Sylvia's Scenario

Nick did it again.  During our first trip to Japan in 2014, he arranged a dinner party with his co-workers so they could meet his parents and we could get a feel for the people he works with.  He said, "Don't worry, they all speak English."  Well, I couldn't understand a word any of them spoke. The Japanese accent is so strong that it's hard to understand when they try to speak English.  Not the case in Spain.  For one thing, Nick only works with Americans here in Rota, Spain.  In Japan, his whole team were local Japanese engineers.  Half of the Naval Base Rota, Spain are Americans and half are Spanish.  It's a Spanish base and Nick says the Americans are guests here.  We toured the base yesterday and even though it is geographically larger than the base in Japan, it is a lot smaller in population, so it definitely has a more spread out feel to it.    The Americans live on one end of the base and the Spanish live in a totally separa...

This year, Bruce's company had their Christmas party in Sacramento, California where one of their offices is located so that's where we traveled over the weekend.  I rarely turn down an opportunity to go to California.  There is just something about it there; the weather, the food, the scenery, the shopping, the sightseeing, the natural beauty...We love it all.  This visit, we particularly loved the weather.  I don't know how many times we said, "Oh, the temperature is so perfect!"   We flew into Sacramento, went to the Christmas party, then traveled to Napa Valley for some wine tasting, then to San Fransisco for sightseeing.  I can't even tell you which part was the best because it was all just so wonderful.  Actually, I can tell you the worse part and that was the four hour delay leaving Seattle because of fog.  We were that close to just leaving the airport, go home and forget about the whole trip.  But I'm glad we didn't now.  D...