Kevin and Jessie's World Travel's: Always an Adventure!

On Thursday, August 11 Kevin and I began a 3 week trip over the pond. We flew from Colorado Springs to Dallas, Dallas to Madrid, and Madrid to Malaga, Spain. About 2 hours into our flight to Madrid, the captain came on the intercom and informed us that a problem with the plane’s navigation system would prevent us from continuing our trip across the Atlantic, so we made an emergency landing in NYC. We were greeted with emergency crews, police, and fire trucks (the problem was not that bad, I guess it is just protocol to send the crews when a plane makes an unplanned landing). We unloaded our first plane, received two $12 food and drink vouchers, got some snacks, and were loaded on our new plane within an hour and a half. The process was actually much easier than I expected it to be, and we received 5,000 bonus miles for the inconvenience. Our flight continuation was uneventful and we landed in Madrid only about 2 hours later than originally scheduled. Fortunately, we had a very long layover scheduled – 5 hours to be exact, and with the delay, the layover was much more tolerable (only 3 hours). We flew from Madrid to Malaga and arrived at our hotel around 6pm on Friday, August 12. We showered and went out to grab some dinner – a fabulous Burger King dinner (it was right next to the hotel and if we wanted anything authentic we would have had to walk about 25 minutes) – and then fell asleep early!

Our unplanned stop in NYC.

Saturday, August 13: We woke up on Saturday morning and went to the ship. We worked until about 1:30pm, went back to the hotel to shower and pack, and then checked-out of the hotel at 3pm. We really didn’t have much time in Malaga so we did not get to see much of the town, but from what we saw last time (June) we weren’t missing much. We flew to Palma de Mallorca, Spain that evening and arrived at our hotel around 8:00pm (we spent almost an hour at the airport trying to exchange currency). This was a brand new city for us so we decided to go out and explore – and try to find a place to exchange currency since we were unsuccessful at the airport (what international airport doesn’t exchange US currency?). I did not do any research about Mallorca before we arrived so I did not have any idea what to expect, but on our way to the hotel we passed this incredible Gothic cathedral so I decided we would go there – when Kevin and I travel together it is almost always my responsibility to plan our adventures and I leave the food aspect of things to him. We walked about 25 minutes from our hotel to The Cathedral and were once again unsuccessful at finding an open exchange office (we found one, but it was closed before 9pm). Instead, we decided to eat. We found this neat little restaurant near The Cathedral and ordered a large beer and a large sangria, along with a pizza and pasta. The sangria was AWESOME!! It came out with about 15 different colored straws in it that were about 2-3 feel long. It was quite an experience to drink! Thank goodness the drinks were good and fun, because the food was less than desirable….I would definitely go back for another massive sangria though! After dinner, we briefly walked around The Cathedral and then went back to the hotel around 11:30.

The view of the Cathedral on our walk from our hotel.

My massive Sangria...the straws were SO AWESOME!

Isn't he so handsome!?!

I couldn't resist this one!

Sunday, August 14: On Sunday morning we went to our second ship of the trip and this time worked until about 11:30. We got back to the hotel around noon, arranged to check out at 4pm and went back to The Cathedral. We were still on the hunt for a currency exchange, but settled for an ATM instead - that was enough to at least get us back to the airport. We shopped a little (I bought a new bag) explored The Cathedral in the daylight, and then went to an Irish bar for some drinks and nibbles – it was SO HOT and a pint of something good was just what we needed. We went back to the hotel to shower, since we were sweating so much in the heat and humidity, and went back to the airport for our flight to Venice, by way of Barcelona, at 6pm. If you have lost count, we were in 10 airports and 7 different cities in 4 days! It was crazy! We landed in Venice around 10:30pm on Sunday evening for another ship on Monday morning.