Spring in Paris!

A few years ago we took two of our girls to Paris during spring vacation and had such a great time!

I love travelling with them and discovering new places. Click here for more details.

World War II Love Story

When we went to Hawai'i, we knew we had to visit Pearl Harbor for sure. It was very intense and informative and gave us a whole new appreciation of our country's history. What made it even better was our tour guide, who told us this amazing love story about his father and mother and how his Japanese American father was part of the 442nd regimental combat team. I am still smiling when I think about it.

Yay European Communion!

We have been enjoying a lot of travel over the last few years, which means that we have experienced our share of flight delays. I had seen signs that European flights could qualify for compensation if delayed, but I never realized that the same would hold for American flights originating from Europe.

So we were happy to see EC261/2004 implemented by American Airlines with minimal effort from our side!

Find out how we ended up with new travel opportunities!

Moon Musings

This year had two blue moons so far! No idea how special that is, but it made me all nostalgic.

Happy to share my blue moon musings!

After I reread that one I realized that the title 'blue moon' was significant in more than one way. The story is partly about feeling blue and worried about what turned out to be my multiple sclerosis. Life is good, but not always easy.

Hello World! Come Visit My New Blog!

It has been a long time and I have missed y'all and I have missed blogging. Facebook is nice, but my posts tend to be short and it's a lot harder to look back on my history. So in January this year, I decided to start a new blog, a blog to celebrate life, to share my travels, to share my struggles with MS (yeah, I got diagnosed with MS a few months ago) , and of course to show off my birding pictures. Come visit me at Our Carpe Diem!

Still alive

Still alive and thriving, but sharing on facebook now. Just posting to make sure this blog doesn't self destruct :) I have so many of our family's memories and pictures in here!

Exploring Portimaio

After my long long long journey and a long and deep sleep, we were ready to explore Portimaio. Palm trees everywhere, I sure do love their climate better than ours!

There was a long pier with a light house at the end. We walked all the way up to the light house. I remembered how much I love the ocean, how much I love water, how much I love listening to the surf, and feeling the wind in my hair. Well, at least I did love the wind in my hair once I bought some hair ties. Yeah, that was another thing I forgot in my 'traveling light' quest. But easily fixed at one of the beach stores.

There were people out surfing. When I was a teenager I used to wind surf, but not on the ocean, just on some local waters. I still remember the first day when I was learning, I fell in the water soooooo many times! It got better after a day, and I really enjoyed it.

Portimaio was protected by a fortress. After walking the pier we visited the fortress and had tea in a cafe up there. Quite a number of steps to make it up to the top!

We rewarded ourselves for the climb by finding our very first Portuguese geocache!

Looks like they don't want any oil drilling in the Algarve. Can't say I blame them.

We felt very safe being protected by this big canon!

Lovely harbour. But look at the clouds. It was not a particularly warm day, so much for expecting a sunny climate. Still beats our home climate though ^^

So many flowering trees! We sure did NOT miss the snow!

Traveling Light

This European trip I decided that I was going to travel light, not have any checked luggage and really cut back on the number of things I carried with me. This totally fits into my decluttering and simplifying quest so I was excited for the challenge.

I managed to put three weeks of travel gear into this small backpack, so did pretty well there. Never felt I missed much (well, apart from nail clippers, but luckily my boy friend traveled less light than I did). I ended up not even using all that I brought, leaving some of it at my mom's for donation to her local thrift store. So could have traveled even lighter!

So why did I have to dump stuff at my mom's, you ask? Well, a visit to the Netherlands means we had to buy and bring home tons of Dutch delicacies. And I knew that this all wouldn't fit into my backpack, so I asked my mom whether she had a bag I could use. And I might have filled up some space in Tom's suit case too...

Not to mention that I found good licorice in Iceland, so that had to be added to the mix too!

Anyway, traveling light worked wonderfully up until then. I have to admit that all this candy sure can't count as traveling light, but it did delight the kids.

A Long Journey

Finally time to sit down and tell the story. It all started with a seemingly endless journey. Car, bus, air plane. It seemed like a drag but I also realized anew how much I enjoy traveling. The anticipation. The flight. The people watching. The reading without interruptions.

I had a layover on the Azores, a place where I had never been. I always imagined as a warm and tropical paradise. Well, I clearly was wrong about that, it was cold, rainy, windy and miserable.

I was lucky enough to get a window seat, so enjoyed seeing all the sights from the air.

Lisbon was quite impressive. But even that wasn't the end of my journey.

Took the metro to the train station. I did manage to get my metro ticket in Portuguese at one of those ticket machines, without ever having to switch to English. Made me feel very accomplished. Yeah, I am easily amused ^^

The first thing I saw in Lisbon airport was a stand where I could buy Ben & Jerry's. You gotta be kidding me. I fly all over the ocean, to a faraway and foreign country and I can eat the same ice cream as I can in Vermont!?

Didn't get to spend any time in Lisbon beyond some quick train station pictures.

And I found The Best Clementines at the station, a great snack during the long journey since I hadn't eaten much with all this traveling and by now my body was all like "what about some sleep?" "or food? Nah, it isn't time to eat!"

My train!!!! I used to travel by train so much when I still lived in the Netherlands, but even after living in the States for many years, I still haven't made it into any trains here. It was so much fun to be in an European train again!

Not much to do beyond admiring the scenery and reading more of my book and wondering how many more hours.

And of course the enjoyment of being in a foreign country and see new trees and cows and everything. Yeah, Portugal turns out to have cows too! That must be why they have Ben and Jerry's!

Had bad tea with lots of sugar in the cafe car and wondered how many more hours.

Finally made it to my almost-destination!

Apart from yet another car ride.

And another sunset.

But eventually the palm trees convinced me that yes, I reached my destination. Guess what I did? I was soooooooooo tired, we ate quick dinner and I went to bed. In Portugal!

Home!

Yeah, didn't really keep up with blogging during vacation but figured should start where I am now. Home! Great to be home, but I would enjoy it even more without the snow :p Kids are super happy about the 5,000 pounds of hagelslag and vlokken we dragged home.

We had a wonderful vacation, will share many pictures and stories. After I eat tiramisu, that is ^^