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.