Several days of my summer vacation in Extremadura were spent tackling the huge mess that was my wife’s grandfather’s attic: a lifetime of “this could be useful later!” items and the dust they have collected over the years. I learned the trick of splashing some water on the floor before sweeping to avoid being [...]

During my recent trip to Extremadura, I took walks in the evening right around the 9:30ish sunset almost every day. For most of these walks, my eyes were glued to the absolutely stunning skies. Coming from the north of Spain, visiting relatively flat, relatively treeless, relatively small housing in Extremadura reminds me [...]

Whenever we go south to Extremadura, we always bring back liters upon liters of extra virgin olive oil and wine. I don’t actually have any photos of the place where I bought the wine I brought back, but I do have a good anecdote.
We traveled to the nearby town of Esparragosa de la Serena. [...]

During the first few days of my summer vacation, I spent some sleepless nights. To take my mind off my troubles, I spent quite a bit of time outside in the corral (an open area behind the house) gazing up at the cloudless night sky.
The following photo is a one-hour exposure looking towards Polaris [...]

When we go to Extremadura, we stay mainly in my mother-in-law’s hometown of Higuera de la Serena (Fig Tree of the Serene). But we also always visit my father-in-law’s hometown of Zahínos. Higuera de la Serena is a very small town, but most of the people we see there have moved away to [...]

My father-in-law, when on vacation in Extremadura, gets up at 8:00 every morning to go on long walks around the countryside. Marga and I went with him on short walks a couple times in 2006, but we went out at night a lot that year and you don’t really feel like walking 10 km [...]

Here it is! The second part of the random photo bin from this year’s trip to the south of Spain. The first part can be seen here. The second week we were in town was the annual festival, El Ramo, that is responsible for more than doubling the town’s population. Many [...]

I’m back!!!! We got home yesterday after an 8-hour car trip with only one stop for a 5.20€ combo meal at Burger King. That’s $7.63 at the current exchange rage. Both fries and drink were small (or “medium” as the fast food places call small these days). Oh, right! That’s [...]

Here goes my first post by iPhone. I’m lying in bed and it’s too hot to sleep and I need something to take my mind off my skin. Last night, the first night here, I had trouble sleeping because my feet were itching. I got up at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, and 4:00. But there’s little [...]

It’s that time of the year again. Time to head south to Extremadura to fry sweat bask in the un-air-conditioned summer heat for two weeks. This year, I hope to take advantage of the very minimal light pollution and cloud cover in the rural area where we will be staying and take some [...]