snapped just after getting the kids to sleep.

There was a separate kiddie pool that we used later in the week and a mini-golf course. The resort also had a restaurant where we ate breakfast and dinner a few times.

After getting settled on Sunday we prepared for our first full day in Spain on Monday: a road trip to the city of Seville.