I know what you're thinking ... "Renee's blog posts make it sound like she's already on vacation" and in some ways that's true. Without a job, I do feel a bit like I've been on an extended vacation (or "holiday" as my European friends would say). But, Brian sure deserved one, so off we went to Lanzarote, Spain, which is one of the Canary Islands, for a week of sun, scuba and sightseeing.
We started our journey at 10:30pm to catch a flight from Abu Dhabi to Paris at 12:30am. Not sure why I couldn't find something earlier in the day, but it seems that a lot of flights leave AD very late (or very early I should say). Not sure if that's a time zone thing, the heat ... In any case, it worked out okay as Brian and I slept most of the way to Paris. In Paris, we ended up in line after line and missed our connection. The first line was passport control, a super slow line where the French officers behind the glass were living up to their stereotype. Then we proceeded to another excruciatingly slow line at security. Each passenger was stopped, boarding pass checked over very carefully, asked about liquids, laptops, remove your shoes ... it went on forever and I kept looking at my watch and asking every agent if there was a way to call up to the plane to let them know we were stuck in security. "Ca Va Madam - it's just up there, you will have time" ... we didn't, and the plane left without us ... we were less than 5 minutes late. (sigh)
But, if you're gonna get stuck somewhere, it could be a lot worse that Charles de Gualle. After getting rebooked for a later flight, we had a nice coffee and pain au chocolate and settled in for the wait.
Next stop was Madrid and then on to Lanzarote. We flew Air France all the way to Madrid, which was fantastic, as Air France is known to be. Then we switched to Spainair for the flight from Madrid to Spain and what a complete opposite. I would rank Spainair even lower than I rank Continental and that's saying something. Seats were incredibly uncomfortable - poor Brian's knees touched the back of the seat in front of him, it was so small. And you got charged for everything - not even a glass of water was free (which was a foreshadowing of our vacation in Spain). But we made it, as did our luggage, thank goodness, and we were in Lanzarote, and the temperature was in the low 80s, and I wasn't sweating!
We headed to Puerto del Carmen where we had reservations for the night at the Apartamentos Mirabel. We planned to stay the week at the Club del Carmen resort, but because of the flight timings, I couldn't get to Lanzarote on the day our reservations started (and could only check in on Thursday due to our timeshare agreement) so we had an extra night to book. It worked out fine as we didn't get in until almost 6pm and simply needed a place to crash and get in the right time zone - the Mirabel worked out just fine for that.
Here are a few pics of our view from this hotel. We were right downtown Puerto del Carmen, which is kind of a mix between Key West and the Wisconsin Dells. :)
We started our journey at 10:30pm to catch a flight from Abu Dhabi to Paris at 12:30am. Not sure why I couldn't find something earlier in the day, but it seems that a lot of flights leave AD very late (or very early I should say). Not sure if that's a time zone thing, the heat ... In any case, it worked out okay as Brian and I slept most of the way to Paris. In Paris, we ended up in line after line and missed our connection. The first line was passport control, a super slow line where the French officers behind the glass were living up to their stereotype. Then we proceeded to another excruciatingly slow line at security. Each passenger was stopped, boarding pass checked over very carefully, asked about liquids, laptops, remove your shoes ... it went on forever and I kept looking at my watch and asking every agent if there was a way to call up to the plane to let them know we were stuck in security. "Ca Va Madam - it's just up there, you will have time" ... we didn't, and the plane left without us ... we were less than 5 minutes late. (sigh)
But, if you're gonna get stuck somewhere, it could be a lot worse that Charles de Gualle. After getting rebooked for a later flight, we had a nice coffee and pain au chocolate and settled in for the wait.
Next stop was Madrid and then on to Lanzarote. We flew Air France all the way to Madrid, which was fantastic, as Air France is known to be. Then we switched to Spainair for the flight from Madrid to Spain and what a complete opposite. I would rank Spainair even lower than I rank Continental and that's saying something. Seats were incredibly uncomfortable - poor Brian's knees touched the back of the seat in front of him, it was so small. And you got charged for everything - not even a glass of water was free (which was a foreshadowing of our vacation in Spain). But we made it, as did our luggage, thank goodness, and we were in Lanzarote, and the temperature was in the low 80s, and I wasn't sweating!
We headed to Puerto del Carmen where we had reservations for the night at the Apartamentos Mirabel. We planned to stay the week at the Club del Carmen resort, but because of the flight timings, I couldn't get to Lanzarote on the day our reservations started (and could only check in on Thursday due to our timeshare agreement) so we had an extra night to book. It worked out fine as we didn't get in until almost 6pm and simply needed a place to crash and get in the right time zone - the Mirabel worked out just fine for that.
Here are a few pics of our view from this hotel. We were right downtown Puerto del Carmen, which is kind of a mix between Key West and the Wisconsin Dells. :)
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