España, Good On Ya

Now that our appendectomy adventure is over (I’m knocking on wood now because technically one of us still has an as-yet-ungangrenous appendix), we thought it was about time to write about the non-medical-emergency parts of our month-long tour of Spain, also known as the Country That Never Met a Part of the Pig It Didn’t Want to Eat. This is my first trip to Spain, and for all intents and purposes, it’s Dustin’s too. (He was here briefly a few years ago, but in what now appears to be a prophetic case of bad luck, he came down with the flu shortly after arriving and spent the entire time in his hotel room.)

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Big Night

So, we’ve been eating a lot in Italy – and not just the 32 pizzas Dustin wrote about in our last entry. Whether it’s homemade tagliatelle with a wild boar ragu… or a huge terra cotta crock containing every species of edible fish and crustacean just pulled from the sea that day… or fresh, homemade ravioli coated in butter and sage that literally melt in your mouth… or Dustin’s daily (and sometimes twice-daily) order of un gelato con cioccolato e bacio… or any of the other gustatory delights we’ve been lucky enough to sample in this country of food lovers, we have definitely made eating (and drinking) a primary focus of our time here on the boot. (If you don’t believe us, we have several pairs of pants that no longer fit that we’d be happy to show you. :)

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Pizza Slut(s)

In case you haven’t noticed, Laura and I (but mostly I) like keeping track of data. We list some arguably interesting statistics about our trip in the Fun Facts sidebar of this blog, and one of the stats that’s been there for a long time is “Feet of Subway sandwiches consumed”. During the first few months of our trip, it seemed like Subways were everywhere, and a Subway sandwich was often just the little taste of home that we craved. It was also a reasonably healthy (and cheap) option for a quick lunch or dinner in some places where salad wasn’t all that easy to find. Don’t get Laura started about the lack of mustard in the UK Subway shops, but overall, we heart Subway.

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Viva la Venezia!

Laura and I have been in Italy for exactly one month today, so we’re long overdue for an update. We have a legitimate excuse: we’ve spent the last three weeks on the Maestrelli/Frazier “bullet train” of family tourism – one week with Laura’s parents, sister, and uncle in Tuscany; then a week on the Amalfi coast with my parents added to the mix; then a final week with just my parents in Sicily – and we were on the go pretty much non-stop. Our Moms did an incredible job planning our time together, and I swear my Mom would make an amazing tour guide… you would get your money’s worth of site-seeing, that’s for sure! :) Laura and I found ourselves quoting National Lampoon’s European Vacation more than once during those three weeks, with an Italian flare, of course: “Look kids! Pompei! The Duomo!”. We’ll have a lot more to share about our travels with our families in a future blog post (and they may chime in with a guest blog entry or two, ahem).

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Bye Bye Britain

Before our UK road trip gets too far behind us, we wanted to wrap up with some final thoughts about our adventures in Scotland. Our Isle of Skye album is up, as are all of the rest of our UK albums on our UK photo gallery page.

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Into Thin Air (Finally!)

After a rough start to our precious two weeks in Bhutan, Laura and I were finally feeling better and were eager to get out and do some trekking in the Himalayas. Geographic Expeditions and Yangphel (their local partner in Bhutan) had worked a minor miracle and lined up a completely separate, somewhat abbreviated trek for the two of us that would still get us up to the Chomolhari base camp and back to Paro in the seven days we had to work with.

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Trekking to Chisapani and Nagarkot

Even with our somewhat overwhelming introduction to Kathmandu (re-introduction for me), we were still excited to spend a couple of days doing some light trekking northeast of the Kathmandu Valley. We’d hired a guide and porter through Himalayan Holidays — the same company that Room to Read was working with for their anniversary trek — and they met us that Monday morning to start our trek. Laxman (our guide) and Jhalak (our porter) introduced themselves as cousin-brothers: their fathers are brothers (making them first cousins), their mothers are sisters (again, first cousins), and as it turns out, their wives are also sisters (making them brothers-in-law)! Pretty funny. They both spoke English well enough, and after a short drive out of the Kathmandu Valley, we started our trek up to Chisapani.

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Magnum Cum Laude

As you no doubt remember, near the beginning of our trip I discovered that there are nine (NINE!) varieties of Magnum ice cream bars available in New Zealand and Australia, and Vanuatu as it turns out. (Check out my original Magnum P.I. blog post for the sweet details.) I made it my personal quest to sample all nine flavors before leaving Oz (two months seemed like plenty of time), and I nearly completed the task before leaving New Zealand. Only one flavor escaped me, the one that I saved (savored?) for last, hoping it would be the pinnacle of my glucosic gastronomic adventure: the exotically named Magnum Ecuador Dark.

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Sweet As

Greetings from a freakishly soggy Alice Springs! We arrived to gray skies this morning and learned that it’s been pouring here for the last 5 days. Everything is flooded and the normally 100+ degree temps have been in the 60’s. We’re about to head off on a 5-day 4WD tour of the “Red Center,” but before we go totally offline we wanted to close out with a few final thoughts on our month in New Zealand.

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New Zealand's Down Under

The deep south tour took us from Queenstown to Milford Sound (and Gunn’s Camp, a lovely little spot which you’ve no doubt already read about), down to Invercargill and on a ferry for an overnight on Stewart Island, then back up the Catlins Coast to Dunedin, finally looping back into Queenstown. It was a bit of a whirlwind tour, but one that we’re glad we took!

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