“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”
– St. Augustine
The Anderson European Vacation Adventure: Day #1
May 7th 2010
After months and months of preparation, planning, saving $$$, and shopping for travel clothes . . . the day had arrived!
We dropped our little kiddos off at their "Fantasy Suite"
Ok and how cheesy am I . . . I almost teared up dropping them off, won't see them for two whole weeks;-( BUT they are well taken care of there!
Then I sent out my last packages for Memory Bean Designs, hurried and packed (can we say procrastinator?!), and we were off to Seatac Airport!
Our flight on British was leaving at 6:30 p.m., so we arrived with plenty of time. I was sooooo worried that my bag would be too heavy . . .
but I made the 50 lb limit woooo hoooo!
After checking in our huge bags, we went to Runway Grill to enjoy dinner and super big beers:-)
And along with our beers . . . we had a club sandwich and a yummy quesadilla.
Then off to grab a bunch of magazines for the trip (3 each), and then waiting . . .
(hoping that they would bump us up to 1st class again (like last July-AMAZING!)
. . . but no such luck.
Anywho we were off! 9 hours to London. We slept, watched movies (Avatar and Shutter Island), and started my 1st of FOUR books, Twenties Girl
(SUPER cute book!)
Layover at Gatwick, London . . . transferring to Barcelona, Spain to join our cruise the next day!!!
So we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited for them to announce our terminal. Even AFTER the flight was scheduled to leave . . .
The board flashed . . .
CANCELLED!!!!
Stupid freaking Dumb Ash Cloud shut down the Barcelona Airport!!!
They had no idea when it was going to open. We just laughed, lucky us right?!
So it was a little crazy, no one knew what to do. They said they could fly us to Madrid and then we'd be on our own to take a high speed (expensive) train to Barcelona, but no promises:-(. We didn't want to get stranded in Madrid either (already been there lol).
So an option was to go to the next Port to meet the cruise ship, but that was Naples, Italy
(trust me no one wants to stay in Naples for 2 days! Kinda ghetto)
My AMAZING hubby made a decision to join at the NEXT Port,
ROME, ITALY
Soooo we had to book a hotel in Rome a.s.a.p. and try to get a hold of our hotel in Barcelona to cancel. Oh wait! Andy's cell didn't work even though he signed up for International service, somehow they messed up and didn't fully activate it, so we had to get a calling card and go go go! Note to self: BOTH bring cell phones next trip! Lol
(Andy on pay phone, me just chillaxin' with my complimentary Starbucks treats:-)
Yeah we'd miss the first 3 days of our 7 day cruise, BUT we'd for sure make it, AND we get 3 days in Rome (my hubby's favorite city in the whole world!)
So off we were trying to get on a flight to Rome.
Wooo hooo we made it!
So we arrive at 10:00 p.m. to Rome, Italy . . . and go to get our luggage . . .
and wait
and wait . . .
until we are the last ones there, staring at the conveyer belt trying to will our luggage to appear. NOPE.
I always knew this happened to people, but never thought it would to me! So we filed a missing luggage report. What a trip so far!
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and what a relationship builder! Ha ha ha
~End of Day #1~
So it only gets WAY better after this, I promise!
Stay tuned for more adventures and amazing pics (13 days to go!)
(I sorted through our 4000 pics and will only post the best!)
*Sorry this is so long, I am writing all our travel experiences on my blog mostly for our memory. If you have a small attention span, or not enough time to read, just look at the pictures, it's ok I promise!*
~Tamara Nicole~
