Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

In about 17 hours I am on a plane en route to Madrid. I'm so excited it's beyond description. I love European travel, and, poor soul that I am, I can't afford to go anywhere near as often as I'd like. So far I've only hit Paris and Rome, adding Madrid this week. I know it's de rigeur now to check out other, less "touristy" destinations like Turkey, Istanbul, Hungary, and Albania, but I'm spoiled that way -- I'm a big city boy, so I'd rather hit more international destinations than the little secret gems at this point in my life. Perhaps at some other point in my life, when the beauty and simplicity of a countryside might excite me more (not that it's not a great thing now), I might try more out-of-the-way destinations. But for now, I'm sticking with the bigger cities.

Oh, and I just found out tonight that Madrid is actually the setting for this movie which I thoroughly enjoyed when I saw it. It's on my amazon wishlist, by the way, in case any of you happens to want to get it for me. Unfortunately, the fact that the movie is set in Madrid just hit me tonight, so I wasn't able to go out and rent it again to try to recapture the flavor. But I do commend the movie to you out there, because it was quite enjoyable.

One last thing: If, by whatever strange sets of flukes, these vacation plans end up anything like my last set of vacation plans, someone please shoot me. Even if you have to travel from random various parts of the country to do it, please, come by, and shoot me. Even though it's illegal to own or carry a gun in the District of Columbia.