Aventura Española - Part 1

My plane from Orlando to Miami

This whole shindig started because Yours Truly had inherited an EF Tour to Italy in late January of 2013. . . less than two months before the tour started.  The original group leader, a coworker of mine, had fallen ill and desperately needed someone to step in and take over the trip.  I was able to finish all the pre-departure paperwork mumbo-jumbo, request a passport, organize my group, and - miraculously - have an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime vacation through Italy.

Lucky me, right?

EF Tours

Well, I guess, as it were, one of the perks of being a group leader on an EF tour (besides the ridiculously discounted price of traveling overseas, of course) is that they'll actually fly you, as a first-time EF group leader, to one of six cities for a five-day 'training' workshop.  You get to choose between London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome and Beijing, all expenses paid (besides lunches, souvenirs, and tips.)

Paris

Well, I was a replacement group leader last time, and had taken over months after my co-worker had participated in the EF training (she chose Rome, which was weird seeing how we were going there anyway on the trip we had been planning to Italy.)  EF wasn't thrilled with the fact that I hadn't been properly trained for my tour, so when I announced I was leading a tour to France, Germany and the Alps in March of 2014, my EF consultant offered to send me on a training workshop, seeing how I had missed out on it last time.

Not that I needed it, of course - everything they'd be teaching me at the workshop was crap I picked up during my stint as group leader on our Italy venture.

But who the hell am I to turn down a free international trip?

London

I had little interest in Berlin and Beijing - I mean, it'd be cool to see them, but they're pretty far down my list.  Rome I had already seen (extensively), and I'd be seeing Paris in March of 2014 (and I wasn't thrilled about seeing it then - I despise the French.)

  

That left London and Madrid, and Kris and I had an agreement that we would do England and Ireland together (when we can spend a full three weeks or so there rambling about our ancestral home. . . and enjoying Irish pubs at a leisurely pace.)

. . . and that's how I ended up going to Spain.

Madrid

Planning and packing for this trip was a hell of a lot easier than it had been packing for Italy.  My passport was still good, all my travel gear was already purchased, and Melvin even let me borrow his backpack again (Ol' Strappy.)  

I'm really ashamed I wasted money on this piece of shit.

I still had my global phone from Telestial, too. . . but it was more or less rendered obsolete by my fancy new Samsung Galaxy 3s, which Kris had given me for Christmas.  With the Galaxy, I could send text messages for free, place Wi-Fi calls, and Skype for free and incur no additional charges for data-roaming. . . which would allow me to stay in better touch with Kris and the girls during my trip.

This thing would come in quite handy, even overseas.

This was awesome, as my Telestial phone had only half-worked during my earlier Italy excursion.

Orlando International Airport

Anyway, Kris and the girls dropped me off at the airport around 12:45.  We drove around the Orlando International Airport for awhile, since we mistakenly went to the wrong terminal first, but I was able to check in at the counter for American Airlines (my carrier this time around), drop off my whopping 18 lb suitcase, and clear TSA by 1:30pm.

Pretty painless this time around - there was practically nobody in line ahead of me.  Not sure if that's a good sign or not.

I've gotten pretty damn good at traveling through airports.

Welcome to Miami. . .

I hung around my gate for about an hour-and-a-half before boarding a smaller, mid-size plane to scenic Miami, FL (pfft).  I had a window seat for the 37-minute flight, which was cool, but once in Miami (Your-ami, as Abby puts it) my luck ran out.

F*** you, Miami.

No free Wi-Fi ($4.75 for 30 minutes?!), shitty reception, and no sitting room to speak of.  I'd about all this crap more, but honestly these are white people problems and I won't bore you with them.  

My international flight

I said goodnight to Kris and the girls while charging my phone (as much as possible), and then boarded a larger, inter- national craft bound for Madrid.  Once again, I had a window seat (cowabunga), but to my horror I saw that this plane was older and therefore did not have the customary TV screens in the seat backs that I had so enjoyed while traveling back and forth across the Atlantic on earlier trips to and from Europe.  Instead, our mid-90s plane had the whole 'one-set-every-eight-rows-in-the-aisle' thing going on.

American Airlines sucks (though not as bad as Spirit.)

I had been on planning on the personal TV screen, and therefore hadn't brought my Kindle.  I was beginning to panic, but my mood changed dramatically for the better when I realized that nobody would be seated next to me for the duration of the flight.

I had two whole seats - and two pillow/blanket combinations - to myself.

Hallelujah.

Meh.

