Lisbon Hotel

Our driver picked us up at the airport in a spacious van.  It was a smooth ride and he dropped us off at a hotel, the Avenida Palace.  Notice that I didn't say "our hotel"? Well there's a little problem with the tour company. They don't have names & addresses on the instructions. Many of the hotels have similar names. So we're trying to check in to this beautiful hotel, with lovely staff, and they can't find our names. Fortunately the  traffic was heavy and didn't allow the driver to get too far. The doorman chased him down and he returned to get us and our bags and then get us to our proper hotel.  Another adventure.

We went up the street a block or two to our hotel, the Heritage. We were so sad to leave the last one. It was lovely. But our hotel is really well located, once again. The staff is spectacularly helpful.

And this is the BEST room of our trip.  There are big windows...that open! There was so much light that it was difficult getting photos of the room.

Oh, and they even have a tea bar in the lobby!  And WiFi is available, for free, throughout the hotel, even in our rooms!!!!!

Leaving Spain

The airport gave us yet another opportunity to purchase a big leg of ham......

We may have mentioned that the people here are VERY serious about ham.  See the plastic umbrella at the bottom?  That's to catch any fat that drips down.  They think of everything. Can you imagine if we brought this back home with us?

Now we checked in and we're ready to board.  We all loaded up on to a bus and headed to the tarmac where the plane was waiting.  The smallest plan that any of us had ever flown on!

We laughed when we saw this plane.  The co-pilot told us they were flying at a low altitude and it would be smooth.  We got to our seats and there was a lovely boxed lunch in the seat. Very simple, yet very tasty.

The take off was a little, well, we were going back and forth in the wind...is there a word for that? Other than those few seconds of flight, it was extremely smooth. Flying at the lower altitudes allows a nice view too. And we had an uneventful arrival in Lisbon, Portugal and our driver was waiting for us when we arrived. I love it when things go smoothly.

Have you noticed that it's warmer and we have our warm weather clothes out? It was just lovely.

Leaving Seville

This is such a sad story. We were really looking forward to Seville. We just didn't get to appreciate much about the place.  The Troubles were overtaking all us....except for Michael. Here's the breakfast at our hotel....that we didn't get to enjoy much......

 We're off to the airport to leave Spain......

Last Evening in Seville

We all headed out for dinner.  Michael is the only one that's not suffering.  None of us wanted to waste our vacation. We were also feeling very weak from  not eating, so we thought we would try to eat something.  The Imodium seemed to be working, so out we went.

This felt so good and satisfying.  Do you see how they put tuna on just about anything?  We were getting used to this and may even do this at home.

Then we hit the pastry shop next to the hotel for one last treat...Michael has been longing for the meringue....

This is nothing like a meringue at home.  It's really dense, extra sweet, almost creamy.  Too bad only Michael could really enjoy it.

Then we walked around a tiny bit (didn't want to be too far away from the room...and remember, we have a hike to get to our rooms) and enjoyed the outdoors.  I still couldn't get anyone to go for a ride in one of the carriages.......

We went back to the hotel, checked the internet for scores of the A's games...it was the end of the season and the A's were making a run for the division title (which they did win), and then went to bed. This vacation isn't sounding too exciting, is it?

Sights of Seville

After a full day, stuck in the room, wasting precious vacation time, I woke up and was feeling better.  Or perhaps I was just sick of being sick.  In either case, I headed to breakfast and ate small quantities of simple food.  Dave wanted absolutely nothing.  I brought him some bread, but he wouldn't touch a thing.  It is just the oddest feeling to have zero appetite.  I mean, I can always stuff myself so I just couldn't figure this out.

I ventured out with Michael & Sabrina, hoping to at least see the two big attractions in town, which are located about a block from our hotel.....the Cathedral of St. Mary and the Alcazar.

First we tried the church.......

It was closed for Mass, so I just poked my head in and we decided to try back later.  And when we went back, it was closed again for Mass.  So......

Then we headed over to the Alcazar.  This was a quick trip because Sabrina began to suffer the Troubles....

It seems that this is the former Jewish Quarters.  But once again, all Jews were killed, forced to convert, or fled.  The churches are built on top of the former synagogs.

