As many of you know, I'm off to Spain today! For a country that has been on my bucket list for the last 15 years you might be surprised I've not been there yet. And all I can say is that I've been waiting for a tour to go on sale, and it's just never been as low as I wanted it to be! Finally, after hearing over and over again on my tour of Portugal how much I would love Spain if I was enjoying Portugal (which I was enjoying), and after reading a fascinating book about Andalusia, I decided it was time. Sale or no sale, it was time to book a trip to Spain. The Gate1 Travel Single-Supplement sale came around last fall and when I saw that the fee (you have to pay extra to join tours when you're traveling alone, and they call it a "single supplement") for Spain was $1000 and that it was waived as part of the sale, I knew I had to take the leap (even if I paid full price for the tour).
To prepare for the trip I've been re-reading the above-mentioned book, Ornament of the World. The combination of things I learned in Portugal, and the things I learned about Jewish history from my tour of the POLIN museum in Poland, have certainly helped me keep the timeline and understand the context of the book better this second time around. It's incredibly fascinating how the author ties together the history and how events impacted the religions and cultures of the area.
Also, for the first time I'm trying out an app called TimeShifter which I read about in How to Win at Travel. I'm hoping it works and helps to mitigate (even eliminate) my jet-lag and make the tour much more enjoyable for me. That being said, it required that I be up at 3am this morning (after several days of earlier bedtimes and earlier wake-up times) and my flight doesn't leave until 5:30pm tonight! The plus side to that is that I did the majority of my packing, cleaned my house, mowed my lawn, and still had time to write this post before heading out.
Oh, and another first happened last night as I was checking in for my flight. It wanted me to pay $75 to check my bag, which was a surprise because the last time I flew to Europe I only paid $40! I did some searching and found out that the fee for checked bags to Europe is indeed $75 and now I had a dilemma. I had planned to check a bag, but hadn't really packed anything yet, and was the extra pair of shoes worth $75 EACH WAY? So, for this 15 day trip, I managed to pack in a carry-on. Will my feet hate me when I have to wear the same pair of shoes every single day? Maybe, but I'd rather spend my $150 on something else. If only my 18-year-old self, packing for a semester abroad in Italy, could see me now!
My apologies for the teaser, as there's no way I'll end up blogging on the tour (even if I end up not having jet lag), but it's always good to have something to look forward to! Ciao!
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