New Year's Card

We didn't send out a Christmas card this year, but we sent these instead. So if you didn't get a copy, you can see it here :)

Here were the other contenders for the photo I didn't share earlier. Which one should I paint for our new canvas?

Ok, I did share this one, but worth seeing again.

Malaga and the infant bassinet on a British Airways 747-400

Pretend there is an accent on the first A in Malaga that I'm too lazy to look up how to make. This is the last Spain post. We spent the last tourist day of our trip in Malaga checking out the Alcazaba. It was a lovely old fortress with pretty grounds. It's sort of sad seeing all of these world heritage sites so close to each other because they start to lose their grandeur a bit. This is the outside wall where there is a great big amphitheater.

Unlike anything the USA would have, you get to run all over the ancient walls. J got a kick out of the tiny doors. People must have been a bit shorter hundreds of years ago.

Malaga is on the coast and you can see an amazing view from the top of the fortress.

And of course, what kind of Spanish fortress would it be without lush gardens hidden inside?

 This picture helps remind me why I drag my kids to all of these cultural things, whether it is to another country or just to a local museum, when they are probably too young to appreciate it. He is looking around, he is experiencing. It's hard to say what kind of benefit it will give him (if any), but I know for sure it isn't harming him.

Again, note the gorgeous stone work design. We just let the poor kid have some stroller free time for awhile.

Many of the steps in Spain, modern and ancient, had the bricks placed vertically.

He loved it his chance to explore.

And to spit up all over the rocks.

Check out the pretty arch. Not Seville or anything, but still lovely.

This girl still loves to spin around columns.

I have no recollection why there was a gigantic dress in this building, but J thought it was really cool. 

Out in the courtyard there was a booth advertising daycare and they gave J the orange punch ball seen in the previous pictures. They also gave her a flower after the inevitable demise of said punch ball.

We had a relatively easy flight back. We made all our flights, albeit very closely. If you have to opportunity to avoid Madrid's airport, do it. It took 35 minutes to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate. There was a ticketing problem and Husband and I were separated from each other for the short flight to London. J had an accident in the last few minutes of that flight, but I blame that on her falling asleep and the delay on the plane waiting for our gate (not as long as on our flight on the way over, but still Heathrow, you can step it up!). Husband just told the flight attendant as he was walking off so I don't even know what went down after that. Actually I don't really know much about the whole thing other than what Husband told me since I didn't reunite with them until everyone was off the plane. 

Now the flight back was fantastic because of this little invention.

This is what the infant bassinet looks like on a British Airways 747-400 airplane looks like. I spent quite a bit of time trying to find a picture of one before we left so I'm adding one for the internet world. Again, SEO crawlers, this is the infant bassinet on a British Airways 747-400 airplane. I should probably rename the photo too but my laziness wins again. Friends, you call ahead when you book and reserve this. I tried for the first flight but others had beat me to it. It made all the difference. Think about holding a sleeping infant for 10 plus hours without being able to use the restroom or both hands unless you want to run the risk of waking the baby. The bassinet solved the problem and since it is only available on the bulkhead row, you get a glorious  6 inches of extra leg room. Or should I say storage for the massive amount of toys and gear required for traveling with kids. Your TV screen flips up on a little arm instead of moving whenever the seat in front of you reclines. Of course, my screen was broken :( They offered to upgrade my seat top the next class but that meant leaving Husband and J, and more importantly, the glorious bassinet. First class, I might have done it, but economy plus wasn't enough incentive. And I'd feel bad about possibly ticking off people in first class. There was also this little issue of a overhead light that wouldn't turn off. A passenger on some other flight rigged this little fire hazard and more than one attendant accused us doing of it. Well asked us if we did.

Ended up being a good thing because the customer service guy came and chatted with us and gave us each $50 off our next flight with British Airways. He offered us free drinks too, but felt extra bad when I said we weren't interested on account of being Mormon. So he brought us 4 of the first class toiletry kits. We originally said not to worry about it, but I'm glad he ignored us because they were really cool and full of fancy spa products, not the socks and toothbrush I was expecting. 