Another One Bites the Dust

I wake up in the middle of the night with cramps.  I head to the bathroom and I'm just feeling awful.  I feel just like I did in Mexico where I passed out, hit my head, and ended up in the hospital.  With that experience under my belt, I must have sat on the edge of the tub.  The next thing I knew, I was crumpled in the tub and Dave was standing over me trying to wake me and get me to drink water.  He gets me back in to bed....until I woke up again and knew I had to get to the bathroom.  He held me while I walked, until I passed out and he slowly lowered my slumped body to the floor.  I'm sparing you the totally yucky parts. But he finally gets me back to bed.

In the morning, he was feeling a little better...at least enough to go to breakfast and bring some toast, butter, and a bottle of water back to the room for me. He didn't eat much and ended up back in bed. Where we spent the entire day. Oh, except for the one trip to the outside....to the pharmacy just outside of our hotel.  Here's what he purchased......

Thankfully the name is the same in Spanish as it is in English....no translation required.

Dave thought he'd venture out with Michael and Sabrina for dinner.  That didn't turn out too well.  He had zero appetite and after eating a little, he just felt awful.  So back to bed.  This isn't our most favorite travel story.

Our First Tour In Seville

Dave lays down on the bed and basically lets us know that he's staying there.  Oh, and it is now beginning to rain.  And I don't mean a drizzle....or a shower.....it can be described as a deluge.  And the temperature has dropped too.  So now all the clothing we've saved for an even warmer temperature, yeah, that's not going to happen.

We have yet another tour, that is a bust, scheduled. We're to take a river boat tour. In the rain. So three of us get umbrellas at the desk and we're off to find the meeting place for our tour.  Fortunately we are once again booked at a hotel right smack dab in the middle of everything.  Of course we've paid a pretty penny, well, a whole lot of pretty pennies, for the location, but we find the shuttle in no time and we're off to the boat.

We see a little of Seville, what can be seen in the down pour, and the tour guide tells us a few things.  Again, this is a multi-lingual tour.  Warning....NEVER book a multi-lingual tour.  Oh, and Rick Steves' tells us that the river boat tour is a bust. He's right. If only we had researched this a bit more before we left.  Oh yeah, we only met with the travel agent a few days before departure.

So we get on the boat, with a few of our new best friends.  We are soaked from the walk from the van to the boat. And the wind is whipping up and we're getting wet sitting in the middle of the upper deck.  Of course we want to be on the top deck because the lower deck has all the windows fogged up.  All we're seeing are buildings from the 1992 World Expo, or something boring like that.

The tour guide either figured out we were painfully bored, or he didn't want to speak English (and we were the only English speaking people on the tour, the rest were Spanish). He approached us and asked if we wanted to bail from the second part of the tour, the Bull Fighting Museum.  Well, Sabrina loathes the entire idea of bull fighting and all three of us are bored out of our minds..and wet, and cold...so we all voted to get out of there.  He arranged for the van to take us back to the hotel and we were out of there immediately.

When we returned to our hotel, we now had to navigate the narrow halls, courtyards, and alley, back to our rooms.  We were like rats in a maze. Seriously. It was a joke. We later learned that they furnish you with a guide upon request. Seriously?! We were bound and determined to get to our room, on our own. It took us 20 minutes! Oh, and that alley.....water up to our ankles....so now we are totally soaked, with soggy wet shoes.

Dave is still laying down, asleep, and isn't going to join us for dinner.  The three of us change our shoes and head to dinner.  I  feel a bit chilled, but chalk it up to the complete soaking and sympathy pains for Dave. Then the food arrives and I just am not the least bit interested in eating.  I have a few bites and that's it.  We head back to our rooms, which we do a little better finding our room this time.

I shower and I can barely wait to jump in to my single bed. And I am seriously chilled....oh this sounds way too much like Dave's symptoms.  Stay tuned......

Our Arrival in Seville, Spain

And we're off to Seville, or Sevilla.  There was a bit of drama getting to the train station.  We had the hotel arrange transportation to the train station.  We didn't rely on just any taxi since there are four of us and we have four bags.  All vehicles, including taxis, are small here in Europe. Some would think that's great (mph, greenies, and all that), but when you're trying to get somewhere, it's a pain.  So our driver headed in the wrong direction and then tried to get 35 Euro out us.  It didn't happen.  We'd like to think the best, and we will, but it's a bit of a rip.  We paid 15 Euro.

Again, no drama with the train.  We're thinking this whole thing is over-hyped.  Then again, we had a local telling us horror stories while we were traveling on the train.  So who knows?

