Barcelona 11/16/19-11/24/19

If you want to find a riot and street protests, I am really good at that. For this trip I had a spare bedroom and offered it up to some friends. My best friend’s two youngest sisters took me up on the offer. I bailed to Israel for a few days, so they were on their own. I take great pride in learning a city and it’s transport. Those women learned more about Barcelona in those 4 days than I could ever imagine learning. They took me to la Rambla. Then a whole bunch of police started showing up. And then it sounded like an angry parade. My ladies figured our path quickly. We go three blocks this way, then cut across. Then we can hit the subway near the mall. Move it! I love a good insurrection.

Barcelona was the first time I rented a car outside of the country. I would never have driven in Rome. That was a little scary. However, Krakow taught me that some cities have rules that people do follow. In Barcelona, I gave it a shot. On the day of departure I had to leave my condo by 11:00, but my flight wasn’t until 8:30 at night. I had a lot of time to kill, so I just went for a drive along the Mediterranean. That was fun and exciting. I drove inland for a while until I could see the snow capped mountains. Then I saw a road sign indicating that Monserrat was to the left. Easily the windiest road up a mountain that I had ever driven. However, when I was less than a mile away, the traffic just stopped. We crept up a little at a time, but I knew I wasn’t going to have time to get there. It turned out that it was the first nice weather weekend they had in a while, so I was not the only one thinking Monserrat was a good idea.

Aushwitz-Birkenau 5/30/19

This is something that you just have to do if you are in Krakow. Auschwitz was depressing.  I knew that going in. Birkneau made my physically ill. The vast size of the operation made me lose my stomach. There have been 2 times in my life where emotions caused me to lose my stomach: putting down my dog, and walking the train tracks at Birkenau. Honestly, I started crying just typing that last sentence.

Krakow 5/25/10-5/35/19

My Krakow trip turned into everything that can go wrong went wrong. I had my side trip worked out. Fly to Milan on day 3, amazing ticket at la Scala booked, next morning see “The Last Supper.” I am wearing my tuxedo on the plane. I might look absurd, but who cares? I have a backpack with a change of clothes for after the opera.

Then I landed in Krakow. I took a taxi to my apartment, and then I figured out it was 57 steps to my apartment. Lesson learned.

I was hungry, so I did a phone search for food. “Pierogi bar .3 kilometers away? YES!”

I found a fantastic little pierogi joint near my apartment. A plate of peirogis was about $3, so I figured they were small. I ordered 2 of them and a beer. That was a lot of food, but the whole thing was less than $10.

While I sat for my first Polish meal, it started raining, and then it went sideways and got really cold. I did my lollygagging to wait it out. Nope. After 90 minutes of sipping on my beer I had to make it back home. The damage was done. Walking home in the wet cold rain knocked me on my butt. I was sick. Milan flight was out of the question. 

Fortunately, I brought some of those Zicam swabs. I was good to go in 48 hours, but missed my trip to Milan. But, who cares? I am in the middle of Krakow! (I would like to use the Polish terms as much as possible, but that is a really complicated language.)

I could not take any pictures inside of Wawel Castle or any of the churches in Poland. At the time I was disappointed, but now I don’t really care. I took a ton of pictures in Italy and have never looked at them.

And finally, I had breakfast at the outdoor seating restaurants on the main square. I was peacefully reading the newspaper on my table and a few feet away from me there were about a dozen guys from the U.K. who were there for a stag party. Near the end of my breakfast the waitress brought me a beer and a shot of some surprisingly delicious cherry vodka. It was sent over by the bachelor party. Next thing you know I’m with them for a couple of hours. We hit a couple of bars, but I had to call it quits. When we were walking toward a strip bar I snuck away and went home. I am just too old for that now. And guess who I ran into the next day? Yup, and they really called me out for bailing on them. The one thing I learned about the Welsh, Irish, Scots and Brits—when they get drunk I cannot understand them. It was like trying to decipher a foreign language filled with slang I had never heard before.

