Wherever I may Rome

 I'm sitting in the courtyard of our tiny apartment on a quiet, chilly morning in Trastevere, realizing it's been more than a year since I've written here, but feeling like it's time for a catch-up. Easiest here is probably just a bunch of pictures.

December 2022: spent a nice long break in Thailand. First stop was Zeavola resort on Ko Phi Phi Don. They picked us up from the boat on a tractor! They also left us little gifts every morning. It was a nice relaxing way to unwind, just the two of us and a beach with nothing else to do. (also where I did some studying and started some teaching ideas that I'm still working on now)

This area brings back lots of memories of my first time in Thailand with my college roommate many years ago.

The rest of the time we spent on Kata beach in Phuket, where we met up with Matt and Sarah and family, plus Rani's peace-corps friends Megan and Michael and their new baby. Lots of beach time, a Thai boxing match, and a ridiculous X-mas celebration at the hotel.

In April, we headed to Athens, where apparently, all we did was take ussies in front of old shit. We like Athens: good food, good cafe culture, nice walking.

My sister passed away in June, and we rearranged things to be home for the summer to see family.

Sad circumstances, but good time with family. We spent lots of time with my parents, and had a fun trip to a couple of wineries in southwest Michigan. Nice to be back in the big house for awhile. We also all stayed at the same place where Rani and I had our commitment party. No longer called Lakeside Melodies, now it's Camp Blue Canoe.

Rani and I took a break and spent a couple of days in Kalamazoo, where we saw a Latin music festival, an old-white-guy blues band in a bar, and trekked to Fantasy Forest in Battle Creek (it was better in my head). Our last day in Michigan happened to be the Three Rivers Pride festival; it was a real trip to see main street in the town where I grew up full of all of these beautiful freaks.

Rani and I took the long way to FLA. Found the heart in the wall in Nashville, drove the Natchez Trace Parkway, saw the Wichahpi stone wall, spent some time in NOLA with Rani's mom (NOLA was hotter than Doha, BTW), aced the test at NASA Stennis Space center, then trucked it through to Bradenton. 

Florida was HOT (duh), but i mean really hot. The water was over 100 degrees on a couple of days... Great year for beach wildlife, swimming with baby and mama manatees and one day a shark! Rani broke her foot! That introduced another challenge to our summer, but we got her crutches and a scooter and carried on. Good to see Rani's brother Jesse and nephew Tyce, who also had a boot on for his own foot injury (which got cut out of the picture above but was super cute).

Spent a few days in Stockholm, did some boat tours and walking around. I spent a rainy day on a self-made tour of the wild art exhibits that are the Stockholm metro stations.

Then we were off to Copenhagen, beautiful city with wandering canals, underwater sculptures, pretty gardens, and a cool old-timey theme park with awesome food.

Speaking of food, they really do it right here, with permanent "food halls" that have lots of variety. The most impressive of these we experienced was Reffen. On the water, live music, endless food and drink options. We spent an entire day here just watching people and eating food. Definitely going back to CPH just for this.

There were also a couple of fun twisty towers to climb, and the weird enclave of Christiania to visit.

We made it home! It was a summer full of challenges, but we were ready to get into the new school year. Rani had a new position as an instructional coach, and I had a whole new crop of kids to get to know.

Also welcomed cousin Julie and her husband Ross to Doha. So nice having them here! and they snuck in these other two jokers, Randy and Christine, who we worked with in Pakistan and had no idea were coming to work with us in Doha. They're all a great friend group for cards and other get-togethers.

In October, we made a long-anticipated visit to Rani's old Peace Corps stomping grounds in Armenia. This country is full of history, interesting art and architecture, and dogs with a blatant disregard for posted rules.

We, of course, revisited some of Rani's old food memories, including Mr Gyros and khachapuri, and made some new ones. Nice winery visit on a trip through the countryside to see some old monasteries

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The art around Yerevan was fun and eclectic.

In December, Wendy visited for a couple days in Doha, and then we headed out for another much-anticipated destination: the Maldives! It was, of course, beautiful and relaxing. Lots of food and sun, and we got to dive for the first time since before Covid. On our first introduction to the beach near our room, we saw some small reef sharks in the shallows, and later were able to dive with a pack of 4-5 lemon sharks on the reef right next to our hotel, at night! It was a pretty singular experience.

Then, after a 1-night layover in Doha, we were on to Croatia! Zagreb, with its x-mas markets, was the first stop, where we enjoyed street food, decorations, and performances. These people party for Christmas!

On x-mas day, we had our own little picnic in our sunny apartment across from Trg Kralja Tomislava, with its constant music and ice-skating. 

If you're in Zagreb, and in the mood, there's a fun scavenger hunt for all of the planets of the solar system, to scale, hidden around the city. 

Our AirBnb host payed bass in the Zagreb Philharmonic, and invited us to a televised concert of all kinds of holiday music. By far the best performance was this children's choir. Here's a link if that video doesn't load.

Road trip to the coast: we headed south, with a stop at Plitvice Lakes National Park. nice waterfalls and serene stretches of river/lakes in a quiet valley.

Next stop: Zadar, where my favorite thing was sitting on the dock of the bay, wastin' time listening to the sea organ as the ferries went by. Again, link.

Yet another beautiful valley with water at Krka national park.

On to Split, and Klis Fortress, where we fended off the hordes with tiny canons and fake arrows. Those steps Rani's walking up were where a major scene from Game of Thrones was filmed (crucified masters of Mereen).

Split was interesting enough. Cool statue of "Bishop" Gregory of Nin (I think he's really a wizard).

Alot of Split is the Diocletian Palace. Lots of levels with stuff built up on ruins... and weird mannequins. 

Last stop: Dubrovnik, the setting for King's Landing in GOT. Cool old walled city.

And life goes on in 2024. We saw Japan play Iran at the Asia cup, I'm involved in a couple of Dungeons and Dragons games (IDK why I never got into this in high school, but it's pretty fun), some beautiful winter mornings on our balcony with our growing plant family, another visit to Athens, a conference in Malta where I presented some of the teaching methods I'm working on with a colleague (and Rani finished out her 2-year coaching cohort!), an Easter egg hunt with the cousins (there's still one missing...), and their first Doha brunch with a live bongo player...

And we've spent the last week in Rome for spring break. Had lots of nice walks around Trastavere, daily doses of porchetta (like thanksgiving turkey, but pork), a lovely morning in the botanical gardens, and a tour of the colosseum. 

We're back in Doha now getting ready for the final push to summer, where we'll be spending time in Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Ireland. 

Congrats to those of you who made it this far! Miss you, hope to run into you sometime soon. This is some soothing sounds from a rube-goldberg-style sculpture at the botanical gardens.

Peace all, Jon