Traveling Like Crazy

It's been a pretty crazy few weeks and there is much more travel planned for the near future. The week before last, I was in Italy with students and colleagues from the school in which I previously taught. We had a great time and visited 8 locations in 8 days. These locations included Venice, Florence, Pisa, Sorrento, Mt. Vesuvius, Capri, Pompeii, and Rome. My favorites were Sorrento and Mt. Vesuvius although I also greatly enjoyed an evening Rome with a friend of a friend who is Roman. The food in Italy was amazing, our tour guide was the best of the best, and a great time was had by all.



After a week of classes, it was time to explore again and my Swedish friend Ida and I headed to Nerja, Spain. Nerja is a small coastal town that was recommended to me by a friend and it turned out to be even better than expected. It was very quiet, no large crowds, and had several sunny beaches. The water was a very pretty blue-green color, very similar to my trusty ol' '94 Ford Tempo. In Spanish, we say that Nerja was muy tranquila.

There are many more adventures ahead. This coming weekend, Ida and I are headed to Tangiers, Morocco and Gibraltar (roughly 4 hours away via train). The following weekend, we go with our school to Costa Tropical (around an hour away). Then, the next weekend, Ida and I head to Lisbon, Portugual via over night train with beds. Finally, the last weekend of April, we go with our school to Cordoba, Spain which is about 2 hours away. We have made no plans yet for May and, due to some issues with my visa, I should not leave Spain after May until I return to the States on June 11.

As always, the strange food of Spain continues to baffle me. The unusual lunch today included:
small shrimp with heads attached
two fried eggs
french fries
bread
strawberries

I'm going to return to the States with clogged arteries.