Prepping for the Holidays

No new big news from Palma, but I thought I'd give an update anyway.  Work is going well, everyone is still enjoying their jobs for the most part.  We have Monday through Wednesday off this week due to Spanish holidays; one is for the constitution and the other is for something else, I can't remember what the celebration is.  At any rate, I don't have to work until Thursday so I'm a happy camper.

Morrigan, my friend that flew here with me from Newark, was supposed to come spend a few days in Palma but instead got to spend about a day and a half in the Reus airport (about 2 hours away from Barcelona) and then a couple days in Barcelona due to the nation-wide strikes that were starting on Thursday night (the night her flight was supposed to land in Palma).  Needless to say, many vacations were shortened, if not ruined, on this long weekend.  The government passed an alert on Friday night or Saturday morning that mandated the air traffic controllers to begin work again or they could be jailed.  Many people were stranded, not only in Spain, but since the air space was closed as well, no international flights could land.  The airplane that Morrigan was supposed to be on was coming from Portugal, and apparently it turned around mid-air and went back.

We are thinking about getting a Christmas tree this week sometime, though it will be small and fake, it will still remind us of the holidays.  I'm being spoiled right now as I have the balcony door open and it's a high of 70 degrees today.  On December 7th.  A far cry from last year when we had a snow day at Iowa on December 8th.  However, just because it's gorgeous out doesn't mean I can't get into the Christmas state of mind by making paper snowflakes and other goodies, which will probably be happening this weekend sometime.  I can't believe it's already December and I've been here almost three months!

As far as my holiday travel plans go this year, I will unfortunately be missing out on the Sioux City trek with family.  Instead, an American friend, Taylor, and I will be spending Christmas here at home (with Amanda), New Years in Barcelona, and January 2nd-6th in Italy.  I've been to Barcelona before, though not over a major holiday, and am quite excited to return; it's such a beautiful city.  As for our Italy trip, we're going to fly into Rome and tour there for a couple days and then hopefully take the train to a few other cities; we're kind of just playing it by ear.  It will definitely be different from my normal holiday travels but I think it will be a lot of fun.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, I know I have a lot to be thankful for.  Will write more later, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the sun and 'buen tiempo' (nice weather) on our balcony.