We’re off to Europe to celebrate our 35th Anniversary!! – The Beginning

Following the Christmas holiday Helen and I decided we needed to do something different to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary. So we decided we would take a cruise and never wanting to do the simple thing. We chose a cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean on the Norwegian Jade (http://www.ncl.com/cruise-ship/jade).

The only issues being that the cruise left out of Rome and ended 2 days before our Anniversary. So I would solve the easy issue by convincing Helen to stay in Rome for 4 additional days after the cruise at the Marriott Gran Flora Hotel.  Because of the cost of the hotel I knew I would have to have a good argument for why we should stay at this hotel for such an expensive rate. I spent hours preparing my argument, doing lots of research on Tripadvisor and other sites until I was ready. So I turned to Helen on the couch and began to introduce the idea of staying in Rome at this particular hotel and said

“Sweetheart, I think we should extend our stay by 4 days in Rome so we can be celebrate our anniversary. Also I found us a real nice hotel, it’s expensive but it is a Marriott and I think we would like it.”

She Said “okay” and went back to her IPad.

Now the second issue was getting to Rome. I admit I am a bit spoiled when it comes to air travel, and vowed never again to fly coach to Europe. Naturally tickets in to Rome were over $3,000 per person. So I needed to find a cheaper way to get to Rome. Thank god for my Skyscanner app, it makes the hunting that much easier. Well for some unknown reason one day Madrid pops into my mind, so I look and I can save over $1,000 per person if we fly in an out of Madrid. And checking into RyanAir, lo and behold it’s less the $200 to fly Roundtrip from Madrid to Rome. So I looked at Helen and said we are going to Madrid!! So I book our flights on KLM and we are ready to go.

We drove down the night before and stayed at the LAX Marriott where we woke up the next morning to catch our flight to Madrid. Since we were flying on an international carrier I made sure to allow us extra time to get through ticketing and security. Unfortunately as we prepared to leave the airport I get a notice from KLM that our flight is being delayed by a couple of hours. So now we have LOTS of time to get through screening. About an hour later we get an e-mail from Air France that tells us that our flight will be leaving at 3:00 pm. Which is strange since we are flying there on KLM. That is until the note from KLM arrives 10 minutes later and tells us our flight has been cancelled.

Going through security in the Bradley Terminal we entered shop area and I have to admit it was pretty cool. There was a tower that displayed videos and pictures.

We eventually boarded our flight and prepared for the journey.

Being the smart, thoughtful, and cautious man that I am; I decided that on the trip over I was not going to be gluten free, as a test on my sensitivity.  After all I am on a French airline, can you imagine how good the food and the bread is going to be?! So I started with a good scotch and then had a roll with my appetizer and then a roll with my dinner and then I became violently nauseous. And like Rosanne Rosanna Danna I thought I was going to die!! Needless to say I freaked Helen out and she got zero sleep as she kept checking on me.  Fortunately after a couple of hours it began to pass and by the time we landed I was fine. I guess I at leased proved that I need to stay away from Gluten.

When we landed in Paris, we had to change flights so we  tramped off the plane with everyone else and began to follow the herd. They made a few announcements that we couldn’t understand. But what’s it matter, after all they will have signs we can follow, We thought…

After getting lost once, we finally managed to make it to our terminal where we fortunately had an uneventful flight to Madrid. We landed in Madrid where our driver picked us up and took us into the city, straight to our Hotel.

Next up – I know why they call it Madrid.