And I was actually able to have a bit of a conversation with the lady taxi driver.  I think I'm getting over the shyness of my lack of Spanish.  Since I'm the best in the group, well, I had to jump in. I'm impressing everyone.  Then again, I'm pretty much the only show in town, or at least the only one in the group. Thank you for all those boring vocabulary drills. Oh, and to fit in to the taxi, Sabrina had to hold the shelf in front of her so the bags would fit in the back..she was unable to see a thing on our drive. We're pretty sure this wouldn't happen in the US.

We are so looking forward to this stop.  We're thinking that we're done with the big cities and now on to the more quaint and walking tourist places.  The old towns with the narrow streets and interesting shops, etc.  We are so jazzed to get to our hotel, Las Casas de la Juderia.

Our room wasn't ready, so we walked around the city.  Now Dave didn't eat anything on the train, and he's very quiet.  He's not complaining, but just sort of blah.  Our rooms are ready and we're off...in the "overflow" again.  You may remember from prior adventures that somehow we always get stuck in the outer regions.  We're not sure how this happens to us.  Anyway, we wander through all these narrow halls, through lovely courtyards, cross through an alley, and get to our rooms....

We were mortified with the twin beds, but it turned out to be a good thing.  Oh, and that bathroom....little did we know how much time we would be spending in there......

Madrid...This and That

There are so many things that you see while traveling.  They might make sense to the locals, but for us...we just can't figure it out. For instance, we saw this...

We tried to figure it out, gave up, and went inside to ask.  We thought maybe it was one of those places that you rented a room and shared bathrooms.  They told us no, it's a regular hotel with single rooms including toilets.  They couldn't explain the name, etc. It looked legit. Who knows?

We went back to the same restaurant three different times during our three night stay here. We have NEVER done this before, back tracked. Here's what a tapas is....you sit down at a counter and then point at stuff. We bought a couple of little sandwiches along with a bottle of water.  The buys splurged and ordered big burgers with fries.

  Oh, and apple pie here is a layer of crust and then baked apply on top.  Tasty but very different from home.

 So this is our last evening in Madrid. This is the beginning of our "troubles".  Dave showers and gets in to bed, shivering and shaking. He says he doesn't think he has the flu, but he can't seem to get warm. I cuddle up next to him, nothing...he needed a heavy blanket and then was finally able to sleep.  He woke up feeling puny...and not hungry. We were on our way to the train to go to Sevilla.......

Toledo Tour

One of our tours we booked before we left for Spain, was a tour of Toledo. So early one morning we walked to the little tour office, along with a few other tourists, met our lovely multi-lingual tour guide, and boarded a big bus.  This was our first exposure to a tour done in many languages....English, Spanish, and French.  We are not fans of this multi-language experience and here's why.....It makes us crazy.  You're focused on what sounds like gibberish, waiting to hear English. Since we're in the minority, when she began speaking English, the others in the group began chatting among themselves, making it difficult to hear what she's saying.  With the accent, the English isn't really clear either. Oh well, live and learn....we'll make sure to ask before we book another tour that might possibly be given in more than one language.

But off we go.  Toledo is about an hour away from Madrid.  The bus makes a stop at a roadside business just outside of Toledo.  Of course there are plenty of souvenirs to purchase (which we bought NONE), food and drink to purchase, and a clean toilet to use. We did have this photo op.....

Then we're off to the lovely little town of Toledo. There's a church with a painting by El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz. I don't think we fully appreciated this work of art. Our guide did a wonderful job of explaining the piece, but after you've seen all the art in Italy, this just looked crude to us.  We are not art aficionados, so you should not take our word for this. El Greco is the father of the Spanish Renaissance, but again, when you hold it up against the Italian Renaissance, it comes up very short.

The streets are narrow and there once was a very large Jewish population. They are responsible for much of the development in the area.  Too bad there are no longer Jews in the area.  They were run out of town years ago....burned, tortured, and murdered....but they left behind lovely tiles embedded in the streets.

There's also a lovely villa that has been turned in to a museum. The artist and his wife did not have any children or heirs, so they left everything to the town. Interesting art, not our style.

The views are lovely.....and there are plenty of tour buses.  I wish that I was able to get a photo of the multi-story escalator leading up to the town. It was an engineering feat!

And of course there's a lovely cathedral....

And then there was the synagog that was turned in to a church.....

The town of Toledo is very interesting and we could have spent an entire day here.

On the way back to Madrid, there was a stop where we saw how they take little cuts of metals and embed them in pendants, etc.  We took a quick view and then hit the toilet and bought a bottle of water before we loaded back up on the bus.

