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We are full into our Seattle house sit and are getting some time to really get to know “our” new dog Lucy Lu, catch up on some personal errands, enjoy time with family, and begin to explore the area.  Lucy is great walking (and sniffing) on lead as well as a good ball player (retrieving balls thrown).  She also entertains us in the house with tug-of-war games with her toys.  

We are currently based in the Green Lake area of Seattle — one of many Seattle neighborhoods with lots of local fun shops and restaurants.  The Green Lake area is named after the lake and park of the same name.  Per Wikipedia, Green Lake is a freshwater lake surrounded by a 2.8 mile hiking/biking/running trail which has become my (Beth) default running area for this leg of our journey.  The park contains a community center, Bathouse Theatre and concessions stand.  Tonight it will host a holiday Festival of Lights with luminaries around the lake as well as music and concessions.  We are planning to attend.  Below are some photos of our first walk around the lake with Lucy.

On Tuesday of this week, Bob and I walked about an hour (2.7 mi from the house) to the Ballard neighborhood to get an eye exam and some glasses for me (still Beth) since I lost my prior pair in France.  We went to America’s Best Contacts and Eyeglasses which promises an eye exam and 2 pairs of glasses for $69.95.  It was one of the best customer-service experiences I have had. All 3 people that I interacted with there we’re very personable.  Also, being in the 50+ age bracket (how do these things happen?!), I got the AARP discount and have 2 pairs on order for $62.95!  We’ll see if they get delivered on time and in one piece.  

The walk to Ballard gave us a great feel for Seattle’s hills and the surrounding mountain ranges.

I (Yikes, this has become quite the all-about-me blog!) also got the opportunity to attend a fun holiday event with my Aunt Teri and her friend Rhonda this past week.  It was at the Women’s University Club in downtown Seattle and featured a Downton Abbey holiday themed play along with champagne and appetizers before a post-play tea.  After the event, the three of us walked down to the Seattle central library which is an architecturally interesting structure as well as being a great public resource.

More of our explorations of Seattle in the next blog.  But will leave you with some Seattle signage that has caught our eye (actually all 4 of them).

Just a quick blog to update you (if we haven’t already darkened your doorstep) on our current location and status.  We arrived back in the US on November 19 via an American Airlines flight from Rome to Philadelphia.  After clearing customs (loving the Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check programs!), we traveled by a reserved shared car (though we were the only passengers) to Wilmington, DE.  Along with our international excursions, we are still trying to get to all 50 states.  Delaware was a new state for us, bringing our total to 43 states visited.  We had 2 nights but only 1 full day there.  However, we braved the chill and very brisk wind to get a good walkabout in Wilmington, including a visit to the Hagley museum and a walk along the lovely (that’s 1 for you Cheryl!) Wilmington waterfront.

 

Since our day in Delaware, we have been visiting family on both coasts as well as the Midwest.  We spent a few days in Alexandria, Virginia with Bob’s brother Eric and his children before heading to Iowa, Wisconsin, and Nebraska to visit Beth’s mom, sister, aunt and uncle and Bob’s sisters and their families.  Some of the highlights of this portion of the trip (outside of catching up with family) include — exploring new monuments and memorials in the DC area (Beth and Bob), attending the Iowa vs. Nebraska football game (Bob) and watching Iowa win, hiking and seeing the fun holiday lighting festival in Rockford, IL complete with fireworks, ice sculptures, s’mores, and music (Beth). We have the best relatives ever, and are incredibly indebted to them for their continued hospitality during our wanderings.

From Omaha we flew to Seattle where Beth’s aunt (also godmother) and uncle picked us up and provided us with housing and hospitality for 2 nights before delivering us to our current house sit in the Green Lake area of Seattle (more on the house sit later).  It’s been a lovely (another drink for Cheryl) couple of weeks.  We have enjoyed seeing and sharing in the start of the holiday season with family.

Modes of travel for this portion of our travels — planes (American, Delta, Southwest), reserved car, buses (Greyhound, Vangalder, Megabus), metro, cars (both mooching rides from family as well as a rental car).

Bob and I have completed our quick tour of part of Italy.  Our last hike was in the hills above lovely Positano before we headed to Naples for 2 nights where we walked part of that bustling city and took a ferry to Capri to explore the island.  We spent our last full day in Italy traveling from Naples to Rome by train (about 3 hours) and then picking up a local bus to Fiumicino (the suburb near the airport), so we could make our Saturday morning American Airlines flight back to the States.

We can’t believe this European adventure is already over.  When we completed our customs and immigration form yesterday, we got to claim the most countries visited ever (for us) since we left the US — Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and Italy.



We are still loving life, as we hike and eat our way through Italy.  Our hikes have been about 10-12k, and we have both sun and rain.  See sample photos below of walks from Amalfi to Praiano, around Praiano, and from Praiano to Positano (where Bob may have gotten in touch with his catholic school upbringing along the Walk of the Gods which hugs the hills above the town’s with often nothing between you and some sharp drop-offs.



Today it is raining pretty heavily in Amalfi with a threat of severe storms, so we are inside hoping to catch up on blogging and some much-needed planning.  Yesterday, however, was perfectly awesome from our 5 hour hike to a lovely dinner at a local restaurant.  

Yesterday’s hike had us heading out of the town center and into the hills through a lovely section of lime and lemon (limoncello, anyone?) trees, near the ruins of old paper mills, and then into the little villages of Potone, Ravello, and Artrani.  Along the way, we hiked out to a great view(s) of the coastline, sea, and an old tower.  All gorgeous, and we were hugely impressed with the paved, stone walkways that hug the hills and which the locals were sweeping clean as we walked by.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

A few more happy photos —



Bob and I have wrapped up the European portion of our house sitting adventure (at least for now).  We had a quick transition with our Brussels home owners on Sunday after their return.  It was another lovely house sit, and we again feel blessed to have met a new set of friends across the pond.  

