Summer’s Coolest Soup: Spicy Watermelon Gazpacho

Watermelon in Gazpacho? Now, that's something different!!

It's been extremely hot and humid this week and I've made my simple but tasty gazpacho on a few of the nights. Nothing is easier than tossing a few juicy vegetables into the blender for a delicious cold soup. 

However, this time, I added some watermelon to my basic recipe for a little variation.  It's interesting how the flavors all mingle so nicely. 

Home Sweet Home-After 41 of Traveling Europe

We finally landed back in Newark, New Jersey airport around 8:00 PM on Tuesday night after 41 days of traveling throughout Europe.

Sitting the train station in Barcelona

  Exhausted doesn’t even begin to describe how we felt when we got back. After so many weeks of dragging our carry-ons and backpacks through train stations, we couldn’t bear the thought of one more train ride—so we skipped the hour-long +  train home and called an Uber instead. Worth every penny.

Before the trip, I wrote a pre-vacation post full of excitement and plans. Now that we’re home, I thought I’d follow up with how things actually unfolded—starting with our time in Spain. (I'll post about our initial 15 day Transatlantic Cruise on Virgin Cruises to Morocco, Canary Islands, Valencia, Portugal, and Barcelona in a future post.) Here, I'm beginning in Spain.

 

Transatlantic Cruise and Wedding

I'm leaving Saturday May 3, 2025 for a 15 day transatlantic cruise on Virgin Cruise Lines . It leaves from Miami and ends in Barcelona. We will spend 8 consecutive days at sea and then we will stop at various ports including Casa Blanca, Morocco, 2 stops in the Canary Islands, 2 stops in Portugal, and end Barcelona. 

My nephew is getting married in Toledo, Spain the 3rd week in May. The transatlantic cruise was an add-on for us to get to Europe for the wedding. Believe it or not, it was about the same price as flying economy plus.