The Amazing Race Part I

Readers Warning: Very long due to documentation and emotional drain process - read at your own will.

I need to write down the rest of our Spain Adventure, it has taken me a while to do it for various reasons - the fact that since we got back it was a crazy time to just get back into life, in the last 4 weeks I've had 4 sets of visitors staying at our house - 3 within in 10 days (including babysitting 2 more toddlers), lots of laundry, and the emotional scarring the journey home really left upon us!

So here we go....

While we were in the van on our private tour to Rhonda on Thursday we got a message from Mike's assistant telling us about the volcano. We thought - wow - but surely it will clear up and things would be fine for our flight home Sunday - boy are we lucky we aren't scheduled to go home tomorrow! (Friday)

Every TV station had grim reports of the volcano - we were transfixed. People were coming in and out of the lobby - no one knew what to do, what was going to happen, when or how they would get home. Surely by Sunday we would be okay.

Friday - we took a taxi - well 2 taxis into Downtown Marbella - it was wonderful - the center was called the Orange Square - little shops, a courtyard that was curved around so you would lose your place, all the buildings were white and there was a giant Catholic church at the center. They paint the buildings white and close together to keep them cool. We had a nice lunch in the center of town and headed back to the resort. It was hard to enjoy the rest of our vacation because of the uncertainty we faced. I don't think people realized how stressful it had all was. Mike & I went for a Tapas dinner and left the kids in charge with frozen pizzas & a movie! They loved it.

Saturday we played ping pong and went swimming in the indoor pool with the kids - saw more people unsure of their situation. People weren't leaving - nor were new people coming in. The hotel could accommodate us longer if we needed at 200 euros/night - which was nice for a 3 bedroom condo! Our flights were officially canceled at that point - and we spend hours and hours on the internet.

The problem was we couldn't get out of Spain.

Train tickets to London were outrageous - Malaga to Madrid, Madrid to Paris, Eurostar or Ferry to London - It would cost over 500 Euros PER PERSON for the Madrid to Paris leg alone. That didn't even include the cost of what the Eurostar might have been.

Renting cars was excessive, but you were not allowed to drive them out of Spain or they'd charge a 5,000 Euro one way fee.... (for a van) which didn't even include the cost to rent or fuel it.

For those Euro-geographically challenged, Malaga is pretty much the most south you could get in Spain - they only had 2 ferries a week that left from the North of Spain (Santander) to Portsmouth (1 hour from my house) or Plymouth (3 hours). All the rest were out of France. You just couldn't get easily out of Spain. At least out of places like Germany, Italy, France you could try to get a train more readily - out of the Nordic countries you could take other ferries - or be like John Cleese - he paid a taxi driver 3,000 EU to drive him from Brussels to Calais, France to take a ferry!!

We looked at all the routes - everyone was doing the exact same thing - people looked defeated,
the resort was quiet - no one was 'enjoying' themselves - everyone was in a silent panic. Everyone spent their waking moments on the Internet. There was no information coming from anywhere - not the news, not governments, not the hotel, not the airlines - nothing. People were renting all the cars, booking all the trains, new flights for later in the week - things that normally cost 30-40 EU were costing 300-400 EU. The increase of the cost was shocking. The greed and preying on people stranded was at an extremely heightened level.

Everyone had a story - we were all in the same boat - we all had places to get back to in England strangely enough. We met far many more people than we had just being on holiday for a simple week's pleasure.

We were lucky - we had outside help - Mike's Assistant Preet back in the UK looked at things online for us, helped us book & cancel so many alternatives - I can't even keep track of how many reservations we had for various routes. We tried:

-Train from Malaga to Madrid, Madrid to Paris, Paris to Calais, Calais to Folkstone
-Renting a van to drive to Santander - take a ferry to Plymouth or Portsmouth
-Take a train to Santander - to take a ferry to P/P
-Rent a van to drive to Bilbao take ferry
-Rent 2 cars - drive to San Sebastian, Spain - return cars - taxi to Bairritz, France to rent 2 more cars - drive to Caen, France for a ferry to Portsmouth
-Rebooked flights on 2 carriers (I couldn't book 7 on one flight) but the following Saturday
And these are the ones I can remember.....

Then we heard of a bus - Malaga to Gatwick......surely no one would take that...

