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If Denmark had a middle name, it would be “Efficiency.” Den Efficiency Mark.

My good friends Per and Pia invited me to Copenhagen to experience a genuine Danish New Years, which is different than any other country’s New Year’s because they’re not Denmark. It was my fourth visit To Den Efficiency Mark, and while I’ve been thoroughly impressed each time with the efficiency of the Danish systems as well as the happiness of their citizens and the markedness of their dens, they managed to impress me all over again.

The trip got off to a rousing start at the Lisbon airport, when, after the crowd made its way through security, we were funneled into this room that ended with a locked gate. Most of us then took a nearby escalator down because that was the only way available and we were following someone’s lead like lemmings, but then we collectively realized it was a dead end: a room with no unlocked exits. So we followed ourselves back up the escalator, and stood around some more in confusion and hoping we weren’t all in the Stupid Group. Turns out the authorities just hadn’t opened the gates yet, but it was the only way in, and there were no signs or workers to abate our confusion. And I’ll be damned if I know where all the other travelers ahead of me in security ended up because there weren’t nearly as many people waiting there as were ahead of me in the security line. I’m guessing they were sacrificed to the Lisbon Airport gods because Lisbon Airport has had its share of difficulties lately, and obviously the gods needed to be appeased. I was glad I hadn’t rushed to the front of the line.

While I love Portugal and its people, efficiency isn’t exactly part of the country’s credo. They, along with every other country in the world, could learn a lot about efficiency from all the Nordic countries, including and maybe especially Denmark.

Apparently on New Year’s Eve, most Danes don’t want to be bothered with doing a bunch of cooking for their parties because, you know, they want to party! It’s New Year’s Frickin’ Eve! Christmas is different because you’re cooking for family and after twenty minutes even the most patient of us starts looking for excuses to get out of the living room and away from farty ol’ Uncle Frank ‘n Beans.

Per and I were tasked with driving to pick up a meal for his son, so I thought we’d be stopping at some Chinese restaurant or the like. But instead we ended up in a line of cars as if queuing for a Black Friday sale in the states, albeit without all the shooting and hair pulling and cursing and name-calling and stuff. As you can see by the flags, we were at a company called Gaudium (their slogan is “Oh My Gaudium Our Food is Awesium”), and while there’s no publicly available data as to how much revenue New Years Eve represents for them, it’s gotta be something like 40 or 50%, at least from what I saw as well as heard from the speculation of Per, who basically said, “I don’t know.”

They had all these employees waving cars in and out; it seemed as if half of Copenhagen was out getting their New Years Eve meal. What astounded me was that once we parked, which didn’t take that long because they were… repeat after me, efficient, we walked into the place, which looked like an office in an office park. Per gave the clerk his son’s name (he did say he wanted it back though), the man scanned a list for about two seconds, turned around, grabbed a box, handed it over, and we were on our way. It all happened so fast I barely got some photos taken.

Now just imagine if, say, all the American McDonalds, which you have to admit is kind of a quintessential example of food efficiency, suddenly became the culinary tradition for New Years Eve, with an influx of customers on one day representing an order of magnitude (which is another way to order a Double Big Mac and its 780 calories) over its usual daily business. You’d have cars lined up all the way back to and onto the freeways, there’d be fist fights, all sorts of shootings, cars on fire, people screaming, protesters with signs chanting “Death to Consumerism!” while being harassed by big-bellied people deriding them for being woke and smelling like patchouli. And you’d still have to wait in line for three hours to get your food.

Yes, Denmarkian efficiency is a sight to behold because nothing like that would happen in Denmark. Plain ol’ efficiency is quiet and unseen. As I write this, Donald Trump is making fun of Greenland being protected by two dog sleds. Based on what I’ve seen, those two dog sleds could probably take out a few battalions of US marines.

In addition to selling pretty boxes of candy with “Godt Nytar 2026” (which translates to: “God, I’m tired, is it 2026 yet?”) I’ve found the Danes to be both fastidious and traditional when it comes to eating. First of all, I learned that my ever-polite hosts were always a bit flummoxed when I woke up in the morning and served myself breakfast, like granola or whatever. They bit their tongues during my first three visits, but by the fourth they’d had enough and in the morning they burst into my bedroom, duct taped my mouth shut and my hands to the bed and told me I couldn’t come out until breakfast was ready.