2/8/19 - 2/15/19 Rome and Florence

I landed at the Ciampino airport in Rome. This is the lesser of the two airports, but it is fine. I landed around 9:00PM on a Friday and I was shocked how busy that airport was. It turns out that when the flights are that cheap a lot of people travel for the weekend. If you can bring just enough clothes to keep you going in a backpack, it is amazing what deals you can get.

I had studied the transit system in Rome prior to my trip, so I already had a lot of it mapped out in my head. It was too late to take the train, so I knew I was getting a cab. I know this sounds depressing, but envision everything that can go wrong and it will help keep you focused. In the cab on the way to my apartment I was just excited to be in Rome. My head was on a swivel looking at all the lights, the people, the ancient ruins, and car brands I had never heard of. And then I left my backpack in the cab. The cab driver had to drop me off at the end of a narrow street and tell me which cobblestone walkway my apartment building was at. I pulled my suitcase up a hill about 30 yards then realized I left my backpack on the front seat floor. In there was my passport, wallet, keys, cell phones, and laptop. I ran down that street as fast as I could but he was gone. Fortunately, the driver had to make a U turn to get back to the main road and I caught him. He also noticed it on the floor. This could have ruined my first trip overseas.

My apartment was perfect for my situation. First floor one bedroom flat close to the Vatican and a block away from a train station. There are two things I didn’t seek out for my rental that I learned to look for: a washing machine is nice so I don’t have to pack as much, and find out how many stairs you are climbing. I was unaware that there is the ground floor, then the first floor above that. And because I was on the side of a steep hill I also had to climb another 12 stairs just to get to the first floor. Lesson learned. But overall it was just a great value. 7 nights for $327.48. You cannot go wrong with that.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/24748177

The next morning I woke up and just laid in bed for a few moments.  Had slept well, and then it hit me, “Holy smokes, I’m in Rome! Why am I still inside?” After showering and experiencing a bidet for my first time, outside of the apartment I could see the dome of St. Peter’s and just started walking toward it. Time to see if the Pope is home. I was told by everyone during my entire trip that this was the slow time of the year, but it was just amazing walking around St. Peter’s square and taking a bunch of pictures. I did some grocery shopping to fill the fridge and went home for the evening.

The next day, my legs just felt like rubber from all of the walking I had done the night before. I spent a little time testing my Rome transit skills just to make sure I knew what I was doing. I bought the unlimited 7 day transit pass for about $30 and it was great. More than once I realized I got on the train going the wrong direction. No big deal. Just hop off and hop on the one going the other way. I have a pass. Then I went back and watched “Italy’s Got Talent” for the rest of the night.

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0MG6XBubxUiu3

Day 3 was the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Forum. For this, I strongly recommend just paying for a tour guide. You don’t have to wait in line, and if you get a good one, they make it a lot of fun and pass on a lot of great information. The Colosseum was bigger than I thought it would be. It is neat that it is right outside of the train station. You walk outside and it is right there smacking you in the face with amazement. Palatine Hill was a lot of walking up a hill, but well worth it. And if you are into history The Forum is a must, and again, I strongly recommend a tour guide. My tour guide covered all 3 and was less than $50.

Later that day I went to a local butcher shop for a taste of different meats, cheeses, and wines. I ate horse. I don’t feel good about that.

Day four was a really full day. I did the Vatican Museums and later a pasta making class in an Italian woman’s home. I paid for a premium tour guide at the museum and it was well worth it. My guide was an art history PhD and just as importantly, the tour was limited to 3 people. He knew just where to take us and the stories to tell us. Everything from Nero’s bath to the apartment where da Vinci stayed to study for a while.

The tour then moved to the Sistine Chapel. You cannot talk or take pictures in there, so before entering, he sat us done with a book and pointed out all of the interesting things to look for. Then we entered St. Peter’s Basilica. It is massive. I discovered my favorite piece of art there: Michelangelo’s Pieta.  I would see David two days later, but his Pieta is thus far my favorite piece of physical art I have ever seen. Down one floor from within the basilica are the tombs of quite a few popes, some of them dating back to the 8th century. St. Peter’s tomb has been located within the Vatican structure, but they are not disturbing it.

