Category Archives: travelogues

June 13, 2011

Bear with Me

By simply three cents

Good thing we had this rental car!

At Plitvice Lakes, (click the link to see a collection of Google Images – the place was seriously amazing), the boyfriend and I were staying at a small lodge. We had arrived a little on the late side and hadn’t eaten since lunch so we were starving.

We were told the nearest restaurant was about half a mile away. We were told it was walkable, and after being in the car for several hours, we had decided that it would be nice to walk.

What we didn’t realize that there weren’t any sidewalks and we had to walk on the side of the road all the way to the restaurant. This wouldn’t have been bad on its own but because this was a bit in the middle of nowhere, okay, it WAS the middle of nowhere, there were very few street lights (read: one or two for the duration of our walk) and we were certain that oncoming traffic would have a problem seeing us. There were lots of tall trees, making every little noise or animal movement that much more amplified.

What we didn’t anticipate was hearing the locals at dinner tell us about the prevalence of black bears in the area. We were in the land of mountains, forest, waterfalls and lakes, so it made sense.

At some point during dinner I had decided that there was no way I was walking back to the lodge. After going back and forth with conversation that was along the lines of … him: I’ll handle the bear, you just run and me: are you crazy?, the boyfriend told me that he would walk back alone, get the car and come back to pick me up.

When he left, what I didn’t anticipate was how nervous those few minutes would be. What if he got attacked by a bear? How long do I wait before I get worried? What the heck am I supposed to do? Then, more practical questions like , will they speak English at the hospital? What will our families say? How would I return the car?

Thankfully he made it back with the car in a reasonable amount of time, picked my scared ass up and we headed back to the lodge together, without a bear sighting.

3 Comments   |  tags: | posted in just silly, things that make me smile, travel, travelogues

June 12, 2011

Cruze-ing in Croatia

By simply three cents

One of the great things about traveling overseas is discovering things before they come big in the States. Or, seeing something in the States that later gets introduced overseas.

This post is about the former.

While traveling throughout Croatia in September 2010, the boyfriend and I found ourselves in Split (ok, I had planned it that way). We had started our journey in Dubrovnik and were working our way north to fly home through Zagreb. Prior to arriving in Split we had already traveled on the Adriatic Sea on…

a Jadrolinija ferry (seen in the distance in this photo) that was like a no-frills cruise ship.

 

a Krilo Jet catamaran – seen here…

 

and various city buses, mini vans, car taxis, water taxis and our feet, thus far.

Now that we were heading inland, the boyfriend and I wanted to rent a car to get from Split to Zagreb. The Split-Zagreb leg could have been done by bus or train but we wanted to stop at Plitvice Lakes in the mountains where public transportation was spotty at best.

In fact, we were told that if at all possible, to avoid taking buses around that part of the country because service was unreliable, and missing one bus could leave you stranded for a day or two. If we did get stranded, there would be no car rental agencies in the Plitvice Lakes area so hitchhiking to Zagreb would be the only option. That option was immediately nixed by my boyfriend, so a rental car it would be.

We had arrived in Split (via the Krilo Jet catamaran) from the island of Hvar around 8am. We ate breakfast and before setting out to explore Split, we had to secure a car for later that afternoon. Mind you:

1 – we hadn’t made any reservations and this was only the start of shoulder season
2 – we would need to return it in Zagreb, making this a one-way rental – more difficult to secure at this time of year we were told
3 – we wanted to leave town around 4pm.

Either way, the world wasn’t going to end if we weren’t able to rent a car. We could have spent the night in Split to wait for a car, or rerouted ourselves for the last few days of our vacation. If it was that big of a deal, we would have made a reservation. This is why it’s called traveling on the fly! It’s fun, and it allows room for spontaneity. You just need to realize your ‘ideal’ plan may not come to fruition. But if it does (and this time for us it did), it feels like quite an accomplishment. Sometimes you have absolutely no control over the situation and you really just need to go with it.

Anyway, we wanted to try to see if we would be able to secure a car, so off we went. We showed up, unannounced, at a rental agency, expecting that this would be easy. After all it was the off-season, and we didn’t need it until later that afternoon. Um. Not so easy.

Our fifth, and final, stop happened to be the only rental car agency that had an available car, later that day, that could be used as a one-way rental. We signed the paperwork and said we’d be back in a few hours to pick up our wheels.

Fast forward. We return to the rental agency and the guy told us that he had a few cars from various carmakers on his lot, but thought it would be amusing to give his only American car, to the Americans.

I was slightly saddened that we wouldn’t get a European car. I had grandiose dreams of speeding down Croatian highways in a Fiat convertible because when in Rome, but whatever. We were lucky to even have a car at this point.

So we settled into our Chevy Cruze, which neither of us had ever heard of before, waved back to the guy who got us a car, and headed out on the highways of Croatia.

