On Saturday August 29th, 2015 Brian and I left London for the final time while living there for 2 years. It was bittersweet since we were sad to be leaving but also very excited to be starting our "Long Way Home" (30 day adventure). On Friday, the night before leaving we hung out at Amy & David's place. I made them the MN wild rice hotdish that we had been telling them about for so long. After dinner it was time to say goodbye which wasn't easy since we had become such close friends and back in the States we would be in MN and they eventually would be back in NC.
Brian and I got picked up at about 9:00 pm and were taken to a hotel attached to Gatwick Airport where we would be flying from early the next morning. When we arrived we went into the terminal to weigh our bags and the hilarious cardboard box we had along to help displace the weight. Luckily we were going to be able to ditch some stuff when meeting my parents in Sweden so the box would only be coming 1 leg of the journey with us.
Bright and early the next morning we were ready for take off on the start of our "Long Way Home"...first stop Ibiza, Spain!
As we came in for landing in Ibiza we immediately saw lots of luxury yachts surrounding the picturesque island. Just after taking the picture below and we continued to get lower, right as we were about to touch down (within a 1000 ft approx) all of a sudden we pulled back up in the air again. Before we knew it we were making a circle back around the airport. It was pretty scary actually and nobody knew what was going on. Eventually the flight attendant came on and said, "so as you can see the pilot has aborted the landing, and will be coming on shortly I'm sure to give us an explanation." Everyone was silent and a bit freaked out looking...Turns out the pilot told us a plane that was taking off just before we were to land didn't take off quick enough, so we aborted because we needed more room on the runway.
That afternoon we relaxed at the beach near our hotel...
And enjoyed a sunset view at dinner...
The start of the the trip was off to a nice relaxing start! :)
The next day we drove around the island some and did some more beach lounging.
We finished off the evening with some gin & tonics and
views over the calm bay.
views over the calm bay.
The next day we went into the Ibiza town and hung out at the beach there. This is the area of the island that is more of the party area. There were girls walking up and down the beach advertising a party later that night...Before we knew it we were going to the David Guetta Closing Summer Pool Party at the Ushuaia hotel!
We got there at about 5:00pm and things were still empty but before long it was a full house and it turned out to be really fun. We listened to some great music and even saw airplanes fly right overhead above the stage. It began to pour rain as the night went on and the stage lights were shining through the raindrops which made it look like glitter! By about 10:00pm we decided we had had enough (it went until midnight) really fun night!
The next day we set out for more beaches...
The colors of the water amazed me at this location...
More island exploring...
On the morning of our last day in Ibiza it was a little cloudy and rainy. We decided to drive to the other side of the island where it looked like it was going to be breaking up. We returned to one of the dark sand beaches we had been at one of the previous days. We had the beach pretty much to ourselves except for some jelly fish on the sand that had washed up. Eventually the clouds broke up some more people started coming. We watched some people go in the water and quickly come out looking confused and in pain. The life guards then put up jelly fish flags because turns out there were a lot in the water and they were stinging people as they went in. It was a bummer since this had been a nice swimming beach that we had liked from an early day there. Still such a pretty place though!
Our "Long Way Home" Leg 1 was a nice and relaxing one, just like we had planned. At this point we were only 5 days into our month long adventure and off to our next location, Sweden!
