Slow-Venia 2

 While in Ljubljana and considering our next stop, we began to wonder why we had chosen to spend the next 9 days (!) in Bled, a small village around a pretty lake. 

We started off with lunch at a nice lakeside hotel, and our food was delivered by Rok the robot server. Weird introduction...

And yes, we remembered, we DID have a reason for coming here on the weekend and staying for awhile. Bled days festival meant live music on weekend nights. This stage was basically right outside of our door.

We made the trek uphill to Castle Bled. They had a Lord and Lady just sitting there drinking wine and taking pics with tourists all day. I passed the Lord of the castle going to the bathroom, then peed on top of his pee, so I'm basically the lord of Bled castle now.

View of the lake from the castle.

A few days in, we rented a car and started exploring the surroundings. This is Pericnik Waterfall. Waterfall in Slovenian is Slap, so we had lots of fun reading road signs. We also took an unnecessarily difficult hike to an ugly little lake on our way back.

A little hike on the Mostnica River.

When you come across grazing animals, don't be a dumbass.

Baby goat in a box.

Lake Bohinj, biggest lake in Slovenia, viewed from the top of the Vogel cable car.

Slap Savica!

Lake Bled was just beautiful, like a postcard everywhere you looked. there's a castle on the cliff overlooking the lake, and a little church on an island in the middle. Ridiculous.

Rani, being who she is, challenged me to a photo contest, so here it goes (let me know your votes, and I'll only tell her about it if you vote for me):

Rani

Jon

We spent plenty of time chillin in our apartment as well, sort of taking a break from the vacation of it all. Did a little cooking. Overall, probably a few too many days to spend here, but we made good use of it. 

On our way out, we stopped for a quick breakfast, and guess who showed up: Renata the robot server! Creepy, but also cool.

Bee update: if you want to keep them away from your beer, order an iced tea.

Slow-venia 1

 We chose to visit, and spend so much time in, Slovenia because we didn't know much about the place and it looked beautiful with a wide variety of activities and locations in a small area. It's described as a "hidden gem" by a lot of travel websites, but I don't think there are really any of those left, especially by the time someone calls them a hidden gem online. There are tons of tourists here, but it is indeed a gem.

Our first stop was Piran, a lovely little seaside village on the tip of Slovenia that touches the Gulf of Trieste, where we marveled at the views of Croatia and Italy from our various cafe tables. We had a cute little apartment with a view onto a cute little square, ate at a cute little fish restaurant among other places, and tried some deep dark chocolate gelato. We spent most of our days here at the "beach", which is what they call a concrete slab where you can set up some chairs and an umbrella. The water was COLD and full of jellyfish, but I had daily morning swims and it's HOT, so we enjoyed it!

Next, we took a small bus/train/taxi journey to Lasko, a small village out in the middle of nowhere that happens to be the center of beer production in this country. We made this journey to witness Pivo in Cvetje (Beer and Flowers) festival. There were lots of beautiful flowers around, but let's be honest, this was mostly about the beer. For two nights, around 6 or 7 pm, marching bands would start roaming the streets setting up for bigger concerts on multiple stages throughout the town. It was cool to see live music again, and be around large groups of people. It was also nice that our hotel was a 20 minute walk away (past the campground full of revelers) so we could get away from the madness.

On to Ljubljana (pronounced loob-lee-ah-nah), the well-manicured little capitol city of Slovenia. Lots of hot city walks visiting the castle on the hill and a variety of cafes and other sites. The statue bottom left is Ivan Hribar, a famous mayor of the city who, near this site, wrapped himself in the Yugoslavian flag and jumped to his death in the Ljubljanica River to protest the fascist Italian annexation of Ljubljana. His suicide note included this quote from a Slovene poet:

Less fearful the long night of life’s denial
Than living ‘neath the sun in subjugation!

Pretty metal, Ivan!

We also visited the House of Illusions.

And the Union brewery.

A note on bees.

I think I've figured out the bee shortage. They're all here, and they like booze.

They prefer white wine.

And they love beer. I poured a delicious beer from a bottle into my glass, and these TWO bees came out! They needed about 10 minutes to sober up and dry off before flying away.

This lightweight bee was SO cliche!

We are now in Bled drinking in some of the most ridiculously beautiful views around. More to come soon!

Rome-Antics

 After a night flight out of The Gambia, and a day at a Paris airport hotel recuperating, we headed out to Rome, where Rani had a teaching conference (she is now a graduate of the Teacher Leaders Institute! Go Rani!).

Roma and I have a troubled past. When I went during my college years, I had a less-than stellar visit involving having my pocket picked, and just wasn't very impressed with the city overall. On this visit, I had some more time on my own as Rani was in her sessions to get out and explore, and the hotel was bullshit: they were in the middle of a heat wave, and Rome has instituted laws limiting the use of air-conditioning, so the room was hot, and I wasn't going to hang around there. Rome rearing it's ugly head again? Let's see if we can come to a better place in our relationship.