Turns out they always eat breakfast together, and can’t even imagine this lone wolf strategy. My whole life I’ve just gotten up and made myself breakfast. In fact, in my childhood it was always a race to see how early one could get up after Mom’s weekly grocery shopping in order to be the first to attack the only box of Cap’n Crunch cereal, because after that all we had was Cheerios and store-brand corn flakes that tasted like used Dr. Scholl’s foot pads. But it turns out in Denmark I was inadvertently making a big faux pas that kept my hosts up all night tossing and turning. In other words, I was mucking up the gears of both efficiency and tradition, and that may be a capital offense in Denmark.

The second time I created distress (there were probably twenty or eighty others, but they’re ever so polite and reluctant to whack me upside the head except for the most egregious of transgressions), I was putting some fried onions on the meat on the open-faced sandwiches that are a Danish tradition. Pia shrieked in horror, in response to which I stood up, butter knife in hand, ready to take on the terrorist who had surely just burst into the house. Turns out that putting fried onions on whatever the meat was is perhaps akin to pouring chocolate sauce over a steak, or trying to eat soup with my fingers. It just goes to show you, no matter how many times you visit a country, even staying in the house of gracious hosts, you learn something new every time… and also make them wonder why in hell they ever invited you back.

Near where they live is a lake called Furesø, with a smaller one named Farum Lake next to it. Furesø is the deepest lake in Denmark, going all the way down to the bottom. “Farum” is what an ancient Sámi answered when someone asked how deep the smaller lake went.

For New Years Eve we went to a fine restaurant where they served foods even I couldn’t screw up. The two major things about New Year’s Eve in Denmark is that the King makes a televised speech with about two million Danes watching, which is over a third of their population. While that’s impressive, the 2025 Super Bowl in the US had over 36% viewership, so the King’s gotta hire some cheerleaders or something to jazz up those ratings. “Yaaaaay King!” they’d squeal with their pom poms pomming and boobies boobing after he makes a particularly poignant observation. The other thing was that every single Dane, apparently, went out and purchased firecrackers and fireworks, so for two solid days one could hear nothing but pop-pop-pop! and see various fireworks jet up into the sky, only occasionally burning down buildings or setting people’s hair on fire. It was like living in a microwave with a never-ending supply of microwave popcorn being cooked.

Other than surviving the quasi military bombardment, one of the sights we decided to see was to visit the town of Malmö in Sweden. Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden, which might be worth remembering if you ever join a Professional Championship Trivia contest. Malmö used to be a bigger city, but the Vikings wiped part of it out by creating a flood, so ever since then that area is called Malnömö.

Malmö is connected to Denmark via the Öresund Bridge, which starts in Denmark and ends up in Sweden, unless you’re going the other way. You do have to rapidly change into Swedish clothes right after you cross the border, because Sweden and Denmark have made war against each other more than any two countries in the world, so the last thing you want to do is parade around looking Danish. To be safe, it’s also better to bring donuts rather than danishes.

Malmö is pretty flat and without a lot of tall buildings, so this impressive one called The Turning Torso really stands out. The Turning Torso has 54 floors, with apartments, office space, and conference rooms. It’s considered to be one of the world’s most prominent skyscrapers and has won multiple international awards, including placing second in the prestigious Twistiest Building in the World competition.

This one always gets first prize, the bastards.

While these photos make it look like Pia and Per are turning round and round at the foot of the building, and while the building itself also looks like it turns, only the world turns. And As the World Turns, these are the Days of our Lives.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the US government quietly moved the World Trade Center to Malmö in order to protect it from further attacks, mostly because no one’s ever heard of Malmö. Note the anti-skyscraper design for protection, too. Genius!

Actually lots of people have heard of Malmö, including many of the ones who live there. They do have an old town/town square area that’s charming, quaint, and old. I felt like I was on vacation again, or maybe I just felt at home because I’m also charming, quaint, and old. Well at least quaint and old. Ok, just old.

Their telephone system is a little behind the times though.