Months later, we see prominent billboard advertising for the Chevy Cruze in Times Square, and elsewhere.

We had enjoyed our ride, and clearly others, here in the States do too – as the Cruze was the best-selling compact car in the US in April 2011.

And we tried it first.

1 Comment   |  tags: | posted in travel, travelogues

June 11, 2011

Translation Trouble

By simply three cents

This has the potential to take a lot of the fun out of traveling!

Isn’t a big part of the fun not knowing?!

What about the time in Brussels where I ordered fondue and out came mozzarella sticks?!

Isn’t part of traveling trying things you don’t know?

I spent the good part of an hour at a cheese counter in a supermarket in Switzerland just trying different cheeses I had never heard of before. The person behind the counter even got a kick out of it.

Would you ever try centolla? Or are you afraid of the name? Because it’s actually crab legs. And I had them in Argentina. And they were yummy.

Of course there are times when this back fires. There was a trip to Italy. We were in a town called Greve in Chianti. The restaurant was full of locals and if there were any other tourists, they blended in just fine. The boyfriend decided to try the daily special. The daily special was an array of meat, meat so fresh, the plate had an overwhelming smell of wet dog. But to the restaurant, they were so proud. And to not insult, my boyfriend ate the better part of the plate. Every bite was chased by a gulp of water and a sip of wine. But he ate.

I should say my gnocchi, the other house specialty, was delicious and required no such chasers.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in food, things that make me smile, travel, travelogues

May 6, 2011

Best Breakfast … another kind

By simply three cents

So my post about best hotel breakfast got me thinking. I prefer staying in bed and breakfasts to get the local feel of a place, and to really interact with locals. There are so many memorable places I have stayed, and I think that a place can make a trip. Even if a place sucks, it’s going to give you a good story, of which I have plenty.

I have encountered such amazing hospitality at bed and breakfasts on my travels, and it’s really hard to say which breakfast beat others. Not for the taste, or the portions, but because you are getting a taste of cultures, and how can you really compare those experiences.

However, one experience that stands out was in Monteverde, Costa Rica. This couple had a farm and on this farm they had built a few cabins for guests to stay in. Because it was the rainy season, as noted by our experience with tropical storm Alma, we were the only ones staying there at the time.

At breakfast, we were invited into their home. Their beautiful kitchen was connected to the living room where their two children played. We were served such a local breakfast. The coffee was from the beans on their land, the eggs were from their neighbor’s chicken, the fruit was grown on their land and the milk was from their cow, who was due to give birth any day.

Our hosts: the husband spoke no English and the wife spoke very good English
Their children: the toddler spoke Spanish and the baby said ‘mama’
Us: my boyfriend speaks a few words of Spanish and mine is decent – my grammar backwards is – but I can get by with a pretty solid knowledge of vocabulary and hand motions where my vocab is weak.

We were all able to communicate over breakfast and the baby crawled right over to my boyfriend and held her hands up to be held.

These are the kinds of experiences I love. It’s so much more than about the food.

Leave a comment   |  tags: | posted in food, things that make me smile, travel, travelogues

May 3, 2011

Best Breakfast?

By simply three cents

This morning on Facebook, Independent Traveler asked their fans ‘What’s the best hotel breakfast you’ve ever had?’

Everyone has one, but of course there’s a story how I found one of the best hotel breakfasts ever.

Now, I normally don’t choose to stay in proper hotels when I travel, as I much prefer the authentic feel of a bed and breakfast and staying with a local family, which I planned for during a trip to Costa Rica in May/June 2008. For the most part we stayed local, but thanks to Tropical Storm Alma things got changed up a bit.

“This is the first time a tropical storm has hit the Pacific coast in this location in 120 years,” said José Joaquín Aguero, an IMN meteorologist. “The last time this happened was around 1887.”

OF COURSE 1887 was the last time this happened. Obviously our hearts went out to the people above all. It was incredible to see how they dealt with the devastation. I remember seeing women walking out of their homes while carrying children on their shoulders. Not to mention that they were wading in water that was easily up to their waists. We only saw this from the road, which was maybe 50 feet away, but I remember that we were both very emotional watching this from the sidelines.

We had been headed down the Pacific coast to Manuel Antonio from Monteverde. We had to stop for the night in Playa Hermosa (a beach town) because the rain was so hard and it was dark. In the morning we continued, but only got as far as Parrita. We were told we couldn’t go any further because the water on the road (yes, one way in, one way out, wouldn’t recede for four DAYS.) Alma was fierce and we saw the waves as we stood on the beach (probably not the smartest thing we have ever done) to prove it.

While out for drinks in Playa Hermosa, at a bar on the beach, I remember the lights going out and the bands equipment shorting out. We were basically in a bar on the beach (it was on the water but other than a roof there was no protection) so we could feel the rain since it was coming in sideways and easily see the lightening right over the ocean. Instead of sending us home, the staff put candles on the tables, the band decided to sing acoustically and we ordered another round.

