Category Archives: Weather

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.

first fiver

31 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

It's Monday. That means today we run. And we did. We got an earlier than usual start today in order to beat the heat, which we did. And we felt really good running… I mean… "really" is kind of a joke right? But yes, we felt good. And we made it FIVE MILES for the first time (I think) this year. I'm pretty sure. It might be the first time since January 1st when I fell for the first time (but didn't bleed, so we did finish the run). Anyway, feels good after 7 months off.

Today isn't very exciting. We are leaving our Airbnb tomorrow, so we are cleaning it up and packing and stuff like that today. The really great news is that we got all our steps in before noon with the run and then the trip to the grocery store. Yay! So now we are hanging out, reading, writing, and cleaning. That's all I've got for today. Unless something really interesting happens later, which it probably won't.

Food and Activity

Breakfast

Peach, kiwi, melon, and blueberries with yogurt and bran flakes. Coffee with milk. Calories: 421

Lunch

Smoked salmon sandwich with cream cheese, red onion, tomatoes, cucumber, and cilantro. Calories: 461

Dinner

Spicy chicken sausage with sauerkraut and lazy slaw. Calories:

Activity

FIVE FUCKING MILES

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

my quarter of a cup runneth over

27 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

I'm getting a bit of a head start on my blog post for tomorrow, today. Um… I just confused myself.

Now that we've been back in the US and dealing with grocery stores and counting calories and all of this, I wanted to write about how full of shit the US food labeling system is. Seriously. Look, Europe isn't perfect with labels either, but they did pass a regulation a few years ago that made it mandatory to label food (which is kind of crazy if you think about it… this only became mandatory last year!). And the way they do it is really nice. The requirement includes listing out the nutritional information per 100 grams of the food. So it doesn't matter that a typical "serving" is 5 grams (although they can include that as well, but it's optional), they have to list out all the details for 100 grams of whatever it is. So, for example, you're in France, Italy, Scotland, wherever… and you want to get some cereal. And you're interested in whatever is the lowest calorie cereal, so you start picking up boxes and looking at the nutrition information. And it's all listed there for 100 grams of the cereal. So it's the definition of comparing 'apples to apples' because, even though you aren't going to eat (maybe) 100 grams each morning, at least you are able to see that the bran flakes have 349 calories, vs. the 550 in that granola (I'm making these figures up… I really have no idea if there is a cereal that has 550 calories per 100 grams… it's just for illustration purposes). It's really easy to tell which one has fewer calories. And it's like this for basically everything in the store. Theoretically you can compare apples and oranges and make an informed decision. Brilliant!!

Yesterday we went to Trader Joe's (love that place!) and we walked by the bread section… and I muttered to myself (maybe a bit louder than I realized) "never again, store bought bread… never again" and then a little roll type thing caught my eye, so I wandered over to have a look. It was a pretzel roll. I wish I took a picture with a banana for scale because it was probably shorter than most bananas, but slightly fatter. According to the package, it is 4.5 oz. And I turned it over to have a look at the calories: 160. And for a split second, I thought "not too bad" and then I saw "Serving size: 1/2 roll, Servings per package: 2." You've seen this before. How about those little bags of chips that they sell at sandwich shops and in the deli section of the store? Yeah, those all have 2-2.5 servings per bag. Are they fucking kidding? Who in the hell doesn't eat the whole bag? Alright, so there's that… single serving bags masquerading as multiple serving bags, so that the products seem less awful for you. Did you know that the serving size for a pickle is "1/3 of a pickle"? Nope? It's because they are high in sodium. Have you ever met a person who only eats 1/3 of a pickle? Me either. Personally I rarely even eat a bite of a pickle because I don't like then much.

Then there's cereal and a million other things that are measured in fucking "cups". Again, what the ever living fuck, FDA? I get it, "cups" and all the other "household measuring thingies" are common in the US. I get that, but holy shit, you guys, we should all have food scales. It's so much more accurate. (and if things really go south, we can all become drug dealers and won't have to buy a scale). The FDA does require the food manufacturer to put the grams on the package as well, but those are all over the place (for instance, we currently have two hot cereal packages from Bob's Red Mill. The serving size is 1/4 cup on both, but on one that is 46 grams and the other is 30 grams. Not at all useful, Bob's), so it's impossible to compare one product to the next because the servings sizes are all different. Argh. It drives me insane.

I started reading the actual rules yesterday and my head just about exploded. Not only is it complicated, but there are so many exceptions to everything. For example, ingredient/serving size. So they have minimums that have to be counted, but since it's by serving size, TicTacs are SUGAR FREE, according to the rules. You know what's in a tictac? Sugar, that's what. Total and complete bullshit.

Anyway, I found this article that sums up the differences between the US and EU requirements. Apparently the US is suppose to be updating the requirements to deal with this serving size bullshit, but I have no idea if or when that will become a thing. Especially now. Since we have a moron as president.

Alright, I'm off to bed now. Just wanted to get a head start on my post tomorrow, since apparently I have something to rant about.

