Thanksgiving Trip

Happy Holidays! This is what I like to call the crazy season. As Christmas nears I get more and more nuts. This year I’m trying to step back and just enjoy the spirit of Christmas. And if everything doesn’t get done perfectly that’s ok, right? (Mom, why did you raise me to be such a perfectionist?)

We had a fun and eventful November. The big thing was our Thanksgiving trip. It is difficult to get good, cheap flights within the US this time of year so, as usual, we went somewhere else. (It’s a good thing we didn’t try Idaho, because we probably would have been held up by the snow, always a risk out there in winter. One night in the Malad middle school is enough for me!) Anyway Scott had a trip to Spain all planned out for us. Remember how he said travel would slow down after our flight benefits ran out? Ha! He’s traveling so much for work that he has a ton of frequent flyer miles and hotel points, so we can still get around and satisfy his wanderlust.

The flight to Madrid was fine until we were landing and Meredith threw up all over Scott. It was awful, and he couldn’t take her to the bathroom because the seatbelt sign was on and we were about to touch down. Very messy and smelly. Otherwise it was ok and Noah did quite well. We had a long layover and then a flight to Malaga (only an hour) and about an hour’s drive to Marbella, where we stayed. We stayed in a 2 bedroom condo - - it was so nice to have a kitchen and laundry! It was late so we went to bed, trying to stave off jet lag. It worked pretty well, and the kids slept soundly. Meredith really did great sleeping-wise.

The next day we kind of had a lazy day recovering from the flying. It was nice to just hang out together. We’d given Noah “Toy Story 3” as an early birthday present and he watched it about a million times. He just loved it, and it was fun to see him enjoying it. Noah is very active when he watches movies, he uses his toys to act out the scenes and sings along with the music - - it’s really cute.

For dinner we went into Marbella and ate at a delicious Lebanese restaurant. Wonderful food! I’m so glad my kids are adventurous about eating! I hope Meredith grows up to be as good an eater as her brothers. After dinner we wandered around the town and looked in the shops. Marbella is right on the coast and is a very popular place with wealthy Europeans, especially those from England. The shops were very expensive, but I was still tempted by the darling baby clothes (I resisted).

In the morning we went to a little town called Ronda, which is famous because it is built around a very deep ravine. Pretty amazing views! The places we visited on this trip were a fair distance away, one to two hours, but we didn’t mind the drive. We’d rented a mini-van, and Noah had the back seat to himself, where he quietly played with his stuffed animals and drew. Meredith and Ethan had the middle seat, and Ethan’s ipod kept him happy. And Scott had his GPS, which made us both happy.

The next morning we went to the Alhambra. I’d read about it but really didn’t know what to expect. It was amazing! The tilework was beautiful. We spent a good amount of time wandering around the gardens. We got to take a tour inside, but we had to make it kind of quick because Mer got fussy. The ceilings were pretty spectacular. We also met a nice young man from England (Leeds) who took a cute picture of Noah and Meredith and later emailed it to us. We always meet such nice people when we travel!

One thing you can easily get in Spain is good pizza, pasta, and gelato, so that’s what we had for dinner. When we eat out with Noah and Meredith it is usually a pretty fast meal. We have to be able to make a quick getaway in case of an outburst. One of the things we do when we travel is take along Trivial Pursuit cards and ask questions during the meal. We make up animal questions for Noah, and he loves to answer them.

The next day was Wednesday, and we didn’t do a lot until the afternoon. We’d brought games and we had internet access. Scott and Ethan went swimming with Meredith and Noah went to the kids’ club, which gave me some time to work on my paper for my class. (I’m still working on it, it’s due December 17th.) This was the first trip where I brought along my Kindle, and it was wonderful! No heavy backpack full of paperback books! I really enjoy it for travel, although I like regular books when I’m at home. One problem with the Kindle is a lot of the books you download have typos - - one of them was entirely unreadable. Anyway in the afternoon we went to the town Mijas, which was very cute, and had a nice dinner. It was fun walking around together.

On our trip I got a little owie, Meredith bonked the back of her head into my eyebrow bone, leaving me with quite a shiner. It looks like I’ve got very vibrant green and purple eyeshadow on. And it’s still there, almost 2 weeks later! When Noah sees it he says, “yook!”

Thursday was Thanksgiving. We’ve had some unusual Thanksgivings, and this was no different. We got up early-ish and went to Gibraltar. It is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. Its isthmus connects to the north with Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region and about 40,000 people live there. The Rock itself is pretty amazing, it is huge! It ended up being most cost effective to hire a tour guide to drive us (we didn’t take our car there, we parked it in Spain. You have to go through customs to get into Gibraltar.) Our guide was very nice and knowledgeable. We first went to some neat caves with lots of stalactites and stalagmites. Then we went to an area where we saw the famous apes of Gibraltar (they are Barbary apes). They were very friendly and we had to hold the little kids back a little. I was nervous, having been menaced by monkeys twice before, but this time they left me alone. We got some great pictures.
Next we visited another set of caves which were used during WWI and WWII. The whole area had been made into a museum, which was quite interesting. Our guide took us back to the main square where we had lunch and then spent some time shopping. Everything was very expensive, but it was fun to look! When it came time to go back we had to cross an active runway. This was Scott’s favorite part of the trip. There is only one runway at the airport there, and only a few flights a day go in and out. So a large street crosses the runway and they shut it down when a plane is landing or taking off. Pretty cool!

