Estremoz<\/a>. \u00a0 This was the only place we ran into where not only was the menu not in English, but the waiter spoke only Portuguese.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Either through luck, good fortune, or some selective changes by the waiter, everybody ended up with quite delicious lunches.\u00a0 We made it all the way to Madrid that night, but didn’t do much, just went out to dinner.<\/p>\nThe next day was our flight out, so we didn’t have time for any touristing.\u00a0 I did make the mistake of going out for morning coffee though.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 It was at this point I was absolutely sure I was done with Spain, at least for this trip.\u00a0 I consider (and rightly so) the word “coffee” to be nearly as universal a word as “OK” or “no.”\u00a0 It’s not like I was trying to communicate a thin-crust pizza with no green peppers and extra sausage; “COFFEE.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 To his credit, it was a very GOOD cup of coffee.<\/p>\n
From Spain, we took an almost-pleasant flight back to the good ol’ USA, New York City to be exact.\u00a0 This portion of the trip was highlighted by a trip to the Yankees\/Mets game.\u00a0 Although we left in the fifth inning during the 40-minute rain delay, it was a great time all the same.\u00a0 Suffice to say the level of play was just generally above what I usually get to see.\u00a0 Plus, we sat in the bleachers, which was an adventure in itself.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I wouldn’t call it overkill though;\u00a0 They kept plenty busy.\u00a0 A rather confrontational pairing of baseball fans, we surmised.\u00a0 Overall, I would say New York greatly exceeded my admittedly low expectations;\u00a0 May even go back some day.<\/p>\n
So, now we are back home safe and sound… Without luggage AGAIN.\u00a0 I will spare you my anti-American-Airlines tirade, since you may well be tired of reading this anyway.\u00a0 Plus, Donette seems to think I have some type of agenda against them so I don’t want to be chastised again.\u00a0 I think quite the opposite though; They have some kind of agenda against ME!!\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In summary, I’ll rank the destinations, just from my narrow point of view:<\/p>\n
1.\u00a0 Sweden & Denmark:\u00a0 4 out of 5 stars.\u00a0 We’d already been there so this was a repeat trip;\u00a0 We sort of knew what to expect.\u00a0 The whole wedding experience and the “personal tour guides” aspect added greatly to this part.<\/p>\n
2.\u00a0 Spain:\u00a0 2.5 out of 5 stars.\u00a0 The food was hit and miss, the car travel tedious, and the residents a rather surly lot.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
3.\u00a0 Portugal:\u00a0 4.5 out of 5 stars.\u00a0 The food was good, the prices the most reasonable of our trip, and we had a good balance of “activities” and “leisure.”\u00a0 I’d probably go 5 stars if the ocean had been 10 degrees warmer.<\/p>\n
4.\u00a0 New York City:\u00a0 4 out of 5 stars.\u00a0 This brief part was a pleasant surprise.\u00a0 I expected a good baseball game sandwiched between many hours of misery, but I had a grand time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 18 day vacation is officially over;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I was ready to be back though, I guess, if for no reason other than it’s nice to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1749,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions\/1749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pkenagy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}