Today, with feeling

We got up early today to go running before the death ray… you get the idea. I hate running in the sunshine. Or the heat. Today I woke up to glorious clouds and fog! Ahhh… sublime. I also woke up a bit crabby because I had trouble sleeping last night (hips were achy and I couldn't get comfortable and also couldn't remember where I put the ibuprofen.) I had serious doubts about my ability to run today. But the good news is that WE RAN FOUR MILES AGAIN!!! Yeeaaaaahhhhh. Unfortunately I'm still a wee bit crabby, but better than earlier. And the run was good. We are improving all around.

Food and Activity

Breakfast

I changed things up today to save time. Fruit (melon, kiwi, and banana) with yogurt and bran flakes. Oh and coffee with milk. Calories: 419 (fruit is surprisingly caloric).

Lunch

My buns, toasted with chicken tenders and a spicy slaw topping. Calories: 473

Dinner

Trader Joe's Chicken Potstickers with soy, ginger, garlic, spicy pepper dipping sauce, broccoli, and mushrooms. Calories: 471

nack

We met our friends at the local pub, so I had a few pints. Calories: 720 (beer is the devil!!)

otal calories: 2083

Activity

Ran 4 miles! Again. W00t!!

two weeks

26 July 2017 Seattle, Washington

It's Wednesday and that means we take a break from running today. So that means that we slept in. Which for me was actually quite late (7:20am). We've had breakfast, I still need to get my buns in the shower and get ready to take on the day.

We've been back home now for two weeks. Feels longer… or maybe not. I'm not really sure. I do feel like we're completely in limbo (because we kind of are), waiting for something to happen. I think mainly we are waiting for our new car to arrive, so that we can continue the "visiting friends and family" circuit we have tentatively planned. Being without a car is kind of a pain, I'll be honest. We were trying to get out to Sammamish last weekend. Sammamish is kind of a nightmare even with a car, so there's that. It's one of those communities that's completely landlocked, for lack of a better word. There are no major roads (read: freeways) that go there, the nearest ones are 20-40 minutes in some direction. Anyway, we tried taking the bus. Hahaha… joke's on us! There IS NO BUS ON THE WEEKEND. Not a single one. Nada. Nothing. There are tons of buses during the week, mainly during the commute hours, but I guess they figure "these people are not 'bus' people." Which is probably true. I imagine that many of the commuters only do it because it is less of a hassle than actually driving through that hellish morning or afternoon traffic. But they are commuters… not every day bus riders who have no other transportation. Suburbs. Anyway, so being without a car is a bit of a drag. But hopefully our new car will show up in a few weeks and then we can drive it to faraway places and see some family and friends that we haven't seen in a really long time.

Food and Activity

Breakfast

Same thing as yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. Calories: 417

Lunch

Chicken tenders cooked with spices then placed carefully on my sliced and toasted buns. Toppings include cucumber, lettuce, and a little pile of cabbage. Calories: 430

PS the bread was delicious also today. Nailed it!

Dinner

Shrimp boiled in Old Bay seasoning, broccoli, lazy slaw, and spiced up with home made cocktail sauce (which consists of ketchup, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and freshly made horseradish, also from scratch… it'll burn your eyes if you get with in a 30 block radius, so be careful with this stuff.) Calories: 410

Snacks

Earlier, I had a macchiato at Urban Coffee Lounge. As we were walking there, I said to Husband, "you know, I didn't miss this place at all… I mean, since we were basically able to get an amazing coffee at literally any time we wanted for several months. Also they only cost about €1."

After dinner, I had some yogurt (fat free Fage Greek yogurt, if you care), blueberries, and bran flakes. Calories: 249

Total calories: 1506

Activity

No running today, as I mentioned. We took a long walk around Kirkland (literally around it). From our AirBnB to the park at the north end of the lake, then to Urban Coffee Lounge, then to the Goodwill up on 132nd, then across 132nd, under the freeway, and over to Trader Joe's (which is basically the only thing still open around there because they crunched everything else up to build a Whole Foods). After Trader Joe's, we found the CKC (Cross Kirkland Corridor, where we run) and walked that the rest of the way "home". It was somewhere between 9 and 9.5 miles, depending on who's Strava you believe this time.

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.

stay cool, you guys!

6 July 2017 Grenoble, France

Our last full day in Grenoble. Our plans are as follows:

Try and stay cool – we are attempting to get an early start this morning. So far, so good. It’s only 8:30 am right now and we are nearly out the door.
Hike up a mountain – this might be in direct conflict with goal #1 above (“stay cool”) because a hike implies uphill which implies sweat which implies that I’m going to get hot. But on the flip side… “stay cool” could also mean “stay cool” in the sense of “wow, you guys are so awesome for climbing up that big mountain! Stay cool!”
Eat at least one baguette, ham, and butter sandwich – this should be easy. The harder part is not eating 10 of these.
Find a local wine – this will be possibly challenging and scary, since the plan is to find a wine shop and we don’t really speak much French. But maybe it will be fun too. And maybe we’ll come away with something really good.
Pack and clean up – tomorrow is a travel day. We are going to Dijon.

