Spain, and probably random ramblings
My goodness, I haven't updated in a long time. However, I am now making the effort, since it's holidays, and I'm bored, and have finished tipping out my suitcase from Spain, which gave my lots of happy memories which I decided to put down here.
The journey there was less than fun, as we had to get up at 4:40, which is never a good start. The airport was very crowded, and they were queuing two flights at one check-in desk, but only letting people from our flight go through, and decided not to inform us of this. So we were in a very long and static queue for a very long time, until the person at the desk said "last call for anyone going to Alicante!", at which point helen and I waved frantically, sprinted to the front, found that they had already closed the slidy thingy which takes hold luggage away, ran to the outsize baggage to put our stuff in there, and panicked quietly while waiting in another very long queue. Got our stuff checked in there, ran up to security, got searched, lost each other, and ran to our gate (which was, naturally the furthest away) - passing a Krispy Kreme stall but having no time to but anything, which is possibly one of the greatest tragedies of Helen's life. I bought a bacon sandwich on the plane - eventually - but it turned out to have icky tomato sauce in it. I ate it anyway, because I was hungry, but I wasn't very happy until I got to Spain, and found that there was a country which was not flooded, or unseasonably cold, but actually had warmth, and sunshine, and where, apparently, I am not allergic to anything. I didn't really realise this until i was packing to go home, and realised I had not once used my inhaler, eyedrops, eardrops, or nosesquirty thing at all.
I love Spain.
We did lots of swimming in outdoor pools, which were lovely and warm by five o'clock, and lying by the pools to dry off, and wandering around the town from 11 till 3 am, which is the only time to do anything approaching exercise, because that's when the temperature is below 30 degrees C. We met lots of Lucia's family, who are all lovely, and were chatted up in some rather peculiar ways by some very peculiar Spanish boys, which was amusing. We also did lots of random singing, and some of us *looks pointedly not at Helen* did lots of snoring, and the rest of us did lots of waking up and throwing things. I tell you now, my children, never share a room with someone getting over a cold.
We also went to Terra Mitica (which I have probably spelt wrong) and Lucia and Andrew and Lucia's dad and I went on lots of fun baby rides and water rides, which were lovely for cooling off, but which helen doesn't like because they mess up her hair, and we all watched and felt slightly queasy as Helen went into adrenalin-junkie mode and got flipped upside-down more times that I could count (having the foresight to wear shorts, luckily).
And there was the random singing, which scared all Lucia's neighbours, and the scary coloured popcorn, and trying to teach me to speak Spanish, which was not a complete failure - apparently I have a good accent, even if I know almost no vocabulary.
Spanish food is love. Even if there is ridiculous amounts of it. We got the fabled 'chocolate y churros' on the last morning, which were just amazing, even though I think they may have been a mistake, since I threw up on the plane on the way home, which was rather not-nice. On second thoughts, I think I blame the McDonalds style place in Terra mitica, since it was very hot and there were lots of flies around, and I had the chicken nuggets, which was probably not a good idea.
And I am tanned! Sort of. Well, I have a watchstrap-mark, which is proof that my natural skin tone is actually lighter than my arms currently are, even though you may not believe that possible. I had some very cute freckles, but I think they're fading now, so I will get out of the house this afternoon with all_my_words, which should be fun.
The journey there was less than fun, as we had to get up at 4:40, which is never a good start. The airport was very crowded, and they were queuing two flights at one check-in desk, but only letting people from our flight go through, and decided not to inform us of this. So we were in a very long and static queue for a very long time, until the person at the desk said "last call for anyone going to Alicante!", at which point helen and I waved frantically, sprinted to the front, found that they had already closed the slidy thingy which takes hold luggage away, ran to the outsize baggage to put our stuff in there, and panicked quietly while waiting in another very long queue. Got our stuff checked in there, ran up to security, got searched, lost each other, and ran to our gate (which was, naturally the furthest away) - passing a Krispy Kreme stall but having no time to but anything, which is possibly one of the greatest tragedies of Helen's life. I bought a bacon sandwich on the plane - eventually - but it turned out to have icky tomato sauce in it. I ate it anyway, because I was hungry, but I wasn't very happy until I got to Spain, and found that there was a country which was not flooded, or unseasonably cold, but actually had warmth, and sunshine, and where, apparently, I am not allergic to anything. I didn't really realise this until i was packing to go home, and realised I had not once used my inhaler, eyedrops, eardrops, or nosesquirty thing at all.
I love Spain.
We did lots of swimming in outdoor pools, which were lovely and warm by five o'clock, and lying by the pools to dry off, and wandering around the town from 11 till 3 am, which is the only time to do anything approaching exercise, because that's when the temperature is below 30 degrees C. We met lots of Lucia's family, who are all lovely, and were chatted up in some rather peculiar ways by some very peculiar Spanish boys, which was amusing. We also did lots of random singing, and some of us *looks pointedly not at Helen* did lots of snoring, and the rest of us did lots of waking up and throwing things. I tell you now, my children, never share a room with someone getting over a cold.
We also went to Terra Mitica (which I have probably spelt wrong) and Lucia and Andrew and Lucia's dad and I went on lots of fun baby rides and water rides, which were lovely for cooling off, but which helen doesn't like because they mess up her hair, and we all watched and felt slightly queasy as Helen went into adrenalin-junkie mode and got flipped upside-down more times that I could count (having the foresight to wear shorts, luckily).
And there was the random singing, which scared all Lucia's neighbours, and the scary coloured popcorn, and trying to teach me to speak Spanish, which was not a complete failure - apparently I have a good accent, even if I know almost no vocabulary.
Spanish food is love. Even if there is ridiculous amounts of it. We got the fabled 'chocolate y churros' on the last morning, which were just amazing, even though I think they may have been a mistake, since I threw up on the plane on the way home, which was rather not-nice. On second thoughts, I think I blame the McDonalds style place in Terra mitica, since it was very hot and there were lots of flies around, and I had the chicken nuggets, which was probably not a good idea.
And I am tanned! Sort of. Well, I have a watchstrap-mark, which is proof that my natural skin tone is actually lighter than my arms currently are, even though you may not believe that possible. I had some very cute freckles, but I think they're fading now, so I will get out of the house this afternoon with all_my_words, which should be fun.