Once again, not loving the tours........

While We Were Having Dinner.....

We're taking in the city on our final day of the "Hop On-Hop Off" tickets, when we see that streets are blocked off and the buses are changing their routes.  We're not sure what's up. There are people arriving. Not just young people. They are young to middle age. All well behaved. Dressed like reasonable people. We also see a large police presence. In what looks like riot gear. Not that we have experience with this, but we've seen the evening news.

All this is happening on the main drag where we're headed for our dinner.  We go in to the restaurant and enjoy a wonderful dinner.  When we're finished, a young man comes over to talk to us.  He lived in Connecticut for two years and wanted to practice his English.  He was very polite and spoke very good English.  We asked him what was going on outside and he said "oh, they just want to be supported by the government and not work". Okay then......

Loved how they stacked up the french fries...and these were FABULOUS french fries. And then we indulged in dessert.....

When we finished and headed outside, the major part of the "Occupy Parliament" event was over.  We walked down the middle of the street with the young punks on one side (most of the people had left and only the trouble makers were left) and the police on the other side. Everything was a bit tense. When we returned to the hotel, the TV was on and we watched the news reports.  It looked intense and awful on the news....really, it wasn't that bad live and in person.

Madrid....and Then a Sweet!

Madrid is a big city, with lots going on.......

There are plenty of street performers, most are like we've seen at home.  There are a few twists to what we've seen. They're trying to be the latest and greatest. Some are familiar, but some are unique.  We weren't able to figure out how these two guys worked out this stunt.  When they set-up and tear-down, they hide in this blanket so no one can see what they're doing.....

After a tough day of being a tourist, we needed a snack.  We found a bakery run by a couple.  They were so cute.  She spoke a little bit of English, he just backed off and smiled at his bride...and may have rolled his eyes a few times.

They packaged our treats up so nicely....

Taking In Madrid

We walked out of our hotel to see what the city had to show us. Right off the bat we stumbled upon a scam. But we knew about it, so we had no time for it. The guy was miffed at us and called Dave a "Stupid B*tch". Clearly he had a few phrases in English that need work.

We checked out a few shops, but nothing exciting. We are so spoiled living in CA. We can find so much, for so much less. We mostly purchase a few postcards to use as titles in our scrapbook/photo album. We did continue a tradition with our grandson, sending him a postcard.  Ezra LOVES getting a postcard.  So cute, when he visited the SF Aquarium with his family he insisted on purchasing a postcard for us and mailing it to our home!

There's a royal palace in Madrid so we walked over and hired a tour guide.  She was very good, although we have found the Spaniards are not much in to chit chat. Spain does still have a King and the palace is used for functions, no one lives there now. They were setting up bleachers for an event.  I like how they have seat backs on their bleachers, very cool.....

There's a very lovely pedestrian walking area and gardens surrounding the palace.

Our First Meal in Madrid

We have pinpointed our "troubles" to Madrid. The Rick Steves' 2008 Spain Travel Book clearly stated that it was fine to drink the water in Madrid.  In our travels we usually purchase bottled water, but we relaxed this rule while in Madrid. This was to be a HUGE error.

We asked for a recommendation from out hotel.  They dine very late in Spain, well after 8 pm, so we have discovered tapas....appetizers. We did try out this place down the street from our hotel and were able to have an early dinner.  Doesn't it look delicious?

The bread in Madrid is VERY good. They don't smear it with olive oil and tomatoes....which was okay, but we like this better.
And here's where I went totally off the reservation, and I'm the only one that was adventurous enough to order one of the local favorites....ox tail! I LOVE braised meats.  I wish I had taken a video of the waiter explaining to us, in very broken English, that this was the tail of the bull. And that's their take on mashed potatoes, more of pureed potatoes. It was all VERY delicious.

Then it had to be topped off with a couple of desserts, of course!

This filled us up until the next morning....where we had an entirely new breakfast set-up at this hotel.  We LOVE to have the breakfast included with our hotel stay.  It's part of our routine. Here's a small sample of our breakfast.......

Moving On To Madrid

We were all ready to leave Barcelona.  Four nights was plenty. Although we did miss the BIG finale in the celebration of Le Merce 2012. We caught a taxi to the train station to take the AVE to Madrid. This is absolutely the coolest, most modern train in the world.  Even better than the Eurostar. The travel time between Barcelona and Madrid was just a few hours. And the ride was so smooth.  The speed was close to 200 mph, or at least we think it was, not too sure we are spot on with the conversion of kph to mph. We know it was spectacularly fast because when we opened up our toiletries in Madrid, they exploded like they do after air travel.

