Toluca diablitos – I guess I have a team
The drive from Angangueo to Mexico City is about 120 miles and takes about 4 hours. I had 2 more days before meeting my friend, CY, in Mexico City, and I did not want to have to leave at oh-dark-thirty to meet her flight at noon. I looked at places in between and chose Toluca, the capital city of the state of Mexico. My choice was made when I read about a place called the Cosmovitral, a converted Art nouveau…
Pátzcuaro: Adventures and Food
The drive to Pátzcuaro started the adventure! Road closures, traffic diversions, and Google maps sending me into town on practical cart paths. Cobble stone alleys with axel-breaker speed bumps (topes). I am sure that at least 2 of the “streets” Google sent me on were one way, and not the way I was going! 😂 The middle of town, where my hotel was located, was a complete zoo of cars, horses, tour busses, motorcycles, and scooters. There was a HUGE…
Still so difficult…
It has been 7 months. Getting out of bed has gotten easier, but other things have not. There are many “administrative” items that I haven’t been able to face yet. Luckily for me, many of them can be put off for a long time before they HAVE to be addressed. Today I started wading through the credit cards. Over the years, most of the credit cards ended up in his name, with me as a secondary card member. It was…
Amsterdam v.2.0
Final Installment for this trip. Last stop – Amsterdam, again. I stayed in the same hotel as last time – Hotel Abba. It is a nice, small hotel near Museumplein with lots of public transit connections and only a 30 minute walk to Dam square. Reasonable price, comfortable rooms – the first stay I had a single with shared bath and a balcony, the second a double with a private bath and a balcony. They are friendly, will let you…
Family and Friends
A complete change of pace. Nothing was scheduled except the visits. And they were great visits! First stop not far from Assen to see my cousin and his family. It has been years, but felt like no time at all. I had some solo adventures, and we had some family fun. It was wonderful!! 💕 Second stop, Belgium, to see a friend from Egypt. We figured it had been 16 years since we had last seen each other. Again it…
Basha stories: The Third Pitcher of Sangria
I’ve decided to put some Basha stories here, mostly for me, but occasionally I have referred to them in other posts. Feel free to skip, these are my memories. The year is 1999 and we are on our first big trip together. We knew it was a “make-or-break” test for the relationship. We were backpacking for a month in Spain and Portugal during the summer. We began the trip in Madrid, speaking very little Spanish, and not really having an…
Meaningful, magnificent, and completely mental Mugello
MotoGP at either of the Italian tracks (the other being Misano) was always on the wishlist. The Italians are PASSIONATE about their racing, however the races are EXPENSIVE. This race was planned as OUR race. OUR once-in-a-lifetime. OUR bucket list item. As wonderful as the experience was, it was diminished without the Basha. Friday practice and qualifying – this was new. We’d rarely had Friday tickets for past MotoGP events. In all honesty, this day at the track might have…
🎼My Bologna has a first name 🎶
I hate to admit it, but I must. I am, in my heart, both a child and “an American”. I say this because I can’t look at the name Bologna and not hear the Oscar Mayer song. (In a similar way, I giggle about a particular Canadian city. Classless, I know.) Arrived in a torrential thunderstorm. ⛈️ It was lovely all the way from Milan. I even had a comfy window seat on the upper deck of the train! Stepped…
Sola adventure – Milano
No, I haven’t forgotten how to spell. Sola is the feminine form of solo or “alone” in Spanish. Three days in Milano. Three days TOTALLY in charge of every second and every decision to be made. It is exciting, exhausting, and daunting. I won’t lie, I’ve cried more than once. 😢 Duomo tour – The only tour I booked in Milan. It took me up to the roof of the Duomo to the terraces, which used to be open to…
Drinking from the firehose
Milano – My first time here, and navigating in a language I don’t know, without my partner in crime. It wasn’t EASIER with the Basha, but we could take turns with the chaos “adventures”. The flights were easy, once I got to Malpensa things turned challenging. The nice lady from our hotel gave me directions from the airport. I had no idea it would take me 2hours to make the trek! At the airport the challenge was to (1) find…