Category Archives: Travel

the last six months

I haven’t been “feeling” the blog in a while. In fact, I’m not sure I’m feeling it now either, to be honest. This might be a one-off post.

Anyways, a lot of time has past since the last post on July 31 of last year, so here are the highlights of what’s happened since:

August

We spent lots of time with our moms. Some on Bainbridge, some in Oregon. In between, we kept running (sometimes outside, sometimes on a treadmill that we had shipped to MIL’s in Oregon). We ran 19 times for about 106 miles. Wow. I didn’t realize we did so much. We also spent some time in Walla Walla to see if it might be a place we could settle down (spoiler: it isn’t).

Also, we bought a car. And orange car. And it’s awesome.

September

We spent the entire month at my mom’s place on Bainbridge, running at Battle Point Park. It’s a nice park with a 1.5 mile path. Not much else happened. We ran 14 days for 68 miles. A bit less because a few injuries slowed us down.

October

First off, I raided the frequent flier accounts and bought tickets for our next adventure. I guess that settling down and being normal will have to wait. I started getting very sweaty palms when we were thinking about buying another house. So… yeah, the adventure continues.

We got to fly down to Ojai and see my sister and her brood, including the newest nephew. We had a really nice time visiting my family and family friends. After that, we visited Husband’s family in Oregon again.

We ran 21 times for 94 miles total. Pretty decent!

November

It’s Panettone season again. And I baked a lot (a lot!) of them. And some were really good and some were awful failures. Some even ended up in the trash before they were baked. But mostly they worked and were good. I was able to borrow a stand mixer which made the whole process a lot easier and at least a little bit faster, but not always more successful than doing it all by hand.

We flew to southern California and spent Thanksgiving with my brother and his family. It was my first time traveling for Thanksgiving and it was oppressively hot. We didn’t run at all. We barely walked. It was almost 100 degrees. But it was fun. We like visiting family.

We ran 16 times for 55 miles. Meh.

December

After having such a fun time seeing my sister and her kids, we had all planned to meet in Ojai again before Christmas. Unfortunately, about a week before then, the huge Thomas wildfire started and wreaked havoc on the area, so those plans were scrapped. We are very relieved that all our friends and family in the area are safe and accounted for… and somehow Ojai was spared the worst of the fire.

We met Husband’s mom and sister on the Oregon coast for Christmas. We rented a house and spent a few days together. We made a yummy Christmas prime rib with yorkshire puddings. We ate and drank too much. Fun was had. We ran one day on the beach. Why is running on the beach so hard ??? (and slow? Answer: wind and sand.) After that, we met again down in southern Oregon for an extra few days. And we ran on the dreadmill.

We ran 21 times for 103 miles. Wow!

January

We ran a lot in January (21 times for 81 miles). And prepped for our trip. And payed taxes. And other fun stuff like that.

And there you have it. Our last 6 months in a few sentences. We aren’t that exciting. Apparently, there wasn’t much to write about anyways. Also, I have pictures I’d like to add to this, but my WordPress app seems to be on the fritz again, so maybe I’ll be able to update this with something… eventually.

summer sunday

30 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

Sunday. Feeling a lot better today. A lot. Normal, even.

On today's agenda, we are going on a quick visit to see my mom and drop off a few things at her place in advance of us staying there for a few days. See, we have amassed too much stuff already. And no car, so… The main thing we have is a fan that we pulled out of our storage locker. And it occurred to me a few days ago that it would be a potential nightmare on the bus with our backpacks on Tuesday, so we decided to take a load of stuff early. It was nice, we got to see my mom and visit for a while. Also, we got the fan over there, so now we don't have to worry about that (except that it's pretty hot here right now, so hopefully that wasn't a huge mistake for the next two nights).

