Month: February 2016

Bob and I have landed in Calgary to officially begin our 12 month adventure! It feels great. We met the human couple we are sitting for yesterday afternoon and spent about an hour with them getting acquainted with the particulars of their condo (23rd floor unit in downtown high rise) and meeting their cats — Squeak (female) and Purrcy (male). We’ll share more about our Canadian adventures and the AWESOME hike and bike path along the Bow and Elbow Rivers in our next blogs.

This blog is to recognize — once again — the many friends and family who helped facilitate this little adventure. Bob and I had lovely send-offs from Austin with farewell breakfasts, lunches, and happy hours with friends. We even had a strong 35 mph wind at our back pushing us out of Texas, so I guess the state was ready to see us off. To the extent that we can express our thanks (and at risk of forgetting people), please see below —

• Thanks to Virginia E. For one last lunch at Magnolia Cafe. I will miss our “Here’s How the World Should be Run” talks, but I hope that we can pick up where we left off when I return. I am certain that the world will need our sage advice even more in a year’s time.
• Thanks to the best group of women that I know — the three Ss and a J — Sally, Sandy, Stacy, and Jane for a great happy hour (Wink, Wink) and some fun Texas mementos — already put to use (see below).

• Many thanks to the downtown Trader Joe’s team for rehiring Bob and putting up with his jokes.
• A shout out to Bob A for providing us space to store our touring bikes and cedar chest until our storage room at the condo is rehabbed for use.
• A shout out to our neighbor Bud and Madelyn for helping to load and haul the aforementioned items to Bob As’ and also for offering some garage space for our remaining items until the completed rehab of our storage units.
• Thanks to our niece Amanda for taking time off work to meet us for coffee at a great coffee and chocolate shop in Wichita on our way north. It was a great visit and helped to provide a much-needed break on a long driving day.

• Thanks also to Shelli & John for being the usual awesome hosts — great room, great food, fun cocktails. Also a Big thanks for noticing that I had left my brand new waterproof hiking shoes at their house in time for us to turn and head back before going onto Des Moines.

• In Des Moines, our nephew Zack provided great lodging and munchies and continued to tolerate his uncle’s jokes and harassment as did friends Picker, Doug, and Steph while watching the UT men’s basketball team lose big to Baylor.
• There really aren’t enough words to thank Bob’s sister Cheryl and husband Jody for all that they did, and are doing, for us. In addition to hosting and feeding us for 2 nights (along with joke tolerance referenced above), they are keeping the remainder of our belongings (mostly Beth’s clothes and our car) and getting our mail while we’re away.  Jody also drove us 3 hours to Iowa City (and then back) to rendezvous with Beth’s sister for transport to Illinois and Wisconsin.
• Before heading out of Iowa, we had a great visit with Bob’s parents. They treated us to lunch, and Mrs. Peck gave Beth a great new maroon sweatshirt that has already come handy. Warmth is good!

• Hugs to my sister Brenda for being a great hostess!! She should work for the Rockford tourism bureau because she always takes us to the yummiest places to eat and acquaints us with the best hiking/biking/running possibilities. Knowing her sister’s lack of directionality, she even drew me a map to the nearby bike path, through the jog through a neighborhood, and back onto a larger, longer path with cool artwork in and along the river. She provided us a travel gift set — collapsible, reusable shopping bags, hand warmers, and adult coloring books with colored pencils. I now have my creative outlet since I couldn’t bring my big cross stitch project. The time there allowed us a visit to Janesville to see my mom and aunt, uncle, and cousin as well as run errands to finalize travel plans before our flight to Calgary.

NOTE:  Apologies to all who with whom we neglected to get a photo.  We need to become more photo obsessed.

I always thought I was such an independent little thing, but the older I get the more I realize how any success I’ve had has been the effort of a pretty amazing “village.” Thanks and love to all our friends and family!

Our Kifisia House Sit has ended. It’s been unique (as they all are) and is ended a bit uniquely as well. First, the new part of this house sit for us has been working with a puppy. She (still unnamed) is a charmer if you aren’t amused and taken in with this sweet little creature, there just isn’t enough human blood in you. That being said, she takes more work in terms of consistent activities, ensuring she doesn’t pee when and where you don’t want her too, and watching the interactions with the other pets who are still adjusting to the new inhabitant of “their” territory. We have been retrained in puppy training — so who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks?

Second, we transitioned the care of the home and pets not back to the home owners as expected but to another house sitting couple. It is, however, for a very happy reason. The home owners, who are doing a house sit in the UK, have decided to get a marriage license there, and the required paperwork, etc. has them extending their stay.  Since we couldn’t easily (nor affordably) change our flight, they contacted another couple, already in Greece, to stay from Sunday night (1/31) until they return on Tuesday.

In terms of recent non-pet related activities we have continued to walk a bit around the local area and finally feel like we are getting a good sense of how to get around (no parallel streets here) just in time to head home. . .

Also, Beth did an 18 mile run last Friday to continue her marathon training. (Side note: 18 mile run done on treadmill at gym so Beth wasn’t forever lost in Kifisia and/or hit by a car on a “sidewalk” or street. No idea what the locals at the gym thought. She did put her big girl pants on Sunday morning, however, to beat most traffic and do an hour run around the neighborhood and down to the metro and back, so she can officially say she ran in Greece.)

The night of the long run, we went out for seafood which we hadn’t yet had (lots of chicken and pork for meat eaters).  We found a cute restaurant not too far from the house and had a lovely dinner AND got to hear some Greek folk music which Beth had been interested in doing.  We had wine with dinner, but it was served in a different manner than we have previously experienced. The waiter encouraged us to get a 1/2 “kilo” of wine. We learned that this is 500 ml which is less than a bottle (750 ml). The wine was served in a small carafe and then poured into glasses which seemed to be a tad larger than a shot glass. It all worked fine and seemed like a great way to control how much you drink. The cost of the 1/2 kilo (and this was good wine) was 3€ (about $3 since the exchange rate between the euro and American $ is pretty close). Bob ended up buying one more glass (still the small size), and it was .60€. Amazing!

For the seafood, I had a great piece of grilled octopus, and Bob got to select his fish to be grilled and filleted (but served with the head on).  Unfortunately, even with the small amount of wine we had, neither of us managed to see the dressing for the fish which was served in a separate dish so he didn’t really get the full experience of what his dish was suppose to taste like.

The Greek folk music was also good. There were 3 individuals — 2 men and a woman — who started singing about 9:30. They sat on stools on a raised platform in the corner. One gentlman played a guitar and the other a mandolin. The female just seemed to have a handheld microphone, so we thought for sure she was going to sing. However, when they started playing she continued to hold the mike in her lap and then we saw her start to shake what looked to be a smooth stone near the mike — either drawing it away from the mike or moving it up and down.