June 11 - Day 7 of our journey

On Monday, day seven our journey, we headed into the town of Rota to see the sights. The people running the navy lodge, the hotel we stayed in, called a taxi to take us into town. William had to speak to the taxi driver with what little Spanish he knew, but we were able to easily make it to a nice area in Rota. As we drove out of the base, the taxi driver asked if we had our id cards to get back on base, and we said we did so we had no worries for the rest of the day. The city was absolutely beautiful. Spain is a wonderful place, but from the time of noon to around 5:00 in the afternoon the place is dead. Every restaurant and store was closed because all the Spaniards were taking their siestas for the day. We walked all over town and stopped at a pizza place just before they were about to close for the afternoon. We ate lunch there and then continued our trek around town stopping at different stores and shops. Everyone in Spain was so nice and kind to us. They are very friendly people and make everyone feel welcome. When we were ready to go back to the base, we got back into a taxi and made our way to the gate. We did not think we would need our passports while we were sight seeing to get back into the base because we had our military id cards. The guards at the gate were confused thinking that our id cards said that we were reservists when really our id cards said active duty on them. Apparently reservists cannot leave the base. We were so scared that we were going to be arrested and kept at the base for a long time because no one had told us that we couldn’t leave. We made that Monday night our last night on the base because we didn’t want our fears to come true because we were told to leave. The people at the navy lodge were so kind to book us a room at a fabulous and affordable hotel in town for the next day. They also reserved us a taxi for the next day to take us to Jerez, pronounced “Hereth,” at 5:00. We were so thankful for the people at the navy lodge because they helped us so much. They were a blessing and we thanked them for all they did for us in our time of need. We woke up on Tuesday at the navy lodge and got into a taxi that was called to take us to the police station in order for us to get our passports stamped because they do not stamp passports on the base when you land. At that time we began to see that the Lord was ordering our steps because the only man in Rota who could stamp our passports walked into the station five minutes after we walked in. We were told that it sometimes takes three days to get this man to stamp passports so we were greatly blessed. We left the police station to take the taxi to the hotel for a relaxing day. The hotel was very inviting and everyone there was so nice to us. We spent one night there and loved it. The beach was across the street from the hotel as well as a park, and Anna and Davis spent a few hours on the beach. William, around lunchtime, was very hungry because we had not gotten any breakfast that morning. He walked almost all over Rota to find some place and after about an hour and a half he found a place that gave him a delicious hamburger. After that, William went on a run through the park and unfortunately for him, was scarred for life as he witnessed two elderly people laying naked on the beach only fifty yards away from him as he put it. He also witnessed something else that we cannot share on this blog. We spent the rest of the day at the hotel and had a wonderful night’s sleep. We woke up at the hotel in Spain and spent another relaxing day in that area of the city. Not much went on today. At 5:00, our taxi pulled up next to the hotel to take us to Jerez. We had a nice taxi ride to Jerez and got to see a lot of the countryside of Spain. We made it to the airport and in only one hour we were on the plane and in the air. It was about a three-hour flight from Jerez to Frankfurt, Germany. We were hoping that we would get into Frankfurt while it was still light outside, but that didn’t happen. We landed and got out of the plane to only find that it was dark and cold. We found our way through the large airport in Frankfurt and picked up our rental car. I am the only one able to drive it, although William also has an international driver’s license, but with the car that we picked you have to be twenty-one to drive it. I was a little rusty with driving the stick shift but after a while I got the hang of it. William says that I can drive like Jason Bourne off of the movies. We tried to find a decent hotel and we got lost for a few hours in the rain and night. Finally we stumbled upon a little Holiday Inn Express. We were all so tired and did not care at the time that the room was too small for us all to be comfortable.