Hard to believe our trip to Spain is right around the corner! But it is and we have a few things to get in order before we leave.
You know, important things like getting haircuts, pre-paying bills, and shopping for those last minute things that may not be available in Spain.
There won't be any exciting things to post before we leave. So this will be it until we have updates from our travels.
But to tide you over, here is our itinerary (sans specific dates for obvious reasons).
The key event of this trip is the FSU Cruise (from Barcelona to Lisbon) and since we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to visit these countries, we've planned a few days and adventures in each of the major cities.
You may have seen Spain mentioned in the news in the past few days. They are experiencing some of the same economic and unemployment challenges we are. Protests have been set up in the big cities of Madrid and Barcelona as their election approaches. Hopefully it will all be resolved by the time we arrive.
We fly into Madrid and will spend four days there. We have several tours scheduled and are really hoping we will be able to see a bullfight. Interestingly, our hotel isn't too far from where the (what appear to be relatively peaceful) protesters are camped out.
From Madrid we'll take the train to Barcelona and spend four days there. More tours have been scheduled as well as a cooking class (which includes a trip to the local market).
We hop on the ship in Barcelona. Our first FSU cruise was five years ago and we met some great people who we (Frank) had many "small world" experiences with. Sadly, they aren't going on this trip. Would have been a great reunion! But we do know several other couples who will be there and we look forward to meeting new people as well. Like the first FSU trip, there is at least one thing everyone has in common - the support of FSU.
But I digress. Our ports of call include:
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Malaga, Spain
Gilbraltar, UK
Cadiz, Spain
Portimao, Portugal
Lisbon, Portugal
We were able to request a specific stateroom and remembered from our past experience, to pick one on the starboard side of the ship. (Since we will be traveling south, all the sights will be right out our veranda!)
We've got several things lined up during our four days in Lisbon before we head back to the good ol' U.S. of A.
We'll try to update the blog as time and technology permits. We've had good luck in the past finding internet cafes where we can (relatively inexpensively) spend some time on the computer.
Hasta Luego!