The train station was modern and very civilized.  We have been told so many stories about Spain and the train that we were on high alert.  We really have not experienced all the danger that we have been warned about.  We don't think we're naive, we just don't see it.  We were traveling in the first class section, which was very wonderful and a civilized way to go, yet we had to store our luggage in an adjacent luggage rack.  We were warned in advance to stand guard at the two stops and then be very wary upon arriving in Madrid.  We were even instructed on how to carefully unload the bags in tandem so we would not be rushed and have our luggage stolen.  Again, we experienced nothing to be concerned with...at all.  We found police roaming the area and then you had to show a ticket before allowed entrance to the platforms.  It could be this had been a problem and now it was guarded, or Spain is uber careful since the terrorist attack on the trains in Madrid back in 2004.

I tell you all about the details so you can see that this isn't a vacation, it's an adventure.  Not only are there plenty of concerns, everything is in Spanish.  This country, like many places outside of the US, does not have multilingual signs, etc. We did find in Spain most people do not speak English.  We're again grateful to all those years of Spanish classes.  That and a smile and pointing, etc. It really is a group effort.

We safely arrived in Madrid, snagged a cab (that would hold the four of us with our four bags), and arrived at our hotel, H10 Villa de la Reina.

Rooms in Europe are very different than they are in the U.S. Mostly they are teeny tiny.  This one was one of the smallest rooms we have ever had. Our first clue at the tiny rooms was the "lift", we would call it an elevator in the U.S. Does this look like fun? We did take the stairs, but they were so unevenly spaced that after five or six floors we got wobbly.

In Search of the Perfect Cami.....

First pants went down low, and then shirts came up high. Which led me on a search for the elusive perfect cami.  A basic layer to provide coverage and sometimes warmth.  Recently I discovered Yummie Tummie. I'm not sure how long they've been around.  I'm just very happy to have finally found it at my favorite department store, Nordstrom (aka Nordies). 

The cami is long enough to provide adequate coverage so I'm not exposing middle-age skin when I bend or reach.  Really, I'm just saving humanity from the vision.  Consider it my Random Act of Kindness.  It doesn't ride up because it has a smoothing effect and stays tight.  It doesn't add bulk either, so it layers nicely.

I was a little concerned to try this because I thought it would be like wearing Spanx (which I cannot stand, really, just buy a larger size and save yourself the angst). This cami isn't going to take off 10 pounds, but it does provide a little smoothing and will remind you to practice good posture.

If you haven't heard of this wonder garment, you should look in to it. Just sayin'......

Try this link if you'd like to find out more.....I tried to show a picture from the Nordstrom link, but you can see how awful that turned out....

Jorel & Annika Got Married!!!!!!

Jorel (his parents were VERY big Superman fans) and Annika celebrated their 10th Anniversary of dating by getting MARRIED!!!!!! They kept it low key because that's the way they roll....and she KNEW we were going to give her a tough time over her years of saying....I don't need a piece of paper to show commitment, etc....and all that other silly stuff we ALL say when we're young and dumb.  Well, we could not possibly be happier that she's decided to make it formal.  Could it be that she's also changing her mind about babies?  We're all hoping...tick tock, tick tock.  Anyway.....

We were invited to a reception at their home. We were wondering why we haven't visited them before, and after TWO HOURS of driving we remembered why, UGH.  Because they LOVE Mexican food, they decided on a Mexican theme.  VERY delicious food, VERY nice decorations, etc....

The party favors are cactus in little pails....we left ours there because we have the blackest thumb. It is so stressful trying to keep plants from sure death.  In lieu of a Guest Book, Granny had a table with quilting squares for guests to write wishes, she's going to make them a quilt.

My two nephews are all grown up and very handsome...and sweet and independent and just good people....and they reluctantly followed orders when asked to remove their shades....

Here's Jorel with his Uncle Dave and his Mom.....

Here I am with my sister (Rhonda) and Mom (aka Granny)............

The cake was FABULOUS! The top layer was lemon poppy seed with lemon icing. The bottom layer was chocolate.  WELL worth the calories!

And finally, here are the Newlyweds!

Wishing them a Happily Ever After.......