This morning we get up really early to get to the airport. Our flight leaves at 6:40 AM. We are so efficient that we end up standing in line for almost half and hour waiting for the TSA people to arrive. I use the extra time to help Clark and Lewis brush up on their Portuguese.
The flight to Miami is very bumpy. As it turns out the flight to Madrid is very bumpy as well but while the American Airline pilot would barely let us out of our seats at all, the Iberian Airlines pilot is much less stringent. The business class section of the plane is less than a half full and really very spacious. The seats recline until they are flat. I am able to sleep some but John is not.
We are served some interesting food. When the flight attendants first come around they ask if we would like nuts or olives. So we get two cupsful of olives. They are good but way too much all by themselves.
I think the best part of dinner is the salad plate which consists of smoked salmon, a bitter salad, hearts of palm and a veal consomme.
We choose duck for the second course. Lewis is appalled.
Surprisingly as we land at about 7:40 AM it is completely dark outside, not even a glimmer of sunrise to the east. Spain is really far west in the central European time zone. Portugal is in a different time zone.
Then my suitcase does not arrive. One by one people pick up their luggage. Finally we are the only ones left. The carousel stops. Oh uh, this is not good. We go to the window of lost luggage. They suggest we check carousel 6. It is apparently the carousel where the put errant bags. Thank goodness mine is there. It is good we are not in a hurry this morning.
We pick up the rental car and then we cannot get our GPS, Jack, to work. He cannot find his satellites. We drive for a while in what turns out to be the wrong direction. Finally I change his clock setting (which is supposed to be done automatically) and, voila, he is working again. Some more time is lost but as I said we are not in a hurry.
Now it is October 18 and that will have to wait for another entry because I am tired out and going to bed.