The cooking class was in the house of a woman and her daughter. Her son was there too, but he just stayed in his room and played video games. The students consisted of a woman from France, her 12 year old son, and myself. This was a lot of fun. I learned how to make fresh pasta from scratch and have done it at home since learning the skill. The experience was fun. The best part is eating the food afterward.

Day five should have taken place on day one. It was my food tour. I had the best pizza I ever had at Bonci Pizza (Chicago people might know about this one), hit one the biggest food market in Rome, a bunch of restaurants, then finished with a fine dining dinner. Now I know where to go on my next trip to Rome. I went straight from my tour to the train station. I headed to Florence where I had a hotel for the night.

Everything I read about Italy told me to buy tickets in advance because the lines are just massive. Yes,  believe that is the case for Europeans, but not necessarily for Americans. One thing that struck me about Italy is that no one was out early. I was usually out the door by 7AM and it was not until near noon that things really started getting busy. In Florence I wanted to be at the Uffizi Gallery when it opened to make sure I got in. I went into the line for people with advanced tickets. There were 4 of us. The line for people without tickets had 2 people there. If you’re there early, nothing to worry about. 

The rest of the day I hit Accedemia Gallery (David is here) and the Medici Museum. Then I found an Italian restaurant were I saw a bunch of construction workers eating. Sounds just like my place. I looked at the glass case and said I want one of those, one of those, and one of those. Seemed logical to me. It looked like a medium size square of lasagna, an eggplant dish that looked small, and some sort of large stuffed pasta. I didn’t know I was getting a full plate of each of them. I ate it all, then slept the entire train ride back to Rome.

Day six was my flight home. I was so confident in my train navigation skills at this point I didn’t even look it up. I managed to jam in quite a bit in a short trip. I glossed over some things like hiding from the rain in the Pantheon. Everything is available in the pictures link I listed above.

Next stop, Krakow

2/8/19 - Frankfurt

My fist foray into Europe landed me in Frankfurt. As I stated in my previous post, my final destination was to Rome, but I had to deal with traveling from one airport to the other. It was stressful because the departure time was very specific and I was standing there waiting for the bus to arrive. I can only anecdotally speak to my one afternoon in Frankfurt, but if the schedule says 4:52 pm arrival, it means 4:52. Not 4:51. Not 4:53. 

I hate riding on buses, but this was rather pleasant. The seats were great, Wifi was on board, and I got to see about 60 miles of Germany. Everything looked pretty clean and organized; however, there was a strip of houses that appeared to be one room shacks with outhouses and broken cars in the yards. I am learning that every country has a few less than picturesque neighborhoods.

In the end, I made it to the discount airport with an hour to spare. When I mentioned in an earlier post that traveling within Europe can be quite inexpensive; however, it is only cheap if you follow all of the rules. You will be paying for baggage, and even carryon bags for some of the airlines. My flight from Frankfurt to Rome was on Ryanair, and that turned into a challenge. I purchased my ticket through a terrible third party and never received the boarding pass in my email. So when I check in I find out that if they have to print a boarding pass it is 50 Euros, which is more than I paid for the flight. It turns out that Kiwi.com just makes up an email address and don’t tell you about it. All I needed was to figure out what the email address they gave to Ryanair and I could retrieve the boarding pass through the app. I went to the Ryanair office and they were able to give me the email address I had ever seen and got my boarding pass on my phone. It was a race for time because the discount airport in Frankfurt only allowed free wifi for an hour. I’ll give tips on this later, but make sure you have arranged phone service BEFORE the trip. It can save you a lot of headaches.

Next stop, Rome.

1/22/19 - Spokane

This post is different than anything else you will read on this blog. I took a look at my old credit card statements to find the date when everything changed for me and this is it. After spending a single night in Guadalajara, walking the streets alone, and I did not die, I had the itch to get some more stamps on my passport and see some of the world. The wife of one of my employees used to be a travel agent in the UK and she introduced me to Skyscanner. You don’t have to choose a destination. You can just pick a month and it will give you the best deals from your home airport. I browsed for a couple of weeks, then suddenly, Spokane to Frankfurt round trip, with luggage included was $375. It left 2 weeks later, but I just said screw it, I am doing this.

