Disaster!!!!!!!!!

"When in Rome, do as the Romans" is a very popular saying. Well it appears that this translates for us to "When flying with Iberia, lose all your luggage, stand in line for hours to deal with rude and unresponsive customer service agents, and then plan on the rest of your trip without your bags."

Had we known this before we flew, perhaps we wouldn´t have used British Airways who so graciously handed us off to them in London on our way here. Not only did they hand us off to them, they got us there so late that we had to run to make our connecting flight. So no normal airline could get our bags there on time if they tried. But then add in that Iberia is in the midst of some severe luggage crisis, where some 6 weeks ago they had a strike and no less than 20,383 seperate customers with lost luggage, with at this point only 8,000 of them having actually recieved their luggage 6 weeks later... Well you get the point.

So it is day four, and still no luggage in sight. We are in Granada. Last night they informed us that one of my bags is set to fly to another city that is 2 hours away from us today, the other set to follow - maybe. As for Laura´s bags, they litterally have no idea where they are. Someone from British airways on tuesday told us they are in Spain, but besides that no one knows anything.

Besides that the trip has been great! We have gotten to do a lot of shopping, considering they are to repay us some 110 euros each day that our luggage is still missing. So we have a whole new set of clothes bought as cheaply as possible. I am wearing some very strange european underwear that I would rather not discuss. I also purchased my first man bag. I have never carried a purse before, but they are very convenient when you are walking around town. =^)

No pictures yet for you. We cannot connect to the internet at the hotel for some reason. So we are doing this from an internet cafe in Granada. Everything here has been beautiful. The car is great, the town is incredible, and you will love the pictures once I can post them. Today we go to a place called "the Alhambra" which is an ancient church and grounds that looks very pretty in the pictures. Tomorrow we head out to Ronda and the Andaluccian Hill towns, which are supposed to be amazing. We adjusted to the time change pretty quickly, so that hasn´t bothered us. After we got over the fact that we have to buy everything new, and just decided to assume that we may never see our luggage again, everything has been much more relaxing.

Goodbye - For Now

So this will be our last post before we leave for Spain!

Monday at 12 noon we will leave for the airport, and then I am not sure how frequently during the first month we will be able to make posts. We are going to take one of our computers with us while we travel, so hopefully we can get something off a couple of times a week. If you don't remember what our itinerary is, you can reference it here Final-Trip-Illustrated

For those of you who are wondering, we still haven't received Laura's scores from her National Boards Exam Part II. This is a disappointment, since we had hoped they would come by now, but we will keep you posted as soon as we hear anything.

Today was a fun day. Laura and I took her nieces and nephews to Hurricane Harbor, and besides the long lines and hot sun, it was a great time.

At one point we had to just give up on the rides. They weren't really worth the wait anyway, but luckily the kids were much happier jumping around in the different pool jungle gyms. I have a bunch of pictures for you here.


This is us leaving the park. We had to leave a bit early, about 3:30, because we had so much more to do to prepare.


So the day was great. On a sadder note we have to say Goodbye to Buster today. We are unfortunately unable to bring him with us to Spain due to some new extremely overpriced plane regulations. Since it would have cost over $1,200 to bring him to take him round trip, we decided to let him stay at Laura's parents house, where he is generally very happy anyway.

I just remembered that I promised you a picture of my new suits today. I took one, but they don't look too impressive this way - mostly because it is a bad picture and I dont have time to figure out how to make it look better. But I will post them anyway for you to see. They look pretty good when I put them on, I will say that.

Goodbye Buster, and Goodbye everyone else who we will miss while we are away. Please post comments and send us emails whenever you can, we would love to hear from you. Don't hesitate to skype us at timlaura or timmccormack (those are our two skype addresses, the first for Laura's computer, and the second for my laptop).

Not sure what else to say. I guess I had better get back to work so that we can leave here on-time tomorrow.

Talk to you all soon!!!