I would absolutely fly with them again. They had excellent customer service and still give complimentary food and drinks. I didn't have to spend $5 for a Sprite (sidenote: British Sprite uses stevia and has less overall sugar). Not having the TV would have totally stunk, but M kept me too busy for a movie for most of the flight, and then I just shared Husband's screen. He had packed a headphone splitter to watch movies with J so we had a merry 'ol time watching Wolverine 2 together. 

And if you have a really small baby, they also have a Moses basket sort of thing you can see the family using. It's behind the polka dot socks. Not as good for larger babies as the bassinet on British Airways 747-400 airplane. Note the ample leg room.

We were happy to get home and J was happy to gaze at all our bounty. We may have brought 5 different brands of the amazing, thick Spanish hot chocolate. Don't judge :)

Definitely a trip to remember. Thanks for sitting through all the posts. Now off to document January!

Gibraltar

I loved Barcelona, but Gibraltar is a competitor for favorite part of the trip. I wouldn't have even thought about going but Husband had read about it and thought it would be cool. He is always right.

We had the best of luck with parking spaces. We found one close to the border (driving over can take hours depending on Spain/England relations. They use the wait times to punish each other) and during some parking difficulty the people in the car in front of us came and left. What are the odds! And the parking machine was broken or it was a holiday or something because it gave us our permit and our money back. Little miracles.

Typically I always say no to people to approach and offer anything, but this lady was offering a taxi van tour of Gibraltar and since we hadn't really researched what to do or where to go, we went for it. Since it was during Christmas break, her 8 year old son was there too and it was fun having a third kid driving with us. The best part was not having to drive or decide where to go. Our first stop was a look out point.

Everybody wave to Africa! It's the mountain across the strait. It was a pity my parents couldn't leave the country, or we would have visited Morocco.

This is part of the Spanish Coast

Next up with a cavern that acted as a field hospital in World War I and now is used for concerts and state dinners.

We had fun making scary monster shadows.

Then we headed up to the top of the rock and visited the monkeys. Churchill brought them over and now there are something like 250 of the semi-tame creatures about.

It may be because of Diego and his numerous animal friends, but J didn't get all that excited about being that close to a monkey.

I don't trust monkeys and had a hard time even looking at the camera when one was that close. They are devious creatures. I like to keep them where I can see them. We didn't have any contraband food so they weren't particularly interested in us, but one did jump into the van and steal our guide's coffee cup. It was kind of awesome. You can see his bum as he flees.

This guy just decided to hang out on top of our vehicle.

 The next look out had more stellar views. We were happy to have such a clear day.

So I was sort of enamored with the monkeys. I don't trust them, but I really liked taking pictures of them. Sort of like the three dudes in Aladdin singing "lWhere's the monkeys? Let's see the monkeys!" and doing a jig.




Here you can see the airstrip dividing Gibraltar from Spain. Without it, Gibraltar would be an island.



There is a little playground for the monkeys up there.

Next we went into the tunnels. There are 34 miles of tunnels in the Rock and the whole country is only 2.4 miles long. The military still hasn't released some of the tunnels. They have been excavating them for 200 years. Whomever controlled the Rock pretty much controlled entrance to the Mediterranean so it is a very strategic military point.

After the tour we went to the main square and had fish and chips.

Miles was sleeping for the majority of the trip and woke happy and refreshed.

Then we walked across the airport back to get back to Spain. They have big crossing barriers like for train tracks, only it's to keep you from crossing when the planes land. Crazy, eh?

We had a pretty good wait getting back into Spain since it was a Friday evening and most of the workforce was in line with us, but they let families with little kids cut the line. As in the police officers led us up to the front. All the native Gibraltans have really fun Spanish/British accent too so I loved hearing any of them talk.

Gibraltar was seriously cool and we get to debate if it means Husband has now been to England.