As of today, we have 2 months and 8 days before we leave for Spain! It seems both excruciatingly far away and ridiculously around the corner, depending on the day.
My friend Casey just returned from a week’s visit to Madrid, and I shamelessly stalked her Instagram feed for her lovely photos.
The first order of business in prepping for this trip was to make sure we could actually take the children with us legally, which meant a Saturday morning in line at the post office to apply for passports. These are the things technology and bribery are made for. The passports arrived yesterday. Now to make sure we don’t lose them before the big day.
Next up was buying our plane tickets. You know, I’m so thankful that we live in a land of infinite choices … except when it comes to decisions like these. What’s a good price? What’s a bad price? What’s the likelihood the fare will increase in the next 7 days? How much time is adequate for a layover? What’s the best city to fly out of? We were either going to buy a plane ticket or get divorced, and I wasn’t sure which would be more painful or cost less. Thankfully it will be customs over divorce court. Kudos to Mike for not leaving me and for finding us an amazing deal.
Now that we have dates, we can earnestly begin the rest of our planning. Mike will stay for close to 3 weeks, and the kids and I will stay another 11 days. It seems I have a little reading to do:
Besides planning our exact itinerary, we are bound and determined to learn as much Spanish as possible before we leave. We tried a few free programs, both online and from the library, but didn’t love any of them. We ended up biting the bullet and buying Rosetta Stone 
Eli: helado (ice cream)
Elena: pepita de pollo (chicken nugget)
Mike: ¿Donde está el casino más circano? (Where is the nearest casino?)
Me: ¿Donde es la cerveza más cercana? (Where is the nearest beer?)
We should be good, no?
I’m 100% prepared to overload myself with information, so if you have any tips, advice, or awesome resources for traveling with kids to Spain or Europe, send ’em my way!
Those are all great phrases, until you don’t understand the answers… A la isquerdua, uh what?
I like “entendo un poco de espanol pero no hablo muy bueno”
I understand a little Spanish, but I don’t speak well.
Don’t forget to brush up on your soccer (or football) knowledge before the the World Cup begins in June. (Spain won it in 2010.) So, pick a player, buy a jersey, and become a fan. We found it great fun to go to a little hole in the wall pub in London and root on our favorite players in the last Women’s World Cup. By the way, where are you going in the UK?
Good idea! Eli will especially love the soccer atmosphere, since he just started playing soccer. We’d like to visit London, and we hope to include any Harry Potter-related sites nearby. Any suggestions?
Ha ha ha! Sounds like your phrases are perfect! 🙂