Before our adventure, we took a brisk walk in the morning and then stopped by the grocery store to get stuff to make a picnic lunch. We were kind of under a time deadline for transportation, so we had to walk faster than we normally do. And for those of you who think we normally walk pretty fast, I have news. We don't. We probably walk faster than some people, but we are by no means "speed walkers". We just walk A LOT. Not fast. But many miles. So this morning's walk was basically just under the pace of our runs. Or at least that's how I felt as the sweat poured into my eyeballs. At any rate, good fast walk. That was our "rest" day.

After we got back, we made dinner and settled in to watch a movie. The new Ghostbusters, which I actually liked. Then we went to bed early because running tomorrow. And we want an early start next week because heatwave. Hopefully it won't impact us too much… <fingers crossed>

Breakfast

Oatmeal with blueberries and kiwi. Omelette with green onions. Coffee with milk. Calories: 419

Lunch

Ham sandwich with mustard and cucumber. Calories: 470

Dinner

Turkey corn dogs with crunchy veggies. Calories: 507

After Dinner Snack

Popcorn. Melon, kiwi, yogurt, and bran flakes. Wine. Calories: 564

Total calories: 1959

Activity

it’s not going well

23 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

and by "it's not going well" I mean my ability to keep to a blog schedule and post something every day. Obviously I missed yesterday and so I'm writing yesterday's post today, just to keep myself honest. Here's the basic update:

We walked to the far away (3 miles) bus stop and then took the bus to Whole Foods, Uwajimaya, and Total Wine. We wanted coffee from Whole Foods, Thai basil, spicy chili sauce, Thai chilis, and mirin from Uwajimaya, and to check the inventory of Gewürztraminer from Alto Adige/Sudtirol (none of that Alsace crap, you guys) at Total Wine.

We were successful at Whole Foods with the coffee. We also got to use their grinder to make the whole beans into espresso style ground coffee, so that was awesome. The lady at the checkout took a big inhale of it and said "this is the best coffee… don't drink it, just smell it."

Then we ate lunch outside at the WF tables (we figured that we just spent $12 on coffee, so it was OK to make sandwiches with the stuff we bought earlier at The Met).

At Uwajimaya, we found everything except Thai basil, which was a little shocking, quite frankly. It's always been there, maybe we just missed it? I don't know. No, we didn't ask. We are shy like that and independent. We found the other stuff though.

At Total Wine we found nothing. They have no Gewürztraminer from Alto Adige/Sudtirol, which isn't exactly a surprise, but it is a disappointment. I should probably write a letter. Or maybe just go to Rain City Wines in Bothell, which is an awesome little small business run by a cantankerous guy called Santo. It's pretty awesome and he will probably have something and could definitely get something if he doesn't have it. So I think that will be the plan. We did browse the beer selection at TW and it was pretty good. Also you can buy single bottles (the small ones), which is nice. So I got this really good red ale called "My Bloody Valentine Ale" or something. It was really good.

We walked back to the bus stop and of course were just a little too slow and missed the first bus, so we waited for a while for the next one. We thought about walking, but I said "street blah blah blah doesn't have footpaths, so we can't walk back." So we waited. Then the bus showed up and we were driving down street blah blah blah and I was looking out the window at all the new footpaths they had installed. Which explains what they were doing with all the construction that was happening even before we left the country. Good to know. We got off the bus and walked back to the apartment, then went grocery shopping for the rest of dinner and stuff. Later we picked up our package from the Amazon locker (love those!!). Then we watched a few shows (we have a lot to catch up on) and went to bed early.

Here's the low down on food and activity for yesterday.

