Travel – Our Adventures

01-04-2025: And We’re Off!

We’re going to Australia! We’ve been planning this trip for several months. One of the things we do since our more recent trips to Australia is to have monthly video chats with Louis and Margaret, Christine’s oldest and youngest cousins in Australia. We have established very close relationships with both. During our past trips, we’ve stayed with Louis and so he is our home base while in Australia. Our last visit was exactly two years ago in 2023, and since we’re all getting older, we’ve decided to visit again sooner rather than later. So we’re off to Australia.

Flying out of Binghamton in winter is always dicey. Although the weather forecast has been for just cloudy skies the day before and the day of departure, it snowed. We got about 4 inches yesterday and today. I guess Mother Nature wanted to remind us that we really are in winter, the cold snowy kind here in upstate New York, and not the sunny, hot kind of winter we’re heading to Down Under.

My brother Grant picked us up at 9:45am Saturday morning. We follow the suggestion of arriving at the airport 2 hours early. Our airport is under a massive renovation and it was kind of a mess. Two hours early meant there was no one at the ticket counter and no TSA staff of duty. So we waited in a cold hallway that’s under construction. Eventually, staff arrived and we were told our plane would be at least an hour late. Uh-oh! We have a two hour layover in Detroit before our flight to LA. An hour delay was doable. Of course, it wasn’t an hour, it was nearly an hour-and-a-half before pulling back from the gate. Gulp!

The flight to Detroit was uneventful. It was overcast all the way so I couldn’t take many airplane shots. But I got a couple.

We arrived in Detroit and moved swiftly through the C terminal to the tunnel to the A terminal. We love this tunnel, although we didn’t really have time to enjoy the changing light show today.

Of course, our departure gate was nearly to the end of one wing of the A terminal. We stopped and bought sandwiches on the way and arrived at our gate just as the plane was boarding, so that all worked out okay. Phew!

The flight to LA was nearly 5 hours. I don’t want to think about this being just one-third of our fight time from LA to Sydney. That’s what we have to look forward to tomorrow.

Once again, there was thick cloud cover until we got close to California. I love looking out the airplane window, but there wasn’t anything to see this flight until we were almost on the ground.

Whenever I see such a massive display of lights from the air, I always wonder what Thomas Edison would think if he saw the same view. It’s a pretty amazing site.

Amazingly, our luggage made it to LA and we retrieved our bags and headed to the bus stop that takes us to the area for taxis and ride shares. It’s in an area named LAX-it. A bus is supposed to come every 5 minutes. Not! We waited a long time, about 30 minutes, and watched many empty buses pass us by. When a LAX-it bus finally came, getting us and our luggage on it was not easy as it was pretty crowded. Christine got wedged into a seat with one of our small bags pushed up against her legs and pinching her into the seat. The ride was about 20 minutes all around the terminal. We got on the bus at terminal 3, and the LAX-it lot is before terminal 1, so we had to go the entire way around 8 terminals. Fortunately, since we were packed in like sardines, we didn’t have to stop at any of the other terminals to pick up other passengers.

I was going to order an Uber to take us to our hotel, but the Uber line was long. There wasn’t anyone in the taxi line, so we hoped right into a taxi. Our Hampton Inn is just a couple of minutes away from the airport and we arrived at about 7:30pm California time, and it was cheaper by taxi than it would have been by Uber. We were both exhausted and happy to be at the hotel, with all our luggage.

We ate our sandwiches,chips and cookies for dinner and settled in for the night.

Even though this photo was at the start of our trip, we both look tired to begin with. I should have taken another photo when we got to the hotel for comparison.

We both got some sleep, but awakened early. We’re still on Eastern time. That gave us an opportunity to see a nice sunrise this morning.

Now we have a long day, Sunday, as our plane isn’t until 10:30pm. We have to check out of our room by 1:00pm, but we’ll hang around the hotel lobby for a few hours. I don’t want to get to the airport too early because hanging out there, if we can’t check in several hours early, won’t be very comfortable. Christine has an errand on her agenda which involves a long walk to a store for a certain product she wants. Before walking that distance, she’ll call to see if the product is available. That will take up some of our time.

At any rate, we’re excited to be on our way to meet up with Louis and Margaret. We have another mini adventure awaiting us there as we are going to try and get ourselves from the airport to the Central Station by train, and then getting a train to Lithgow, where we’ll meet up with Louis and Margaret. That will be interesting!

05-07-2024: Train to Sevilla

Even though we had practiced getting to the train station, we both woke up very early and felt anxious about our timing. We were going to have a quick breakfast at 7:30, but we decided to just get to the train station and have something to eat there. So we were out the door on our way at 6:30.

Our walk to the train station with luggage in hand was not nearly as bad as we had anticipated. We’d go a few hundred feet and stop and rest. The route recommended by the hotel staff was so much easier than the way Google maps directed us, and we didn’t have too many rough sidewalks to contend with.

So, we were at the train station super early. We had a cup of coffee and a couple of croissants and watched the crowd of passengers coming and going. Eventually, our train was posted on the departures board so we knew we had to be on platform 1. I’m really glad we had our practice session yesterday because we then knew exactly where to go. And, we bypassed the slanted escalators and found the lift.

Next, we had to await the assignment of our platform. I don’t know why we had to go up a level for the entrance because then, to get to the actual train platform, we had to ride a rather steep escalator ramp down. Christine was having great anxiety about this because we had a rather riotous event once in Amsterdam that involved what we thought would be a typical escalator with moving steps, but it turned out to be a steep downward moving ramp. Unprepared and surprised by this, luggage went rolling down the ramp and Christine nearly tumbled down herself. But getting down to the train platform today was a non-event and I was able to hold all the luggage and Christine held on to the railing herself.