They do have a very old pharmacy, called the Apoteket Lejonet (The Lion), dating all the way back to 1571. But it can’t compete in the old-age competition with the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy, which began in 1221 AD (i.e. 1221 After Der Christ). Although if you want to nitpick, after its founding, the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella only serviced a bunch of monkeys for decades– er, what? Oh, monks. Sorry ’bout that. But anyway it didn’t open its doors to the public until 1612, so the Lejonet kinda beats the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella on that score. And anyway, it’s remarkably beautiful and is the oldest one in Sweden, although they don’t sell Mandrake anymore and I refuse to take aspirin that’s 450 years old, so I’m not sure what good all that age does. I’m pretty certain they had a lot of expired medicines there, I’m sure just like the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, which in British English is spelled: the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella.

European countries have a fair amount of whimsical art, but it often gets ruined by goofy-looking American tourists. At least I can now say I played in a heavy metal band.

I enjoyed a laugh at the expense of the Brits after seeing the “Taste of Britain” sign by joking, “Man, it must be a really small store.” Because, you know, the cuisine of our British friends is often mocked, which can hardly be blamed when you regularly eat something called Spotted Dick. Anyway, turns out it really was in fact a small store, so I was able to laugh twice at the joke, meaning I really got my money’s worth. Pia was just happy to find some striped mustard, or whatever that is.

For all those Americans who wonder if Costcos around the world are the same, here’s photographic evidence that in fact, yes, they pretty much are, even in Sweden. The price of that famous hot dog/drink combo is the equivalent of US$2.15, so yeah, it’s hard to avoid Americana pretty much anywhere in Europe.

As I put this entry together, I suddenly remembered that in 2025 I had made a whole other visit to Copenhagen and had failed to create an entry for it. After all, I have been there four times, so maybe I was thinking it was a bit redundant. But’s a fabulous city and deserves all the acknowledgement and kudos it can get. However, in the interest of keeping your toilet-time reading resulting in only semi-deep impressions on your outer bum, I’ll limit the commentary some… even though I just proved that I might be incapable of that. But pedal on! Because a city with lots of bike riding has got to be wheelie wheelie great.

You can’t go anywhere in Denmark without being close to the sea. Øresund, or “The Sound” in English, is enjoyable to walk near in order to see lots of Danish architecture as well as government buildings, and if you’re lucky, occasional sightings of Per and Pia trying to lift up a house.

The famous Tivoli amusement park is right downtown, not far from Rådhuspladsen, or City Hall Square, which has lots of interesting things to see. Here they proudly display The Dannebrog, the Danish flag, which is the world’s oldest continuously used national flag, dating back to 1219, which my calculator says is a freakin’ long time ago.

Tivoli opened in 1843 and is the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken, which is also in Denmark and also got a write up here in Bald Sasquatch.

Tivoli is the second-most popular seasonal amusement park in the world after Europa-Park, which, in a bizarre coincidence, is the most popular seasonal amusement park in the world just ahead of Tivoli.

Inside Tivoli park we had to test out this brazen advertising claim made by the Gasoline Grill (not really the most appetizing name for a restaurant) and its world famous cheeseburger, “voted as one of the best burgers in the world.”

I couldn’t find the asterisk on the sign, but it needs one, surely pointing to: “Of course, we only collected one vote and it was from the mother of the owner.”

The burger wasn’t bad, mind you, but one of the best burgers in the world?

That’s just a bunch of horse patootie right there.

But this definitely isn’t. These small gold squares, officially called Stolpersteine (German for stumbling stones), are small brass plaques embedded in the pavement in front of houses where victims of Nazi persecution last lived freely. Each stone bears the name, birth year, and fate (deportation and death, if known) of an individual.

There are over 100,000 Stolpersteine across Europe, and I think is a wonderful idea, because damn if we aren’t already seeing too much collective amnesia about unspeakable tragedies that happened less than 90 years ago, risking their repeat all over again.

One fascinating exhibit they had nearby was this World Clock. It’s a clock designed to last for thousands of years, and in fact one of the clock’s gears makes a complete rotation only every 25,753 years. Since the clock was started in 1955, that will mean only the people in the year 23,798 will be able to see that thing complete its rotation. I mean, my word, the song “In the Year 2525” only got to the year 9595, and that was ridiculous and didn’t sound fun at all. I really think in an additional 14,200 years later than that humans will either be long gone or look like worms with big bulbous heads. But they will still have a clock.

