Italy just kinda fits us. Our travel ethos is pretty much: walk around, see some things, eat good food, drink good drink. Well, Italy certainly has some things to see. But even more than that, it’s got some good food, and some damn good drink. You know that to be true as you look at the map, at the names of cities, and say to yourself, “I’ve eaten that!” In that vein, on our way out of Como we made…
We got to Nerja in serious need of a vacation. Now, I know how douchey that sounds coming from someone who’s just spent the last eight months on sabbatical, traveling the world, but hear me out. The last month and a half in Europe had been a whirlwind, rocketing from major European city to major European city, and trying our best to get a taste of each stop. We had to budget our time and money, but couldn’t bring ourselves…
“Holy shit it’s him!“ Who was him? Vin Diesel? LeBron James? Generalisimo Franco?! No: our hero, the bus driver from Lisbon to Sevilla. You remember him. We sure did. The Sevilla to Lisbon bus was leaving shortly before our bus to Granada, and apparently he was driving it. We kept low and out of sight, lest he remember us from three days ago. You should never meet your heroes. Getting Settled In What struck me about Granada as we came…
We’d often say that our sabbatical was made up of a bunch of ‘normal’ one- to two-week vacations all strung together. You could carve it up into numerous two-week or so chunks that each make sense as an individual trip. One of my absolute favorites of these is the two-weeks we spent in Andalucía, Spain. We had beautiful weather, gorgeous scenery, lovely cities, fantastic food, perfect wine, and just such a chill time. I’d go back and do the exact…
Paris is a city that’s always hard to leave. No, I mean, like, physically difficult to leave. The last time I was there, I had a flight out of Charles de Gaulle. I left the hotel 5 hours before the flight, and still nearly didn’t make it. This was on account of the train strike that stopped the train halfway there, throwing everyone out into the station and into mass confusion. On the bright side, I’ve never spoken nor understood…
“How long are you here for?” the immigration agent asked us. “Just five days,” I replied. “What’s your next destination?” she followed up. “France.” “And then?” “Portugal!” I said brightly. “And then?” “Spain!” She made a haughty hand motion; ‘get on with it,’ it said. “Keep going until you’re back to your home country.” “Whew, that could take a while. Italy, probably Bulgaria, Turkey… then Asia, but we don’t have it planned…” “When do you go home?” I shrugged. “I…
“Je vais te tuer!“ I couldn’t hear much of what was being said in the street four stories below us, but I heard that loud and clear. The woman hustled up the street–hurriedly making a call on her cell phone–away from the man who’d uttered those words, and away from the Mercedes S-class she’d just smashed up. She hadn’t been able to shatter the windshield, as much as she’d tried. All in all, the guy seemed to handle it pretty…
Going to Stockholm, I was terrified. I’d just seen Erika–who was far more excited about Copenhagen than even I was–be crushed by unmet expectations. Now, here, we were going to maybe the one city on earth I most wanted to see, and I was terrified Stockholm would do to me what Copenhagen just did to Erika. I could walk through our steps of getting into the city, how we spent our time there, slowly building up to the answer to…
For the first time on the trip, we were going somewhere I’d already been before. And I couldn’t be more excited, because it was one of my favorite places I’d ever gone. Munich! I’d been looking forward to getting back for years. I had a little trepidation about it, though. What if I didn’t like it as much now? What if, after seeing so much more of the world, I now realize Munich is just ehh? I prepared myself to…
Even for Switzerland, Zurich was expensive. We couldn’t find affordable hotels anywhere, so eventually we burned some credit card points to get a room, and cut our stay down to only two nights. Let’s get in and get out with our wallets in tact. This turned out to be just fine, as though Zurich was lovely and comfortable and beautiful, it wasn’t like there was a ton to do there other than just be. We do love just being, and…
