June 2, 2025
Kyle and I were up this morning near 4am to finish packing and retrieve our rental car from the garage. We somehow managed to not complete laundry once more and were packing semi-damp clothes yet again. Kyle left to retrieve the car while I woke and readied the boys. My heart dropped when I received a text from Kyle, “F, the garage is locked.” We were already playing it fairly tight to make our 7:20am flight and this delay could make us miss the flight entirely. I googled how long to drive to our second flight of the day— 10 hours to Barcelona— which made that a nonviable option. Thankfully, Kyle texted to say someone was coming to let him into the garage so I went downstairs with the boys and all of our luggage to meet him.
The narrow, winding and sometimes closed streets of Sevilla are incredibly difficult to navigate via car. We didn’t hear from Kyle for over 15 minutes while the garage was just a ~7 minute walk away. He said he would put in a meeting point to Google Maps, it would navigate him halfway there and then direct him to get out of the car and walk. Not terribly helpful when trying to retrieve small children and luggage. We eventually met up with him a few blocks from our apartment and he left the car to come help me with the suitcases over the super bumpy cobblestones. We were all finally in the car close to 6am and feeling anxious about actually making our flight. Then, Google Maps began navigating us to the airport and took us through some streets whose surrounding buildings were riddled with car paint on both sides from scraping doors and mirrors. Our upgraded rental car was beeping non-stop telling us that we were too close on all sides and at risk of collision. Kyle masterfully navigated the streets and we all sighed with relief when we were finally dumped onto a proper two lane street.
We then raced to the car rental return area of the airport only to find no available parking spots. Nearing in on 6:30am, Kyle parked the car as close to the key return box as possible, we deposited the keys and then raced to the terminal. We flew a budget airline today so needed to check our moderately sized carry-on bags versus bringing them onboard ourselves. We waited in the small check-in line, dropped our bags and raced to security. The security line was non-existent and our gate ended up being super close to our terminal entry point, so we somehow made it before the flight even began boarding. This felt like a true miracle.
After our stressful morning the remainder of the travel day went smoothly. The boys enjoyed a ton of iPad time where Ollie discovered the Men in Black movie (he kept calling it “White and Black”) and Len watched a surplus of Paw Patrol shows and movies.
1hr 45min flight to Barcelona
2 hr layover in Barcelona
1hr 20min flight to Bordeaux
2 hr drive to Biarritz
Len slept for most of the drive to Biarritz while Ollie slept all of 10 minutes. As soon as we sat in the rental car, Ollie immediately asked to put on Harry Potter. We staved him off for the first half of the drive but succumbed to the Goblet of Fire for the second half.
We had originally planned to spend this week in Bordeaux, but when sharing this itinerary with our French friends, they scoffed and said we would be bored spending a week there this time of year. We were fine with feeling bored but when a friend offered to let us stay at his family’s apartment in Biarritz for the week, we jumped at the opportunity.
When Len woke from his nap just as we approached Biarritz, he asked, “What do you think the digital will be at our new hotel room?” This one took a minute and a few clarifying questions to decode, but I learned he was asking what we thought our room or apartment number would be at our new spot. Len woke feeling energized and took to instigating backseat arguments immediately as he had no interest in listening to Harry Potter. I told Ollie, “Do your best to ignore him, he’s just trying to goad you!” to which Len then replied, “Ya I am the best GOJUUUUU!!!”
We arrived at the apartment a bit after 5pm and met the house manager, Celine near the parking garage to show us around. Kyle and the boys got settled while I went out to grab some essentials and an easy dinner. The market is just 2 minutes away but I wandered the extra few minutes to catch a glimpse of the coast. Like most summer destinations, July and August are peak season so we are arriving at a bit of a lull time. The weather doesn’t look great this week but we are still hoping to sneak in some surf lessons and beach exploration time while here.
Dinner was fresh pasta, butter, lemon, basil and parmesan cheese. The boys also had buttered bread and Kyle and I had an arugula salad, too. I can tell our family will be going through a LOT of French butter this upcoming month.
At this point, we should have put the kids to bed but Kyle and I didn’t have it in us. Instead, we all lounged and watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban much to Len’s disappointment. Len eventually got into it but the concept of time travel went over his head and he provided some ridiculous narration, “Oh right, she has a twin! Thats right I remember now!” Ollie was locked in to the movie but so anxious that he kept moving from couch to couch and fidgeting the entire time. At one point he declared, “I swear I’m not gonna watch Harry Potter 3 again until I’m a teenager. It’s too stressful.”
Every room in the apartment has automatic metal storm blinds that go down at the push of a button. Heres hoping they lead to some pre-sunset bedtimes for the boys later this week!
