It´s been a while

 Seems fitting to try and start blogging again, almost one year from my last post. !It´s THE Anniversary!Time to celebrate neither of us being in prison from killing the other. 

It´s been a big travel year: Croatia,  Greece, Tunsia and of course, stateside to see the fam. 

Tunisa

Croatia

Greece

USA - No Kings 2025

Sarah Lee played in Santander at Bobby´s, the speakeasy. We braved the bus and spent 2 lovely days in Santander before taking the local train to Llanes, Spain, a medieval stop on the Camino.

This year we were graced by visits from Tia M, Zee and O, Tina and Tall Boy and of course, Shirt. 
 

Starting now, the reservations begin for our friends and family who are taking advantage of a free place to stay in EU.

 

 

Take a Deep Breath - Frankfurt Edition

Tucked inside the H terminal at Miami International Airport, we were first in line at the Lufthansa check-in, right behind the tiny Japanese woman and slightly larger Korean woman who were on a ski trip.  We really, really want to upgrade to business class. An upgrade would be an exciting and extravagant beginning of our new life adventure.
We were also anxious because we had loads of luggage and lots of ukeleles to transport.  

We waited for about an hour and forty-five minutes in line, drinking shots of Cuban coffee while we chatted up the skiers.

 

Eventually we were waved in to the promised land of Ticketing. The handsome Attendant at check-in informed H that I did not have a premium economy seat and therefore was ineligible for an upgrade. H prickled up at this, in his very Wassery way, which is not a pleasant experience when it is directed at you. Frantically, we searched our emails for confirmation of purchase to prove the gate attendant wrong. H was the winner when he found proof of purchase. An upgrade ensued with anticipated glory of lay down seats. 

 

Looking at a 3 floor apt here!

 Gaining possession and inspecting our boarding tickets, I inquired why I didn’t have my normal PreCheck. The attendant responded I was not in the Trusted Travelers Program. I may not be trustworthy but I do pay for the title and I have the card to prove it, or at least a picture of it on Dropbox. I provide him with my ID numbers, which he stated didn’t work. I look up my copy of my card on Dropbox to verify the numbers, which doesn’t help because there is only a picture of the front. The numbers are on the back, of course. I only have a copy of the front.  However, the image of the card strengthened my case that I was Precheck worthy. The Attendant indicated that he would get us thru Precheck personally and printed new tickets for me. As we had upgraded, it made us very important customers and we were escorted to Precheck.

H passed thru the TSA checkpoint with flying colors. When TSA scanned my ticket and I was not allowed to pass because as the TSA agent said, “this ticket isn’t for this airport.” Wrong airport entirely. At this point, I had never had the new ticket in my hand. Mr. Lufthansa was rightly embarrassed and ran off to his kiosk to correct the problem while I waited beside TSA, like the troublemaker I am.

All sorted out, we proceed to dump our computer gear, etc to be scanned. In front of us was a family of 5 with 3 small kids in tow, who had to send several items back thru the scanner. There was an increase of the chaos and carnage to avoid from this family, but finally we were in the international terminal. Woot.

The sign said it was a 15 -minute walk to the gate and my Fitbit indicated It was around 1200 steps. We made ourselves comfortable, got provisions, went to the bathroom and settled in to wait the 2 hours before the flight. Digging around for something to read, H hands me a computer. 

 

“What’s this?” I inquire

“It’s your computer. I told you I picked it up for you at TSA” said the gallant husband beside me.

“No, it isn’t. My computer’s in my bag. This is not even the same model.”

The abject horror in both of our eyes when we realize he had picked up the harried families computer.

H ran it back to TSA and I scanned the crowd for the family of 5. We’ll never know if they got it back in time or not.

 

Gaztelugatxe and Ondarroa

No fans of GoT here.

The coastline overlooking the Bay of Biscay in Spain is spectacular.  One of my MaryJane highlights was visiting Gaztelugatxe, famous for being the real location of Dragonstone in Game of Thrones. We’re not traveling far from Balboa, but the winding roads and hills are slow going in our tiny hybrid Fiat. Thank goodness, we can both drive a stick.

Gaztelugatxe or Dragonstone

We’ve been running for over 2 weeks. Tourist stigmata running. Poor Pick, the last day in Spain I was bed bound. So very tired was I, that we decided we needed a vaca during vaca. On our way toward San Sebastian and France, a random town on the Bay of Biscay was picked for no other reason that it was small and therefor nothing to do except to eat and read and lounge while we waited on the laundry to dry. 

 The ride to Ondarroa, our seaside vacation home, will take 4 hours or so. While there was some Basque used in Balboa, we are now venturing deep into traditional Basque territory where it is spoken by most of the population. Suddenly, Spanish is not the dominate language; spoken or written. If you have never read about the Basque language and its uniqueness, then do so right now! It may as well be Russian or Chinese so foreign it is, there is nothing it can be compared to, like we can do with Romantic. Think Klingon. If one can pass the Basque Language test, you get immediate citizenship to Spain. Cool.

We got a huge laugh at the township of Mendialde, close to our destination at the roundabout, outside of town to heading towards Gaztelugatxe. I made The Monkey turn around and park while I got the photo. I guess the film crew has not endeared themselves to the locals.

Ondarroa

Continuing our meandering around hairpin turns thru forest and cliffside dodging bikers and hikers (remember, the road follows the path of the Camino of St James), we finally reach the small, tiny town of Ondarroa. An entirely Basque town and the most vertical town we had visited thus far. We were noticed as strangers right away. People spoke to us first in Basque, then we stumbled thru Spanish. One could walk from one side of town to the beach in about 10 minutes. There were only 1.5 streets that had services and restaurants. Only 3 long streets in the entire town. Luckily, we were next to a grocer and found brilliant parking.

8330 residents

It rains a lot in this part of the world and we were expecting a long, soggy weekend. Perfect for the downtime I craved. Saturday dawned dark, rainy and windy. Still, provisions were needed for us to hide several days comfortably and so we risked leaving our Airbnb the next morning in the pouring rain to gather supplies.

What the hell? We go out and the streets are packed. Not just packed - packed with locals dressed in medieval clothing. Rain was not detouring these townies whatsoever. Large blue tarps, reminiscent of Florida roofs after a hurricane, were being stretched across the narrow main drag. What’s a little rain when there is drinking to do? We had arrived during the once-a-year celebration of the birthday of Ondarroa. Established in 1400’s. The town was dressed and ready to party. Even the kids. All the men had some sort of fake sword with them, whether made of paper Mache or carved from wood. There were knights, ladies, wenches’ jesters, priests, fishermen in every direction.  Special mead had been made especially for this day. It was a fun and very wet scene. So much for staying in and resting.

Ondorroa was a special needs town, we came to understand. There were multiple elevators throughout town, to access the upper roads. So many wheelchair lifts. The beachfront had special lifeguards and water wheelchairs and hoyer lifts, so that anyone despite their ability could enjoy the ocean.