Tulum: Travel Day

We just got back from Tulum, Mexico!  Photo editing is still in progress and I have some more writing to do.  Here's a teaser photo expressing my overall feelings about the trip and below are the notes I jotted down for on our first night there.

As our plane descended, the pilot banked a little to the right and we could see Cancun's white sand beaches and turqoise water.  As the plane returned to level  we observed a rainbow within the clouds.  

Awww.....

Acquiring a rental car took about an hour so our arrival in Tulum was a little delayed.  We parked the car along the main road next to our 3-star hotel.  The receptionist did not speak English and we didn't speak much Spanish but we all used Google Translate until we (mostly) figured things out.  Technology!  

Hans and I got our room key and then collapsed on the bed.  The room was cute.  Very simple.  The only amenity was A/C.  No TV.

We found a convenience store one block away and stocked up on water.  Hans bought a Fresca.

Dinner at Il Bacaro.  Very good octopus potato "salad".  Hans had pizza with bratwurst on it and I had the ravioli.  All of their pasta was home made.  The bill was much lower than expected especially since we both had beer.  I was a little worried about the ice in our bottled water but nobody got sick on this trip.

On the way back to the hotel we enountered a political rally.  Drum line, camera crew, guy talking to business owners and then later a speech in the streets.  Hans noticed there had been many election signs posted around the area.

Discovered that the travel-sized shampoo I purchased for vacation was actually conditioner.  Showered and passed out.  

Overnight sounds from outside were quite loud.  We think there was a dance club next door.  Both of us needed earplugs to fall asleep.

Scotland 2009: Remastered

I just completed a pet project that I've been thinking about for a long time.  I've gone back through the thousand or so pictures that Hans and I took during our two-week vacation in Scotland and edited them to a better standard and re-uploaded them on their corresponding blog posts.  All of the broken photo links have been fixed (something that had been bothering me ever since we got back from Scotland!).  I also made Hans' Skye photo-of-the-trip available for high-res download and added some never-before posted pictures that were lacking from the original publication.  Keeping an up-to-date accounting of travel takes a lot of effort and time and sometimes my writing goes haywire when I'm exhausted from a day of exploring.  It feels good to have finally made some corrections.

You can find the link to the first day of this trip on the archives page or you can use the link below.  I hope you enjoy taking a little trip back to almost ten years ago when I first learned how to drive on the left-hand side of the road and when we figured out how to truly be budget-minded travelers.  In hindsight it would have been nicer to pay a little extra money to have private rooms in the various hostels we stayed in but then again we saved a ton of money by making compromises here and there.

Start at the beginning!

End of the Year Recap

This blog has been neglected since we returned from our Europe spring trip!  Time for a recap:  Right before going on vacation we closed on a house in Maryland and moved in so we've been pretty occupied by that.  Generally we've been homebodies except for the occasional excursion.  Our Instagram followers have probably had a better idea of what Hans and I have been up to so here's a little bit of photo catch-up:

Our little home

On a whim I bough a mini pack of concert tickets to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra four times this spring.  They did not disappoint!  During the summer we went to DC to see a hilarious play that has been translated from the original French prose and modernized: Le Misanthrope reenvisioned as School for Lies.

In the fall I went to see the Mariinsky Ballet production of La Bayadere with a pal who is also super into ballet.  OMG the cast was amazing!  It was the first classical ballet I'd ever seen.  Last year's Swan Lake by the American Ballet Theater was wonderful also, however the Russians are truly dominant in their execution and control.  No wobbly arms or fidgeting in the wings from these dancers!

Let's back up a bit:  In June we picked a hell of a lot of strawberries...

and then made hella good preserves (and pie) with them.

In October we went up to Ithaca, NY for a long weekend.  The Corning Museum of Glass had a temporary Tiffany Glass exhibition that I wanted to see.  What I wasn't expecting was the really pretty glass pumpkins they had for sale in their gift shop!  I came home with two :)

We also came home with lots and lots of excellent wine.

This summer I also built some furniture for the new house.  It started with a bookshelf to fit in an awkward corner by the stairs.  I also made a small side table for the living room.

Hans' mom visited during Halloween.  We had fun exploring Baltimore and checking out some of the outdoor spaces in Annapolis, including some that Hans and I hadn't been to yet.

Shortly after Hans' mom went back to Wisconsin my parents came for a visit through Thanksgiving.  My dad and I went up to Philadelphia for a day and the rest of the time we just enjoyed each other's company at the house.

Between house guests Hans and I finally made time to check out the Renwick Museum in DC, which is one of my new favorites.  At the time their special exhibition was miniature crime scenes that were built by a real criminologist in the 1940s and have been (and still are) use to train police and detectives in crime scene processing.  They were tiny, detailed, and creepy (some of my favorite things).  The artworks in the rest of the museum were really cool too.  There was a backlit "quilt" made from film that was sewn together with nylon thread, among other things.

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Christmas was a cozy affair at the house and New Year's Eve is going to be the same.

Here's to another trip around the sun!