The next morning we needed to make a change of plans, and quickly, as the water was getting out of control. We met an ex-pat American who rearranged our itinerary for our last few days. He directed us to another part of the country, closer to San Jose, but still far enough outside that we felt like we were still in the countryside. We also had to make a few calls because we were going to be dropping off our rental car in Manuel Antonio to fly back to San Jose for our connecting international flight. Getting a refund proved to be a bit of a challenge because it was a non-refundable airline ticket, but being that we couldn’t physically drive to Manuel Antonio due to the road closures, it would be impossible to get on the flight. Also needed to reroute our rental so that we could return it in San Jose.

Anyway, through the kindness of this ex-pat American who gave us ideas for where we could spend the next few days, we were able to visit the surrounding towns outside of San Jose which were lovely. In addition to the excellent hospitality we had already received, we had the opportunity to stay on a coffee plantation and we were able to enjoy Alajuela, a less touristy Costa Rica.

We decided to stay in San Jose on our last night, which without this storm, wasn’t on our itinerary. We decided to live it up our last night in a lovely boutique hotel, complete with cocktails and a dip in the roofdeck hot tubs. (If you know me, you know this is not the way I travel!)

Dinner our last night we cabbed to a local restaurant keeping with my passion to keep it local, but breakfast the following morning, in the hotel, our last in Costa Rica was probably the best HOTEL breakfast ever.

I point the hotel distinction out because I have enjoyed many amazing breakfasts when staying at bed and breakfasts and I wouldn’t be able to pick the best. The best part of those is being able to share with local families and really experience the local flavor, both literally and figuratively. More on that in another post.

Thanks to the season, we had juice and smoothies, made from Costa Rica’s finest fruits. Fruits I never heard of, or tasted before, and we had a field day trying them all! I don’t remember the rest of the breakfast but those juices were the best.

What was your favorite hotel breakfast?

1 Comment   |  tags: | posted in food, in and around the world, travel, travelogues

April 17, 2011

Observant in Orlando

By simply three cents

I told you I’d share some observations about my day at Universal, but I am going to share my biggest observation about Orlando as a whole.

If foreign visitors only see Orlando, and want to generalize, they must think Americans are buffet-eating, line-pushing, souvenir-collecting kind of people. 

The same could be said if they add Las Vegas to their US itinerary.

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February 27, 2011

Dinnertime or bedtime?

By simply three cents

While I loved Argentina, the hardest thing to get used to was dinner time. 9pm seemed like the early bird special.

One night we were ordering dessert just before  11pm and a family with two young children had just been seated. By the time we left, they had already ordered, and received their proper meals. And by the sound of their conversation, they were definitely locals.

I’m sure as a foreigner if you lived there, or were traveling longer, the late hour of dinner would be easier to get used to, but that was the hardest adjustment we had to make on our trip. I’m not complaining but as we did not do much sleeping in, it was definitely the hardest thing to get used to.

So much so that we ate bigger lunches when we could, and something light, like ice cream, or a cheese plate, for dinner!

I purposely scheduled this post for 9pm EST…which is 11pm local Argentina time…and the Argentines usual dinner time hour.

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February 26, 2011

A Family History

By simply three cents
I had traveled to Argentina with a copy of my great grandma’s birth certificate from 1908 as she was born in BsAs. I had hopes that I would be able to trace some of my family history as there was a number imprinted on the barely legible birth certificate. I was hoping that number would be the key to getting information.
I had told one of the guys at our B&B what I was hoping to find out and he directed us to the national office of registering people. Once in line at that government office, I was able to tell the worker in Spanish what I was looking for but I didn’t understand his response. He asked his office if anyone spoke English and a girl hesitated but came over, and in nearly perfect English, she told me where we needed to go…to another government office just a few blocks away.

This second office was a much bigger office than the last. It was a mix of City Hall, the DMV and any government office you dread going to. Crowds of people in the waiting area were waiting for their numbers to be flashed on the electronic board to determine which counter they needed to go to. Happy couples were outside taking pictures as they had just gotten married.

I explained in Spanish what I was looking for. After five minutes, he told me to talk in English. First, he told me that he could only get me a copy of the birth certificate – which I would have to come back for in two weeks. Which was great, because the original is tattered and taped together. I mean it IS over 100 years old. But I was determined, and I had the number on the birth certificate, which had to mean SOMETHING to SOMEONE and just getting a copy of the original was just not going to be good enough for me.

So he talked to another woman and they told me to go see Mercedes on the fourth floor. I was concerned about getting past security since we have no other documentation other than being told to go to the fourth floor. This was not a problem because there was NO security. We walked right to the elevator that held only three people at a time – literally. We had four and someone had to get off.

