Fly away home

So, we had to be at the airport insanely early. We had to get up and catch a taxi at 2am to get to the airport.  Kindly, our host came to escort us to the airport and brought us a taxi.  Seth's plane was about 4 hours later, but he came with us too and hung out at the airport. We had four legs of our journey.  We told the kids that they could sleep on the first leg, but we wanted them to sleep at home so that they could get over jetlag faster and we asked them to try to stay awake the rest of the time. We planned to just carry our bags like we had on the way to Spain.  The Moroccan end wouldn't let us.  They made us check 4 of our bags and caused little Seth a lot of anxiety about his wooded stuff that was packed in his bag. We ate really weird fish pizza at the airport for our breakfast and then hugged Uncle Seth goodbye.  We had so much fun with our Seth!  I hope we get to do it again. Then we boarded our plane (which had lots of room for luggage by the way) and flew to Paris. In Paris we had a couple of hours layover, so we had lunch, finished up homework assignments and took turns taking walks around the terminal. Found lots of Astrix and Obelix books. We then caught a flight to the US.  I'm spacing which city. I think we went to Cincinati. That's where we had our problems. Our layover was supposed to be 1 1/2 hours long.... barely enough time to catch our next flight.  We ended up having to go through customs, pick up our luggage that we should not have had to check, go through security and get to our terminal in an hour.  It was the one time that it would have been nice to have a disabled person escort. We made it with 10 minutes to spare and they were already closing up the doors. This flight was full, so they made us check our bags again, but they did let us on to the flight at least and we weren't late luckily. We spent most of the flight watching movies and poking each other to stay awake. The last half hour before getting to Salt Lake, Seth fell asleep, and we couldn't wake him up.  We'd been awake for 29 hours at this point. Grandma and Grandpa Wilcox met us at the airport with our van.  Turns out that Janelle was meeting Seth at the airport for his flight that was supposed to be there soon.  She had to go to work, so she drove us home and Mom and Dad waited for Seth.  I'm so grateful that she got us home. We couldn't even see straight at this point. We got home, some showered, the rest of us crashed and I think I slept for 11 hours straight.

Dr Who reference anyone?

Seth had finished his reading and other homework but somehow got out of finishing math.... so he spent most of our recovery day catching up on math.

 

Gibraltar United Kingdom

 

The next day we drove to a beach just north of Gibraltar to go swimming again.  It was a different beach.  The rocks/sand stuck to you when you were dry instead of wiping off.  It got deep really fast. You could see the rock of Gibraltar at a distance. They said that there were bathrooms and showers at this beach and there looks like there were, but they haven't been in use for a while.  There was a medieval tower on the beach.  The kids saw their first topless sunbather at this beach too.  There were only 4-5 other people on the beach besides us, so we just went down the beach aways to have some privacy. The kids say that the Mediterranean Sea is not warm yet.  I'm guessing that we'd have to be farther from the Atlantic and more into the summer season.  We had snacks on the beach and enjoyed the sun before driving into Gibraltar.

When we crossed lines to Gibraltar, the signs were now all in English and we had to go through a passport check.  That was fine.  But then trying to find our Airbnb was the hardest thing ever.  The streets as you go up Gibraltar get smaller and smaller.  They are ALL one way as well so once you start going up, you can't come down until you get all the way up.  Since there were no legal parking places, I stayed with the car and Jer took the kids and luggage to get checked in.  First they couldn't find the place.  Then they couldn't find the key where it was supposed to be.  Then they found that there wasn't any toilet paper at the place.  First thing we did was go find a public car park and leave the van there for the next two nights.  Then we went to a grocery store and got toilet paper and breakfasts for the next two mornings. We had just enough time to get dinner before getting home and bathing everyone and doing homework. Jer had been joking about this restaurant that he saw on the map called the Clipper.  We figured it was too far away, but we just went down the block from the grocery store and it was the first restaurant that we came to.  It was like a Sunday dinner place.  Mashed potatoes and gravy. Stroganoff. Soup.   Then it was off up a million flights of stairs and to bed.

On our way to Gibraltar, we saw 4 or 5 of these random metal bulls on hills. 

This one legged pigeon was hanging out in the restaurant and no one cared.

The next day we spent the entire day getting up the rock of Gibraltar and wandering it.  We walked down to the cable car and visited the Trafalgar cemetery on the way.  That was a fun history lesson. Then we caught the cable car to the top.  The rock of Gibraltar is the only place in Europe that has wild monkeys.  You aren't allowed to touch them, but they are everywhere.  We found the skywalk and the suspension bridge after a little trial and error. We also found St. Michael's cave.  There was a strong mold smell coming from that one, so I sat outside while they explored.  They loved how they incorporated projectors on nature for some neat experiences. Then we had lunch at a little cafe at the top.  A monkey even came in and stole a stuffed souvenir monkey from the front desk.  They had to bribe it to drop the fake monkey with an apple. We then climbed all the way back down the mountain with stops to rest feet, and to check out the WWI guns on the rock face.

This german guy jumped in the picture because I was telling "Everyone get in the picture" to my kids.  He was so funny.  Him and his wife were visiting their son in Spain and decided to hop on down to Gibraltar to. I asked where they were from and he said, "The Black Forrest."

This was on the back of the sign as we walked by.  Does that look family Dad?

We all wanted to stay on the bridge longer because there was a nice breeze walking across it.