It was two years ago today that we last slept in our own bed.

All of this foolishness started in the Spring of 2021 when Sue’s friend Suzanne, who lives in France, was appalled by the cost of our rental in Maryland. She cavalierly said that we could rent a nice little house near her in a little village called Clamecy for about $500 per month. Sue was smitten with the idea. I didn’t pay too much attention until I asked Sue, how convinced are you that we should do this? She came back with 80% and I thought, oh shit. She really wants to go. (I really love to explore and really did not want to stay in Edgewater.)

We decided to start with a six-month trip once our lease ended. One month in Clamecy, two months in Nice for the fall, back in the U.S. for Thanksgiving and three months in Morocco. We booked our trip, made our work arrangements and hoped that it would all work out. Memorial Day weekend (on a trip to New York) we received another call from Suzanne – her friend in Paris was looking for a cat sitter for the month of August. Tough job but someone had to do it.

We revised our plans (the first of many changes) to leave a month early, put all our stuff into a storage locker, spent a week with our wonderful granddaughter and her parents, parked our cars at my sister’s house in Pennsylvania and with two suitcases, three computers and a couple of backpacks, turned our backs on having a home and started the great foolishness. 

In the past two years we have:

• visited eleven countries on
• four continents (although just barely in Asia)
• traveled about 60,000 miles
• by plane, train, bus, car, tram, subway, funicular, bicycle, boat (Sue’s favorite) and most of all by foot.
• hiked in the French Alps and on Chilean volcanoes.
• watched a glacier calf
• played dead person bingo with everyone from Jim Morrison to Karl Marx to Eva Peron
• picnicked on a Roman aqueduct
• took a cooking class in Rome
• celebrated the King’s birthday in the Amsterdam
• bought baklava from the same place as Michelle Obama
• experienced the one of the longest days of the year at 70˚ South
• saw pyramids, mosques, temples, churches and more museums that we can count
• celebrated my mother’s 85^th birthday in Brazil (So many thanks to Vitor, Alexia, Alice & Lucas for being wonderful hosts)
• saw the magnificence of human ability and then how insignificant they are in comparison to the grandeur of nature
• went from sea level to 14,500 feet
• watched the Argentina World Cup quarter final crammed into an Argentine bar
• went to a football match in Brazil, baseball games in Mexico City, the Argentine Open polo tournament in Buenos Aires and most importantly – lucha libre in Guadalajara
• danced until 4 a.m. in Buenos Aires and watched the sunrise over geysers
• floated in a salt pond and hiked in a salt flat
• saw the stars of the southern hemisphere at 10,000 feet in a crystal clear pitch black desert – awe inspiring
• had the most amazing steaks (that was only me) in Argentina (Marco – the Argentine steaks are the best in the world!) and Brazil (Vitor – the Brazilian steaks are the best in the world!)
• found out that adding olive oil and ground pepper can make chocolate mousse even more amazing
• ate street food in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Istanbul and Amsterdam (freshly made stroopwaffles!).
• ate bugs in Mexico – twice (Sue)!!!
• drank local wines in France, Italy, Argentina, Chile and Turkey (won’t try that one again)
• drank Belgian beer in Belgium, Argentine gin in Argentina, pisco in Chile, limoncello in Sorrento, tequila in Tequila and mezcal in Oaxaca
• ate Vietnamese food in Paris, Mexican food in Turkey, Japanese food in Mexico, Indian food in London, Italian food everywhere and everything that was not nailed down in Chicago
• listened to jazz in Turkey, blues in Mexico City, watched a ballet at La Scala and saw Springsteen in Houston
• visited Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the southern hemisphere and the Mediterranean from both France and Italy
• Studied French in France (Sue) and Spanish in Mexico, Argentina, Chile (all Sue) and remotely (both of us). A huge thank you to Marcela our incredibly patient Costa Rican Spanish teacher
• not very happily, learned to count to 15 in Italian, because our trainer thought we should always do 15 reps of everything instead of 10 (ciao, Angelo)
• learned that if you know please and thank you in the native language and smile, people are usually willing to help you
• met so many interesting people and made so many new friends – all of whom we hope are reading this blog
• found out that you need an enormous amount of patience because stuff goes wrong and sometimes you just need to shrug and say OK, time for a new plan.
• laughed and laughed and laughed. Sometimes at the situation, sometimes at the insanity of the rules, sometimes at the difficulty of doing simple things and always at ourselves.

I can’t think of a better person to do this craziness with. Steven is unflappable and always up for a new adventure.

Year three is our long stay year. We are spending the next four months in Washington, D.C., followed by six months in Valencia, Spain (with many side trips already planned in our imaginations).

This also does not include the trip I took with my fabulous nephew Jake to Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon.

2021:

2022:

2023 (so far)

We hope you all enjoy our blog.