Although I’ve inhaled the pure air of Finland for no more than a few months, I’ve had an array of happy adventures while there. If you’ve read other posts in this blog, you may recall I’ve flown above Finland’s magical countryside on Midsummer Eve, watching bonfire after bonfire being set […]

Pedro, Bruce, Ken, and Alvaro – Four lambs about to be clipped As I mentioned at the end of my last post, pleasure was blooming in our cabaret. Pedro, Bruce, Alvaro, and I, with our front row table right on the edge of the dance floor, were beaming. Background music […]

During one of the amazing lunches at our Madrid boarding house, Pedro and Alvaro struck up a conversation with a pair of Spaniards seated across the table. The friendly pair had been working in Madrid for some months and knew the city well. As I mentioned in my last post, […]

By the time our train stopped at the border between Portugal and Spain to be checked by customs officers (a hassle no longer required when traveling between countries of the European Union), Bruce and I had learned a bit about Pedro and Alvaro, the two young men we had met […]

The Iberian Peninsula is a vague corner of Europe for me. I’ve traveled there only twice, my trips decades apart. On the last one I jetted to Madrid and caught a high-speed train to Seville where I had been invited to participate in a conference on hypertension. The organizers had […]

As I mentioned here earlier, my Air Force assignment in Germany provided plenty of time for me to breeze around Europe. And, like all airmen of any rank, I had a precious perk, a sweet plum that allowed me to fly free on military aircraft throughout Europe. At the time, […]

After a refreshing night in my Kuopio hotel, I took on a hefty breakfast before getting down to the business I had come for. I opened the dissertation of the doctoral student I was to examine,  now being familiar with him as the young pilot who had ferried me from […]

When I landed in Helsinki, the middle leg of my previously-mentioned tour, I was met by the young pilot assigned to fly me to Kuopio. By odd circumstance that fellow was the very candidate I was to examine on the following Monday. Apparently those who arranged this scheme thought it […]