Jayne Gang Visits Spain & Portugal

Living, traveling, and studying abroad is an indescribable experience that I’ll never forget. But the amount I miss my family is also indescribable. Fortunately for me, both times I studied abroad my family came to visit. Last year we drove all around France, and this year was time for our Spain trip. We visited Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia in 2014, but this trip was all about Southern Spain – my favorite by far!

The trip started off a bit rough when the Airbnb I booked turned out to be a nightmare. On the bright side, I had the opportunity to practice using my Spanish to tell the workmen how there was no hot water, the fridge was flooded, there was water leaking everywhere, there was air in the water pipes, and we had no heat!

I’ll just leave a screenshot of a text conversation between my father and sister here to really paint the picture:

When my mom and sister arrived thankfully we had everything figured out and it was time to introduce them to free tapas, the Alhambra, my favorite lookout point of the city, ancient Hammam baths, the Albaicin, my host family, and one of my favorite worldly experiences – Flamenco!

After Granada we headed to stay in Teba, Spain with a family friend my mom and sister met while scuba diving in the Grand Caymans. We used their beautiful ranch as a hub to visit Ronda, Malaga, and Sevilla. It turned out our family vacation was during Semana Santa, or Holy Week, in Spain which is celebrated every day for a week just before Easter. Floats, processions, and thousands of people in very tall hats can be found in every major city. We happened to run into a few on our travels across the country and even in Portugal as well.

Then we stayed in a Mazagon near Huelva on the beach- if you have the means I highly recommend it! Drinking cava poolside next to the beach with your family? What more can you ask for!?

Next we made our way to Portugal in Sagres near Lagos. As soon as we arrived in Portugal we were notified the country was on a gasoline strike and therefore out of gas! I suppose if you had to be stuck anywhere, a parador on the beach isn’t a bad place to be trapped. After dinner that night Katie and I went on a mission to find gasoline before the whole country went dry, and luckily we were able to find some, but whether or not we were able to use the extra can of gasoline is another (not so funny?) story for later.

Indubitably, no Jayne family vacation is complete without a winery visit, so we visited the Quinta de Sant’Ana to try some delicious Portuguese wines and Catavino (sparkling wine). The next couple nights Katie hooked us up with a beautiful Wyndham resort called the Quinta de Santa Maria about an hour outside of Lisbon on a golf course surrounded by mountains and gentle, rolling hills with our own private pool!

We finished our trip in Lisbon seeing the pink street, trying lots of local food, best octopus we’ve ever tasted, lots of sangria, and homemade wine tasting platters made by yours truly.

It wouldn’t be a Jayne family vacation without lots of jokes, so here’s the list I want to keep alive:

“This is a 9-1-1 emergency but 9-1-1 doesn’t dial out.”
“Jim died 007.”
Christopher Columbo & his gosh darn ships
Running out of gas in Portugal
When a rat almost ran inside our house at Quinta de Santa Maria Wyndham resort
When my phone almost was stolen at the Hammam baths because Katie moved my stuff
Dad almost getting jumped in the barrio when someone tried to shake his hand after we tried to catch sunset
“Today was Easter…” -Mom
“That was the ugliest church I’ve ever seen.”
Dad knowing the huge machine in the Cordoba mosque was a clock
Just in time for the beginning of multiple processions for Semana Santa!
Conicals – the hats people wear for the Holy Week processions
Not making it to Morocco, but getting a picture with guys from there
The disaster of our Airbnb in Granada
The parking garage nightmare in Granada (literally took an hour to park)
“We’re late to a wine tasting damn it!”
“The word for diesel is very similar to the word for gasoline in Portuguese.” -Katie
“These are fake beams, not real beams.” (everywhere we went Dad would notice the beams)
17th century Snapchat
“The bunnies aren’t doing the mango dance they’re not happy.” -Angeline
“The reality is that we ate the sardines.”
“420 means something like 666.”
Trying to use the extra can of gas Katie bought but the car had too many safety locks
“Do you speak English?” “No” …sh*t
“I’m asking for my money back because we only saw dolphins in the distance.”
And the best for last…. “Well how did I drive all the way to Ellen’s school then with the GPS if it doesn’t work?”

Overall, it was another amazing family vacation, we all survived and were able to enjoy each other’s company. It meant a lot to me for my family to meet my host mother and her family because they really made Granada feel like a home to me. I will also never forget taking my family to my favorite, secret lookout point over Granada because I spent a lot of time thinking and planning my next steps in life there. Flamenco was amazing as always, and ranks up there with drinking champagne under the sparkling Eiffel tower at sunset in Paris and afternoon tea in England. One afternoon we took a break from driving, brought a blanket, a speaker, and a bottle of wine to the beach in Portugal and relaxed as a family and just watched the surfers in the distance. It’s spontaneous, yet simple moments like these that I will never forget. What country should the Jayne Gang tackle next?!