Food

Breakfast

Same ole same ole… oatmeal, eggs, cheddar cheese. Coffee with milk. Melon. Calories: 440

Lunch

Ham sandwich on a cibatta roll. Calories: 350

Dinner

For dinner, I made a yummy dish from Skinnytaste again. It was chicken yakitori with stir fry veggies. Calories: 529

Snack

Popcorn. My Bloody Valentine Amber Ale. Citradelic IPA. Calories: 641

Fitbit Steps 27,024

nearly did it again

22 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

Almost forgot to write post because things are so boring and uninteresting lately. But luckily I remembered, so here are today's mundane highlights:

Walked to mall to get new iPhone. See… the small ladies version didn't have the cool camera stuff, so I noodled on it and decided that the camera was important to me, so we went to exchange it. Long story short, we got into a bit of a situation with the exchange because the original transaction included the trade in of my old phone. So things got a bit buggered up and took a while to resolve. But we got it all sorted and now I have the big iPhone with the fancy camera. It's good.
After the phone thing, we walked over to the park and had lunch. We stopped earlier and got little baguettes and ham and tried to recreate France. It was fine. The bread was a bit tough and the ends were really crunchy. So I think I might have cheese gratered my mouth.
After that, we walked back. On the way, I got a blister (I blame the dusty trail and friction) and we stopped for a bandaid. Problem solved.
Then we rested (30k steps, yo). Then shopping (under budget). Then made dinner and here we are.

Food and Stuff

Breakfast

Same. Oats and cheese and eggs with coffee, milk, and melon. Calories: 431

Lunch

Baguette sandwich with ham in the park. Calories: 420

Dinner

Chicken sausage, sauerkraut, onions, mustard, and lazy slaw (that is cabbage, green onions, lime juice, sour cream, and hot sauce). Calories: 409

Snacks

Popcorn and beer (Ninkasi Beer Run). Calories: 568

Total: 1829

Activity

A lotta steps. > 33,0000.

Tomorrow, we run. Need to sleep now.

re-entry

14 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

It’s “day two” back in the states. I woke up at 4am. Which was nice because it gave me a chance to finish the book I was reading. Now I’m only 12 books behind in my 2017 reading challenge (I am trying to read 52 books… so far, I’ve finished 15, with two “in progress”). So that’s the bright side of waking up so early.

Today we are moving into another Airbnb for a few weeks, while we recover from jet lag, start running again, and generally re-acclimate to being stateside. Also, we will probably bake some bread, since we’ve not done that in a while (lack of ovens plus ridiculously hot weather equals no fresh bread).

Oops. Forgot to finish yesterday’s post. Not much else to say. Still struggling with re-entry and trying to sort out jet lag from the rest of it. But the good news is that I stayed awake until 11pm!! Hopefully that trend continues.

bits and bobs

13 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

Yes, back “home”. It’s been less than 24 hours and I’m jet lagged and tired and I don’t really know how to describe how I’m feeling right now, so I think I’ll stick with something a bit more concrete: facts.

Nights: 277
Cities: 47
Countries: 7
AirBnBs: 26
Hotels: 17
Cottages: 4
Rental Cars: 8
Trains: 9
Flights: 5
Steps: 6.2 million
Most Expensive City
- Overall (including money spent on lodging, transportation, and discretionary): Last two nights in London, followed closely by all the other nights in London.
- Lodging (per night): Matera for two nights in luxury cave hotel. Let that sink in…
- Discretionary (mainly food and gas): Moulins, France (we visited some tourist attractions, plus got gas and went out to lunch).
Least Expensive City
- Overall (including money spent on lodging, transportation, and discretionary): Bangor, Wales
- Lodging (per night): Lecce
- Discretionary (mainly food and gas): Lucera and Matera were pretty cheap

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’m still processing and apparently suffering badly from jet lag because I forgot to publish (and finish) this post yesterday. Also I went to sleep at 9pm and woke up today at 4am.

our days are numbered

9 July 2017 Dijon, France in transit to Paris, France (or close… near the airport)

technically, our days have always been numbered. But not in a long time such a small number. Only 3 full days left until we head home. The really sad part is that I started writing this thinking we had 5 days. Crap. An even smaller number than I thought.

Today we travel from Dijon to near Paris. We’re staying near the airport and returning our car in the morning, then heading to the actual airport where we will catch a train into Paris and then another train to London where we will then catch the tube to our apartment in London. Whew. Pretty good for a run-on-sentence, eh?

