● Where was I? Spain, Portugal, Germany & Italy.
Here we go again! As always, I write this for personal reasons but feel free to revisit 2025 along with me. How are we so far into the 21st century already?! Time to share some selfies + a few cat stories! Let’s review…
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Work
Tours for Rick Steves started earlier & ended later than usual, spread out from March to November. I also had to substitute for two fellow guides due to personal emergencies… back to back. Picking up a group in a gas station was a definite first! This year’s somewhat lighter workload felt great with no book research assignment for the first time in two decades. I’ll miss those relationships I’ve nurtured, but the extra weeks off did me a world of good.
I met so many wonderful people this year on tour & reconnected with quite a few coworkers as we crossed paths. In spite of wretched weather during Holy Week, guiding folks through Andalucía then made it a highlight for me as did being in Granada during Cruces de Mayo. Such great festivities to show off southern Spain.
Other wow moments would be seeing just how much progress has been made on the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona & training a guide in Sicily. I sounded like a broken record by saying how similar it was to Andalucía! Can’t wait to write about that adventure. And perhaps the craziest moment in a year of insane, workaround logistics had to be an electrical blackout over the entire Iberian peninsula while on tour. I hope never to go through that again. Please & thank you.
Vacation
With a bit less work, there was more time for excursions this year. Besides the regular trip to Huelva for choco & gurumelos with Rafa, David & Davis came from Seattle to see us in El Pedroso in May. I even met them again in Madrid & in Salamanca! Don’t think I’d been to Salamanca in about 20 years, so everything was like new.
Amanda & I hung out in Porto together for fun, food & tiles, but the best time of the year was spending three weeks in northern/western Germany with Rafa. DubbedOperación Verano Fresco, mission accomplished since we did indeed beat a wicked heat wave at home. I’ve written a little about the trip (see Lüneberger Heide & modern stained glass) but must write more. A vacation I’ll never, ever forget.
And as this is published, we’re off to Málaga with family then on to northern Portugal to ring in the new year. Nope, I wasn’t home much in 2025 but managed to get a few things done around the house…
Personal
We had an insane fruit harvest of 63 oranges & 402 lemons! Hence a lot of freezing juice & eating pasta al limone. Although the broccoli didn’t grow huge, there was a ton of it as well as an abundance of broccoli cashew soup. No complaints there. Tomatoes & corn did not do well due to too much rain in the spring & too much heat in the summer. Surprisingly, the acanthus that gardeners from Itálica gave us didn’t make it either. Lettuce, kale, onions & radishes perfect though. Win some, lose some but very glad Rafa did the majority of the gardening since I was away so much.
Other bits around the house: curtains made for the upstairs closet & sanding/restaining the wooden part of the stairs. I found a reliable way to make papas aliñás & generally cooked qutie a bit… even if the recipes didn’t end up here in the blog. I’m currently making table olives again for the second time & hope they turn out well.
Fun wasn’t all at home though. Rafa & I went to some crazy shows: a comedy duo we like, Justin Timberlake in Sevilla & Jennifer López in Cádiz. Oh my. I also took a wonderful course & attended a conference about an upcoming Master’s degree program in European heritage interpretation. Basically I fulfill most of the requirements already & if it begins soon, I’m seriously considering getting the degree. Even if not, there was lots of great info to incorporate in my work.
Camilo & Tommy
I never expected that our neighbor’s cat(s) would become such a large part of our daily routine this year. Camilo began peeking over our wall in late 2024. That evolved to him watching us every evening on the patio, often coming to the edge for a few head scratches. He was timid, not vocal at all (hardly a meow & no purring ever) but learned to trust us. Camilo had a routine where he’d jump through our front window every morning when we woke up, inspected the house to see if everything was in its spot, then go about his business outside.
June turned out to be a breakthrough month for Camilo. He got enough courage to hop down the barbecue in the back patio, then immediately discovered that he could run through our house & around to his own in a loop. At that point we had to make the patio cat-proof… as much as that’s possible. Summer came & went, Camilo grew more handsome & when we returned from Germany he was waiting on the fountain for us. I was sure he’d be upset since we’d been gone for three weeks, but no. What a sweetheart.
Unfortunately in October, Camilo went missing. Wasn’t the first time he’d gotten into a crazy situation, but the whole town started looking for him. He’s still gone. Granada was a wreck as was Rafa… I don’t think he’s dead, but some horrible person must have taken him away. We hope he finds his way back to us somehow.
In the meantime, Granada’s nephew immediately got her a new cat although there’s no replacing Camilo. Eventually named Tomi, what took Camilo months to do, he did in a couple of weeks. Tommy loves running up the lemon tree, makes all kinds of crazy noises, demands attention, meows & purrs like crazy. Hilarious in his own way, Tommy uses our place as his vacation getaway just like Camilo did.
Endless Mile
I couldn’t take more antics from the idiot who owns Twitter/X, so I made the switch to Bluesky #byefelicia I’m less connected as a result, but that is not a bad thing. Curious about the past & how the present compares, I scanned over 1,000 photos from the year 2000 & started a new blog category to share all those treats from 25 years ago.
I also had the joy of being audited for my 2022 return by the Spanish tax authorities. Five months of frustrating back & forth, but in the end I’d submitted everything correctly & owed zero. I guess I’m more organized now because of the audit, but that was a lot of time spent.
Guidebook sales are WAY down from last year, but with a new US administration the entire tourism industry started the year in limbo. Add a growing reliance on AI slop & the future looks uncertain. No matter. The Recoleta Cemetery blog & Endless Mile are still going strong. I’m particularly proud of a 46-page booklet I put together for the Semana Santa tour in about one week… schedules, posters, vocab, advice & some of my experience. Hopefully appreciated!
To sum up 2025
Radiant… not only in terms of fantastic experiences, but also in terms of light. From Sicily to Portugal to Germany to home, the quality of light everywhere I went seemed special this year. Or maybe I was just more receptive? Whatever the reason, 2025 shone in many aspects. What a wonderful year.
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What’s coming in 2026?
No major house projects undertaken this year, so please tell me we’ll be able to get the upstairs bathroom renovated. Please, please, please. Not as worried about the cost as much as all the decisions to be made. Just have to buckle down & do it.
Vacation planning has begun! We’re going back to Germany to see more since Operación Verano Fresco proved to be such a success. Hopefully that means I’ll learn a bit of German beforehand. But when?
The 57-page Tapas Tips guide is ready to go but I’ve yet to design the sales webpage. Will get on it soon. Good progress has been made on a Porto tile guide & yes, the Sevilla tile guide may even see the light of day. One can only hope!
The nightmare of bureaucracy may be over in 2026. Well, is it ever truly over? At least my B.A. degree in History has been deemed valid in the Spanish university system, so I’ve applied for my Andalucía guide license! Pretty sure I have all the requirements, but time will tell.
What’s up for your 2026? Thanks for reading this far… I have no idea how all that fit into 365 days. Whatever your plans may be for next year, I wish you a fun, enriching & travel-filled new year!