I already knew that within Europe travel was super cheap. I had no great desire to travel to Frankfurt, so I looked at flights from Frankfurt on the dates I was flying and Rome was $80+$50 in bag fees. I booked it. So at this point I am only in for $505 from Spokane to Rome. Everything worked out, but I did learn some lessons.

Frankfurt has 2 airports and they are about 60 miles apart. I did not realize it at the time, but I was landing at the big airport in Frankfurt and my flight to Rome was 6 hours later at the other airport. Alright, I can deal with this. I looked at all of the public transportation options and the timing just didn’t work. I emailed Rick Steves and one of his staff members suggested Flixbus. It was $20 and it got me to the crummy airport just in time for my flight.

My point of this post is that you should envision everything that could possibly go wrong, then plan ahead. I only discovered that I had to move between airports 3 days before my flight and it caused my stress levels to reach levels higher than I have ever felt. My best advice if you try and do the transfer thing is to never do it. If my flight had been delayed by a little bit, there is no recourse. I was switching airlines. Alitalia really didn’t care why I didn’t show up at the airport on time. If I missed the flight, I am just hoping to book another one and there are no refunds because I already had a good deal.

Happy travels. 

Next stop is Frankfurt.

10/24/18 - 11/4/18 in Guadalajara, Mexico

This story starts with a wedding invitation. My long time friend was getting married and they did a destination wedding with the thought that not many people would show up and they could keep it inexpensive. This turned out to be the most broken plan ever. There were somewhere between 200 and 300 people who showed up. According to the bride, I was the first to go all in and sign up to attend. I did not know if anyone else would be up for it, but I rented a 5 bedroom, 5 bath mansion. The link is below. Worst case scenario, I just spent $2000 to stay in a mansion with a pool within walking distance of the church. I was able to fill the other 4 bedrooms rather quickly, so my cost was only $400.

I arrived a day earlier than everyone else in the house, so I had a luxury hotel room in the downtown square. The bride and groom were already in Guadalajara, along with most of their immediate family members. Obviously, I am going to meet them out for a couple of drinks and some food. That was the moment I discovered that Google maps is superior to Apple’s navigation system. I probably walked 2 miles when I should have only walked 0.3. They were all at an outdoor restaurant inside of a large central square. I think I circled it twice before finding them. 

After a couple of drinks, it was determined that it was time to get some dinner. This was around 10pm. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant, but the food was delicious. They had some meat on a gyro style round, cuttoning it off from the sides as it cooked. The groom’s father paid for it all. (Thank you sir!) And then there were a ton of leftovers. “Hell yeah, I’ll take some of that!” Then I started walking toward my hotel. Two hours earlier, the streets were amazingly bustling with people walking everywhere. I felt safe. Now that I was alone walking the streets of Guadalajara all that was left was the homeless, vagrants, and me.

Eventually, I made my way to the hotel. However, I had all of this food that I had planned on eating the next day, and realized there was no fridge. The hotel room had every little amenity you could ask for, but no fridge. It hurt my heart to throw all of that away.

The first to arrive in Guadalajara was a friend of 20 years along with his wife who I had never met. They came to my hotel room early in the morning and we had some time to kill before chick-in at the mansion. Eventually we ordered an Uber, but because of traffic we stood on the street with our bags for about 30 minutes and watched on our phones as the driver kept doing circles. I cancelled it and we just waved down a taxi. The car was too small to handle the 3 of us and our bags. The driver jumped out and grabbed some straps from the trunk and started strapping everything to the roof. I recall my buddy saying “wow, this is really happening.”

We made it to the house and were met by the house attendant, Angel. He was awesome and showed up every morning to take out the garbage and skim the pool. At this point, we had 2 of the 5 bedrooms filled with 3 more arriving that day. I took the weird bedroom with the 2 queens. My buddy and his new wife didn’t want to impose and take the best bedroom, but I forced them into it. First come, first choice.

Throughout that first day, everyone else arrived. And things started to go south. My best friend arrived with his wife and he felt like he might have pneumonia. I had already bookmarked on my phone all of the hospitals that would be covered by my insurance and kept nudging him to see a doctor. His response was always “there’s nothing that they can do.” He just kept on trucking, but he and his wife left a day early. He ended up hospitalized back in Milwaukee with an infection around his heart. (This had a large impact on my own health care decisions 2 years later. We will get to that.)

