Sunday, January 27, 2019

Eh, this is far enough

The flights to Lisbon and then Sevilla went smoothly. I didn't sleep much, so I'm looking forward to bed tonight. The only real hitch in travel was the airport bus downtown. The bus stopped about 2km from the flat and the driver walked through and kicked everybody off and drove away. Being an airport bus, there were a lot of flummoxed tourists standing on the side of the road in the middle of Sevilla. I was glad I'd lived in Sevilla for 7 months or I'd have been flummoxed right along with them. Turns out there was a half-marathon going on and the bus route was blocked. I just hitched up my drawers and walked the rest of the way home. The only real challenge was the race route kept getting in my way in places where I needed to cross. I just waited patiently and scooted across between runners with my roller bag. Nearer to home, the runners were pretty spread out and crossing was easy:


I made it to the flat and even found my keys which had been beating around my backpack for the past two weeks. I let myself in and hugged Laura for a while. I sat around a bit out of sorts and tired. Eventually I laid down and napped for 2 hours.

After my nap, just to get my blood moving, Laura and I went out for a short walk in the cool, clear evening. It was nice to get reacquainted with the city. The light was lovely for photos, so here are a few:






Back at the flat I checked in with Keith for a bit. He's a bit isolated now back in Rehoboth Beach with the rest of us all departing yesterday at the same time. I also called Rachel and eventually added Emily to the call. After about a half hour, I deftly handed my phone off to Laura who continued the conversation.

This evening, Laura and I resumed watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon. Great show. We only have one episode left.

Tomorrow, back to math, exercise, Spanish etc as life settles back down to normal.

Back to Sevilla

We did some last-minute clean up and packing of my mom's house while a couple of home inspectors looked it over to let us know of any serious issues in the home. Kathy packed up her car with a bunch of photos. Jo-Anne with other keepsakes and documents. Keith came over and took Jake and the cat over to his house. We also learned that the two dogs, Donnie and Midnight, will be adopted by Shine's sister, so they'll go from being siblings in one house, to cousins in two houses.

While we were working, a FedEx truck drove up and dropped off two donuts from The Salty Donut sent by Rachel from Miami. The Salty Donut is her favorite donut shop. On the left, we see the STICKY BUN DONUT Knaus Berry Farm sticky bun wrapped inside our 24-hour brioche dough, brushed with secret sauce, wrapped and topped with homemade pecan toffee sauce. On the right, SEA SALT CREAM + COOKIES 24 hr. brioche filled with a homemade edible cookie dough cream, ‘melted ice cream’ glaze & topped with chunks of homemade chocolate chip cookie & maldon sea salt:


They were both very good.

Here's Jake enjoying his last moments on his favorite love seat before being carted off to my brother's house:


 Here's a photo of my mom's 4 children just before we all went our separate ways:


From left to right, me off to Sevilla, Jo-Anne back to Michigan, Kathy to Virginia, and Keith who lives in Rehoboth Beach.

I drove a rental car up to Newark Airport. The drive was uneventful and I left myself enough time to not be stressed as I navigated the rental car return and customs. You can see downtown NYC from some of the gates in the airport. If you look just above the wing here, you can see the NYC skyline off in the distance:


My flight is pretty efficient. 6 hrs to Lisbon, an hour to Sevilla. About 9 hrs gate-to-gate.