it should be a cozy day, despite my wish for specific company. the weatherman is promising rain for most of the day, starting in a few hours, and already the skies are white and grey with cloud cover. im settled down with my rick steves guidebook to great britain, reading about the cotswolds and highlighting points of interest. even puppy has been on my lap; i think she senses the storms and is also in need of some companionship, since bear is busy bird-watching from the front porch.
i have a thing for rick steves. not rick, specifically; he's married with kids - their photos are all through this book. its what he gave me that makes me loyal. back in 1999, during my first trip to europe, my sister and i got a rick steves guidebook along with our railpass. the trip was as last minute as european trips can get; we booked the flights and railpasses only 2 months before and just barely got our passports in time. we had no idea where we would actually go, only that we would leave from norway (where we met up with our norwegian friends) and that we had settled on portugal as the final destination. thomas, always the thinker, had suggested we go to northern portugal, where he heard the towns were quaint. i, however, also being a thinker when i had the time, had read a bit of rick's book and fell in love with his recommendation of a town on the algarve coast, a place called salema. even the name sounds romantic.
so we went to salema, a surprising win for me, and it ended up becoming the most amazing 4 or 5 days of the trip. actually, i believe it was 5 days, but we didnt know that until after we left. i mean, how good is a place that, not just one, but four people lose track of the days? it wasnt until we reached a hostel in lisbon that we found out the correct date and felt bad for arguing about the extra money we owed to the nice couple that rented to us.
you see why i love rick steves. i only hope his great britain suggestions give me half as much joy as salema did.
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