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Last month we traveled to Portugal with my parents for a seven-day river cruise. We flew to Porto (a city I must admit I’d never heard of before) and sailed from there up the Douro river, in the heart of Portuguese wine country. I learned a lot. For one thing, Portuguese sounds nothing like Spanish in my opinion.

Porto is surprising. It’s pretty big for one thing — especially for a city I didn’t know existed. It is second only to Lisbon in size, with about 1.3 million people.

Porto is a city of sharp contrasts. The airport is modern and pleasant, with a metro line that takes you downtown quietly and efficiently. The metro stations reminded me a little of Copenhagen’s metro stations. And then you climb the stairs to the street and BAM! – there’s the contrast. Porto is full of beautiful old buildings… many of which have clearly been abandoned and some of which appear ready to be condemned. (more…)

When we were still in New Mexico last month we attended a church retreat in El Porvenir. I took these on the last night, as kids made smores (kids don’t just roast marshmallows anymore, apparently.)

Last week we went to Capulin, a volcano in Northern New Mexico. It’s about 90 minutes from Springer, the town where I was born and my grandparents still live. But, like the Sandia Tram, it’s something that I’d never seen.

The volcano doesn’t look like much when you’re approaching, and I thought it would turn out to be pretty lame, but when you start to climb, the view gets fantastic almost immediately. (There are hiking trails, but apparently none of them go from the bottom to the top, so you have only one choice — drive to the top.)

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Mom and dad were here for two weeks and we filled that time pretty well with moving, but we also went to Stockholm, which was neat because none of us had ever been there before. (And considering how much traveling Lisbeth has done, that’s pretty surprising.)

We opted to take the train instead of fly even though flying was cheaper. The train is just more relaxing, and gave us a chance to see the Swedish countryside, which is very pretty, with a lot of hills and rocky outcroppings (which you certainly don’t see very often in Denmark.) Plus it’s a fast train. It goes about 200 kph, or  124 mph, which means it only takes about five hours to get to Stockhom.

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I just got back from Christmas with my family in New Mexico. (Lisbeth is due on Februry 5th, so she stayed in Denmark and had Christmas with her family.) This was the first time I’d had two stopovers, and I was a little surprised at how much difference that one stop makes the trip. I saved about $400 doing it this way, so that’s $200 each way… but I’m not sure it’s worth it.

It’s not really the layover that’s the problem. I don’t mind having time to stretch my legs, and if it’s no longer than three hours, the time isn’t really the issue. The problem is that each layover increases the chances of a missed, delayed or cancelled flight. Coming into I came very close to missing my flight in Houston. So that’s one lesson — saving some money can cause a missed flight. But I noticed a few other things about air travel on this trip. (more…)

As a way of thanking Lisbeth’s parents for all they did for the wedding, we took them on a tour called Sort Sol, which means black sun. It’s the nightly resting place of the starling, which settles in massive flocks in different areas in Southern Denmark as part of migration. We were told that this particular night there were up to 600,000 birds.

We were also told that one of the reasons that the location varies is because people (who are not, it was made clear, on one of their tours) occasionally use loud noises to rouse the birds once they settle in order to see them darken the sky again. (more…)

I’d only been to Sweden once before — to Malmø on a slow Sunday afternoon — and I wasn’t impressed. Or in a hurry to get back (that was almost two years ago.) This time I saw a very different part of Sweden, and would welcome the opportunity to go back.

Lisbeth and her sister Hanne had been in Sweden for a week, canoeing and camping. They were joined by Hanne’s boyfriend Kaspar, and two of their friends Søren and Lotte from the collective where they live. But they didn’t come to canoe. They came for rock climbing.

The area where we were, Kullen, has very rugged terrain. It’s pretty much rock coming straight out of the ocean. The scenery is stunning, but it’s hostile too. Everything is rocky. There’s no sand on these beaches, just big rocks.

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I’d been raving for months about how great Northern New Mexico is in the summer. It’s warm, but not too warm. There’s lots of sunshine, but with frequent afternoon rains, green fields, a soft breeze during the day, and cool, crisp air at night. And so on. At least that’s the way I remember it. But it wasn’t like that at all when we visited in June.

I don’t remember antelope listlessly roaming around my grandparent’s ranch. I don’t remember the pastures being overtaken by prickly-pear cactus. I don’t remember otherwise healthy trees near my parents house drying out and falling over. It was hot and dry. Very dry.

On our last night we could smell the smoke from a fire to the North, and water restrictions were enacted in Las Vegas right after we left. (more…)

In Denmark we get five days off for easter (if you count the weekend), so Lisbeth and I decided it was a good time to go see Berlin. I’d never been there, and she’d only been there briefly as a teenager.

Day 1

We walked about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) on the first day, starting at the Sunflower Hostel where we stayed and ending in a completely different part of town. We started by waking toward the center of town, down Karl Marx Alle, which is a really wide boulveard that the communists used for parades and such.

It’s an impressive street. It’s entirely symmetric. Each building has an exact mirror copy on the other side — something that’s hard to capture with a camera. It’s also hard to say how much of it seems strange just because you know you’re in an area that was under tight state control until relatively recently. (more…)

We spent last week skiing in Hovden, Norway with Lisbeth’s family. For me it was fun for several reasons. For one thing, I’d never been to Norway before. I’d also decided years ago that I hated skiing, and that I’d never do it again, so enjoying myself was a pleasant surprise.

We met in Vejle, at Lisbeth’s parents house on Saturday, where we spent the day leisurely shopping for supplies, packing, and, eating, visiting. We went for a walk after dinner, before we got serious about loading the cars. It was a very pretty evening.

We took two cars, one with Lisbeth’s brother Mogens’ family — his wife Anne and their three girls, and one with me, Lisbeth, Lisbeth’s sister Hanne, and her boyfriend Kaspar. Both cars were heavily loaded — there wasn’t much room to move around, but most of it was blankets, pillows, and coats, so it wasn’t uncomfortable. We drove for about three hours, up to Hirtshals, quite close to the very Northern-most tip of Denmark, where we took a ferry from there to Kristiansand, Norway. (more…)