February Recap

Whew! What a month. Sorry I’ve been remiss in not posting, but it was Crazy with a capital “C.” There was a lot going on.

Firstly, I’m sorry to report that one of our close friends, Craig Rife, passed away. Craig and Beau were fraternity brothers and had stayed close friends since college. We received a phone call in early February that Craig had died while snowmobiling with his brother. It was very unexpected and pretty devastating. Craig was one of Beau’s groomsmen in our wedding this year, and it’s hard to believe he’s gone. Beau had to battle a terrible snowstorm across the Midwest to get to Craig’s funeral in Chicago, but he was able to make it and share his grief with some of his fraternity brothers and friends of Craig. Thanks to everyone who send their sympathies. We’ll miss Craig.

Beau has been learning to manage the house on his own, as I have been traveling a lot for my new job. I was gone for about half of the month. The schedule works okay for Beau and I because he is traveling for work too, so we can usually plan on seeing each other on the weekends.

In mid-February, I took my first-ever trip to Europe. I went to Madrid and Barcelona, Spain for a business meeting. Before you get too excited, let me explain that the trip went something like this:

• Arrive in Madrid
• Taxicab from the airport to the hotel (try to take in as much as I can from the window
• Arrive at hotel, crash into bed
• Get up, go to business meeting – spend next two days in hotel
• Taxicab to Airport
• Fly to Barcelona
• Taxicab to office
• All-day business meeting
• Taxicab to hotel
• Fly from Barcelona to New York
  

So in total I spent zero hours sightseeing! That’s right, I didn’t get to see one darn thing! I spent all of my days in business meetings, then dinner at night (more on that in a second) and then back to the hotel. Being in Spain, you would think that I’d at least get to eat some tapas or drink sangrias, right? WRONG! You see, in Spain, the general hour to eat dinner is 9 or 10 o’clock at night. The organizing group tried to make concessions for us Americans and the other Europeans by scheduling dinner at 8 p.m. The problem is that hardly any restaurant in Madrid opens at 8 p.m. – it’s unheard of! Also, they aren’t used to serving big groups (there were about 30 of us). So we ended up eating places that opened early and could serve a large crowd. It ended up feeling as if you ate hotel food all day and night – it wasn’t bad, but it was still hotel food. I will say that I’ve never eaten so much Serrano ham before. For those of you not familiar, Serrano ham tastes and looks just like prosciutto.

My sister said I should have stayed and spent more time in Spain, but honestly, it’s just not as much fun seeing a new city by yourself. I wish Beau could have come. Maybe another time.

(Remember to click on the photos to see more)