I’m hoping today isn’t so damn hot.

Also, I realized that our days aren’t really numbered… more like our days in Europe… not even our “traveling” days are numbered at this point because we’re headed back to the US, but we will still be moving around like vagabonds for a while until we eventually settle down, probably in October. So yeah, there’s still a lot of travel to be done this year. Husband says he’s excited about the US portion of our trip and can’t wait to see what the country is like.

Anyway, time for packing, a walk, coffee (because the stove broke again, you guys!), and then find a car wash and head towards Paris. Wuhuu!

the french car wash

Wasn’t really sure how this car wash thing works in a foreign language. So we drove up (it was the DIY type, by the way) and there was a little machine where you could stick a card and punch in numbers. Of course the credit card didn’t work, so we had a little moment of “what the fuck do we do now?” And while Husband researched other options, I headed for the little gas station shop, praying (not really, you guys, I don’t pray) that the person might speak a little English. Luckily, he did (very well I might add) and he explained everything to me and I bought the codes and we got the car washed and vacuumed, just in time for a very rainy day.

By the way, I wouldn’t normally wash a rental, but they ask that you return it clean-ish or they charge €80, so I’m willing to spend €10 to clean the car.
After that, drove to our hotel near the airport and got checked in.

disappointment

Suffice to say, this hotel is one big disappointment. It got really good reviews and wasn’t cheap, so I had a certain level of expectations that have fallen quite short. First of all, what kind of airport hotel doesn’t have air conditioning? It’s partly my fault for just assuming they had a/c, but really??? This is an airport hotel. Our room has a fan. A fucking fan. Which is something. But it’s also fucking hot and muggy. And I was really looking forward to one night in a nice climate controlled hotel room. Bah!

Dinner was at the wine bar where we were supposed to be able to enjoy wine and plates of meats and cheeses from the region. Nope. Just a prix-fixe menu for dinner that was just meh.

So yeah, never again this hotel.

this must be what hell is like

After checking into our hotel and before dinner, we decided it would be good to go to a supermarket to get some water (gotta stay hydrated). So we hopped in the car and immediately had to pull over because we forgot to set the GPS. So we started to do that, but then noticed that literally every market in a 40 mile radius was closed. Sunday in France. I fucking forgot.

There was one market open. The Auchan at the giant airport mall, so we girded our loins and set the GPS.

“Che casino!” That literally means “what a whorehouse” in Italian, but these days, it means “what a nightmare” or “this is so crazy busy, I would rather shove a hot poker in my eyeball”. Yeah, it was a little bit busy being LITERALLY THE ONLY PLACE OPEN ON SUNDAY. The parking lot was like a motorway at rush hour. Just creeping along. Eventually we found a parking spot, took a photo, so we would make it back to the right place and headed inside.

Souvenir from “hell on earth”

Wall to wall people. The stuff of nightmares. We bought water and left. Then settled into our awful, hot and muggy hotel room for the night.

Not my favorite day ever. Tomorrow we travel again, this time on public transportation…

making wishes in Dijon where they put the “Kir” in “Kir Royal”

8 July 2017 Dijon, France

A quick update to yesterday’s Fitbit Fiasco. I found a place on the way to Dijon that, evidently, had them in stock. So we stopped there and I somehow managed to fumble my way through a little bit of French (and some Italian and some English) and came away with a new Fitbit for Husband. He’s quite pleased right now. Whew! Crisis averted.

