My mom, stepdad Ron, brother Tyler and I have been vacationing in the beautiful and remote Outer Banks of North Carolina for over 20 years. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends have all joined at times over the years, adding to the memories. My mom and stepdad got married on the beach in front of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse back in 1997.

This year, Tyler and his wife (my sister-in-law) Kym planned the vacation for their sides of the family. While there were several last-minute cancellations on both sides, we ended up with a great group – Kym’s grandparents, brother and sister-in-law and nieces and nephew, and my mom and Ron and me and Sean. They got an incredible house right on the ocean with 11 bedrooms, an enormous kitchen, pool with deck and tiki bar, hot tub, and lower-level game room. Perfect set up for a fun week! Continue reading →

Hindsight is 20/20. If I were to do this trip over, I would have spent the extra money to fly into London and out of Madrid, rather than the return tickets for London. It would have meant not having an overnight in Madrid, but the extra flight and travel from Madrid to London was pretty unnecessary. 

Oh well. We ended up with one day in Madrid. It was not the worst thing, not by a long shot. In fact, we had a pretty great final full day in Europe – although it did start with getting to the Granada bus station by 6.30 am for the 7:00 am bus.  Continue reading →

Granada, though in the same region as Sevilla is a completely different city. It’s in the Sierra Nevada Mountains making it very hilly. It has a long and storied history from the time of the Moors and no where is this more visible than the Alhambra, the Moorish palace that overlooks the city. Granada also has a thriving tapas scene and a unique way of serving them – if you order a drink at a tapas bar/restaurant, you get a tapa for free. A second drink will get you a different tapa, and so on. It’s a unique and fun experience. 

Needless to say, we were excited to be in this beautiful and historic city. Continue reading →

Spain. The most anticipated portion of our trip.

Being Americans with shitty vacation time, we had to prioritize where to spend our precious days. I’d been to Spain 3 times perviously and traveled to many parts of the country. I felt Andalusia was the best region to visit for many reasons – smaller cities, rich history, an amazing tapas culture and the Alhambra – being a few.  Continue reading →

Originally, our trip to Europe was going to be London, Seville and Granada. Somewhere along the way and partially due to high costs of airfare to get from London to Madrid, I had the crazy and fun idea to take the Eurostar to Paris, spend a day there and then fly from there to Madrid. In hindsight, I would not have done this. I’ve done Paris in a day from London 3 times before, but I was 19 and 20. I think my downfall with this trip in general was that because I’d been to all these places before and generally knew the areas and how to get around, I was so confident we could do a lot. And we did – I was an efficiency queen and we were jam-packed every day. But as a result we didn’t really give Paris a chance and for that, I feel badly because Sean deserved to experience it in a better way. 

But, as the French say, c’est la vie. We went, we saw what we could, we exhausted ourselves and if we ever go back, we will stay longer. Continue reading →

We had perfect weather for our day to Stonehenge and Bath. The drive out through the English countryside was beautiful. All the little towns are so quaint. For this trip to Europe, I wanted to go one place I’d never been before and I’d never been to Bath, so this tour through Premium Tours was great for us. Continue reading →