Saturday morning. Up fairly early, pack and have my last divine little breakfast from the lady working the hostel. She's so cute. Like a grandmother. I want to hug her when I leave. This morning we have pancakes and they are amazing. I don't normally say this about pancakes. They aren't my thing. But the street food or the suspect Donne from the night before has left me not feeling so good. So on this morning pancakes are perfect! My ride arrives at 8:20 and I'm off on the next part of my adventure. Peter, an older Dutch man, talks my ear off on th way to the airport. He's been living in Granada for 17 years and is married to a Nicaraguan woman. He's quite interesting. It's an hour long car ride so I won't ... read more

Most if the time when I travel I don't sleep in the same place more than two nights. My time in Granada has turned into a bit of laziness. So on this Thursday morning I wake as the only occupant in the hostel. It's a very large place so it feels strange to be here alone. The front desk lady makes me breakfast which comes with some sort of lime juice that I can they enough of! Then I decide to be lazy and read for a bit. Life is hectic and busy and crammed full of things these days that it was nice to just sit and read. Around 11 am I made my way out and headed to the Mi Museo. This museum houses pottery and ceramics from modern times to centuries ago. Upon ... read more

Up early on Tuesday. Earlier than I would have liked. The funny thing about traveling now are all the gadgets. All hostels have WiFi. Everyone is using their phone. IPads are everywhere. Videos are being show. I'm taking my leisure time to finally watch House of Cards. How far we've come from the hostel common room with the one TV and VCR/DVD (depending on when you last traveled) and hoping that you wouldn't walk in during the middle of a good movie. I kind of miss it. Regardless, breakfast is stellar again and once packed I'm off. This time in a small car sitting in the front seat with a man, women and two children in the back. It was quite cute. The ride to Granada is the same from two days prior. This time I ... read more

Departing on Sunday morning from home was rough. Thanks to another year of an awesome and drunken holiday party, I was not as clear headed as I would have liked. Buy American Airlines doesn't care what I did the night before...I had a plane to catch. Thanks to TSA Precheck I rolled into MIA just about 60 minutes before my flight and to a TSA Precheck line that was practically out the door. It was going to be that kind of morning. Today's departure was to Managua, Nicaragua. This is my first trip abroad, not for work, in over a year and having nothing but my backpack feels so good. The flight is short and sweet. I napped in hopes to sleep off the rest of my night's prior party. Based on advice from my last ... read more

The train ride from Cordoba to Madrid was lovely. The countryside in Spain was so pretty with the rolling hills. And I loved seeing the huge bull signs posted in small towns. I assumed these were related to the bullfighting in the country but can’t confirm that. I pulled into Madrid in the early afternoon and immediately had to figure out the “big city” public transportation system to go from the train station to a neighborhood on the north side of downtown. Having just spent a week traveling in smaller towns, I had to make a quick mental change to the face paced-ness of being back in a bustling place. I can say, there was a lot of walking involved, but I made it the metro and figured out which line I needed to be on ... read more