We have officially been in Spain for 24 hours and overall, we are doing well. I may split this post into two posts because I want to talk about our travels to get here but I also want to talk about our new home.
But let's start with the 24+ hours of travel to get to Southern Spain!
Our first flight was to New York early Saturday morning. Because we were traveling with five suitcases, one pack n play, one car seat, one stroller, and four carry on bags -- we arrived at the airport early. We easily made our way through security and hung out in the airport until it was time to board our plane.
We got to New York and had a five hour layover. We slowly made our way through the airport and because we had to switch terminals, we also had to go through security again. We weren't super happy about this because going through security sucks but with a baby it adds an extra challenge. Luckily I wear Serafina through the airport and I easily wore her through security for the second time that day. We ate dinner (or lunch depending on what time zone we were going with) and again just hung out in the airport. JFK was actually pretty nice (last time I was there it was under construction and was awful). My favorite part was the Honest Company vending machine! And Serafina took another nap, this time in the stroller.
{please excuse the crappy and dark cell phone photos!}
We boarded our next flight to Madrid with confidence, we just had a great first flight -- Serafina travels well, it was an overnight flight so we could all sleep, what could possibly go wrong? Oh man! Worst flight ever! It started when we were asked by multiple older Spanish woman why we weren't sitting at the bulkhead. Apparently, it is normal for families with babies to sit at the bulkhead so there is more space and many flights have pull down bassinets there as well (ours did not). I attempted to explain that we were just assigned these seats. They seemed generally annoyed we weren't at the bulkhead.
It continued from there when we were forced to put Serafina in her car seat (something we did not have to do on the flight to New York) for take off. She screamed and cried. I kept trying to tell the flight attendants and those around us that if I could just nurse her, she would stop crying. At this point, Serafina was still crying uncontrollably, I was crying, Trevor was visibly upset at well and I am pretty sure the whole plane hated us! Finally one flight attendant let us use a weird "baby seat belt" so that Serafina could sit in my lap but still be strapped in. We had never seen anything like it and I wish I had taken a picture but I was too focused on calming myself and Serafina down. It goes through your seat belt and then around the baby. She nursed during take off and did great. But then she refused to sleep and was exhausted. I have never been on an overnight transatlantic flight that didn't immediately serve dinner and then turn out the lights within the first hour of the flight. On this flight, the lights were kept on for almost half of the flight which did not help with the sleep issue. It was too stimulating for Serafina to sleep and so she cried. We tried everything but nothing really helped, she was overly tired and uncomfortable. Finally the lights were turned off and we were able to rock Serafina to sleep (all while singing the ABCs and standing in the aisle). But at this point, Trevor and I were so worked up, neither one of us really slept because we needed to calm down. We were so happy to finally be off the plane and in Madrid.
We easily made it through customs and made our way to another terminal for our final flight. Once again we had to go through security. A very nice Spanish version of TSA man took pity on us and let us go through the Express line. However, I had to take Serafina out of the carrier, we had to take all electronics out (but no liquids) and we just failed at this security go around. We kept forgetting various electronics that were in bags, our car seat wouldn't go through the x-ray machine -- it was a comedy of errors!
We finally made it through security and onto our next flight where the flight attendants could not have been nicer. We again had to use the baby seat belt but Serafina slept for about half of this flight. And was great the other half.
Our sponsor (the person that helps you with the transition) picked us up and got us to our hotel. We are staying right across from the beach (you do have to walk through a forest first) in a great one bedroom apartment style hotel room. They had a pack n play set up for us, with adorable linens and a pillow! We unpacked a little (this will be an on going process -- how to fit the contents of six suitcases and six carry ons in a hotel room), took a family nap and had dinner with our sponsor and his family.
And then we spend the whole night awake with a baby who is still on Seattle time. She napped here and there; we took turns attempting to sleep while the other watching the babe.... It was a long night. I finally really slept this morning about 7am when Serafina finally realized it was bedtime and has been sleeping ever since... it is currently 2:15pm in Spain. We have done everything we can to try and wake her up but she is exhausted. We are letting her sleep and will work on the new time tomorrow -- we are back at the newborn stage with extreme night/day confusion. This time with a toddler!
I went to the grocery store with our sponsor's wife so we have a few items to eat for the next few days. Trevor goes to work tomorrow so Serafina and I are on our own in a new place, new country and I don't speak the language. Should be entertaining! I plan to go on a lot of walks and hopefully work on our new daily routine/schedule.
We are exhausted, completely jet lagged, a little culture shocked but still very excited to start this new adventure.
Abby, I hope you, Trevor and Serafina all give each other huge pats on the back for making it through those flights (especially the second one!). You are amazing - enjoy getting to know your new city! <3
ReplyDeleteThanks Grace - miss you guys already!
DeleteWhat a 36 hours! You guys are amazing!
ReplyDeleteSTFU it's really happening! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
ReplyDeleteHa! Yep -- we left a week ago :) It's been insane but pretty awesome so far!
Delete