After the rugged walk through the Moorish Castle we get to the fairyland atmosphere of the Palace of Pena! The artist king consort Don Fernando II completed contruction of this fanciful palace around 1852, on the site of monastery. Convent of Our Lady of Pena 1503. Earthquake of 1755 did serious damage to the monastery and it falls into decline, Don Fernando purchases it and it becomes the beautiful palace it is today. Royal families lived here from Fernando's reign thru Don Manuel II in 1910. The rooms are furnished as they were at that time. Cozy arched ceilings, rooms with Persian rugs, carved furniture, paintings, some done by Fernando, and beautiful luxurious fabrics on the windows and beds. Courtyards and niches covered in colorful tiles! The forest surrounding the palace was installed by Don Fernando. ... read more

Do you watch the winter Olympics on television, and aren't you amazed at the curling matches?! Well, it's our new favorite sport. I was made for curling! Except that the 'sweeping' part is too much like housekeeping, and I don't know my anti-clockwise from my clockwise. And a strategy, as in chess is applied to the stones position. But it is a bit like pool, and I have played that. If you have followed our blogs til now you know that these regional meetings Keith goes to, usually have 'fun' event for the guys to relax and get to know each other. In Italy it was 'karting'. The guys at Inverurie has curling planned for the evening. (I get to go to this one) In Aberdeen, about 30 minutes drive, there is a curling club, a ... read more

With cold weather and shorter daylight hours, the museums and theatre seemed like a good choice. After we left the National Gallery Friday evening we remembered a colleague of Keith's had suggested we try to see "Wicked". It is a newer musical "the untold story of the witches of Oz." It wasn't in the Plan, but we grabbed up a couple tickets, enjoyed the references to the "Wizard of Oz". Audience was full of teenaged girls, up through college age. Contrasted to the more "mature" crowd we sat with at the "Phantom of the Opera", Saturday night. The art deco Apollo Theatre, where Wicked is playing, is next door to Victoria Station. Inside the Station we found of all things - a Krispy Kreme! Saturday we spent a very long and informative afternoon at the Churchill ... read more

Our next trip took us to the United Kingdom, first to England, and after a few days up to Scotland, where Keith would be attending a meeting. Even though the sky was overcast with some wind, it was good for walking to museums and the theatre. We carried the umbrella, our "brolly", but only needed it one evening. It wasn't until later in the day, after talking with the taxi driver and the desk clerk at the hotel that we could put our finger on one of the reasons we were already enjoying ourselves - we spoke the same language. Although the British do have a more flowery way of speaking! As usual Keith had planned our days to get the most of our short time in London, he went over the Plan while we had ... read more

We are days away from the new year 2008, and I'm not sure if it is my age showing, but looking back at this year, and looking ahead at the coming year, has me a bit sentimental. Much "out of the ordinary" has happened to Keith and I during the last 6 months of 2007. As we are planning our trips for the first part of this year, we can't believe our good fortune! The sentimental part is easy to explain, Katie was here for Christmas, she celebrated her birthday by traveling 19 hours to Poland! (A delayed flight added several extra hours to her travel time.) She was here 4 days before flying back to America. Our holiday with Hank consisted only of telephone calls. But the whole family was in 3 time zones instead ... read more