Monday 6 June 2016

Here we are, finally


We have been home since Wednesday, but only now starting to feel human again.
I managed to blog only once from Madrid, after that the Hotel internet became so bad that I could only connect through phone not laptop, and blogging by phone turns out to be a horrible challenge lol.


We have been to Madrid many times, as my mother is Spanish and was raised in Madrid, however this visit was quite miserable but we did our best to make the best out of it.
For starters, this trip was not planned at all and we had to arrange everything 10 days before we had to be there due to family drama. We had huge problems with arranging care for our doggies which eventually was the worse arrangement we ever had. 9 doggies alone all day, a friend was staying at night giving food and water. Considering that our dogs are normally never alone we had them on our minds and were worried all day long until we called in the evening to check in with our friend.


While we were still home arranging our trip to Spain, the doggy care etc, we also got the notice that we are sued by one of our neighbors *sigh*. A terrible man with a terrible attitude wants us to cut down one of our gorgeous trees! Reason: apparently it causes both financial and physical damages! The tree is right near us, never gave any trouble, the neighbor is 50 meters away, and is just being a total pain. So right before we left we had to give a fortune to a lawyer (no way are we going to cut down a healthy 60 year old tree for some jerk) and spent 2 days in his office.
Of course we also had to renew our health insurance right at that time, Friday the 13th btw, and I had to arrange that and pay yet another fortune. When it rains it pours...
So we had a nightmare of 10 days before the trip and of course we had no idea what was waiting for us in Spain...


The trip to Spain was with two planes, with an in between stop in Istanbul we had to get up at 3:30 at night so with barely 2 hours of sleep we arrive exhausted.
Our hotel was right in the center of Madrid, and apparently no one ever sleeps there, people were talking till 8 in the morning, it was crazy!


The first 2 days went to the family issue which was resolved *deep sigh of relief*. On the 3rd day mum started to sneeze, and all other stuff that comes with the flu, at night she had a high fever. The next morning I joined the flu frenzy... We were ill the rest of our stay there, barely sleeping due to noise, coughing, stress and fever we were in a miserable state.



With lots of kleenex (sometimes rolls of toilet paper) we did go to places, we shopped for some therapy and did our best to enjoy Madrid, where it rained which is a rare thing at the end of May.



Love these tiny balconies with little (succulent!) gardens :)


Food is a challenge for me, I am not travel friendly when it comes to food. I am not much of a meat eater, and do not eat any fish, which is in Spain difficult as all meals either have fish or meat. Once the flu kicked in nothing tasted like anything at all. Gosh am I complaining here, sorry for that :)!



At the last day while mum was in bed I met with 3 Etsy girls.


I met with Paloma (Palomilla), Alicia (OddFibulae) and Reyes (ReyesRobledo).
 After the above mentioned days it was nice to sit, chat and laugh. I hope I did not share my flu with any of the girls though! After all the coffee I had that day I could hardly sleep even though I had slept horribly for the past 8 nights I was wide awake.


The next morning we finally went home...
At about 5.30 pm our plane arrived in Istanbul. We had to arrange our second boarding passes as they were unable to give them in Madrid. After arranging all that we still had some time left and went to StarBucks (in the airport) and ordered something. We sat down, with some struggle got online and discovered that Paypal did not get its license for Turkey and starting June 6 (today) there won't be any Paypal in Turkey! The combination of 9 nights of bad sleep, the flu, the travel, the 1 hour time difference and this bad news.... made us miss our plane of 19:50pm, I noticed the time at 19:35 and on the screen it said 'last call' and although we could see the plane they did not take us :( There was a horrible woman with zero (or not even that) empathy not helping at all. The plane which would take us to Dalaman which is a 1.5 hour bus trip from our home left without us. The combination of all the mentioned things above made me totally break down right in the middle of the airport. With tears running down my cheeks we arrange the next plane leaving 4,5 hours later at 00:20 am, 1.5 hours past the time we would normally be home.


The worst part is when you do something stupid you get so mad at yourself. When there is a delay you get annoyed but you can not do anything, but did was the most stupid thing we had ever done and I was so mad and sad.
We were so tired that we made the trip even worse. The only thing that was not out fault was the fact that for about 2 hours there were no announcements about Turkish Airline flights, if there had been we would have heard the calls and we would have made it. We saw others also missing planes, so it was not only our tiredness. At 4 am (5 hours after our initial arrival time) we arrived home where our poor doggies were waiting all alone.
Now after 6 days we are finally becoming human again, still with the flu lingering and tiredness not entirely gone but much better. The Paypal issue has been sort of solved (2checkout and Payoneer) and we are alive and ready to start making pretty stuff again!

Sorry for the ramble, had to empty myself :)

11 comments:

  1. Oh boy, so many dreadful news, nothing too serious, but put all together they create a true nightmare.
    In the end, you seem to have resolved most of them, so that's good!
    The paypal issue really was the cherry on top (or the worm on top)... Gah...
    Many hugs!

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  2. Lovely to see the faces of our Etsy friends!
    Sorry that the trip was a lot of trouble. I hope you some day in the future will have a trip that is only vacation and peaceful rest. :-)

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  3. Even with all the problems,it still sounds like an adventure. I really miss traveling, I guess...

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  4. It seems your last 10 days were a nightmare! It seems that you already solved the most parts of the problems and I really hope you'll win against your neighbour! Your pictures from Spain are delightful and make me want to go there again

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  5. What a nightmare it could have been without those 3 big smiles wainting for you around a coffee!

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  6. All the challenges that we face and ace, show us that we have more strength than we can understand! I can read this another way, you simultaneously solved many problem all at once (pretty much!). You and your mum are remarkable women!

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  7. I am glad the family issue was solved and I hope that the issue with the impossible neighbor will be solved to your advantage soon, as well. Excellent photos and it is soooooo nice to see your faces!

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  8. Flu, missing planes, a rainy noisy city... a true nightmare!!!
    I enjoyed a lot meeting you! I hope next time will be better :D

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  9. Oh dear, it sounds like a horrible experience. But you solved it all and it makes you stronger. Better days are comming. Hugs.

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  10. I liked the photo under the " we had no idea what was waiting for us in Spain" :D It was really inspiring to see the yummy food! And I hope you put it there on purpose :P
    I am glad that some of the things got resolved and I wish you and your mother quick recovery!

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  11. Estella, it was great to meet you, Reyes and Alicia!!

    Love your wonderful photos from Madrid :)

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