The thought of visiting "the sights" really didn't appeal to me, so I started browsing with searches like "off the beaten path in Rome" and "weird things to do in Rome", and came across a few articles about street art in Rome. Eventually, I found a Google map with many of the murals marked, and decided to make a sort of a scavenger hunt of it.

Our bullshit hotel was in the southern outskirts of Rome, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that a nearby housing complex, Tor Marancia, had been turned into an open-air museum!

What a great thing to do with a bunch of ugly apartment buildings! There are a few in here from the surrounding area as well, but this whole complex had entire buildings painted every corner you turned. 

I spent the entire next day on a mad dash down the south-west bank of the Tiber, then out into the suburbs.

This crazy mural struck my fancy. Right after this was a scary bridge that smelled like pee, so I didn't spend too much time here.

 

These were from the area around Ponte dell'Industria o di Ferro, a weird industrial area around this big iron bridge.

Some hidden gems in Garbatella.

CSOA La Strada is a market turned squatter haven/community center, and it is covered in political art.

This was all around a spooky neighborhood in a bend of the Tiber, near an old greyhound racetrack and a university.

I was really hot and tired by this point, but I decided to make one last stop in the Trullo neighborhood, and I'm glad I did.

This was one of the more interesting installations, taking up two buildings (look at the birds!).

Day 3 was a bit of a dud, as I tried the Trastavere neighborhood, where it's more about posters, and they get ripped down pretty quickly. Found a few interesting pieces. 

This was a really fun way to spend my time here, and get to see the city in a different way. Rani and I also did an awesome food tour (highlight was the porcetta), a nice night out with some of the other teachers at her conference (a couple of whom work with Julie and Ross), and a tour of the Vatican museum.

All in all, Rome and I are on the mend. I'll leave you with one of my favorite finds:

Senegal- Ease?

We arrived in Senegal at night and after a long, hot taxi ride with lungs full of exhaust, we were both feeling bit overwhelmed, and drawing uncomfortable parallels with previous difficult places we’ve been. On our first morning, Rani helped me get my legs under me and go talk to people in my broken French, and arrange some transportation. Just about everywhere we went was a mistake of miscommunication, but we did end up seeing some of the sights.

Day 1: we did a self-made tour to the Village Des Artes, which is sort of a commune of working artists. We walked around awkwardly with our taxi driver making some introductions, then settled in and got to see some artists at work. We saw how a wax sculpture is turned into a bronze one, some batik making, and a number of painters. Lunch on the beach, then resting at the hotel. We were lucky to overlap a bit with cousins Julie and Ross, along with kids Libby and Nate, who are turning out to be really interesting people. A nice visit to their school, and dinner at their nicely appointed apartment were an important step in making us feel more comfortable. It was great to see some familiar faces!

 Day 2: We did an organized tour of the sights, including the giant African Renaissance Monument (and it's interesting origin and many questionable interpretations), and Goree Island with it's dark history of the slave trade.

Day 3: David and Kendra and the kids arrived  and we all spent a day lounging around the hotel restaurant and swimming pool, along with Julie and Ross and kids, and then it was off to their place in Thies the following day.

Day 4: A brief visit to the Musée des Civilisations Noires in Dakar for a some very interesting art viewing, then out to Thies in taxis, with a dinner at a favorite local spot of DK, where I confirmed that Monkfish (lotte in French) is pretty damn good.

Day 5: Hanging out playing card games with the Kids in Thies, with a pretty great meal of rice and fish served on a big platter on the floor.

Days 6-11: On to Saly, a vacation spot on the coast, where we luxuriated in our private pool, and the compound public pool, and the ocean. Card games, cooking fish, dance parties, and even some synchronized swimming from the Yoder-Linds. 

Days 12-14: Into the Saloum Delta and the village of Toubakouta, where we stayed at a nice lodge and did a couple of bird watching trips. We journeyed to ile des oiseaux, where we saw clouds of terns, cormorants, and gulls in their breeding grounds. David, Rani, and I also took an evening excursion, where we stopped for awhile and watched flocks of egrets and a variety of other birds coming in to roost on a small, isolated bunch of mangroves.

Day 15 was a long, hot day of frustrating travel to The Gambia, with some trouble (solved by money) at both borders, an exhausting ferry ride, and a pizza extravaganza when we finally arrived at our guest house. Gambia turned out to be a bit of a dud, and we probably should have just stayed in Senegal. We played in the pool, had a lovely co-anniversary dinner with Dave and Kendra sans kids, and went out the last night with everyone. Rani and I had an extra day to spend in the pool and relax before the next leg of our trip, as we sent the Yoder-Linds back to Thies to continue with site visits for their students. 

I had sort of forgotten how frustrating and taxing travel in Africa could be, and this leg really wore us out. For me, the beat-down brokenness of everything, along with the dust and the heat, along with just not knowing how things work brought a lot of anxiety and stress. I am impressed by people who chose to live and work in places like this, and I will try to remain hopeful for those who don't have a choice.

