Happy Father's Day

I took my father to Spain. We just got back this weekend. It was kind of an impulsive decision. He spent a summer in Spain and North Africa with my mom when they were first married. I grew up hearing his stories of midnight bullfights, drinking in "Gypsy" bars in the caves, and spending 12 hours at border control having his Triumph Spitfire (little two seater convertible) completely disassembled and searched because they thought he was trying to smuggle drugs in from North Africa. We didn't do anything near as exciting - just a lot of walking tours of different places. It will probably be the last trip of this sort that he takes, as walking as much as we did is getting difficult for him.

Other than my father's stories, El Grande and Alhambra, I knew nothing about Spain. Our tour guide was a professor of medieval Spanish literature. I confessed my ignorance to her and showed her a picture of the El Grande game board. She laughed and told me it was an appropriate map for our tour, and throughout the tour would point out for me were on the game board we were. We also visited the Alhambra and I saw that all the illustrations on the tiles in the game are actual things there, which was cool.

I now know a lot more about Spanish history and a bit more about my dad.