Speaking of time, which I’m almost out of (“Thank God!” exclaims a chorus of readers) the Town Hall also has the Town Hall Tower Clock, which famously chimes in the new year every year, except I suppose the ones that don’t actually have a New Year’s Eve, which I think is every 99 or 14,243 years or something like that.

So off I went to Budapest next, in freezing weather and all. And now you know how they de-ice planes, which turned out not to be necessary because I was on the plane:

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Coping with Häagen-Dazs

I’ve been reading online that Solo Travel is becoming a more and more popular trend (probably because everyone else seems to be so annoying these days). So I decided to try it out. Since I rarely bother with reading past the headlines, I loaded up my luggage with Solo cups and my favorite Hans Solo doll and set out on my first solo adventure. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that Solo cups make terrible underwear and that Hans Solo dolls are useless in real life except for pretend-shooting toe monsters in the hotel bathtubs.

By now you may be wondering what Häagen-Dazs has to do with solo travel, this blog, and elephants. We’ll start with the fact that, like many of the alternative facts proffered by Bald Sasquatch, Häagen-Dazs is a completely made up name. However, it was invented to sound Danish (and in fact was intended as a tribute to Denmark’s support of Jews during World War II, so now I can’t make fun of it). As a result of all my exhaustive research (which took me actual minutes), I figured my first solo venture should involve Danish things, so I put a Danish pastry topped with Häagen-Dazs ice cream on top of a small table made of Legos while wearing one of those Viking hats with horns that Vikings never actually wore, and called up the two greatest Danes I know, Pia and Per. I don’t know why you brought up elephants, I think you’re just trying to confuse me.

When Pia learned the specifics of my solo adventure, she rightfully became a little concerned and decided that perhaps Per should visit me posthaste to make sure I was right in the head. Later I mitigated her concern by showing her pictures of Per dressed up like this just to go to the grocery store. Touché, or as we say in the states, too shay.

Seriously, Per, being the good friend that he is, flew all the way in from Copenhagen for a long weekend just to keep me company as I adjust to living completely alone, except for the scary monsters that want to attack me but so far have been thwarted by anti-monster blankets.

Plus he’s even taller than me so the monsters really made themselves scarce during his visit.

The cool thing about this particular visit was that we discovered some things not too far away from where I live that I hadn’t seen before. For instance, I had been planning to go to Forte de São Filipe in Setúbal for some time but just hadn’t gotten around to it, but fortunately Per had a round tuit in his wallet so we ventured out to conquer the fort, as well as Setúbal.

However, before we even got there, Per asked about another small fort he had seen on Google Maps that was supposedly on the way to Setúbal. I scoffed and call him a dumb stupid idiot for even suggesting I didn’t already know of every fort and castle between Sesimbra and Setúbal, but he persisted, and so to humor him I drove to the coordinates on Google Maps.

So we turned onto a nondescript gravel road and promptly drove over a cliff and died.

OK, not really, but I know I had you going for a second, because that was written by a ghost writer. We did actually find an old fort that apparently no one pays any attention to because it was covered in graffiti and had more than a few fairly hazardous areas including loose guardrails, wobbly steps, and unexploded land mines. There was also no entrance fee, so I guess you get what you pay for.

I noticed the road to the fort continued on around a bend, so I decided to explore a little. To my surprise I stumbled upon an old World War II bunker/artillery battery that I had no idea Portugal even had. Portugal was neutral during WWII, but I suppose they didn’t want to be completely helpless in case someone like the evil Spaniards or Mayans decided to attack.

Like the fort, the place has been completely ignored except by taggers and one very confused old German soldier who hadn’t heard the war was over. Anyway, I took measurements of the gun barrel dimensions and as my summer project I’m going to see if I can build an artillery shell and scare the hell out of some tourists on Troia, which is a resort area just across the bay.

I have absolutely no idea what the writing in this photo means. I think it either might be a signal for aliens or the remnants of a lost Mayan civilization that somehow made its way across the Atlantic ocean. Or maybe it’s some kid’s Hot Wheels track.

There’s nothing here that a little paint and military-grade Viagra wouldn’t fix. I mean for the gun. Seriously. C’mon, man, I’m single now and trolling for babes, so stop with the Viagra jokes already.

After that heart-pounding discovery (there were stairs, after all), we went on to the Forte de São Filipe, which was interesting mostly because it’s an old fort, and old farts and old forts tend to attract one another.