Spain Safari Park & Ronda

Here are a few more pictures of the safari park

This peacock was following the photographers around - it was so funny it was in true peacock fashion - hey look at me!

Chandler's new girlfriend

A real Roadrunner!
They are from Australia and have hair, not feathers and not fur and their feet are huge! But they are fast runners...meep meep

Ronda is the place with the oldest Bull Ring in Spain - there are 2 bridges that bring people in & out of town as the town is basically build on a gorge... it was beautiful.... what I thought was really funny were all of the French Tourists.. every time I turned around there was a guide describing things in French

Down below the old bridge

Spain

Once we finally got home from our extended vacation it has really taken me a week to recover, mentally and the house physically! So I will try to continue to document!! I'm having trouble uploading pictures - so I'm having little patience with blogspot the last few days. Here are actually pictures to go with the last post...


When we first arrived - the beach in front of our hotel/condo looking into the Mediterranean Sea - out beyond - Straight of Gibralter & due south - Africa

The weather wasn't the most cooperative when we were in Spain - from Marbella on a clear day you can see into Africa - we contemplated taking the kids on a Tour to Tanger (Tangier) but the more honest people we met - or not so much 'honest' just not the people who wanted to take our money - suggested it wasn't such a great spot for taking kids. So we planned on doing things around the area instead.
Giant Chess set where the boys spent lots of time

Indiana Jones Bridge

Safari Park

Eyjafjallajoekull

That is the name of the Volcano that is causing so much havoc in our travels home. But I need to document from the beginning. We started the week after Easter nicely - we left for Malaga, Spain on April 11 for a much needed vacation to sunny weather. We had this trip planned for a long time and we heard such great things about Malaga/Marbella and the Marriott Resort here.

Funny how best laid plans can go awry...

Our place was terrific - 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, washer dryer, beach, pools, kids club, fitness room - we forgot to ask for some sun! We just assumed being in the South of Spain it would be nice - granted it might be cool since it isn't quite summer but we didn't expect Thunder and Lightening Storms!

Warning - this is more for me to remember and document so sorry if it is really boring! Oh and I forgot my camera cord on vacation so I have to wait until I get back for some photos!!

The first day we just tried to get our barrings and enjoy the resort - we sent the boys into the kids club for some fun and games (I'm sure Chandler was so excited) but hey, they had Playstation, Wii - what else could boys want!

We found the market - found the giant sized chess set can you say lifesaver? - , both indoor pools (one for adults only - funny Mike & I never found time to enjoy it!) outdoor pools, playground, ping pong tables. We had a great time after dinner playing chess on the giant board as a family - it started with Ian & Chandler playing each other, but then Mike tried to help Ian - so of course I couldn't let Chandler not have any help! We won in the end - but I'm sure the game lasted an extra half hour because we were really working on our strategy!

The second day we decided to try to figure out how to get to Selwo Aventura Estepona - it was an animal adventure park. Actually before we left there was an Artesian Fair at the Marriott - we were lucky we didn't have to go off-site for our art market! We got a couple skirts for the girls and a cloth purse for mom, bargain only €5.

The adventure park was really fun you had to ride all of these giant jeeps to get around the park. One of the highlights was the Inidana Jones Bridge - it was just as wobbly! They had all kinds of animals and it wasn't all that crowded as the kids in Spain were back to school.

Wednesday we took a couple taxis and went into Old Town Marbella - sometimes on vacation it is hard for the Cranes to get going before 11 - so here we have to hurry to see anything because of Siesta Time which is about 2-5 so everything closes. We went to the Plaza de los Naranjos - Orange Tree Square - lots of shops, lots of churches and lots of restaurants. Pretty pricey but worth going to see. We had a nice lunch there - yummy seafood but the kids got Spaghetti - didn't seem very Spanish to me! When we came home Tyler and I went to a Paella cooking demonstration back here at the hotel. Yummmy!

Thursday we arranged for a private tourguide to drive us to Ronda - if you ever come here and stay at the Marriott - Francisco is your man! Of course when we started that was the day it started to rain pretty hard - the other days so far had just been overcast and not that warm. We had to go through the mountains and the rain and fog were so thick! Normally you could see into Africa from up there but we weren't that lucky. At least for that portion of the trip - once we got to the other side - blue skies!! It was beautiful in the valley.