We are currently in the Campagna region of Italy for a self-guided hike along the Amalfi coast.  We landed in Naples on Monday after a 2 hour flight from Brussels.  The Brussels portion of the trip was a bit bizarre as the airport was having computer issues so very few of the gate assignments were getting posted.  We finally found a Belgian Airlines agent to ask who seemed unaware that gates weren’t up on the screen.  Other than that it was an easy flight with lots of scanning of electronic tickets and no checking of passports anywhere.  We grabbed a bus to Salerno upon our arrival and spent a day and a half their before a seriously twisting bus ride to Amalfi this afternoon.  I’m not sure what bus drivers make here, but it’s not enough.

The following are some photos from Salerno. 



While we have enjoyed walking around Brussels, we decided to take a day trip out to explore another city.  The last time we were in Brussels we had visited Antwerp and Bruge, so this time we decided to visit Ghent.  We really enjoyed it!  It is almost as charming as Bruge, but seems much bigger and a bit more varied.  It is a university town, but also caters to tourists with good walking maps as well as signage to city center and various landmarks.  As with Brussels, you could eat yourself silly here.

Based on recommendations from our homeowner and our own interests, Bob and I have explored various area of Brussels during our few days here.  We poked around the Sabon area and perused the many awesome Belgian chocolate shops.  We have browsed a few markets — the Saturday Flagey market, the Sunday Midi market, and the Wednesday afternoon/night market at the Place du Chatelain.  We had a great self-guided tour of the Parliamentarium on the European Parliament Brussels campus.  (There are also European Union offices in Strasbourg and Luxembourg.). We continue to be impressed by the 8,000 hectares (approximately 19,800 acres!!!!) of green space in Brussels.  Some random photos below.

We are well into our house sit in the lovely Brussels suburb of Watermael-Boitsfort — just down the road a bit from many of the foreign embassies. Prior to our home owners departing for a family wedding in Ireland, we were treated to a great dinner with most of the family.  We also met Scofie and Jingles (Jingy) the two dogs we would be caring for.

Getting to this house sit turned out to be an easier adventure than we had thought.  Last Wednesday, Our Souillac homeowners dropped us off at the train station there for our 4:45pm train to Brive, France.  This was a quick, 30-minute ride.  Once there, we had about 5 hours to kill before our 11 pm bus departure for Paris, so we explored a bit of the old city, had dinner, and walked about an hour to the bus stop.  Brive was a really cool, cute city — just another place we’d like to get back to.  The bus ride to Paris was a 6.5 hour overnight bus ride (our first) on the Ouibus line — a similar concept to the Megabus line in the US.  We slept about as much as we would on an overnight flight and then had a 3-hour layover in Paris (5:30-8:30 am) before boarding the next Ouibus to Brussels for a 12:20pm arrival.  The entire 2 legs of the bus ride for both of us cost a total of about $70!  Well worth it, as we had wifi access and plug ins for recharging throughout the trip.  In Brussels we walked to a tram stop from the bus arrival point to catch the tram to Boitsfort.

We typically use our first day of a house sit to get acquainted with the home/dogs/area and establish a daily routine for dog feeding, walking and playing and home care. Here we are blessed by being near a large forest where there are tons of trails for dog walks.  Bob and I visited Belgium in 2007, but this location is allowing us to see other areas and sights that we missed the first time as well as revisiting places that we enjoyed on our first visit.  We are also really enjoying real fall weather as well as the variety of mushrooms in the forest.  

See below for some initial, more traditional (sometimes) photos of our initial reacquaintance with Brussels.  More to come in separate blogs.

We can’t believe that our time in Souillac is nearing an end.  It has been a lovely stay.  We have enjoyed learning more about chickens (and having fresh eggs), and we have really enjoyed the two sweet, fun dogs.  Finn, the 8 year-old jack Russell mix has the spirit and energy of a much younger dog.  He also loves some cuddles and while he is off-lead on our walks likes to run ahead and then run back to make sure everyone is still together.  Diesel has the power of a horse.  You had better be ready to hang on if he takes a keen interest in something or you will learn what flying very close to the ground feels like!  He’s also a winning competitor (at least with Beth) in a game of tug-of-war with an old tire.  However, he is truly a big sweetie who likes to stay in bed longer than his older companion and is always good for some affectionate cuddling as well.

 

I’m not sure that we have done Souillac justice with our photos.  It is a great little town situated in a valley along the Dordogne and surrounded by hills.  The most eye-catching sights for us have been the impressive bridges as well as the views of the clouds in the valley from the house.  However, last Friday we walked into town for the Friday market and were very impressed with that as well.  (The other eye-catching moment happened one day as we were driving back up the highway from town and saw a woman out of her car along the side of the road taking the posted P sign literally if you know what I mean.  We had only thought it meant parking.  We didn’t photo that however.)

 

Tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon we will have our post-sit transition with the homeowners before taking a train to Brive, a town about 42k north of Souillac.  From Brive, we will begin a very long, slow journey north to our next house sit near Brussels, Belgium.  We first have a 6+ hour bus ride from Brive to Paris that begins at about 11 pm tomorrow evening and arrives in Paris at the lovely hour of 5:30 am Thursday morning. We then have about 3 hours in Paris before our approximately 4 hour bus ride that will take us into Brussels.  From the Brussels bus station, we will make our way to the metro to reach the suburb for our next house sit.  Our transition will be on Thursday afternoon/evening and our next house sit will begin on Friday.  Whew!