American in Spain

The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his trip to visit us in Spain for Thanksgiving 2011.

Getting There

As booked months in advance through Orbitz, we would fly from Charlotte to Philadelphia on Friday afternoon and from Philly to Brussels Friday night. We would arrive in Brussels at 8:00 am their time, and, after a 3 hour lay-over in the airport, we would continue on to Bilbao, Spain, where our son would meet us. Two weeks before our trip, however, Orbitz notified me that Brussels Airline had cancelled the flight that would be completing our long day of travel. We were, they said, now booked on a flight leaving the following day. Our 3-hour layover in Brussels had turned into a 27-hour layover.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about our trip to Ireland in June 2011.

Foreword

It was October 2005. Jeff, Jacob, Erik and I were sitting around the Captain’s Hoose, our four- story self-catered apartment in Anstruther, Scotland. We were almost done with our wonderful week-long golf vacation at St Andrews, when Jacob said “Let’s do Ireland next!” We had all been sampling those things that the Scotch are famous for, and agreement was quickly reached. The year 2008 was tentatively suggested, and agreed to by all. When 2008 arrived, Jacob asked again – “What about Ireland?” I responded to him like the old fogey I was. I told him that I thought I could probably return to the UK to golf one more time, but I loved the links golf in Scotland, and if I could go back one more time, I just couldn’t see doing anything other than a return trip to St Andrews.
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I spent a good part of my morning today trying to get my daughter to say “Happy birthday, Grandpa”. For the longest time, when I told her to say “happy”, she would shake her head and say “No!” It was appropriate, then, that my eventual success came by way of using behavior modification techniques my father taught me. I told her that if she wouldn’t say “happy”, then I would walk away and ignore her. I did this once, coming back a minute later to ask if she’d like to say “happy” and make me stay. She did, and I heaped praise on her. To add the second word, I had to temporarily abandon her once more in punishment. When I came back, she was happy to say the entire phrase to keep me in the room. I assume this is how Steven Spielberg directs his films, too.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about my parents’ March 2011 visit to my home in Colindres, Spain.

Betsy and I are old hands at traveling to Bilbao, Spain. When possible, as it was on March 19, we fly overnight from Charlotte to Germany (in this case, Munich), and then on to Bilbao after an hour or two lay-over. Betsy is always able to catch a few winks, and now that I have totally given up trying to sleep on these flights, I get by nicely watching movies and reading books. To my surprise, the Lufthansa flight from Charlotte to Munich allowed me to access the movie screen on the back of the seat in front of me from the moment we boarded the plane. I watched almost half of True Grit before we ever left the ground, but the pilot cut a few corners and caught back up to his schedule before we landed. There were no movies on the two hour flight from Munich to Bilbao, but I kept busy reading the book, A Course Called Ireland, I needed to finish so I could leave it with Erik.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about a recent golfing excursion to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA.

John arrived Wednesday morning and loaded his stuff into my Odyssey. I had hurt my back three days earlier doing side-to-side squat jumps in front of my television set, so John loaded most of my stuff into the van too. I wasn’t sure I would be able to compete in the thirteenth Myrtle Beach Classic, but I thought I might try. John drove us to David’s lovely new house and David and Amy gave us a quick tour, but soon we had David’s stuff loaded and were back on the road. Except for discovering that I had left my iPhone home, the drive to Myrtle Beach went smoothly. Time just seems to slip by unnoticed when friends are telling stories to each other. I still had my iPad, and I checked my email every half-hour, answering some questions from work. The highlight was an email from the Director asking if it was OK for him to accept the invitation of an old friend and join Facebook. After considering possible answers for several miles, I wrote back that he could, but only on his own time.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his granddaughter Nora’s, stay at his house in December 2010.

We had a very good visit with our Spanish family in October, so we were surprised when Erik floated the idea of bringing Marga and Nora for a visit in November, and even more surprised when he asked us how we would feel about taking care of Nora for five days while he and Marga visited San Francisco.
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his recent trip to visit us in October.

We arrived on-time at 1:30 in the afternoon after uneventful flights from Charlotte to Frankfurt, and from Frankfurt to Bilbao. The Bilbao airport is familiar to us now, and we quickly walked to the international flights’ baggage claim area. We knew it would take about ten more minutes before our bags would appear on the carousel, but Betsy and I were eager to see if Nora had come with Erik to pick us up. We knew from past trips that the Bilbao airport had a glassed viewing area where people waiting for passengers could look down upon the baggage claim areas, and, more importantly to us, arriving grandparents could look up and see if their little eighteen month old granddaughter really could stand and walk on her own now. It had been a little less than five months since we had last seen Nora. Back then, she couldn’t crawl. And . . There she was! Standing about 10 feet to the right of Erik, looking like a miniature girl in her lovely jumper and sweater. I waved like a maniac, but she kept control of her emotions.
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We’re back from our honeymoon! We’ve got plenty of wedding and honeymoon photos to share, but first we’ve got to get some of the pre-wedding family visit / birthday photos out of the way. My father has written up a much better explanation of events than my blurred memory could give you, so I won’t do much explaining here, and share his story soon.
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