World's Worst Blogger

I am officially “The World’s Worst Blogger”. This is my new title. Why? Because I don’t post regularly, because I forget to post at all, because I’m busy doing lots of other things that seem more important than blogging, because I do 15 other things before I get around to writing, because I’m constantly writing in my head but rarely writing on the paper, because I’d rather go play golf than blog, because I’d rather READ blogs than write in MY blog, etc. etc. etc.

However, our family blogs have become a really great way for us to keep in touch with one another, to keep track of the day to day mundane stuff that all our lives are made up of, to follow the big events and share the joys, to understand our loved ones and their inner feelings better. I must know about Sarah’s curls and Jenn’s new daughter and Jan’s dependence on her husband and her TV viewing habits. I’ve come to know my sister-in-law better by reading her blog and I’ve had strangers become virtual friends through this phenomenon of writing about our lives online. Therefore, blogging is an important component of my life, and so here I am, back again. Sorry I’ve been gone. I’ve actually missed you. Don’t ask me why I’ve been doing 100 other things besides blogging…..I have no rational answer. Just enjoy me because I’m here now.

We’ve been home from our BIG trip for 2 weeks now. The regular routines of our everyday life have returned. The jet lag has been conquered and I now sleep at night and stay up during the day. For a while our time schedules were truly screwed up. I was so incommunicado that my friends were worried about me. All I did was sleep for several days. They actually CALLED as opposed to sending an email, since, in this highly unusual situation, I wasn’t answering my email. How very computer dependent my life has become. I email everyone. A phone call now seems a bit out of the norm. The 9 hours difference in our time and European time made a very large impact on us. But now things seem to be back to normal and this is good.

Soon, life will tilt again for I’m packing again. Heading home to see my Mom. At least this time though, I’ll stay in the country and the time difference is only 3 hours. I’ll leave next week, after Christmas with my family. I’m anxious to go. Anxious to hug my Mom and see her and once again know that she is safe and sound. But I’m not looking forward to traveling again so soon. But such is life. I need to see Mom more frequently now. Since losing Dad, I find myself worrying way too much about the possibility of losing her. That is the natural order of things. But I can’t imagine having no living parents. I’m one of the lucky ones. I had a grandmother living and loving me until I was in my 50’s. I had both parents until I was in my 60’s. Now, I have just my Mom. I need to touch base with her frequently. That’s just the way it is.

I stopped blogging during our trip due to connection issues at the end of our ship days and then due to electrical problems while we were in Portugal. We KNEW the electrical voltage was different and we had all the right equipment with us to make the necessary conversions and power up our laptops, but somehow nothing worked right. We got new electrical stuff from the hotel, bought some stuff at the Portugese version of a Wal-Mart Superstore and still nothing worked right. We finally gave up and just waited until we got home to power up both laptops and return to our computer oriented world.

When I stopped writing on vacation, we had just left Malaga and were sailing towards Cadiz, Spain. The port of Cadiz is about 60 miles from the Spanish city of Seville and that’s where we were heading. We had booked a full day of touring and were planning to tour and shop and see the sights. Definitely a day to run and see and do until you drop. And we did.

We boarded a “motor coach” (why can’t they just say it’s a bus?) and, along with 58 other ship’s passengers, we headed for Seville. I had the window seat and my overriding impression of the Spanish countryside, the thought that kept echoing through my head, was “this place looks like home”. And indeed it does. Spain looks like California. Lots of shades of brown, some green, the gently rolling countryside, the stucco houses, the red tile roofs…..I felt like I was home. No wonder The Spouse loves Spain so well. Of all the countries we visited, so far, Spain is easily my favorite. Of course, there are many more countries to see and explore in future trips. But, for now, Spain is a favorite. We will, sometime in the future, fly to Barcelona and vacation there. The Spouse has always wanted to do this. Now I see why. We’ll go in the years to come.

I took California history in college and I can now see clearly why, a few hundred years ago, Spain immediately seized on the west coast, what is now modern day California and Mexico, and made it their own. They saw home when they looked at our countryside. The trail of missions in our state going from the Mexican border all the way to Oregon, are replicas of the churches and chapels that we saw in Spain. We went to a castle where the ceramic tile work, the flowery wrought iron designs, and the building styles have all been replicated in downtown Los Angeles. You want to see a piece of Spain? Go to Olvera Street in L.A. Yes, it’s Mexican, but it’s also Spain. Our buildings, our architecture, our homes, our churches, our countryside……we are the American version of Spain.

We went to the biggest church in Spain, one that is surrounded by no less than 45 chapels. We saw, again, tile work, the grave of Christopher Columbus, sculptures and statuary and stained glass windows that would make you hold your breath in awe. This was truly a magnificent place to behold. I’ll post some pictures below to give you a brief feel for what I’m describing.

