We head home - the long way

 So on Saturday morning (now about ten days ago) we left Valencia - kind of sad about leaving Spain- excited for our future and yet having some trepidation about hte long drive home from the storage facility that had our stuff in two lockers.  but we soldier on- 

The Valencia airport is really nice and a decent size- big enough but not too big... 

our flight departed mostly on time and arrived at London Gatwick mostly on time as well.  We walked to the Hilton (it was all undercover and not too bad a walk (seemed much faster coming back of course).  We checked in and because it was late afternoon but we had no lunch yet we decided to go to the bar and split a club sandwich (which was actually quite good) and a ceasar salad. Later that night we went to a local Italian place Zeno.  We had pastas - I think... it's all a blur of the travel days home. 

The next day was Easter Sunday so we met Lee & Angela at a local pub for a Sunday Roast - the King's Head was fine and the day was warm (for the UK) and SUNNY!  So after lunch we sat outside for a while in the sun at picnic tables the pub had in the back yard. They dropped us off and we went upstairs to pack. Later we grabbed a light dinner at the hotel restaurant (food was better in the lobby bar just FYI) 

We left on Monday morning for our flight back to Tampa. Weird since we don't live there anymore. The business class on this 777 by British Airways was horrific - with strange screens the flight attendants had to raise and lower to serve food to the inner seats. and no real lie flat beds just some strange hinged footrest that folded down from the seat in front of you... we hated it- the flight attendants hated it. It was barely more than glorified economy - unbelievably cramped

there is some woman hiding in that seat by the windows and every time she needed to get up she'd have to jump over the footrest of the seat of the row behind her... just awful! there was no storage for any items- even water bottles and the tray tables and TV were on the side of the seat not in front of you so every time you wanted to get up you would have to stow everything....just plain bizarre!

We arrived in Tampa late afternoon and went to the airport Marriott to check in - we had dinner early and then crashed.  We were up around 7 and off to get the giant SUV rental car (a Chevy Suburban 
XL) we chose it because it had the largest cargo capacity!) We drove to our storage lockers and unloaded the first one which went well except it was clear we were not going to get both the sotrage lockers emptied into one vehicle.  So, Phil took an Uber to the Sarasota airport to [ick up the reserved XL SUV we had there at around 10:40- hed was back in an hour and we loaded the rest of the things into SUV number 2 and stopped for lunch before getting on the road around 1:30.  We drove all the way to north of Atlanta - stopping in Cartersville GA for the night.

The next day we got into Chicago in the evening and unloaded Phil's vehicle - leaving mine for the following day to unload. We did that and returned the vehicles to a nearby HERTZ. Then beginning that Thursday we started finding places to stash all the extra stuff we now had unloaded..... aaaaacccckkkk

photo showing after unloading the five plastic bins of stuff (now stacked on the lower right hand side...LOL)

We ate at home for a few nights and went out for lunch on Saturday - walked to Don Pedro for Mexican food. John & Stephanie stopped by for a bit as they were in the neighborhood. Then we kept unpacking and putting things away... for days upon days - still working on it/ It's the 19th- we got home late on the 12th so a full week and counting...

However, in the interim we got new driver's licenses and transferred title to our cars to Illinois and got new registration and plates.  A big day and a long one- so we lost a day of unpacking productivity to that - but what can you do? 

slowly slowly slowly.... Sunday night we went out for chinese - to Chengdu impressions and had a nice meal. And Monday we had Pat's PIzza. Tuesday we did  the DMV tasks all day, which brings us to today - I went to the dentist (things here are soooo exciting!) 

So I hope to be fully unpacked by Saturday when we have our first social plans with friends. Meanwhile, I have gotten caught up on my bill paying and with the blog posting I needed to do and some photo stuff.  Next week - diving back into Spanish! 

