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Moving Overseas with a Dog: Presley’s Journey from North Carolina to Italy
When my fairytale started, we decided up front not to move my dog, Presley, overseas – for a number of reasons – none which seem significant in the scheme of things now. One of the reasons includes the fact that I had been on many flights where a dog cried the whole time. It was traumatic and seemed torturous to do that to an animal. I was also naïve about how dog-friendly Italy is and ignorant of the fact that I needed my little man in my life. Before Stephen came along, it was just me and Presley, for 2.5 years through relationships and breakups, schoolwork, late nights, and my…
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Edinburgh, Scotland: Castles, Lochs & Highland Cows
Arriving in Edinburgh, Scotland is like taking a step back in time. Everything from the architecture, the homes and castles, to the red telephone booths and old-timey taxis. The miles and miles of lowlands are just as beautiful as the miles of city streets of downtown Edinburgh. It’s a castle lover’s dream and a shopper’s paradise. You’ll find something for everyone to do here. I fell head over heels in love with Scotland – a place like I had never seen before. Even the downpouring rain couldn’t stop the liveliness that I felt during my weekend visiting this country. Back in the summer of 2017, I took my students abroad…
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Summertime in St. Moritz, Switzerland
Fresh mountain air, blue skies, snowy peaks, and a wide variety of outdoor summer sporting activities. You’ll find all of this and more in the lakeside town of St. Moritz, Switzerland. With only a four-day weekend, we wanted to stay somewhere within driving distance of home. We hadn’t explored very much of Switzerland, so we packed up our bags and headed northwest to escape the agonizing August heat of Italy. The first thing to note: Switzerland is expensive. The currency in Switzerland, CHF (Swiss Francs), is basically equivalent to 1 USD. However, everything is double to triple what it usually costs us. It’s not like staying in a campground in the…
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My 10 Favorite Podcast Series
Lately, I’ve become infatuated with listening to podcasts. Why?? Well, for someone who lives in a foreign country, it’s not easy to find a radio station that has a lot of English songs on there. And I spend a LOT of time in the car. I mean A LOT. Driving my husband to work, running errands during the day, picking him up from work, and then road trips on the weekend. We used to do a lot of scrolling through channels and it just got to the point that it was frustrating. So I started downloading podcast series to listen to. Now I listen when I’m cooking dinner, when Stephen…
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Balkans Road Trip Part 2: Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
The first four days of our Balkan countries road trip were mostly spent in Croatia, which wasn’t necessarily by choice, but instead due to the fact that we were denied border entry so many times. Luckily, this gave us more time to fall in love with the country, the people, the food, the sea, and everything else in Croatia. If you haven’t read the first post from our Balkan countries road trip, head on over there now by clicking here and then you can return for the second leg and pick up reading below! This part of our road trip went by way too fast as we had a lot of…
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Road Trip Through the Balkans: Snorkeling, Camping & Sunsets in Croatia
2 weeks. 14 days. 13 nights. 13 different hotels/campgrounds. 3,342 miles (or 5,380 km). 11 countries. 6 different currencies. 2 rental cars. Stephen, myself, and the pup. That’s our road trip in a nutshell. I’m a numbers-loving person so those are the facts, but there was so much more to this road trip, so much to write about I hardly know where to start! Well actually, let’s back up a second and talk about how we chose this trip. When Stephen found out the dates for his 2 weeks of holiday leave, we talked about it a bit and decided that we didn’t really want to fly anywhere because we…
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Whitewater Kayaking in Italy
When I think of kayaking, I think of a nice, slow ride down the river. It brings back great memories with my family and friends in North Carolina. But since living in Italy, we’ve had a hard time finding any information on where to go river kayaking (also known to some as whitewater kayaking). When I first googled kayaking in Italy, all that turned up was information about kayaking through the canals of Venice, along the Amalfi coast, around the island of Sardinia (which we did and you can read about here), or on lakes like Garda. But, I wanted more information on where to go to put my kayak…
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A Review of Italy’s Recently Opened “Bike Path” on Lake Garda
When an article appeared online about a bike path opening up along Lake Garda (Lago di Garda), I was all for taking the following Sunday to head up there and enjoy a nice day by the lake. The article, which I won’t name specifically for obvious reasons, considers this bike path one of the most spectacular in Europe. It goes on to say that it’s a 2 km stretch (although I wasn’t sure that could be correct), took 2 years and 7 million € to complete. That’s a lot of time and a lot of money. It’s gotta be worth it, right?! Well, let’s find out! On Sunday, we loaded…
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Naples, Italy: First Impressions
Let me preface this post by providing you with a little background knowledge of my travels that I have to compare to Naples, Italy. Within the United States, I have been to too many places to name, so for now, I’ll name the relevant ones – Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Washington DC. In Europe, however, our experiences have been with mainly eco-friendly countries – Norway, Switzerland, Austria, just to name a few. When we visit a new country we seek out the mountains, lakes, and smaller villages. But, I’m a Paris fanatic, a lover of Rome, and I find Venice fascinating. Basically, I tell you all of…
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A Life-Altering Climb
FYI: writing this post has not been easy. I have written about it. Deleted it. Written it. Deleted it. Too many times to count. I struggle between sharing it and keeping it to myself. We have told no one about this, yet. Nothing but good and supportive comments have ever come out of my writing and truthfulness, so here it goes. At dinner that night, I sat across from my husband with tears in my eyes, and I asked him, “how do I ever explain this to someone? How do I put into words this experience in a way that anyone could ever understand? How do we tell our friends…