After a long day we were too tired to go out to eat (and I doubt the kids would have made it). The hotel had a Thanksgiving dinner special, but it was very expensive, and we’d had breakfast at the restaurant there and it wasn’t all that great. So instead we went to the grocery store and bought bread and crackers and cheese and salami and fruit and cookies and ice cream. Ultrafeast! A non-traditional but very fun Thanksgiving dinner, and we counted our blessings. We truly are so thankful for our family and for the gospel.

Our visit to Morocco was the best day. We had to drive to Terife, Spain, where there was a ferry that took us across the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier. Morocco is part of Africa, and we were able to take pictures at the northernmost point of the continent. Our guide met us when we got off the very, a very nice man named Aziz. He also was the guide for Rick Steves, who has a travel show, and we actually saw an episode they did about Spain and Morocco and Aziz was in it! He really bonded with Noah and later sent us a couple of very sweet emails, including one to Noah for his birthday.

Ethan’s favorite place was Morocco, because the movie “The Bourne Ultimatum” had several scenes filmed there. Aziz and our driver (Mohammad) had both worked on the set of the movie, so they took us to all the spots, including a café, a place where a car bomb exploded, and the scene of a rooftop chase (Ethan and Scott actually got to go up to the rooftop!) It was very exciting for him!

Morocco is a very interesting country. It is a mixture of many cultures and religions. Officially it is an Islamic country, but Aziz pointed out a Catholic church and a Jewish synagogue before we came to our first mosque. The official language is Arabic, second is French (there is a lot of French influence there, and the street signs are in both Arabic and French). The third most common language is Spanish, and the fourth is English. The people there were all very friendly, and they were entranced by Meredith and her blond hair. One little girl came right up to her and kissed her on the cheek! And people were very friendly to Noah as well.

Aziz drove us through some of the wealthy areas, past where the king of Morocco has a palace (the capital is Rabat, which is where the main palace is.) For many years Tangier didn’t have a great reputation, but over the past 10 years, since the king came into power, it has undergone great changes, a big clean-up and more new construction than I’ve ever seen anywhere. There is a lot to recommend it as a tourist destination, including beautiful preserved land and pristine beaches.

On the side of the road was a “camel stand” for tourists - - you paid a few euros and got to ride a camel. There were 3 big ones and a baby (cute!) So of course we stopped, and Scott and Meredith, Noah and I, and Ethan all rode the 3 big camels. We got some great pictures and it was very fun. Afterwards Aziz said he’d take us to the best restrooms in Tangier to freshen up. Turns out he knew the owner of a gorgeous small hotel, and we got to go in and use the facilities (which were as lovely as promised.) Aziz seemed to know just about everybody; he was a wonderful guide. Ethan was happy because it was the same hotel where Matt Damon stayed during the filming of the Bourne movie.

We visited some very interesting ancient caves next. They are called the Hercules caves, and the outermost part was formed naturally. But the inner rooms were made by early people carving out huge flat circular stones to grind grains. You could see where some partially carved out stones were. It was fascinating.

We had lunch at a very typical Moroccan restaurant - - the most delicious couscous with a topping of vegetables and raisins, of all things. They were boiled and very sweet and tasty. We also had chicken and lamb kabobs. Then to work off our feast we walked around the downtown, including a neat outdoor market (there were plucked, headless chickens hanging up, causing Noah to ask, “What happened?”) Really cool displays of many different types of olives. The climate there is very temperate and they can grow all kinds of fruits and veggies.

Our last stop was a rug shop. It was kind of a hard sell, but we enjoyed it anyway. Meredith just roamed around on the carpets, while we learned about the different types and styles. Scott was a great haggler and we bought a small rug for a very good price, a nice souvenir of our trip that is now in the music room. We really enjoyed ourselves, especially Noah, who pretended he was selling rugs too. We were sorry to say goodbye, it was such a fun day!

We were so lucky, weatherwise, on this trip. Almost every day rain was forecast, but we didn’t get rained on at all. On the day we went to Morocco it rained as we were driving to Terife, then stopped the whole time we were out. About 5 minutes after we got back into our car to go back to the hotel it started pouring. It did rain all day the next day, but we’d planned on having a lazy day and just hanging out at the hotel anyway, so it was fine.

So our Saturday was a lazy day and then the next day we flew home. Our flights were uneventful - - but here’s a tip: never fly Iberian airlines. The food was inedible and the service was poor. Both Meredith and Noah behaved themselves, although Mer only slept about 30 minutes on the 9-hour flight. Wow, were we beat when we got home! Now we’re on reverse jet lag, where we fall asleep early and wake up at 4 or 5:00. I get so much done in the mornings, but I’m pretty useless after about 7:00 p.m. We’re finally unpacked and getting into the swing of the holiday season. We wish you all joy as you prepare for Christmas. Remember the reason we celebrate this holiday!