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 At the dentists- the reception desk is very eye catching- 

the two textbooks I will be working with- my well worn Aula Plus and the recommended Portales 

so on we go- still chanting one step at a time as we go... sta tuned for more adventures!

between there and here

so we arrived home to Chicago late on Thursday night the 27th of December and today we are relaxing in warm weather in Florida so in between we had a whirlwind couple of days of preparing for being away for three months. 

we did laundry and did catching up on work (even I did a little bit of work) we packed, we shipped boxes, we cleared as much as we could from the frig... the usual stuff...

then on the night before we left, we celebrated ringing in the New Year (OMG 2013!) at Goosefoot with Chris and Nina and a few others who were invited for the evening. 

here is the menu- and the food- following the order of the menu:

the wines we had:

then a few festive photos - a bit grainy as I used no flash...

the next day we got up and got on the road- we drove as far as about 50 miles north of Atlanta the first day.  that meant that on day two we could stop for lunch in Cordele GA for our BBQ favorite Smoakies BBQ a mile off the interstate on Cemetery Road LOL-

here are a few photos:

we arrived to the new house around 6:30 PM Wednesday night and went to pick our stuff up at the storage locker and started unpacking. The next day we went to Costco and then Friday we did grocery shopping and now we are ready to begin our Florida time. 

We started that with a trip to our favorite Italian place last night Cafe Baci - where we each had our own favorites - Veal Parm for Phil and lasagna for me-

we also got to catch up a bit with Lorraine - a buddy who works there, and Michael (one of the owners) who was just back from New Zealand as well (honeymooning!)

so soon I will be back working on the trip blog posts but meanwhile I wanted to catch up on the in between time...

groceries

perhaps I failed to mention the family curse- LOL- in the way of curses this one may not seem so bad but to the women in my immediate family- of which we lost 66.6% in 2010- we always referred to grocery shopping as the family curse.  my husband's family has one as well- the breaking of glasses and/or dishes (by someone else) when having a restaurant meal.  but back to groceries, in our family it seemed for a long time like whenever the women were together (for holidays or such) there was a need to visit the grocery store at least once a day. 

of course now that my mother and sister have died I am somewhat freed from the curse because there is no way for the three of us (or even two of us) to be together in the same place anymore.  but this week the curse has come back with a vengeance.  so that is where I have been.  we arrived Saturday evening and on Sunday we went to the Winn-Dixie (the only place open on Christmas Day.)  on Monday we went to Costco where I was subjected to cell phone buying as well as groceries (this took no less than a full hour to get the cell phone thing accomplished.)  then on Tuesday it was not really groceries but we did go to a store with groceries that we didn't buy- and three other stores as well. 

I am not a shopper AT ALL and so this is some new record for me - Wednesday we went to the farmer's market for fruits and vegetables and then Thursday to the Publix grocery.  which brings us to today- possibly my first shopping free day in nearly a week. 

oh  and did I forget to mention that in the same few days I have also "shopped" for a new place to live next year?  stopping by six places to see the apartments available and get a feel for locations - and even though this is off the topic of shopping I feel compelled to alert everyone to the fact that the apartment complexes in mid Florida use airline pricing systems for their apartments - yield management (the bane of flyer's existence) has now come to real estate... horrifying concept.

so anyway- back to the week and the horrors of shopping- the upside is we now have plenty of food and I have a new cell phone to replace my four plus year old Blackberry and we have a new wine rack to hold the wine we bought at Costco.  and so we are settling in for our weeks away from home and so are the cats.  so here are some relevant photos of the week-

the new phone- actually pretty easy to use all things considered-

the new wine rack- it took four stores to find it!

flowers in bloom on December 29th- on the way to lunch---

the view from the deck-

we have had one grey day (below) and the rest have been beautiful and sunny like the above shot-

Penny enjoying the screened porch

I have a really lovely photo of a sunrise on the water but it is in RAW and I have yet to figure out how to get it into jpeg to post- will work on that one... meanwhile - we are thinking lunch outside today- December 30th...

lot of photos of anna maria island

this is a book I made for my mom after my dad died and she was getting closer to leaving the island.  she made eight copies so she could give them to her friends.  I think it really gives a feel for the island- it is a special place that has mostly escaped the big development of the Florida coasts and still holds a sense of going back in time to a beach resort area of decades ago- I hope you enjoy the photos. 

Click here to view this photo book larger