Tim Travel

I have to admit it is nice to be away and not have to worry about too much more than what to order from room service, when to go to the pool, when to workout (yes there is a gym here and I have used it every day), when to go to dinner and what to watch on television. Of course it is Spanish television and we tend to watch the English programs with Spanish subtitles instead of the other way around. But I tell you, sometimes I catch myself watching about 10 minutes of Bewitched before I realize it isn't in English. And of course we get the Fox Network so we can keep up on the latest news about Anna Nicoles' corpse.

Neither Tess nor I speak a great deal of Spanish. But I am trying to learn by reading the Spanish subtitles on the English speaking programs. It is particularily entertaining to see what Spanish words they come up with for English idioms and swear words. "What's up dog," becomes "Que Paso Amigo."

Most of the staff at the hotel speak English and respond to most of my attempts at Spanish with, "Okay." I do love the way Spanish sounds. And it is fun keeping track of how to greet people depending upon the time of day (Buenos Dias, Buenos Tardes or Buenos Noches). I tend to talk low and mumble in Spanish the same way I do in English, so I am getting by okay.

We do like spending time at the pool. I sunburned my ankles the first day and have been slathering on the sunscreen. I used so much today that my wedding ring slipped on my finger in the deep end while I was dog paddling around. I had to talk a couple of kids to dive for it and then give it back to me when they found it. Both Tess and I were relieved.

We are flying back to Seattle Friday. Fortunately it is not a red eye home. Unfortunately I won't have much time to recover from traveling. I have to head back to the airport on Saturday to go to a marketing conference. The upside is that it is in Las Vegas. The downside is that it is Las Vegas.

Oh well, it's been awhile since I Photoshopped my face on something from a casino. That's something to look forward to.

Where in the world...

It is Tess' mid-winter break and we are travelling. We took a redeye out of Seattle on Saturday night and arrived at our destination Sunday at about 12:30 p.m. Other than sleeping through the inflight movie (How to eat fried worms) in between being woken up by flight attendants who insisted we take juice or water, the flights were uneventful.

I am now a foreign correspondent for Dizgraceland. I am amazed that no matter where you are in the world you can very likely get an Internet connection and blog. So here I am sitting in our room blogging.

But this is no travelogue. Suffice it to say, we are in some place much warmer than Seattle and you can lay by the outdoor pool in comfort (which we did). I looked up from my lounge chair and this statue was peering down at me.

Since I am on a vacation of sorts, I probably won't be Photoshopping my face on anything for the week. Besides after responding to a request by "Tia" and "Cara" to Photoshop my face onto a chihuahua I feel as if I may have fallen victim to a cruel prank by my enemies to lure me into a false sense of security by preying my ego and making me think there were others out there who really do appreciate the fine art of Photoshopping your face onto things. I don't think there ever was a "Tia" and "Cara."

I'm not naming names, but I think it could be a dirty trick by one of the denizens of another land that hates ice cream in response to an ice scream that was heard throughout their land. Or it could have been someone who likes sock monkeys but hates the Beatles. Or it could have been any number of drunken bloggers who wanted to mess with me.

But then again I am a paranoid cuss. I won't worry about it today, though. I'll worry about when I get back from vacation and return to Dizgraceland.