From Brussels, we hopped a 1.5 hour eastbound train to the Dutch border city of Antwerp and were elated to find that the railways were offering 50% off on all round trip tickets in Belgium so it was 17€ for both of us! Whoohoo! The name Antwerp literally means “at the wharf.” It is home to one of the most immaculate…
Brews, Bruges & A New Family Greg and beer go together like wine and cheese, peanut butter and jam or strawberries and cream. But not just any ‘ol beer. As a former home brewer with a full-scale* operation in our basement, and full-time beer aficionado from the Beervana Capital of the US (Portland), beer for him is an absolute experience…a…
The first time in this city, Mandy was sick. The second time she got her first case of bed bugs. We could only hope that the third time in Romania's capital would be a charm. And it was! But, perhaps that was just uh...Christmas? When we went to Bucharest in December 2022, we had spent Christmases in the States, Sri…
Watching the Purr-fect President on the Black Sea It's a rare moment when you get to be in the presence of a loyal, cuddly and honest president, but we hit the lottery with Domnule Presedinte in Constanta. DP, or Mr. President, was the housesitting gift we received from Annie, an American who had been running a non-profit to help Roma…
From Verona, we hopped in a BlaBla car with three other people for 14€ total to head 1.5 hours to a town most known for its Milan-based airport…Bergamo. It would have cost 20 by bus so this was the best deal, plus ride sharing is always way more interesting. (Side note: We have yet to figure out why this oh-so-obvious…
Ahhhh….fair Verona, where we laid out backpacks. Indeed, Shakespeare chose quite the alluring set for his tragic love saga of “Romeo & Juliet.” Funnily, we learned on our free walking tour that in fact, Shakespeare had never even visited fair Verona. Ah well, guess he got lucky. And so did we. What would follow during our three days in Verona,…
Somehow we landed in Italia. To be honest, it’s not somewhere either of us had been rushing to return to after our initial separate forays in our 20’s. Neither one of us had extraordinary experiences back then. To be honest, they were both a bit sour, but granted, we had only waded into the most touristed places possible…Rome, Venice and…
After 4+ years of nomadic life and a whole lot of experience, we finally feel like we’re figuring out our ideal pacing. The first two years (because we thought we only HAD two years) we whipped through 36 countries at practically breakneck speed. And since COVID, it’s often been…too fast…too slow…too fast…too slow… But now, we think we’ve cracked the…
