Andalucia 2022 (1/9) – Introduction

1. Introduction
2. Sevilla: Cool Before Dorne Was Cool
3. Ceuta & Algeciras: Day Trip to Africa
4. Cordoba: Capital of a Caliphate
5. Granada: Memories of a K-Drama
6. Malaga: Bonus Content Day
7. Stuff We Ate
8. Stuff We Drank
9. Uncategorized Thoughts

It was surreal to board our first international flight in 3 years.

The first thought of possibility came last fall, when children’s COVID vaccine was imminent and pre-Omicron case counts had plummeted.  The world was on its way to exit the pandemic, or so a naïve person would have assumed.  International tours had already resumed for the braver souls, and our yearning for visiting foreign lands became a realistic itch again.  Although a few Asian destinations remained on the top of our bucket list, it was impossible to predict when their more restrictive quarantine requirements would be lifted.  Thus we zoomed in on Europe, where Spain piqued our interest more than other countries.

The planning started with Barcelona, naturally, for I could hardly name two and a half Spanish cities at the time.  As we dug a bit deeper, we realized that the country had far more to offer than the over-Instagrammed basilica.   Specifically, we were drawn toward the Moorish architecture in Southern Spain. We ended up skipping the country’s three largest cities and created an itinerary solely in Andalucia.  Traversing six cities over two weeks, this was to be our most ambitious trip yet.

After booking our flights and penciling in time allocation for each city, the itinerary remained in draft for much of the six months.  Two more worldwide surges of COVID cases led to a variety of renewed worries, and any further relaxation of travel restrictions never came.  No news was devastating enough to cancel our plans, thankfully, but much of our energy went toward navigating public health bureaucracy, an element that we had zero experience with.

COVID

The outbound trip was more or less guaranteed, but still plenty confusing.  Spain mandated a health certification called SPtH for entry, which was fine except it didn’t distinguish the origin of a traveler (US) from the origin of his last leg of flight (France).  Air France compelled us to also complete the dPLF, the EU requirement for entry into France, even though we were merely connecting in Paris.  We got both sets of QR codes prepared on our phones and nobody ended up checking either.  However, last minute pre-flight upload of CDC vaccination cards (which technically wasn’t recognized by the Europeans) and two rounds of surprise pre-boarding passport checks did make us question if the trip was happening after all.

The return trip was a different story.  There was a policy requiring all US-bound air travelers to test negative the day before boarding the flight or have a certificate recovery from infection from within the past six months.  The policy was put in place before vaccines were widely available, had no consideration for vaccination or booster status, and was now rather outdated compared to the European counterparts.  The rules were simple but difficult to plan around.  Ideally all of us would miraculously test positive a month or two prior to the trip, so we could have assurance of being allowed back home, but we couldn’t manage that.  Then it was a Russian roulette where if any of us get infected in Spain, or encounter a false positive test result, we’d scramble to deal with rescheduling the return flight, miss more work, and be on the hook for paying for an extra week of hotel.  We would also stress over the uncertainties on the last few days of the trip and not be able to fully enjoy ourselves.

This thought weighed heavily on my mind for several months.  Even though testing options were now better than 2021, they were still not great.  There were only two labs in Malaga (our last city) with appointments for antigen tests, but they were far from the hotel and closed at 2pm.  At-home test kits “approved for travel”, otherwise identical to the free ones from the federal government, cost $30 more per kit and the packaging was six times bulkier.  When we decided to pack two extra such kits to account for potential false positive results, we dedicated a third of an entire suitcase to these silly paper boxes.  I also had to make several contingency plans at work so, in the case we get stuck in Spain, someone else would meet the number of client deadlines on my behalf.  We thought through all sorts of scenario and looked up different maneuvers (such as flying to Canada and using the land border which did not impose any testing requirement), but had to contend with the fact that we just had to wait and see at the end of the trip.

The most fantastic news came half way into our trip, when my sister sent an article announcing the policy update to waive the testing requirements for US reentry.  It was to be effective on June 12, just five days before our return flight.  We were super excited to see that headline on our train to Cordoba, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.  It took Air France a few more days to work the memo into their system so we got a series of confusing pre-flight emails about the old and then new requirements.  Now we had a new conundrum of whether to bring all the bulky test kits home in mint condition, or dump the $180 worth of goods as they were no longer necessary…

Well, alright, we sucked it up and brought them home. Raise your hand if you’d like some travel test kits!

The Logistics & Itinerary

Once the public health hurdles were dealt with, the fun began.

Booked with Air France miles from Amex points with 20% transfer bonus, we secured our flights fairly affordably.  It wasn’t awesome having to connect in both Seattle and Paris, but at least it gave us an excuse to use Priority Pass four times within 24 hours.

I’m not one to review airports, but it must be said that the Paris Charles de Gaulle sucked. It reminded me a lot of Tokyo Narita with its excessive corridors and escalators devoid of any soul, but worse because no store or restaurant was even open. While I imagined a romantic layover at the main City of Lights airport with Eiffel Tower themed amenities, what greeted us was a depressingly empty terminal and a couple vending machines.

Once touching down on Spanish soil, our trip looked like this:

• Four nights in Sevilla
  • followed by six hours of trains + transfer + delays
• Two nights in Algeciras
  • including a day trip to Ceuta
  • followed by a 3.5-hour train ride
• Two nights in Cordoba
  • followed by a 1.5-hour train ride
• Three nights in Granada
  • followed by 2.5 hours of train rides including transfer
• One night in Malaga

Booking hotels in Europe was always the frustrating part while traveling with kids. Whereas most American and Asian hotels accommodated 4 people in each basic room, European hotels only held 3. Bringing two children along required booking these “family rooms”, which were more expensive and most hotels didn’t even offer them. This dynamic also made it infeasible to book any chain hotels using points, further preventing us from using elite membership benefits such as free breakfast. But well, first world problems, for sure. We still ended up with great hotels and were very happy with the trip.

Kids

Speaking of kids, it had been 3 years since we set foot abroad.  Within this time, Xuan grew 50% in age and Ting grew 75%.  That made a huge difference in their maturity levels.  Our little road warriors were now capable of handling real luggage, so our family managed to go without any checked bags this time.  They also breezed through long airport connections as well as anyone could have.  Aside from sleeping in a bit the first morning, we didn’t even struggle with any jet lag. They kept up as we clocked in 20k steps day after day, climbed up a bell tower, and scaled several hills. I suppose we had reached a serious milestone in our family’s vacation history.