Ronda is a little town of about 10K I think Francisco said - it really is only open during the day for the few hours the tourists come in by the bus loads - it is because it has the oldest bull ring in Spain. This town is built on a rock basically that was split by water hundreds if not thousands of years ago - the 2 bridges in the town are unbelievable. We were lucky because the weather held for us while we were there - it was so pretty and really what you think of when you think of a Spanish town.

For lunch Francisco took us to one of the 'White Villages' on the hill - it reminded me of The Magnificent Seven (except in Spain) where the whole town is painted white and only about 200 people live in each town. Lunch was great and what you would expect in a little spanish town - choices were 1st - salad with tuna, seafood soup, chicken bouillon, 2nd - beef in sauce, pork, swordfish - dessert - flan or a big juicy orange. I was impressed - my boys picked the seafood soup or swordfish! And they loved it....

More tomorrow.....

Happy Birthday Lucas! Amos Girls Visit

I can't believe my little Lucas is 6 year old! He still has the coolest birthday around - 4/4/04. His birthday this year was on Easter so we had his party a few weeks ago with his friends. He didn't quite understand that his party was in March. Even on Easter morning he asked if his friends were coming over.

I told him they were all on vacation and that the Easter Bunny came instead! We've had a busy week with school ending for the holiday and our friends Jessica, Julia & Christy coming to visit us. Here a the fun things we did this week.Celebrated Lucas' Birthday
He got lots of new Toy Story Legos

Our friends the Davis' came over for Easter Dinner to also help us celebrate Lucas' birthday!

We took the girls to Stonehenge & Salisbury

We went to see the Queen Musical - We Will Rock You after spending the afternoon of the Bank Holiday at the giant Westfield Mall in London - it was really big!

We went into London another day and spent the day around Borough Market, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tate Modern Museum & up to Camden Markets and ate Fish & Chips!

Christy & I even made it to the London Temple for a session. We packed in a ton of things in one week! Now it is off to pack for Spain!

Arrow of Light

I don't think I posted these before.... in March Chandler received his Arrow of Light - they have a really cool Chief that comes and shoots arrows!

Move over Von Trapps

The Von Cranes are in town!

Last Thursday night was the school Spring Concert - it was a huge extravaganza of music! Our Winter concert was canceled due to the snowy weather we had this winter so they packed in a ton of performances in this one show....

The quality of music by all the kids was fantastic! They worked really hard and you could really see the difference even from last year.

I have some of it on video but I never seem to have luck posting videos on my blog. Both Tyler (vocal) and Chandler (Clarinet) had solos this year so it was extra special for the Von Cranes....it's nice being in a small school the kids have a few more opportunities they might not have in the big schools back home. It's all good for now :)

nIan playing the trumpet (you know brass is always in the back!)

Chandler's trio (violin, flute & clarinet spotlight solo)

The spectators

The Birthday Party

Lucas' birthday most people remember - it's 4/4/04 - so when we told Lucas we'd have his birthday party in March he was really sad. He didn't understand the concept that ...... 'your real birthday is on Easter this year, your friends will be on vacation!' Once his buddies all got there he got over it...

We went to the Guildford Spectrum and had a Pirate party - those parties are the best - you just show up and you don't have to clean up the mess!!!

Here are some pictures of his very fun day....

The boys - Lucas, Henric, Adrian, Jack, Matteo, Sami

Lucas & Scrappy

Circus Olympus

For the last 2 months Chandler has been working on the school play - he had been going to practice after school 3x a week and some weekends. He was part of the Cerebus - the three headed dog. It was a twist on greek mythology and they did a few of the stories from it. It was really well done and it was impressive to watch Chandler act and DANCE, yes, dance.....


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Pizza Night

So instead of worrying each day if I've taken a photo, I'm going to kind of work backward (and forward) for the last couple months...

Last week (March 9th) we had school conferences so no school for the kiddies - Tyler's French class went to Paris for the long weekend so I let Chandler have a few friends stay over.

They made homemade pizzas - it was fun, instead of just the standard "pepperoni and cheese" I got requests like, stuffed crust, onions, bell peppers & mushrooms!! A few of the boys had never even made homemake pizzas before - it was too funny watching them play with the dough, they didn't even know what to do with it!? I really like Chandler's group of friends - they are all such nice kids!