Professor Sharon

Well, the internet connection was not at all consistent in our trip with Odysseys Unlimited so I did not get to post as often as I had planned, especially in Barcelona.  An okay hotel- not at all one of the best we stayed in, Avenida Palace, but terrible internet connection. So you’ll have to go down memory lane with me for the next week or so while I revisit all the wonderful, thoughtful, moving and beautiful places hubby and I visited.

First, because it is still on my mind, let’s talk sardines – in and out of the can.  Here’s an amazing photo of the kinds of sardines you get to eat in Portugal and Spain.  This was in a little restaurant/cafe, as they all often are, on a side street of Nazarre (where, by the way, the world surfing record was set).  This was after we’d eaten one or two.  That is a dinner plate, not a saucer.  Sardines – especially grilled – are not anything like those things you eat out of a can in America.  I actually happen to like those canned sardines, but I was so looking forward to the real thing on this trip – and I wasn’t disappointed.  Just amazing.  Wish you could have been sitting with me to share a plate.

Sardines of Portugal

Now let’s talk about the other kind of sardine out of the can — flying!  I imagine you’ve been there – whether for an hour or two, or fourteen, or not quite eight, as we did on the last leg of our return from our connection in Frankfurt to Boston on Lufthsana.  We flew on a Boeing 747-400 – huge! Sardines all – and by the end of the trip – those passengers smelled worse than any canned sardine ever might! And, there’s just plain something wrong with having to put up with a man’s snoring – and that man isn’t your hubby.  I guess we were spoiled as our trip there, in early October, was not full and the two of us got four seats to ourselves.  Do you think any CEO of any airlines actually flies in those economy rows for more than an hour flight?   I have to say Lufthasana fed us very well and the bathrooms were kept immaculate given the size of the plane.  They also place the facilities in an aisle of sorts between about 15 or so rows of seats so you don’t have to practically sit on someone’s lap while you wait your turn.  And, every person has their own monitor and many, many choices of music, movies and TV to watch with free head sets.  It’s well done, and the attendants very personable and well trained, but a sardine from a can is a sardine from a can no matter the sauce put on top.