As usual with most forts and castles, it offered up some stunning views, here of Setúbal and its environs. After we quenched our thirst at the outdoor restaurant, we set out to conquer Setúbal.

By conquering Setúbal I mean walking around the place and enjoying a delightful lunch at a family-owned restaurant that proved my adage that the more unremarkable a Portuguese restaurant looks from the outside the better the food probably is. And I have no idea what that statue is supposed to be.

We also visited the Palmela Castle which overlooks Setúbal and catered to our wildest cross-dressing and costume fantasies.

On another day we drove to Cabo da Roca, which is the westernmost point of all of continental Europe, and is where Almond Roca would have been invented if they had more almond trees nearby. The guy on the top left isn’t either Per or myself, but I figured if he was going to point his camera at me, I’d return the favor, leading to an old bald guy staredown that lasted for hours. He won because apparently he has a bigger bladder than I do.

On the way home we stopped in picturesque Cascais and then got caught in a Friday night traffic jam that added at least two hours to the drive, but at least we got a terrific view of the freeway.

But before long we were all nestled into my sweet home of Sesimbra, with its silvery moon, wonderful seafood restaurants, a beautiful stretch of beach named California Beach, which the locals swear that the state of California was named after, and a harbor featuring cleverly disguised submarines.

Once Per cleared me for a visit to Denmark with a good chance of not needing to call in the authorities, I booked my ticket and a month or so later began the journey of learning how to cope. I knew I’d be able to learn all the skills I’d need in order to live alone in the capital of everything coping-ness, aka Copenhagen. As the Danes already know, “hagen” means “the chin” in Danish, so Copenhagen essentially translates to “Coping after taking one on the chin.”

Besides, their royalty is bad ass.

But truly, what a great place to cope since Denmark routinely is in the top five or even first in so many important country metrics like health care quality, happiness, education… pretty much all quality-of-life metrics, mostly only competing with its Scandinavian brothers for the top spot. Copenhagen is the city every other city in the world should want to be when it grows up.

This was my second visit, so my gracious hosts took me ’round to places I hadn’t seen before, like the Kronborg Castle.

Kronborg is a very important Renaissance castle, with one of the reasons being that it is the setting for William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, which I think is a story about a little pig.

So of course you can find all sorts of Shakespearean gift ideas, including this elephant condom with “To be or not to be” proudly displayed to ensure elephants think twice before doing whatever it is animals do to make baby animals. Anyway, it’s a great gift for the elephant owners in your life.

The castle is absolutely gorgeous and has been very well-maintained, although it could eventually need a good pressure washing which will cost millions of Danish kroner (they didn’t adopt the euro because they were already perfect), not only because it’s so large but because they can’t use any actual water pressure out of fear of damaging the old stone, so someone has to stand there all day just trickling a hose on one spot.

In case you’re wondering what the cannons were pointing at, across the water there is Sweden. An interesting piece of historical trivia is that Denmark and Sweden have fought more wars against each other than any other two countries in the world. The last one was in 1789, so now they just poke fun at each other with internet memes instead. But like two brothers, they can make fun of each other, but if an outsider tries to do the same, they’ll rush to the other’s defense. You don’t mess with that Viking blood!

Speaking of Viking blood, the Danes are known for their huge organs.

Inside, they were kind enough to offer up a free buffet, but I found the flavor to be rather like plastic.

So the story is that this legendary king, Holger the Dane, will awaken and rise up and do some serious smiting should Denmark ever need any smitissery. I was trying to look like him but only succeeded in looking like an old guy sneaking a nap while standing, which is something I’ve perfected of late.

A typical day in the life of a Danish King involved walking down this long hallway to get to the dinner table and then off to bed. It must have made for an exhausting day.

A diorama of four mannequins, with the two in front demonstrating what modern clothing would look like on today’s servants, as well as the significantly increased height due to today’s modern gravity.

Ever thoughtful, the Danes built a table with a mirror so you can take a selfie with the ceiling in the background without having to look up. I could’ve looked up, but would have probably cracked my head open after the fall.

The Danes hate it when you touch dusty windowsills.

This is the great room. You wouldn’t know it with us in the way of the photo, where it really only seems to be a pretty good room, but once we’re out of the picture you can see it’s actually really great.

