Water

I crossed the Atlantic three weeks ago for the first time in about 25 years, and my thirsty soul drank it all up (um, and by "it" I don't literally mean the Atlantic)! In my next few posts I get to write about the new memories I made, but instead of a chronological account, I'm going to mix it up a bit. Today? It's all about water.

First of all, our reasoning went, we have to fly through Europe to get to Kenya, which was our primary destination. How sad would it be to fly through an airport in, say, Paris, and not get out to have a look around? Too sad. So when my sister Maryann, who flew from Boston, and I, who flew from Salt Lake City, met in the airport in Paris, we went out for a few days to have a look around,

It was a bit rainy that first afternoon. But we found shelter where we could. In cafés with tasty French things to eat.

Under umbrellas.

On the giant ferris wheel in the Tuileries, with glass encased gondolas. In case you can't quite make it out, this was our view of the Eiffel Tower.

Luckily the sun came out the next day.

After a few days in Paris, we flew to Kenya. According to the flight magazine, we were supposed to fly over Libya. But I guess they don't do that anymore. Lucky for us, that meant we flew directly down the coast of Italy and across southern Greece. I enjoyed views like this for hours! We also crossed the Nile in Egypt at least twice.

While we were in Kenya, we went on a three-day safari to Masai Mara National Park. On one of our game drives we drove all the way to the river that separates Kenya and Tanzania. This is who we found there.

It wasn't particularly warm in Nairobi, but after one especially long day, this pool at the place we stayed was exactly what I needed. While Maryann and I swam, the lifeguard sat at the edge of the pool in long pants and a sweatshirt. He probably thought we were nuts.

From Nairobi, we flew overnight to Spain, then drove south. We had a late lunch in Valencia (a memorable paella con verduras) and just enough time to dip our feet in the Mediterranean before we had to hit the road again.

The next day we made it Grenada, where we basked in the lush gardens of the Alhambra, made possible by ingenious irrigation systems like this. 

On my second to last day, we finally made it to the beach in Barcelona for a swim. Here I am heading toward a full, satisfying dip in the sea! 

We also swam in the roof top pools of two of our hotels in Spain, but I forgot to take pictures of them.

On my flight home to Salt Lake City, it took an entire hour just to fly across the Hudson Bay. That was a long, long, long flight.