Later this same day…

We hiked up the mountain. Holy balls, it was hot. And uphill (154 flights according to FitBit). Also totally worth it.

We ate our baguette sandwiches. Delicious as usual. Ate them near the top of our hike (on the way back down) in the shade with a view of the alps. Pretty nice.

We found a French wine at the grocery store. I’m not sure that is really fulfilling the original goal, but it will have to do. We didn’t have the energy to find a local wine shop, let alone deal with the language barriers, so we opted for grocery store instead.

Staying cool. Well, right now, we’re back at the apartment and showered (to get the bugs and sweat off) and the A/C is on, so, yeah, we’re cool. Earlier, not so much. I was literally dripping sweat off all my parts. So fun. I had a napkin and it got so wet, I could squeeze sweat from it (sorry, probably too much information). But now I’m cool and we’re probably in for the rest of the night, so… that’s good.

Packing and cleaning. Not yet started, but it’s still early, so it’s fine. I’m sure.

Other stuff

Tomorrow we’re going to Dijon. And now I’m paranoid about our AirBnB reservation because of a few reasons, one being that the host hasn’t replied yet to my message I sent this morning. So that’s making me a little bit anxious. Hopefully it’s nothing and we’ll hear from them soon.

Update – all is well with Dijon. Good to go!!

But then the next thing is that I put off doing laundry this morning because I thought we could do it tomorrow and then there’s more time for the clothes to dry. Luckily it occurred to me to check on the existence of a washer in Dijon, which doesn’t exist, so now I’m doing late laundry, hoping that it dries before the morning.

Memories

I started browsing Husband’s Facebook album of photos… so many… SO MANY… amazing memories. Then I loaded my Instagram. Holy crap, the memories. I’ll have to reflect on that later because I’m tired and it’s probably time for bed and/or some packing. Or maybe just bed. But it was fun taking a walk down memory lane, so to speak. Wow, we’ve had a lot of fun and seen some amazing things on this “trip”. I’m not sure “trip” is accurate. But I don’t know of a better word… maybe “adventure?” Yeah, that’s probably more like it. A demain!

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any wednesday in france

5 July 2017 Grenoble, France

only it’s not “any” Wednesday. Because “next” Wednesday we are flying home, so basically this is our “last” Wednesday in Europe (is the UK even part of Europe still? It’s so confusing). We woke up in Grenoble, France. Here are some facts:

It’s hot here. We are experiencing another heat wave of sorts. Greeeaaaatttt.
Our apartment is tiny. It’s got everything we need and it’s great for a few days.
Our apartment has air conditioning. I was really excited to see it on the list of amenities when I checked the other day.
When we arrived, our hostess was setting up the air conditioning, which is one of those portable units on wheels. Thing is, she didn’t really have a way of putting the exhaust tube out the window, like with a bracket and stuff. For one thing, the windows swing open, so I think that’s impossible anyways, so she connected it out the window with some tape and then draped the curtain over the open window. Seems legit.
The apartment is small, so it’s not hard to cool quickly. So that’s nice.
Oh yeah, and the water “exhaust” (I’m not sure the technical term, but there’s a little tube where the water runs out. Yeah, it’s draining into a pan from the kitchen. When we have the cooler on “really cold” it drains water pretty fast, so it’s not something we can run all night long, unless we want to get up periodically and empty the pan. Eh, little things. It still works.
In the early morning/middle of the night (half full? half empty?), Husband switched on the cooler to “cool” instead of just “fan”, which was great. The room got cold, I fell back asleep eventually. All was well. Then I woke up later thinking, this thing really isn’t working. It just feels really warm… And I rolled over only to see the exhaust tube on the floor, blowing hot air under the bed. So I fixed it. And it fell out again. And I fixed it again. And then I just got up because, fuck it. It’s time to take on the day.
So we’ve since re-taped the exhaust tube into place and hopefully we don’t have to move the unit around a whole lot to cool off both (small) rooms. I think we should be fine. At least there is A/C. And it does work. Our last apartment didn’t have A/C (it did have a fan though) and there wasn’t much in the way of cross ventilation. For one thing, the front window/door opened onto a balcony, which was actually the passage way for the apartment to the right of ours to get to the stairs/elevator, so there were people walking by sometimes, which is kind of not enough privacy for me, so we opted to keep that closed most of the time, which meant it got really hot in there. So yeah, this is a big improvement, if not kind of a pain logistically speaking. 3 nights though? I can probably manage.

Alright, now that you know about the quirkiness of this apartment, my mind is kind of stuck on “there’s only a week left… actually less if you don’t count the travel day back to the US”. And it’s still kind of hard for me to wrap my arms around. I’m happy/sad/anxious/excited/bored/ready/freaked out. I’m trying to “live in the moment” or whatever and to “enjoy the time we have left here”. And that is definitely aided by the plethora of baguette, ham, and butter sandwiches I’m planning on eating while in France. Today’s was delicious. We got better everything and it was better.

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!