We arrived in Dijon and, naturally, it’s hot as balls here. We got settled into our mini-apartment (studio… basement, so it’s actually quite cool) and then we went for a walk. We found a nice lake and walked around it. I was sweating profusely the entire time (I need to remember to bring tissues or maybe a beach towel with me, so I can mop myself up periodically). After that, we ventured over to a somewhat nearby supermarket for dinner stuff and then made the classic faux pas (look, French!) of not weighing some of our produce and having to go back to the produce department (thanks, Husband) to get it weighed, while I waited at the check out counter with a very annoyed French woman behind me. Oh well, I can’t even count the times I was inconvenienced by slow Italians paying for their groceries with some weirdo form of payment, so I figure it was time we inconvenienced someone. Well, not really. I don’t like to do that. But it would have helped if the market would make it more obvious with scales and or signs that say “weigh your shit and label it” like they do in Italy. It’s really obvious everywhere in Italy. Anyway, then back to the apartment, cocktails, dinner, and wine. Then to sleep.

Now it’s morning. We are planning on exploring Dijon today, having a baguette sandwich (of course), and trying to not die in this heat wave. More on all of that later.

We got an early start, so it wasn’t too insanely hot. And also there was shade, so we kept to the shade and explored Dijon. We stopped for a coffee (coffee just isn’t the same as in Italy… miss that) because this morning while Husband was gearing up to make his breakfast, the stove died. No idea what happened, but it just died. So, long story short, he didn’t get a proper coffee this morning. And probably not a great one where we stopped, but I suppose it was passable. At least we didn’t have to go to the Starbucks here. That would have been odd.

Cathedral. I love the colorful roof tiles.

Anyway, explored Dijon and somewhere along the way, I had realized that Dijon is in the Burgundy region of France, so, yeah, wine is big here. I knew wine and food were big here, but, for some reason, I didn’t realize it was Burgundy-big. Anyways… so there’s that.

Kir Royal. Because Dijon is also known for creme de cassis.

We visited a few churches and rubbed more of the face off of an old owl carving. Evidently this one grants wishes. I’d tell you my wish, but I’m not sure if that’s allowed, so I’m playing it safe and not telling anyone (Husband included) about my wish.

This way to get wishes granted

Around noon, we headed back to the apartment, trying to avoid the death ray in the sky and then had lunch (baguette sandwich with the bread we bought earlier at the local bakery that’s literally 100 meters from our door. By the way, I went in there to get the bread and oh my god, it was so hot! I immediately started sweating and really hoping that the people in line ahead of me would hurry up. I’m always glad there are people ahead of me because I can see what the most popular baguette is and I can get that, but today, they also ordered about 50 million other pastries that get boxed up all fancy and stuff, so that takes a while).

After lunch, we braved the heat to do our shopping for the day. We got all the goodies and headed back, listening to the thunder in the distance and getting hit by a handful of raindrops (yeah! thunderstorms!!). We got back and I looked at the receipt from the store and noticed that we got double charged for the most expensive thing we bought. Ugh. It’s not like I could even go back and explain that. I guess I’ll chalk that up to helping the local economy and not being very good at estimating how much the grocery store bill should be.

Tomorrow we head towards Paris. We’re staying the night near the airport because we are returning the car on Monday morning. And there was absolutely no way I was driving INSIDE Paris. Nope nope nope. Even near the airport is going to be harrowing tomorrow, or at least busy. On Monday, we return the car, get a ride to the airport, take the RER to Paris and then the Eurostar to London. And two days later, we fly home. I’m really looking forward to London and also to going home. I might actually be ready now.

leaving italy

4 July 2017 Bergamo, Italy in transit to Grenoble, France

Yes, I know today is actually the fifth of July and that I didn’t post anything yesterday. I had big plans to post something really really good… and clever… and witty. Probably my best ever. But then we got to Grenoble and I was tired and hot and hot and sweaty and hot and tired, so decided against it. And now I’ve forgotten all my genius ideas for the post, so… this will have to do.