Shortly after take-off, they started playing the new Wolverine movie (I forget what it's called - it was so-so) and Snack Cart lady came by and gave me a Heineken (a full can!).

With an eye-pleasing action flick and an ice-cold beer, I kicked off my overnight flight over the Atlantic Ocean.

Meh.

Dinner choices for the evening were pasta and chicken, and, being somewhat of the adventurous sort, I rolled them dice and chose the chicken.  Following this endeavor - and I'll spare you the details, as you and every stand-up comic from the '80s know all about airplane food - they dimmed the cabin lights and we passengers started tearing open our shrink-wrapped bags of doll-sized blankets and "pillows."

I've been fighting a pretty bad cough and sinus infection for the past week, and I had luckily kicked its ass right before Christmas.  Unfortunately, yesterday morning it had swung back through with a vengeance, so I've been Ibuprofen, Zyrtec, and cough drops like candy.  

I had a keg party of these assholes in my head all night. . .

I have a pretty hard time falling asleep on planes as it is - I really didn't need the help from Mother Nature.

In the end, I managed to doze off for short periods of time, intermittently broken up by Yours Truly having to adjust his sleeping position whenever my neck or back began aching too bad.  It didn't help that the wall of the plane like a freezer door, due to the high alittitude and all, but I counted myself lucky that I had two whole seats to myself in which to spread out.  I can't imagine how shitty my night would've been like had I been forced to sleep all cramped up next to some asshole.

To be continued. . .

- Brian

The Justice Squadron

Greetings citizens,

As a white, middle-class American male, I'm no stranger to hardships.  I have fruit trees that need pruning, craft beers to sort through, and an abundance of pink plastic garbage cluttering up my house.  It's a daily struggle to weed my way through such trials and tribulation, and the last thing some poor schmuck like me needs in his life is a summons.

A summons, dear readers, for Jury Duty.

Yeah, I got summoned once again.  Summoned back to the Justice Squadron:

One of the greatest seasons of the Simpsons. . .

And this time, unlike two years ago when I was last summoned to the Municipal Fortress of Vengeance, there was no way getting out of it:  I was Juror No. 283, and they were summoning jurors 1 - 513.  I was screwed.

Hey, where did this guy go?

Now, as you may or may not recall, I happen to work full time.  I'm a history teacher at a public school, that's how we roll.  This summons of mine consequently fell on a weekday (a Wednesday), and this meant I had to get the time off of work in order to perform my sacred, civic duty.  This ended up not being a problem, though, as my employer - the government - is somewhat cool with me missing work for jury duties.

Hooray for me.

Being a resident of Orange County, I had to drive into downtown Orlando to the Courthouse. . . which sucked.  Driving down I-4 into the downtown area during morning rush hour traffic is like trying to evade the bulls of Pamploma in a wheelchair.  Drivers down here in Central Florida might as well be a gaggle of liquored-up chimps as far as I'm concerned - none of them can drive for crap.

And they all listen to shitty music.  But let's not fly off on that tangent, shall we. . .

Orange County Courthouse

Anyway, the Orlando Courthouse (at right) is a pretty impressive municipal building, for those of you who aren't familiar with it.  The Ninth Circuit Court has definitely done it's homework, and the room they set aside for jurors is pretty bitchin' (judicial term).  Plenty of vending machines, chairs, coaches, TVs, tables, what-have-you. 

They even have a computer lab and office center, and free Wi-Fi. . . which meant Yours Truly got to bring along his laptop to work on lesson planning and grading screw around on the Internet.

My trusty sidearm. . .

I showed up around 7:10am, and immediately staked out a coach next to a wall outlet so I could work on my laptop throughout the day.  First and foremost, however, I wanted to finish up George R. R. Martin's saga A Song of Ice and Fire on my Kindle.

As seen on HBO's Game of Thrones

I had started reading the acclaimed series in June, and had quickly hacked away at the first four books in a manner of weeks (yes, that's how I spent my summer vacation - reading that series whilst smoking a pipe and tanning in the sun. . . jolly good time, that.) Alas, the last book - A Dance with Dragons - had taken me nearly three months to read. . . more or less because I can never find time to read with a full-time job bitching and whining for my immediate attention.

(stupid job. . .)

Back to the 'Duty:  they began calling pools of jurors around 8:30, following a short (and pretty self-explanatory) orientation film.  Usually jurors were rounded up twenty or thirty at a time, then a half hour or an hour would pass before they called another pool forward.  After a couple hours, I had managed to finish off the series (and now I get to wait around impatiently for Martin to finish writing the 6th book - damn it), and killed a little time on the Internet (writing, shopping, reading the news, screwing around, etc.) before they allowed us an hour or so for lunch. 

