Time for our annual wedding anniversary trip. This is a big one, 10 years! Original plan was to go to Egypt, but then the war broke out between Israel and Gaza, and Egypt was too close to the fighting for comfort. Next choice was the Greek Isles, but we weren’t super enthused about it after nixing Egypt. Finally, RL decided that she really wanted to go to Morocco, so that’s where we’ll be headed.

Had a late morning flight at 11am, which means we had time to drop our kids off at school before calling an Uber to take us to the airport.

Excited. Except, I think both of us were pretty apprehensive about this trip to be honest. Prior years, we couldn’t get away to get a break away from our kids, but now that they are older and easier, we feel a little sad leaving them behind and miss them already. Much more so than previous years.

Line isn’t too bad, and CLEAR made it even faster and easier.

I miss the kids.

First leg of the flight is right on time.

Our kids!!!!

Can’t come here without eating some Salt Lick.

This burrito was so big we had to split it.

Nom nom nom.

Of course, some complimentary drinks at Admirals Club.

Let’s head to the gate.

10 year anniversary means we splurge a little, we are flying business class. RL has also been getting severe leg nerve pain on long flights, painful to the point of being in tears, so we’ll probably take more business class flights in the future for the longer flights.

My first time being in first class for domestic. It feels…pretty regular to be honest.

I guess there’s a lot more leg room and it’s nice seating only two wide so there’s not a random third person next to us.

Let’s go!

They also give you a hot moist towel. Do they just throw these away or do they wash them and reuse them later?

Free alcohol is a plus too. I love eating nuts, but my daughter PL has nut allergies, and it makes me cringe a little bit that they just serve these openly on planes.

Lunch. It was slightly better than what I imagine they were having in Economy, but it’s nothing to write home about.

I did also get a raspberry sherbet with my meal though. Oh yeah, there’s also a magnetic spot on the tray, you can see that the spoon is magnetized and stopped from not falling over the side.

First leg of this trip, we are already tired.

In about 4 hours, we’ve made it to NY.

There’s Manhattan in the distance.

Got to JFK right on time. Now we’ve got a 3ish hour layover.

Business class tickets means we get to go to the fancy lounges.

Open bar means we drink.

Not a bad view. But being on the top level of the airport means all the hot air comes up here and the lounge is warmer than the rest of the airport.

Don’t mind if we do help ourselves to the buffet. It’s dinner time, and we’re hungry.

And since it’s such a long layover, went for seconds and got everything I need here to keep the party going.

This is a giant lounge and we eventually moved to a different section to get a different vibe.

Then as we were about to leave the lounge to head to our gate, we get a notification on our phones that our flight has been delayed hour and a half. Shit! It’s alright, we’ve still got time to make our connecting flight even with this delay. But having to wait longer sucks.

I guess we’ll chill here some more.

Shit! Now it’s been delayed more. Now it’s 2 hours behind schedule. It may be cutting it tight for our connection whether we need to go through passport checks and security again. I went to the AA desk to ask about the Madrid airport and whether we needed to go through another passport check prior to connecting to Morocco, they didn’t know anything. I guess we’ll just have to wing it and figure it out once we get there and hope for the best.

Two extra hours of waiting means more drinks I guess…the cans are cans of sparkling water.

And a photo op of the sun setting over Manhattan. The glazing on the window caused the double sun reflection.

We are just getting more and more tired and bored sitting here. I can’t quite work up my excitement for this trip yet. I don’t know what’s going on, but I feel mostly stress and fatigue so far. Hopefully that will all change once I get to Morocco.

I guess if we are going to spend hours being delayed, at least the lounge that we are in is pretty kick ass.

Alright, finally time to get on the flight. Luckily, it didn’t get any more delays after the first two.

First time for me to fly in seats that can lay flat. Not only that, our seats face backwards. Unsure how I feel about that as I know I typically get motion sickness easier on trains when I’m facing backwards. Hopefully that’s not the case here.

The captain for the flight came on the announcement and gave reasons for the delay. The original captain was sick, so they called up the alternate pilot. Somehow, the first alternate couldn’t make it and they didn’t find that information until it was too late. And at that point, they called up the second alternate, who is our current Captain. He said that he got the call, and was out the door of his house in 12 minutes to make it to the airport. The plane also took on a little more fuel to fly faster to make up for lost time. With the estimate that they have, we should make it to Madrid with 1 hour and 20 minutes for our connection. I am hopeful that we’ll be able to do that.

My favorite part of flying, food. Unfortunately, I did get some motion sickness. It was a pretty turbulent flight and while watching TV I started getting motion sickness to the point I had to turn the TV off. Food was pretty good though.

Raspberry cheese cake, I don’t think this helped my nausea though.

Might as well lay down flat and try to go to sleep. It’s nice laying down flat, especially after a super long layover. Thankful that I’m not in Economy for this leg of the flight.

Alright, almost there. Let’s hope making the connection is easy.

Sunny here in Madrid.

We were just here a year ago when we came to Spain. And just like last time, I look at this terminal and think how expensive it must have been to build it.

Had a little freak out moment when I couldn’t find the connecting flight. I was looking up the wrong time (boarding time) instead of departure time. It being listed as Tanger vs. Tangier also threw me off (and into a little bit in a moment of panic).

With that said, we only had to go through this simple security check again and it was in the departure part of this same terminal for our flight to Tangier.

LOL. It’s a place to serves burgers and ribs. This is offensive, right?

Got just a little bit of time before boarding, so grab some coffee and a quick bite.

Jamon from Starbucks. Tastes like jamon, but I’m no expert.

Alright, time to catch our…bus.

Small regional aircraft to Tangier.

Quite the short visit to Spain.

This is Spain.

This is Morocco, 45minutes later. I had to look up the timestamp to check since the landscape looks so similar from above.

Outskirts of Tangier.

RL liked these giant white flowers here.

We are here in Morocco, and our first time in Africa!

Pretty small airport.

Immigration was easy peasy. No visa needed, and they didn’t ask any questions at all.

Easy set fare to the old city in Tangier from airport. 150 dirham, or roughly $15.

Excited. Of course, none of the seatbelts are working in the taxi.

Suburb Tangier is not much to look at.

These brick and concrete buildings do remind me some of Taiwan though.

Even here Naruto is a thing.

Our route to our Guesthouse.

Bab Kasbah, the gate closest to our guesthouse into the old city. No cars are allowed past here.

Let’s hope we won’t have too much trouble finding our guesthouse in these maze like alleyways.

So quaint here, lots of cats.

RL’s favorite cat, reminds her of her old cat Grace. Except this one is very, very pregnant.

After quite a few wrong turns, we finally found our guesthouse with the help of a local resident who saw us wandering around and pointed the way for us.

Here’s our room, I had no idea what to expect at first, but it’s a cool little spot. This is what $160 a night gets you in a pretty awesome location inside the old city of Tangier. This guesthouse is a combination of several houses and you get to your room from what seems like a little maze of different levels and tiny stairs.

View out our window in living room.

In our room, we’ve got our own little tiny staircase that leads up to the bedroom.

From our bedroom, there are not one, but two balconies. One small and completely private, and another one that is semi private.

The tiny private balcony.

View from our tiny balcony.

View from the larger balcony.

With its a spiral staircase. That leads up to…

The roof top terrace for the whole guest house.

The view up here is pretty awesome.

Alright, it’s been a super long travel day, about 20 hours. Time to get settled down here and chill a little bit. RL is going to take a nap, and I’ll do some blogging.

To be continued at Tangier Day 1 Part 2.