We set off pretty early for France. It was a pretty long, but fast drive over many autostrade, through many toll booths, and tunnels. We saw more beautiful mountains and stopped at as many service areas for last Italian coffee for a while, plus the opportunity to pee (which is one reason I really do like driving on the autostrada… clean – mostly – bathrooms that are free – sort of). I wanted to get an early start not only because the actual drive was long, but also so we could stop a few times without concern of being late meeting our next airbnb hostess. Then the other reason was I was a little unsure about the border crossing into France. See, France has locked down its borders in the wake of the terrorist activity, so evidently there are border checks and stuff like that. I wasn’t worried that they would deny us entry, I just didn’t know how long it would all take. In the end, there was no border check (maybe there was… before the big tunnel connecting the two countries, we did drive slowly through a bunch of armed military guys… perhaps they stop some people there? I don’t know. We didn’t get stopped). We just paid our (huge) toll to get through the tunnel and drove a consistent 70 km/h for the 15 km or so.

Last selfie in Italy (for now)

And then we were in France. Which is cool, although we’re both sad to leave Italy (for now). We stopped at the French equivalent of an autogrill and bought a baguette, ham, and butter and made sandwiches in the car. They were delicious, even though the butter and the ham and also the baguette weren’t the best ever. Then we continued on to Grenoble and stopped at the grocery store on the way to our apartment. We found it, despite a detour. And we found parking not too far away (that car will be parked there until Friday morning when we leave). We got checked into our apartment, then took a few trips to get the rest of our stuff from the car and relaxed for a while.

Back in France

Once it (allegedly) cooled off outside, we took a walk around the town. It’s pretty nice and there are mountains all around. And they have this freaky cable car thingy that takes you up a mountain that is just a big giant “no” from Husband (heights) and me (it’s really old and rickety looking). We have two full days here, so it will be fun to explore. Mostly it will be fun to eat baguette, ham, and butter sandwiches for a few days. Really looking forward to that! haha.

Alright, that’s all I’ve got for the latest travel day. We made it out of Italy and back to France. It’s still weird to think we’ll be home in a week. I’m not even sure what to expect from “home”, except that I know Mexican food will be in order. It’s been a long time!

our last full day in Italy (for now)

3 July 2017 Bergamo, Italy

Today is our last full day in Italy. Tomorrow we head into France and eventually to Paris, where the car will be returned, then we go to London, and then back home.
As we were in the grocery store yesterday, wandering through the wine section, I was struck by how many of the places we’ve been in Italy on this trip and how many of these wines (ok, maybe not these exact wines) we’ve had the good fortune to try. Wines from Sicily, Puglia, Piemonte, Alto-Adige, Friuli, Tuscany, etc. And I started thinking about all those places we’ve been and seen. And, I’ll admit, I am tired. The last half of this trip, since about mid-February, has been at a much faster pace that I could have ever imagined in my whole life actually wanting to do, much less enjoying.

We have been to so many places and seen so many beautiful, interesting, weird, amazing things. And now I’m tired. I’m conflicted on whether or not I’m ready to go home. I mean, I am… I want to see my friends and family like a LOT. I miss them all so much (9 months is really too long to be away). But, on the other hand, I am not sure how long I can sit in one place. I guess we shall see. Husband and I have plans… and ideas and projects. So hopefully we can actually execute on those. We’re pretty darn good at executing on travel plans. Anyway…

We’re here in Bergamo and I kind of want to get the most “Italy” out of it, but I don’t really care all that much about this city in particular. It is really nice and very “Italy”, but what I’m most concerned with right now is getting a good gelato (done) and one last good pizza (almost done… we had pizza the other night, as I mentioned, but it wasn’t exactly the experience we were looking for, so we’re going to try again tonight, on our last night).

Tomorrow we pack again and move on to our fairly short second France leg of the trip. I’m really looking forward to the bread and butter with big salt crystals. Because I honestly think no one does either of those things better than the French (sorry, Altamura).

That’s it for the moment. I’ll come back with the pizza verdict later.

The pizzas were perfect! Typical Italian and just what we wanted. Also the liter of “vino della casa” was perfect as well. Good last night in Italy.