Friday, April 18, 2014

Adventures of a soccer mom: Travel (looooong) day ahoy!

*yawn*

It's 5:30 am EST.  I might have sleep about 4.5 hours.  But I am packed.  :-)

It's 26 degrees and dawn is breaking and it's quite beautiful.  The birds are starting to sing.  I am sleepy.

On the bright side, it's 12:30 in Barcelona and 64 degrees!  Wa-hooo!  The weather looks to be low to mid 60's for the time we are there and night time temps in the 50's.  Partly cloudy with a slight chance of rain, although that could change.  Sounds delightful for soccer and sightseeing.

In other news, guess who started complaining of a sore throat and a cough last night.  Yep.  The boy.   Chances are high he has the viral bug his older brother and I had last week.  The good news is, one only feels 'meh' for a day or two.  The bad news, we are spending the bulk of today hanging around airports or on planes and it's likely the day he will feel the worst.

Oh, and our clothes dryer stopped drying last night.  *sigh*

Since I gave the boys their Easter goodies yesterday, and he ate too much chocolate too late in the day, and thus, he, too, was awake until after 11 pm.  I'm going to wake him up at 6.  That will be a challenge.  Might as well get him closer to Barcelona time and hope he'll sleep on the plane tonight.

I'm impressed with my packing!  Small boy's bag has a lot of snack foods in it!  It has primarily soccer shorts, shirts and socks, casual clothes and is toiletries. His carry on bag consists of his soccer backpack with complete 'kit' (too fearful of it being lost for it to be packed in a checked bag so all the soccer essentials are hand carried, in jumbo ziplock bags not only for organization, but to mute the shin guard/shoe sweaty boy stench for our fellow passengers!) and a string backpack that consists of his travel pillow and blanket, entertainment system (iPod touch), headphones, glasses, his composition notebook/adventure journal and pen and a whole bunch of snacks!  Oh, and his epi-pens, inhalers, and just added, Advil and Ricola cough drops!

My checked bag is larger.  I just couldn't fit everything into the smaller suitcase for 10 days.  I shall carry on my purse and a backpack.  I also have ample snacks.  :-)

I'm checking my list(s) to be sure I've not forgotten anything of import.  I'm enjoying the peace of the early morning.  The next 10 days are going to be a whirlwind!

For those playing along at home, and my mom, whose job it is to be anxious when her (44 year old) baby travels, our travel adventure begins in about 3 hours and will take us the bulk of the day and into the wee hours of tomorrow morning EST.  We are leaving for the airport around 9 am, budgeting for traffic.  That should be about an hour's drive, but how long it actually takes is anybody's guess.  The airport will be nuts, as it's April Vacation week and a big travel day.  We meet our group at 11 am to check in. I'm told if we arrive early, we're getting a donut!


Our first flight departs Logan about 1:30 and gets us to Philly for 3:11 pm, where we have a layover until 6:45 pm.  It will be a fueling stop for growing tweens!  My son has already scoped out the terminal food establishments and is concerned about in-flight options!  We fly 'over the pond' to Barcelona 'over night'.  About an 8 hour journey.  We arrive 8:35 am local time, that would be 2:35 am to us.  I'm hopeful for a solid 3-4 hours of sleep on the plane, more would be fantastic!

From there, a loooong and exciting day shall commence.  I'll tell you all about it!  Who knows, there may be a travel day update from the airport, too!

See you 'in' Spain!

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