The 18 day vacation is officially over;  I know this because I am back at work, I am wearing socks, and my credit card was declined when I tried to buy a sausage biscuit this morning.  I was ready to be back though, I guess, if for no reason other than it’s nice to be able to understand people again.  It was getting a little tiresome listening to all that nonsensical jibber-jabber from everyone around me, and that includes our short stay in New York.

I guess I’ll cobble together a short vacation summary, although believe it or not I have better things to do.  After our Sweden & Denmark trip, we moved on to Spain, which I briefly touched on earlier.  We met up with the Martins in Madrid, then drove on to Toledo.  That was a long day of walking around looking at “points of interest.”  Not to minimize the things we saw, because there were several rather awe-inspiring sights, but I’m not good at descriptions anyway so I’ll just leave it at that.  After Toledo, we drove on to Cordoba.   This city had lots of potential, but we spent the better part of our time there driving around aimlessly looking for a safe place to park.  We’d gotten a parking ticket in Toledo and were a little gun-shy, I guess.  We finally found a place we determined safe to leave the car for the night, but by that time everything was closed.  The next day we got up, moved the car again, and did a very little bit of sight-seeing, including a Mosque that was built in the year 780.  Pretty impressive stuff, but all we really did was look at our watches to make sure our meter time wasn’t up.  From there, we moved on to Sevilla, a.k.a. Seville.  Luckily the hotel we picked there actually had parking available, albeit at a cost.  (I guess it wasn’t luck;  we made sure of it when we called.)  We did quite a bit of walking around in this city too, but mixed in a fair amount of “activities.”  I’d say Sevilla was probably my favorite of the “Spain” portion of our trip.  Our activities here included going to a bullfight and watching a Flamenco performance.

After our Spain trip, we drove on to Salema, Portugal, for some relaxation.  All that walking around in Spain had worn a little thin on everybody, I think.  This was a great portion of the trip, if not too exciting.  We pretty much laid on the beach for three days, had some great food, and just took it easy.  I really liked this little town;  Laid back, interesting, good food, and CHEAP, which was a refreshing change.

After our beach break, we spent a day driving back to Madrid, where we were flying out the next day.  We managed to hit the “driving day” perfectly, because it poured rain all day so there wasn’t really much else we could have done anyway.  The drive was relatively uneventful, highlighted by a randomly chosen lunch break in the city of Estremoz.   This was the only place we ran into where not only was the menu not in English, but the waiter spoke only Portuguese.  Through a rather lengthy process of elimination, we managed to exclude the “appetizer,” “dessert,” and “drink” portions of the menu, and pointed at what we hoped were good selections.  Either through luck, good fortune, or some selective changes by the waiter, everybody ended up with quite delicious lunches.  We made it all the way to Madrid that night, but didn’t do much, just went out to dinner.

The next day was our flight out, so we didn’t have time for any touristing.  I did make the mistake of going out for morning coffee though.  I dropped in a nearby cafe, and had the pleasure of dealing with some clown who at least pretended to not understand the word “coffee.”  It was at this point I was absolutely sure I was done with Spain, at least for this trip.  I consider (and rightly so) the word “coffee” to be nearly as universal a word as “OK” or “no.”  It’s not like I was trying to communicate a thin-crust pizza with no green peppers and extra sausage; “COFFEE.”  I had literally stood up from my stool and was opening my mouth for what was sure to be a most regrettable utterance when he finally threw up his hands in mock frustration, turned around and poured a friggin’ cup of coffee.  To his credit, it was a very GOOD cup of coffee.

From Spain, we took an almost-pleasant flight back to the good ol’ USA, New York City to be exact.  This portion of the trip was highlighted by a trip to the Yankees/Mets game.  Although we left in the fifth inning during the 40-minute rain delay, it was a great time all the same.  Suffice to say the level of play was just generally above what I usually get to see.  Plus, we sat in the bleachers, which was an adventure in itself.  I don’t know if this holds true for every game or only Mets games, but the number of uniformed police in the bleacher section was rather comical.  I wouldn’t call it overkill though;  They kept plenty busy.  A rather confrontational pairing of baseball fans, we surmised.  Overall, I would say New York greatly exceeded my admittedly low expectations;  May even go back some day.

So, now we are back home safe and sound… Without luggage AGAIN.  I will spare you my anti-American-Airlines tirade, since you may well be tired of reading this anyway.  Plus, Donette seems to think I have some type of agenda against them so I don’t want to be chastised again.  I think quite the opposite though; They have some kind of agenda against ME!!  I have lots of good material from just this trip, including late departures, lost luggage, (TWICE) and the worst ticket counter in the history of air travel, but I won’t go on a tirade because I’m the bigger person here.  In summary, I’ll rank the destinations, just from my narrow point of view:

1.  Sweden & Denmark:  4 out of 5 stars.  We’d already been there so this was a repeat trip;  We sort of knew what to expect.  The whole wedding experience and the “personal tour guides” aspect added greatly to this part.

2.  Spain:  2.5 out of 5 stars.  The food was hit and miss, the car travel tedious, and the residents a rather surly lot.  The sights were great though, and it did have it’s high points… Maybe it was just a matter of the high expectations I had.