We spent time in a large garden that represented some of the most beautiful plant life that Spain has to offer. Because of the time of year, not a lot was in bloom, but some was. Typical of Spain. Typical of California. Beautiful flowers in the middle of winter. There I had my first glimpse of a huge rubber tree. Unusual looking to say the least.

Our ship’s timing put us in Spain on a Sunday. For purposes of shopping this was an unfortunate thing. For purposes of sightseeing, it didn’t really matter. We walked the streets of Seville, watched the Spainards sitting in street side cafes sipping their espresso, did some window shopping and returned to the ship only to end up doing a bit of shopping right on the dock beside the ship. There are always some enterprising individuals who will find a way to sell no matter what.

I learned a lot of interesting things on our European adventure. I will share some of these interesting facts with you as I get back to writing on a regular basis.

1. They don’t have Diet Coke. They have Coca Cola Light. They serve it very cold out of the fridge. No ice. Most places don’t even have ice. If you ask for ice, if you get it, you get 3 cubes, maybe.

2. I can find out where the bathroom is in 5 different languages.

3. In Portugal, the government rigidly controls the gold trade. All items of gold are 19.2 karats of gold at a minimum. They scoff at our American 14k and think it is very low grade gold indeed.

4. Our American dollar is looked down on. The merchants don’t want it. They want Euros. Much more valuable. (you shouldn’t allow merchants to do your conversions anyway, but the very fact of our devalued dollar certainly makes me angry at the political powers in our country (Bush) that have allowed this to happen.)

5. Europeans, as a whole, are a much smaller people, physically speaking, than us super sized, overweight Americans. Chairs, beds, taxis, doorways, toilet seats, etc. etc. I realize I’m no lightweight, but even the average size 12-14 American woman would have some issues with the size of many common European commodities.

6. We bought no tee-shirts or sweatshirts or clothing in Europe. This is highly unusual. Need I say why?

7. Why in the hell do Europeans have square toilet seats? The corners poke the hell out of the back of fat American legs. Refer back to #5. Maybe that’s the answer. Also, why are so many toilets so low to the ground? These fat, arthritic, American knees just don’t bend that well. It was a big problem for me. Not that I’m fixated on toilets, but I never imagined there were so many ways to flush one. A button in the center of the tank, a box on the wall, a hanging chain, a spot on the floor, but never, at anytime, did I see what I considered to be a “normal” handle on the left or right side of the tank that would cause the toilet to flush. Clearly, the flushing of toilets has evolved somewhat differently on the different continents.

8. Europeans walk everywhere. I know you’ve heard this one before as it’s a common statement. However, it wasn’t really brought home to me until I was there. I mean they walk EVERYWHERE. They walk to work. They walk to the store. They walk to an appointment. We get in our cars to go a block. They do not.

9. I’ve never seen so many small and super small and micro sized cars in all of my life. I didn’t know cars could be made that small. The biggest vehicle I saw on the streets would fit in the backseat of one of our SUVs. We ARE gas guzzlers. But I must confess, I’m American to the bone. I love my big car with all its roominess. As intrigued as I am with cars that are the size of my Lazy Boy recliner, the idea of being in one of those things in a freeway crash, means I will never own one. We’re talking lizard versus dinosaur. I prefer to ride the dinosaur.

10. Lastly, for this go round, the people of Europe are much more energy conscious than we are. The car size thing above makes that obvious, but, also, our hotel rooms electrical system didn’t work until we turned it on (which I think had a lot to do with the computer problems), the water was ice cold until we consciously turned on the heater and made it hot, the thermostat was rigidly controlled and we did not have a lot of control over our room temperature. In restaurants, restroom lights have motion sensors. Nobody in there? No light. Definitely no hot water. Funny side note: I was in a closet sized restroom with the motion sensor light. As I sat quietly on the throne, the light went out. No motion, no light. I waved my arms wildly. The light went back on. More sitting. Light out. Wave arms. Light on. It actually would have been hilarious as a TV skit. I didn’t want to sit in a strange “water closet” in the dark.

Enough for this time. Here’s a few pictures until next we meet.

Remember the street drummers in Malaga? See here. This is a picture of them.

The courtyard at the castle


Some glorious tile work


More exceptional ceramics


The castle


In the courtyard


At the church, the original handcarved wooden doors are still there.


In the garden of the church. Oranges on the trees in November. It really is so like California.


And the flowers


The church from a distance. Note the huge size.


A rubber tree


On the Streets of Seville


Inside the church


Somehow this says shades of "The DaVinci Code"....not sure why.


Carrying Christopher Columbus to his grave