There were no nameplates on the doors so we had to knock on a few doors to find Mercedes. She spoke ZERO english, except for the word happy because thats what she made me….BECAUSE…

After 20 minutes of explaining what I wanted and her giving me a little history of immigration — NO paperwork for those that came to Argentina. NONE. There are no Ellis Island-like records, no boat they came on, country they came from, NOTHING. The only records were for babies born there, and even that has a loop hole. They only kept records in the early 1900s and only for men. Once Evita came into play and what she did for women, only then did they start keeping records for women. That was in the 1950s.

After this very informative history lesson, in Spanish, Mercedes took the birth certificate and told us to come back in one hour, at 2pm – her siesta time. We werent sure what she was going to show us but I was hopeful, boyfriend was doubtful. We went for a coffee (yes, I even drank coffee on this trip!) and we had no idea what we were going to get.

We went back to her office at 2pm. She gave us a copy of the hand written document of a verbal recount from my great grandma’s dad that must have been pulled from a book of records. He had to to come to that same government building and tell his story with two witnesses. It tells us that my great grandma was born the day before. It tells us she was born in the house, with the address, and the time of birth. It tells us my great grandma’s parents names and ages. It tells us their parents names and it tells us where they came from. And it is signed by my great grandma’s dad and the two witnesses.

The apartment building was not far from where we were so we took a walk over. It is a main street, and near the water. The building looked old. Probably refinished but it easily could have been a building from back then. The McDonald’s next door, probably was not there then 😉 From the plaques on the building it looked like a lot of law firms are in the building now. My new best friend Mercedes told me a lot of immigrants settled there because of commerce and it was near the water. Later, immigrants moved to other parts of the city, but it’s not likely there is any paperwork to know where.

So the only info they have on women before the 50s was the birth certificate and this verbal recount at the office where her dad had to explain his past and that he had a new baby in the house. Literally.

Awesome find. I told her that we didn’t have much information and I was so excited to share with my grandma, so she said the information would be ‘un regalo por su abuela’ (a gift for my grandmother). Then, I couldn’t think of the word so I said in ‘bad grammar Spanish’ that she made me very, and then I smiled and pointed to my mouth, and she uttered the only English word I think she knew – happy.

2 Comments   |  tags: | posted in in and around the world, things that make me smile, travel, travelogues

February 25, 2011

Vendors venden en el subte

By simply three cents

People sell stuff on the subway everywhere. Here in New York, I’ve been asked to buy movies, batteries and chocolate. On the subte (subway) in Buenos Aires, we were asked to buy children’s books, flashlights, coffee, pens and pencils. I think they are more trusting there.

The children’s book seller actually handed out the childrens books to everyone in the subway car, and then came back to collect money, or take back the book. Everyone on the train that was handed a book actually thumbed through it and it looked like they had some sort of interest. The stops between stations were not long distances but people who did not make a purchase were very honest about returning the goods before disembarking the train. The seller did well in the train car we were on.

In all the time I have been in New York, I have never seen a seller hand anything out, unless money had already exchanged hands.

The pen and pencil guy did not hand anything out in advance of a sale. And yes he was selling them individually.

The coffee guy was hilarious. Literally he was walking around with a shoulder bag with cups – taped together with duct tape and he had this ‘tool belt’ contraption that held a few canisters. Some canisters were full of coffee, others held milk and sugar. It was hot, the guy next to us ordered one and you could see the steam. The coffee guy moved fast and people were buying.

In case you were wondering, the coffee guy sold a whole lot more than the pen and pencil guy.

Leave a comment   |  tags: | posted in train travel, travel, travelogues

February 24, 2011

Size 1, 2 or 3

By simply three cents

Something I noticed in Argentina was body shape. Young or old, we saw very few heavy people.

Shopping in the stores we found out that clothes came in three sizes – 1, 2 and 3 for small, medium and large. Funny how in the States, we have several sizes for each.

It’s interesting because Argentina has by far the highest consumption of beef. And mayonnaise. Every time we sat down for a meal, something we ordered was accompanied by a side of flavored mayo. It tasted REALLY good, so I am sure it’s not healthy mayo.

Mayo

We were served breakfast in each place we stayed, which was typically, croissants, toast, yogurt and a selection of meats and cheeses. In the last place we stayed we were offered omelettes. I was nervous because I wasn’t starving as I had grown accustomed to the Argentine breakfast. I was expecting something you’d get from Denny’s so I said please make mine small, with only one egg.

He must have thought I was crazy because when they all came out, they were all made with one egg, maybe two. It was simply a scrambled egg folded over. Which was fine. Funny what we expect coming from the States.

This is why sizes 1, 2 and 3 work just fine outside of the United States.

1 Comment   |  tags: | posted in observations, travel, travelogues