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

Broam K's Italian Saga: Day I

Hi gang.

Despite the recommendations of pretty much everybody, I decided to work a half-day today.  Don't ask me why - I still had a ton packing to do.  So after baby-stitting teaching my sixth-graders for three class periods, putting in final grades for the nine-week quarter and the like, I quietly snuck out during lunch and drove home.

Go ahead and try and name a better movie. . .

With Raiders of the Lost Ark playing in the background, I threw together the remainder of my crap into a battered-and-worn 25" suitcase (to check), a backcountry backpack that Melvin let me borrow (to serve as my carry-on), and my trusty Maxpedition sling-pack (my camera bag/personal item).

Slainté.

I'm probably going to end up forgetting something important anyway.  I usually do.

I suppose having a couple beers and watching Indiana Jones during the process probably wasn't the smartest thing I could've done.

I pack like a badass.

Anyway, Kris swung by with the girls around 5:15pm in order to haul my ass to the OIA.  Alayna wasn't too thrilled to say goodbye to Daddy; Abby just looked confused.  They dropped me off around 5:45pm at the Lufthansa (some German airline, who knows) terminal and, about ten minutes later, the first two members of my travel group - one of my students and her mother - showed up.

Unfortunately, there was some nasty multiple-car accident on one of the main roads leading up to the airport, so the remaining portion of our motley team (comprised of another one of my students and five members of his family) didn't even arrive to the airport until nearly 6:45pm... and by then the check-in line for luggage/tickets was down-right brutal.

Check in itself was pretty painless once we reached the counter, though.  Running through the TSA's security gauntlet was as well (thank God).  I packed about 10 lbs - practically nothing - in my checked bag, as I didn't want to risk losing anything essential and/or valuable in the journey over.

Consequently, my carry-on was packed to the brim and heavy as shit.

What are ya gonna do.

Upon boarding our plane, I was pleased to discover that I had been given a window seat, and that the seat next to me was vacant.  This euphoria would prove to be short-lived, unfortunately, as minutes before taking off a gigantic Viking plopped down in the seat next to mine, armed with two liters of Bombay Sapphire gin (from the Duty-Free shop) and a horrific sunburn.

I never got his name - it was probably 'Sven' or something along those lines anyway.  He was a 400 lb Finn who probably stood a solid two feet taller than me, and he quickly seized the armrest between us as well as a sound portion of the leg room.  He appeared friendly enough, but his European awkwardness and gruff demeanor didn't really entice me to strike up a lengthy conversation beyond polite small talk.


(I'm not big on strangers.)

We were fortunate enough to have individual TV screens in the seats ahead of us, and they had a wide variety of new movies to choose from.  I began Lincoln, which at first intrigued Sven, but he opted for a Richard Gere movie instead because, as he told me, "that Civil War you all had. . . it sounds boring."

I didn't catch the last 1 1/2 half of this movie, so I'm not sure how it ends.  Hopefully the North wins and Lincoln stays president for years and years to come.

Unlike Richard Gere.

Anyway, I was pretty exhausted, and about 45 minutes into the movie I found myself dozing off.  Lincoln, as it turns out, is more of a drama than a war movie (which is what I was hoping for), and consequently was much slower than I had anticipated.  I decided to switch over to Cloud Atlas instead.

I couldn't tell you what this movie was about. . .

This movie was far more visually-stimulating, so over the course of a few white wines (awesome) and a to-be-expected airline dinner of chicken and rice (not so awesome), I managed to watch the movie it its entirety without falling asleep (though towards the end it became a challenge.)




I don't know what time ended up falling asleep, but an inflatable neck pillow Kris picked up for me proved incredibly useful...

- Brian