The wedding was an amazing experience. They booked a destination wedding to keep the cost down. Really, how many people are willing to fly to a foreign country for a wedding? Maybe 20 or 30? No. The answer is close to 300. I don’t even want to know how much they spent on that. 3 different bands, a hot dog cart, a street taco setup, more roses than I have ever seen, fully open bar, and just a lot of fun. It went until 5am, but all of us in the house were done by 2am.

The wedding was the highlight of the trip, but I need to backtrack a little and talk about Dia de los Muertes. The bride and groom timed the wedding so we were all there for the holiday. I am not sure where we went, but it was a small town with a LOT going on. One of my friends and his girl did the face painting to make them look like skeletons and it kinda creeped me out. I did find an appreciation for all of the temporary monuments set up to respect their ancestors. Nothing felt fake.

I do have a couple of take aways from Guadalajara. First, it amazes me how old the city is compared to any city in the States. The first cathedral was built in 1541 and was recognized by the Vatican in 1548 as a diocese. I have yet to visit Mexico City, but thus far, Guadalajara is my favorite city in Mexico.

3/26/18-4/2/18 in Monterrey, Mexico

This was my first international flight kinda got things started for me. In retrospect, this is not how I ever would have expected this travel thing to snowball. At that time, my brother and his partner were living in Monterrey. My parents, aged 81 and 69 at the time, agreed that we would meet in Monterrey for a week. I was shocked that they were willing to travel down there with me as they had heard all of the stories about kidnappings and murders in Mexico. There was a comfort level they felt with my brother and his partner. They knew the landscape and how not to put us into any danger. We had a good time.

Let’s start with the first thing I didn’t expect: AirBnB has changed everything. The 5 of us shared a 3 bedroom, 3 bath, 2200 foot 6th floor condo in the nicest area of the city. San Pedro Garza Garcia was a wonderful and safe area. The total cost was $1050 for 7 nights. Here is the listing if you are curious: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/19908286

This was not really a tourist vacation, but a rare chance to have our entire family together. This is something that became rather difficult and rare after I moved to the Portland area in 2001, and my brother moved to Texas and Monterrey in 2010. Easter Sunday is really important to my mom, so it was really pleasant spending time together as a family. My brother and I have not provided the grandchildren my parents really, really hope for, so this is as good as it gets.

We did not do much exploring while in Monterrey, but spending time with each other. We did hit a couple of museums. My favorite was Museo del Obispado. I looked it up on the website before we went there and holy cow! The rifles used to execute Maxmilian I of Mexico (a native Austrian who ruled there for about 3 years). The deposition of Maxmiian I of Mexico is pretty irrelevant to most Mexicans; however, we Americans made up a holiday for Latin Americans based on the day he was deposed. We call it Cinco de Mayo. 25 years ago I first asked one of my Mexican co-workers to explain Cinco de Mayo to me. I just remember his response: “Our Independence Day is in September. I am not sure what we are celebrating on May 5th.”

My strongest memories from our trip to Monterrey was the food, the nature, and the greatest grocery stores I have ever been in. Let us start with the food. I have been eating “street tacos” for years. I had no idea what a proper street taco tastes like. It was magical, but it ruined my impression of the street tacos I have been buying for years. They are not even close. My favorite is barbacoa. Delicious, but don’t ask what part of the animal it comes from. It was great. My brother or his partner would go to get food for all of us. Dinner for 5 was around $20 and we were full. I was quite proud of my parents in their daring dinner choices.

We had one big dinner out of the house at El Rey del Cabrito. Having been there will come up in later stories. Cabrito is milk fed baby goat. (I feel like I keep pushing the line on what I am willing to eat. It gets more questionable in a later post.) When you go there they have the front window full of baby goats on roasting sticks in the window. I take great pride in my parents that they were willing to give it a go. We did a giant meat platter so they mostly chose the beef steaks thrown on the table, but both of them were at least willing to try the Cabrito. A few months later I attended a wedding in Guadalajara (we will get back to this) and all of the Mexicans I interacted with were super impressed that I  had been to El Ray del Cabrito. I had been to the Mecca of food. 