3.  Portugal:  4.5 out of 5 stars.  The food was good, the prices the most reasonable of our trip, and we had a good balance of “activities” and “leisure.”  I’d probably go 5 stars if the ocean had been 10 degrees warmer.

4.  New York City:  4 out of 5 stars.  This brief part was a pleasant surprise.  I expected a good baseball game sandwiched between many hours of misery, but I had a grand time.

This is a short vacation status update, before we hop in the Fiat and hit the road again.  We are currently in Sevilla, Spain, where we’ve spent the last two days.  We started off in Madrid, then hit Toledo and Cordoba before ending up here.  Thank goodness for the Garmin.  We’ve logged many miles on my poor tootsies… The car ride today actually sounds inviting.  Yesterday was particularly event-filled:  We left the hotel around 11:00 and spent the day walking around looking at several historic buildings, with requisite breaks for tapas and drinks.  Then, around 7:00 we went and took in the bullfights,  and after THAT a Flamenco show.  Whew.  We stayed out way past my bedtime, which has been the case every evening I suppose.

Today we are most likely heading to Portugal, the Fiat and the GPS willing.  I am ready for some beach time.

We rounded out the first portion of our trip by taking the train to Denmark today.  We spent the afternoon walking around Copenhagen with the newlyweds, just kind of hanging out and taking pictures.  So far so good;  Tomorrow we fly to Spain.

OK my Swedish is a little rough…  We arrived in Sweden (Denmark, actually) sometime Friday evening after limited mis-adventure.  Our flight was delayed out of KC, so that kicked off a series of mild inconveniences, like our luggage not arriving.  Since we had the wedding on Saturday and our good clothes were packed, this wasn’t going to work out, so we had to sit around the airport several hours waiting to see if it showed.  It eventually did and we were on our way, no worries.  We took a train from Denmark to Malmo, Sweden, where Johan’s brother Martin picked us up and drove us the rest of the way.  By the time we hit the hotel in Vaxjo we’d been traveling 29 hours;  We  slept well that night.

Saturday, after a solid night of sleep, we spent the day with the wedding events.  The ceremony was at a nearby Chapel, then we took a short walk to the ruins of Kronoberg Castle for the reception.  (At least I think that’s where we were…  That’s what my 10 minutes of research leads me to believe, and the pictures looks similar.)  We had a good time, even if we didn’t understand 5 words the entire evening.  There were lots of speeches, toasts, songs, and TONS of food.  We just kind of hung back with silly smiles on our faces, laughed when everybody else did, and held our glasses up when everybody else did.  I’ll post the pictures soon so everbody can see the impressive feast that was laid out, and the awesome room we were in, and all the wedding decorations.  Oh wait, I don’t HAVE any pictures, because I took two sets of dead batteries with me.  Oh well, maybe I will just happen to be back at the castle some time soon and I can take some then.  LOSER!!!

Yesterday Johan’s parents took us on a nice tour of the area surrounding Vaxjo.  We had lunch at their house, looked at (everybody else’s) pictures, and watched them open gifts.  When we got back to the hotel we borrowed some bicycles and went downtown for a bit, which was quite comical to us but nobody else seemed to notice.  We found the bikes rather amusing, but they are pretty standard issue over here.  A rather “utilitarian” style…  Sure beat walking though.

Today we are heading back south to Malmo with Johan, where we will spend the rest of our stay in Sweden.  I may even get fancy and throw out a mid-week update, who knows.

I spent the better part of my holiday weekend working and getting ready for our upcoming European adventure, leaving the update material a bit sparse.  In the interests of consistency I’ll throw something out here though.

Saturday Donette’s parents come over and joined us for dinner.  This gave us a chance to try out the rotisserie attachment on our new grill.  I am officially “for” the rotisserie at this point.  We threw on a 4 lb. pork loin and it cooked it to “just right” in just under two hours, using only the back infrared burner.  Granted, not a lot of grilled flava, but I liked the results all the same.  After dinner we went down to Foo’s and had a round of concretes.  I went for the “raspberry cheesecake.”  Highly recommended, although next time I’ll leave out the cheesecake part.

Sunday, in between some very disappointing bouts of work-related stuff, I added a little more bling to the motorcycle.  I bought some used chrome foot controls off the RSWarrior site, which made for a nice little upgrade.  I got some extensions for the brake and shifter too, but I didn’t get that part done; it looked a little too intimidating.  Naturally, it rained all day AGAIN so I didn’t get to go riding.  Hopefully it dries out while we’re gone on vacation.

Monday brought more work stuff, boo.  We did squeeze in an exciting shopping trip to Metro North mall, where I purchased a new suit for our trip.  I don’t want Martin to out-dress me, you know.  We made it out of the neighborhood a second time for dinner, when we headed due south to the Munkir’s house.  They grilled up some Iowa-cut pork chops, which were, in fact, actually from Iowa.  We hadn’t seen the Munkirs clan in a while;  It was nice seeing them again but I was really interested in checking out the new dog, who I hadn’t met yet.  She is a pretty chunky lil’ pup, but not quite ready to go a round with Belle just yet.  We’ll give her another 6 -8 months and check back.  Throw a tug-rope in the living room and see what happens.

Yes, I am aware that is a lame summary of a three-day weekend, but it’s all I’ve got.  I’m tired, distracted, and generally dis-interested.  It’s the best I can offer under those conditions.