You might be wondering what these are.

OK, I said that about the pictures of houses because I was wearing this hat I’d purchased at a huge open air market and as a result was being a bit of a dickhead, because I was supposed to be.

Now that I have that hat off, I can tell you that these are some of the houses in those pictures, which were taken from the air and were not Photoshopped or anything of the kind. The view from the ground is always a bit different than from the sky, especially if you’re falling without a parachute.

We decided to see the Cherry Blossoms, which bloom for just a short time every year and we were at the tail end of the bloomin’ season. Nearby was Grundtvig’s Church, which is one of the more famous churches in Copenhagen due to its unique design. It also has two organs, whereas most humans have about 78, so we win.

It’s a beautiful walk down the Path of Infinity to get to the blossoms. When we began our journey on foot, the blossoms were in full, glorious bloom. By the time we got there, half the blossoms had given up waiting and fallen to the ground.

While we were mildly disappointed at nature for not catering to our whims, Pia snagged herself a kindly groundskeeper and he drove her back to the car after doing some wheelies, making some jumps off a few ramps, and scaring the hell out of a few old people in wheelchairs, hooting that they were just rookies as he left them in his dust.

This sign, and you can double check me if you want, indicates that this is an area of the graveyard reserved for atheists. True story. I thought it was funny that I couldn’t see any gravestones, but then again, if there’s one group of people who couldn’t care less about what you do with their bodies after death, it’d be atheists.

Danes are so badass that they have signs directing you to London, which is 1,262 km (784 miles) away and would take you over 200 hours to walk, plus a ferry.

Speaking of badassery, in World War II the Danes, being very pragmatic, surrendered quickly in the face of a dominant German force, and then schemed to have the Germans allow them to govern themselves. Eventually that collapsed, especially in light of the ongoing underground resistance, which this museum documented for us. It’s amazing how many stories have come out of World War II.

This section of housing in Copenhagen consists of old houses whereby the owners have to adhere to specific aesthetic standards. If you paint it the right color, you’re in. I said, you’re in. Just don’t piss them off, that’s all I’m saying.

The first time I was there, my Danish friends took me to this wonderful restaurant downtown with a very special Easter menu. It actually was one of the best lunches I’ve ever had. This time, it was maybe a tick less gooder than the first time, but that may have had something to do with higher expectations as well as slightly fewer shots of schnapps. Everything tastes better with schnapps.

I gotta tell you, you can’t really see it here with these shots, but there were times when I sat in the car at a stop light or some such, watching the combination of all the bikers and walkers and friendly people, and it reminded me of a sort of utopia. I’m really not kidding. In fact, during my visit I discovered that I’d neglected to bring a sufficient quantity of pills to treat my glaucoma (I counted one a day, when I actually take two a day… boy, math is hard). Since it is utopia-like, Per simply got on the phone, was put through to a doctor, who understood the dilemma I was facing and so issued me a temporary social security number and a prescription, all done over the phone and entered into their system online. The next day we walked into the closest pharmacy, the pharmacist called up the record, and within minutes I had a bottle of 100 pills. On top of all that, they were pills she had never even prescribed before, and remember, I’m a complete foreigner. Maybe instead of tearing everything down in the USA, Mr. Trump, you ought to consider building systems like the Danes have… their lives are easier and they are happier and healthier as a result. I know it’s easier to destroy than build, but damn, there are people in the world doing this stuff right; everyone should be taking notes. That’s a Churchill we should be willing to die on.

You finally made it to the funny sign portion of this entry, which signals that it’s about ready to actually be the end. Sorry for the length, I would have made it shorter but I had too many words I had to use up.

Anyway, the first one on the left is from Portugal. The Portuguese are pretty straightforward, and “frango” is the word for “chicken” in Portuguese, and so here they’re offering some tasty chicken ass.

Not to be outdone, the Danes tell you where to go if your farts are really smelly in the middle picture.

I think the photo on the right speaks for itself.

Portugal welcomed me back with open arms and a beautiful sunset. I was glad to be home, but even more glad to be shown so much care and concern from two very nice and empathetic people. I still really haven’t taken a solo trip; for some reason sharing a travel experience with someone makes it so much more meaningful than seeing it all on my own. Maybe someday I’ll score the perfect travel partnering babe. Ha ha!

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