Notes from Home

Well, we were sad to end another vacation chapter. Our trip home was nice and uneventful. All of the pottery made it intact (about 10 or more large and small pieces). There were no major altercations with other passengers, although I was pretty annoyed at some of their (lack of) queuing skills. A nice airline woman in Madrid helped us check our baggage through the whole way so that we wouldn't have to deal with it in Heathrow. Heathrow was the usual mess of stores and people. We won't miss the cigarette smoke!

Here are some notes I took on the trip:

• The smoking... everywhere... drove us crazy
• We slept in twin paired beds every night but the night in Hotel el Dorado. That alone was worth the extra money.
• The kitties and kittens were fatter than those in Greece.
• I would definitely return for the crater rim hike and to climb Mt. Teide. I'd also try some diving.
• Spanish was essential. There was not a day when we didn't use it.
• I'm getting the seafood meals on planes from now on.
• We saw more cactus varieties than I'd seen any place else.
• The number of parrots in the Loro Parque is truly amazing, as is the number that probably don't exist in the wild any longer, as indicated on their placards.
• There seemed to be a huge gay scene on Tenerife.
• Gasoil and Diesel are the same thing.
• The rental company made us get the loss-damage insurance, so they didn't blink when we had problems.
• All telephone numbers were 9 full numbers
• Stamps were .50€ for overseas postcards
• As in Greece, we often were not able to flush paper down the toilets so as not to clog their old/fragile plumbing.
• The largest expense was airfare followed by ferry followed by rental car
• On the 15th, with a couple of days to go, we found out that we weren't supposed to take the rental car off the island of Tenerife.
• Most of the stray (?) dogs were little yippy dogs