On Monday morning, 22 August 2005, we arose early, checked out of the hotel by 6:45, and took a taxi to the Barcelona airport. Breakfast on our Iberia flight was a miniature Kit-Kat bar and orange juice served on the Iberia flight to Madrid. At least our airline meals were complimentary on this day.
We unsuccessfully looked for the place at both the Barcelona and Madrid airports to recover the European tax we spent. The merchants who are eager to complete the paperwork for large purchases surely do not realize how unlikely the tourists are to actually get the promised tax refunds. We had refund forms from each of the three countries we visited. We have previously found this process futile at other European airports, too.
Our Iberia flight out of Madrid departed about 1 p.m., an hour later than scheduled, though we boarded on time. We were served meals about 1½ hours after take off and 1½ hours before landing. Two movies were shown inflight.
We were off the plane in Miami about 3:15 p.m. (We have flown through this airport over 30 times.) We ate an American supper at Chili's in the Miami airport during our 3½ hour layover. Our American Airlines flight into Dallas arrived an hour late. Our daughter Angelique transported us to her home for the night. We climbed into bed after being up for 24 hours.
On Tuesday morning, 23 August 2005, we awoke after a good 8-hours sleep, thanks to Lunesta 3mg. We played with our 9½ month old grandson, Corbin, and had a nice brunch. Angelique returned us to the airport for our ninth and final flight home.
It was delightful to see Robertta Moses (Corbin's other grandmother) at the Fort Smith airport when we arrived about 1:45 p.m. She drove us to our home.
Overseas travel is a wonderful experience. The best part is returning home to settle back into our familiar lifestyle, in frequent contact with those we love.
We think that being away from home for 12 nights was excessive. We are eager to sleep in our own bed and eat from our own kitchen. However, there are still fantastic faraway places to see, so we need to soon start planning our next adventure.
