Well, we're finally back! I'm writing this at 1400 on Saturday afternoon (or is it 2100? My body can't tell!) Overall our trip back to the States went fairly well, with just a few small hitches.
We left San Javier airport at 0800, after saying goodbye to our good friends Fran and Teresa. Ernesto showed up just as we were getting ready to walk through the gate, and then when the plane landed in walked in Chema Nagore, a former E.26 pilot who's now with Air Nostrum (Iberia's commuter). Poor Teresa started crying, and that set e off. As we walked out to the airplane on the ramp, she was crying a little and saying "great, now I'm going to cry all day!" Thankfully, that turned out not to be true.
The wait in Madrid went by pretty fast. e did some last minute shopping, and I had my final bocadillo with Jamón Serrano--the best I've ever had at an airport for sure. We boarded the aircraft and then waited and waited and waited. Then, just to do something different, we waited a little more. All-in-all, we waited about an hour and 10 minutes past our takeoff time before we finally got in the air.
The 9 hour flight wasn't that bad, although I didn't sleep nearly as much as I needed to. We saw Hidalgo, which for some reason didn't really keep my attention and The Prince and Me, which was monumentally stupid but nevertheless helped the time pass by.
As we neared Chicago, the movies were replaced by a display showing our progress. We watched the aircraft approach the area, cross the lake heading due west instead of for the airport, and enter a holding pattern. Apparently the weather was pretty bad in the Chicago area, and I think we may have been struck by lightning as we descended. 45 minutes of holding is not what you want at the end of a 9-hour flight, but we finally got onto the ground.
Once we made it through the customs maze, we found out that the weather had delayed our 3pm departure until 6:30pm. That was good because we landed at about 3:15. We got the bags back to American and then headed to the terminal to wait. That was a long, cranky wait for us, but we finally got on board the plane to New Orleans. When we arrived at 8:30, e's parents were there, but they weren't expecting us because they had just been told we weren't coming in until after 10. Apparently everyone at American was confused, because instead of putting our clearly marked bags on the 3pm flight that was delayed until 6:30pm, they put them on the 6:35pm flight that was delayed until 8. We wound up having to wait at the airport until about 10:15pm when our bags came in.
e and I took turns nodding off during the trip home, but we finally pulled in to the driveway at 2305 central time, which was 0600 the next day back in Spain. That means we had our 3 hours of sleep Thursday night and then went for about 24 hours straight before getting to our final destination. What a long day it was for us!
So, here we are at the end of our 2-year tour in Spain. Neither of us can believe it's really over. I feel like next week will come and I'll ride my bike to work and go flying with students. It's hard to imagine that I'll most likely never see that place again, even if I'm able to see some of my friends from there in the US or other places. Hasta luego, amigos...os echaremos mucho de menos!