My brother and  his partner took us on a road trip through one of the national parks with a waterfall just outside of Monterrey. That was enjoyable, but a bunch of walking. Mom was smart  She stayed in the car with the A/C on. I wish I had done the same. The timing was not great, but I think my sink produces more water than the waterfall did on our trip to the park.

Now, here comes the fun stuff. My brother’s partners\’s father and my dad made an awkward connection. My dad went on a voluntary trip with Ed Guzowski (my great uncle), or Guzzy as we called him, on a trip to Mexico, including Monterrey, in 1958. They had been there when the population was 50,000 and now it is closer to 4,000,000. Because of this experience 60 years ago, my dad made a connection with my brother’s partner’s dad. However, there was a huge language division. It was great for me because they kept grilling up meat for me and leaving me alone because I was useless in the given situation. My brother and his partner became default translators between the two dads. I know my brother was frustrated because he and his partner became defaulter translators. The family gets together every week, but they usually don’t start the cooking until 9pm. They made special arrangements for us to rest and be gone by 9pm. We have different expectations and are just old.

Now, let’s get to H.E.B. in Monterrey. I can speak for myself, mom, and dad. Those were the greatest grocery stores I have ever been to and my family agrees. Every Texas grocery store is an H.E.B.; however none of them compare to the ones in Monterrey. Combine a Costco with a Fred Meyer, then double the width of the aisles. This is H.E.B. in Monterrey.

 Now we get to the difficult part. Ham on Easter Sunday is a big thing for my my mom. This was our first chance to get together for Easter in nearly 20 years, and it was a challenge. My mom’s idea for what a good quality ham consists of and what they offer in Mexico are not on the same page. Mom ended up with the ham she didn’t want, but it was still ham on Easter. We have kinda made it a thing that we get together on Easter. Now that I know, I can plan ahead. If they want to join me in Dubai, great! But we are not getting a ham.

My final unexpected conversation or experience was at the Monterrey airport. My parents and I were leaving within a few hours of each other. I wanted to make sure everything went well for them. I was pretty useless. When they first arrived in Mexico, they had the airport attendants drive them from the gate to customs. My dad is a very generous tipper, so when we showed up at the airport, it was as if the same guys who delivered them to me when they arrived were there waiting for them. They were checked in almost instantly and had a ride to the gate. My first flight was to Los Angeles, and they were flying to Detroit. They were leaving about an hour before me, so I sat with them in their gate area. Next to them was a Canadian woman who was flying back home after having surgery in Mexico. The level of disdain this woman had for the Canadian health care system was impressive. The only real importance of this story is that my dad and I are exact opposites on the political front and this woman was driving home my argument against universal health care. My dad is rather set in his ways, so I don’t think it moved him a litter closer to the right as I would have hoped. 

I’ll finish with a little anecdote on how our family has dealt with politics and how EVERY family should do the same. My brother, father, and I all read the Wall Street Journal on a daily basis and are truly engaged. 1996 was the first presidential election where all of us were eligible to vote. I voted for Dole, mom voted for Perot, dad voted for Clinton, and I think my brother voted for Nader. We have been talking politics for the last 25 years, but it has never gotten mean or disrespectful. I hear stories about losing friends and family over political disagreements and am astonished that anyone would allow that to happen in their lives.

Happy travels. Next stop: Guadalajara.

 I created this blog a little over a year ago just before I was supposed to leave for Belfast. Then COVID hit, all my trips were cancelled, and I forgot about it. Well, now I am finally traveling again. I am going to work my way backward and use my memory to try and share my experiences on here. Every trip ends up with meeting interesting people and discovering the unexpected. You will see that I do a lot of the touristy stuff, but there is always the unexpected. It might take me a little while to post all of my international experiences, but hopefully you find what I have to share interesting. Perhaps, you might be inspired to take one of these trips yourself. And one further note: I'll post when I have an upcoming trip. I usually have a spare bedroom. Reach out if you are interested. I am done writing for today. I am going on a desert safari today outside of Dubai.