Pretty much.

When we reconvened to the juror pool room (or whatever the hell it's called), we sat around for a few more hours while several more pools of jurors were called forward.  By 2:30pm, I had yet to be called.  Not that I was complaining - so far I had been a pretty big fan of jury duty.  I was being paid by the State of Florida and the school district to sit around and read books, write, and mess around on my laptop.  I'm cool with that.

Then, around 2:45pm, I was finally summoned to deliver justice onto my peers.  The hammer was about to striketh down, and Yours Truly was more than ready to deliver his civic roundhouse to the countless faces of evil.

Murder your child? Don't worry about it!

But, as luck would have it, my judicial kicks were never truly in need.  As we prepared to enter one of the courtrooms, the officials notified us that our services were no longer required:  the parties inside had settled once they had received word that jurors were prepared to enter the courtroom to try the case (or whatever it is we do).

So, by 3pm, I was on my way home.  After a grueling day of sitting around on my ass in a municipal building, staring at a computer screen, I was looking forward to a relaxing evening of sitting around on my ass in the comfort of my own living room, staring at a TV screen.

Slainté,

- Juror 283

Parkz

' Mornin', Cyberspace.

I grew up with the notion that when I was older, I'd be taking my kids to the park.  There are always those scenes on TV and in movies where parents are sitting off to the side, making terrible small talk with other parents, while their kids play around on some out-dated playground equipment.  I was ready for this. . . until I had kids and realized that there is absolutely nothing relaxing about taking kids to a park.  At least not when they're two and four years old.


Kris is more of the "Hey, let's take the kids to the park!"-sort than I am.  As a full-grown man, I find parks boring.  I know that sounds terrible, but it's true.  Maybe when my kids get older and I can sit on a park bench for more than three minutes without having to break up a fight, clean a wound, or help a child up a ladder.  Me, I'm a sit-on-my-ass-and-read-at-the-park guy, so every time we end up going to a park around here I snatch up my Kindle with the assumption that maybe - just maybe - I'll have the opportunity to read a chapter out of a book.

But I'm a dumbass. . .

This picture doesn't do this beast justice - it's probably three feet long and two feet wide. . . completely capable of snapping off a toddler's limb.

I have to hold Abby while we feed these sea beasts, or else she - in her infinite wisdom - will deem it 'radical' to scale the rail and propel herself headlong into the water. . .

. . . where monstrosities like this six-foot-long carp is prowling around.  I guarantee this fish gets more carbs on a daily basis than twelve grown men, what with all the Hunters Creek patrons dumping bread into the pond regularly.

The Cannonball, mid-lecture to the fish. . .

The Carp would love to eat my child, I'm sure. . .

Who knows. . .

Holy crap, I'm reading. . .  for about six minutes.

There's a large state park about a half-hour drive from our house called Moss Park.  Acres upon acres of Spanish Moss trees and playgrounds and wandering hordes of these three-feet-tall cranes that are about as domesticated as an animal can get.  For a $5 parking fee, it's an easy way to kill a few hours with the kids.

On this particular outing, Kris was meeting up with a few moms from her League of Extraordinary Moms - that Hunter's Creek social club she's heavily involved with.  She's recently been promoted to Grand Master, or the like - I don't know, the whole thing's beyond me, really.

I don't like driving.

"Ugly birds!"

The League of Extraordinary Moms, or whatever the hell they call themselves, conversing over a snack break. . .

Spanish Moss Tree

After awhile we hit up a second playground located deeper in the woods. . .

The name of the park really is a no-brainer.

Those birds were no better behaved than seagulls.  I literally had to stand guard over the kids while they ate their lunch. . .

The pavilion where we had lunch.

Popsicle time.

Abby enjoys the playground while the older kids hunt down pine cones. . .

Collecting pine cones with the offspring of the Order. . .

"Go away, birds!"

Alayna takes to swinging pine tree branches around at other kids. . .

Cranes.  Not sure what kind, as I'm not down ornithology.

The cranes didn't interest Alayna in the slightest.  Now, pine cones, on the other hand - she couldn't get enough of those. . .

Consulting the map.

Heading across the causeway to the pond. . .

We turned back upon reaching the end, as there's NO railing to prevent kids from falling into the pond and becoming alligator lunch.

This is what passes for an acceptable souvenir in our family, folks.