On a brighter note, it was an absolute pleasure to spend so much time with my brother and sister in law and their three soon-to-be-teen children. I can't wait until the next time we can travel together.  

Magical moments

It’s been a long year. For everyone. We were happy to end this one and get out into the world again. I haven't kept up with writing, so here are a few highlights from the past year:

From top left clockwise: Magical reuniversary in Costa Rica; fun trip with teacher friends to Romania; Relaxing on the beach in Goa; a new bulletin board I'm really proud of; Vietnamese-inspired spread we cooked up for a progressive dinner; Attempts at cooking forbidden meats in Doha

I also got a pretty cool opportunity to talk about teaching on a podcast with some Canadian teachers who led a workshop I took this year. I'll link the video here, but it's also pretty cool (at least for me) to find it on a podcast app and see my name there.

Whadya say to Tenerife?

 A note on pronunciation: Some say TEN UH REEF and some say TEN UH REE FAY. I stick with the latter (and it makes my title sort of rhyme).

At the beginning of the summer, we had a totally different plan for post-Tacoma: we were going to rent a camper van and road trip to Michigan. The more we saw news of packed national parks, noticed dirty hippies hanging around in camper vans, and followed the multiple heat waves in the northern US, the less great that idea sounded. 

So we switched it up; Spain was open, and they have some interesting islands to check out, so we said why the hell not? and changed all of our plans.

Tenerife is very different from the Azores islands that we visited a few years ago. It's more developed, has MANY more people, and has a pretty astonishing variety of landscapes, from moonscapes of barren lava to sparse pine tracts to laurel forests. One thing it did have in common with the Azores was a the lack of proper beaches...

We stayed in a nice apartment near Los Gigantes, where the windows stayed open and we spent most of our time on the balcony enjoying the view.

Beautiful water during the day with the neighboring island of La Gomera in the background (some days, the clouds made it seem like the top of the island was floating above the horizon). Gorgeous sunsets most nights, depending on the amount of sand in the air from the winds off of the Sahara. Different characters of the sunset playing off of the buildings to our East.

Panoramic view from the upper balcony.

Fancy feast!

We indulged in some really upscale dining on the island.

Step 1: La Pergola

Our quest for fanciness began at a very nice restaurant with a great ocean view that was a 5-minute walk from our home.

Delicious appetizers and entrees (pork cheeks and beef cheeks respectively; cheeks were IN while we were there), a great bottle of wine, and some scrumptious deserts.

Step 2: Aqua

OK, so we've been to "very nice" restaurants before. Time to step it up with a 8-course tasting menu with wine pairing at Restaurant Aqua, just up the hill overlooking the cliffs of Los Gigantes.

Very pretty food, and a fun experience. I liked the pre-desert (which included pop-rocks) and the desert: textures of chocolate.

Step 3: Restaurante El Rincón de Juan Carlos

So the only place to go from there is ultra-fancy Michelin-starred Juan Carlos for a 3-4 hour meal featuring the "First block" of 5 appetizers, second block of 6 main courses, and an explosion of deserts. We did a pairing of 6 wines (there was a 12-wine option, but we could barely walk to the cab as it was).

My favorites: The eel soup thing served in an ostrich egg bowl, the tomatoes, eating gold a couple of times was cool, and 

Motherfuckin' dessert tree all day, bitches!

Around the island

Second night on the island, we had just fallen asleep when all hell broke loose. Apparently, it was some religious festival (which no one could really explain to us), and Canarians do fireworks BIG TIME! This midnight fireworks show (set off what seemed like steps from our apartment) put any American display we've seen to shame.

Big Teide

Tenerife is home to the highest point in Spain: Mount Teide. It's a big-ol volcano you can see from pretty much everywhere on the island depending on the weather, surrounded by a national park with desert-brushy landscape and lava fields. We visited twice: once on our own to take the cable car to the base of the summit (hard to breathe up there!), and once on a stargazing tour, which included an amazing sunset over the cloud layer. Stargazing was pretty incredible, and Teide is home to the largest solar observatory in the world!

To the north!

Looking back at the photos, I can't believe we did this all in a day. Our harrowing road trip started through Teno natural park (on one-lane, two-way, twisty roads!) to Mirador Altos de Baracán, a wind-swept saddle point between two mountains with views down to the water. IDK if anyone remembers the most beautiful view in the world from the Azores, but this is right up there in my opinion. Then, we traveled along the northern coast to find the secluded Playa Los Patos, a black sand beach where we had to park on the side of a road, hike through a village and a vineyard and a banana plantation, and then make a 500-foot descent. I think it was worth it: fun waves and beautiful beach (Rani might have a different opinion). Then back home through a bunch of tunnels in the rain. I'm SO grateful that Rani did all the driving on this trip!

The eerie, cloudy laurel forests of the northeast were another highlight of the trip.

We spent many afternoons at Charco del Amor (puddle of love :), our local rocky beach. Great snorkeling and people-watching.

There's something about an island... Anyway, great place to relax before heading back to civilization, work, etc. I'll leave you with this: