Home Thoughts from Abroad

Okay, so I borrowed the title from Mark Twain´s trip through Europe to the Holy Land. This is certainly my most self-indulgent entry to date, but it´s Sunday night and I have an hour or so before the nuns in the convent lock all the pilgrims in and I´m a little homesick. I miss my friends at TCC, and I miss you guys in Duncanville and at TUMC (Dianna forwarded pictures from that last Sunday). I wonder from time to time what Frank would make of some of the things I´ve seen--wish I had you here. I miss hugs from my kids and parents and wifey (I told you this was entirely self-indulgent!), and I miss Texas food.

That´s my subject (such as it is) on this installment of ¨Home Thoughts¨--food. I miss chili and Dianna´s home-made turkey soup. As my good friend John Shumaker knows, I like a hamburger every now and then (whenever I can sneak one from Dianna´s notice). Now, I don´t mean a Whopper or a Big Mac--I mean a big ol´Fudrucker´s hamburger or something like that. Everything in Spain seems to have ham--¨jamon¨--on it, or there´s cheeze, or there´s egg--never beef. Well, you won´t believe it. After exploring the town and looking at the shrine to Saint Dominic, I found a restaurant called ¨Hambergerer and English Pub.¨ The spelling of hamburger was a little suspicious, but I ran excitedly in and asked,¨¿Tenes hamburgers aqui?¨ (¨Do you have hamburgers here?¨ ¨Si!¨was the answer, so I ordered one with a Coke. I could hardly wait. Beef. And Dianna didn´t have to know. What did I get? A long French baguette. When I lifted the top off, I found white cheeze and egg topping two thin, fried pork chops. It was a ham-burger. Sometimes even the food loses a little in the translation.

Take care of each other back home.