The Dame in Spain Falls Plainly

By Tonia

“Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” -- Al Gore

Spain has been on my bucket list for several years, so when I was presented with the opportunity to go recently, I jumped. It was another opportunity to enlarge my travel adventures and deplete my bank account. Retirement? Uhhhh…….oops!

I do love, love, love to travel. I even love to blast through the skies in a pressurized metal tube……as long as the pointy end is headed forward. Flying isn't dangerous, you know. It’s                                                                 hitting the ground unexpectedly that’s dangerous.

And, no, I didn’t run with the bulls. There were other runs of course but, hey, I’ve already blogged about that (see Echoes in the Canyon). Mostly I ate and drank my way through Spain -  sangria, tapas, sangria, Iberian ham, fresh garlic prawns, sangria, paella, grilled sardines, sangria, gazpacho, sangria, cheeses, sangria……. OMG. My daily 20 mile walk (mostly because I was lost – might have had something to do with the sangria) couldn’t keep up with the calories I consumed. My muffin top now looks like a 3-layed                                                            cake with WAY too much baking soda!

And, while Spain’s flamenco, cathedrals, castles, gardens,

beaches and Moorish history are absolutely beautiful and fascinating (I HIGHLY recommend that you go!), no good vacation goes unpunished. And so, being the ever-helpful girlfriend, I’m going to share with you some of my best travel advice (take notes!):

TIP #1 – Encourage your luggage to go where you go. However, if you check your bag, as I did, it may take a vacation of its own. I don’t know all the places where mine holidayed for three days, but it seemed to have a fabulous time. I, however, spent three days in the same outfit that I had sweat and slept in on the flight over.

TIP #2 – Remember that a working electricity converter is better than a non-working converter. My brand new converter went on strike. And, while many hotels have hair dryers, my hair needs much, much more. I spent my vacation looking like overgrown nose hairs had detoured through my brain and come out my scalp (see pic).

TIP #3 - Have your cell phone surgically attached to your body before you leave the country. Two young boys pulled a scam on me and stole my $500 iphone while I was sipping coffee at an outdoor café. Shitheads. I hope their parents punish them harshly for looking at all the porn I have on there.

TIP #4 – Don’t mistake your dirty clothes sack for trash. Yep. Threw away that 3-day vacation arrival outfit along with every pair of underwear I owned except the ones I was wearing. Thank goodness I had those souvenir boxers with the bull horns on the fly!

TIP #5 – Remain in a vertical position unless you are sleeping or having sex. Two days before the end of the trip I fell down a flight of stairs and injured my foot. While it DID get me lots of attention from the boyfriend, I’m a bigger fan of other kinds of attention……

So, for your next girlfriends’ get together, remember my travel trips and get out of town!! Bon Voyage!