We found our seats on the train and prepared for departure. What a nice way to travel, an electric bullet train. It was so quiet and smooth. The trip was supposed to take about 2-1/2 hours, but we were nearly 30 minutes late into Seville.

I enjoyed seeing the scenery. Nearly all the trip was through rural areas. I learned the major crop in Spain is olives and we surely saw a lot of olive trees. This was mostly during the first half of the trip. Spain produces 40% of the world’s olive oil, which was surprising to me. The closer we got to Seville, the major crop changed to orange trees. However, the oranges from this area are not used for juice or fruit because they are bitter. They are mostly used to make marmalade and also some type of liquor. At any rate, the scenery was beautiful.

We got to the Sevilla Santa Justa train station and figured out where to get a taxi. Our ride to the hotel was about 20 minutes. We are staying at the NH Sevilla Plaza de Armas, a big modern hotel that is near the Quadalquivir River which is the only navigable river in Spain. There’s actually a Port of Sevilla. One can sail to the Gulf of Cadiz and the Atlantic Ocean from Sevilla. I think both Columbus and Magellan began their voyages from Sevilla.

We were surprised that there was no Roads Scholar greeter at the hotel. We didn’t know how many participants had signed up. In talking with the reception at the hotel, he suggested I check my email for a message from the group leader. Sure enough, there was a message from Lucia Gonzalez and we learned that we were to meet in the lobby at 6:00pm for our orientation.

We unpacked and then went off to get some lunch and walk around the neighborhood. The receptionist recommended a restaurant called Las Piletas. We had tapas and drinks and loved our choices. Then we wandered around for a bit. What was really amazing is that the Jacaranda trees are in bloom and so the streets and sidewalks are littered with purple petals, everywhere smells heavenly, and the trees are loaded with purple blooms. It’s really beautiful.

We walked in and around an old train station that is being renovated and turned into a shopping mall. It’s also a location for a McDonald’s, the nicest looking McDonald’s I’ve ever seen. The place is called Plaza de Armas.

In the last photo, that is a Bugs Bunny statue at the dome. I’m thinking it is related to the cartoon “Bugs Bunny at the Symphony” where one of the pieces was the “Rabbit of Seville.” This Plaza de Armas has a movie theater in it so I think this is why the statue is up there.

We rested a bit and then went to the lobby to meet our group leader and group. There are 12 people in the group and so we made introductions and got to know one another a bit. Everyone seems nice and we appear to be well-suited. This was the first Road Scholar for several of us, and then there were a few veterans, with the most being 6 trips, I think. Lucia is quite a character. She’s very Spanish, very demonstrative. She has a throaty, low voice and she’s quite funny. She’ll be our mother hen for the week and will make all the arrangements as we tour around. Although this is called an independent study where there is a lot of free time built into the schedule, it seems as though most everyone would like to stay together and take Lucia’s lead on where to eat, what to see, and to, etc.

After our orientation, we walked to a restaurant, which just happened to be Las Piletas, where Christine and I had eaten lunch. This restaurant is a monument to bullfighting and every inch of the walls are covered in bullfighting memorabilia, including the heads of 3 famous bulls.

We had a fish dinner of what we think was sea bream. It was a very nice dinner and we were able to get to know some of our group a little. Lucia is very talkative and had a lot to say about life in Spain, and we got into a bit of politics, including what’s happening with the Trump trial. One of our group is a retired white collar crime fraud attorney, so he was reviewing some of the testimony and giving his opinions about business fraud. A couple in the group were not happy with the politics talk so we’ll see if Lucia will change anything in her presentation.

We all walked back to the hotel and everyone was tired. Many arrived from the U.S. today. We’re lucky to have already been in this timezone because we don’t have to deal with jet lag. We’ll see how people are in the morning.

So, we’re in Sevilla, and looking forward to learning about this fascinating place.

05-05-2024: A Travel Day

We were pretty much all packed before we went to bed last night, which made for a more relaxing start to a travel day. We had breakfast in the hotel. We have been really pleased with the hotel, the Hotel San Francesco. It worked out really well in terms of location and it was great having the restaurant for breakfast and some dinners. The staff were all great, so two thumbs up for the hotel.

We ordered a taxi to the airport and holy cow, did we set a land speed record. A 30 minute trip was over and done in about 15 minutes. I peeked at the speedometer and saw we were going 145kph, which is about 90mph. It was kind of scary because all the taxis were in the passing lane, all bumper to bumper, going 145kph.

We had an easy time getting checked in and getting through security. They seem so much more reasonable in Europe. The best part is we didn’t have to take our computers out of our bags, a godsend, for sure.

A funny thing in the airport was I saw a poster of the Spanish Steps. Since we didn’t get to them yesterday during our sightseeing, I took a photo of the poster, so here are the Spanish Steps.

We flew Iberian Airline from Rome to Madrid, a 2-1/2 hour flight All the announcements were in Spanish, Italian, and English. The pilot gave a long talk about our route, in all 3 languages. We flew over Sardinia, Majorca, and Ibiza. I love taking airplane photos, so here are some I took.

We had again checked our suitcases rather than struggle to get them on the plane. I don’t mind checking bags on a direct flight when we’ve gotten to the airport in plenty of time. Our bags were practically the first ones onto the carousel, lucky us.

Then to a taxi for the ride into Madrid. Well, this taxi driver gave our Rome cabbie a run for his money. While we didn’t hit 145kph, we zigged and zagged through traffic both on the highway and then in central Madrid. It was rather frightening. The taxi driver didn’t really know where our hotel was. He dumped us out on a main street and said that no cars were allowed on the street where our hotel was. He pointed us in a direction and told us to walk. That was kind of awful, not knowing where the hotel was and having to drag our luggage over brick sidewalks. I put Christine on a bench in a square and went down around the corner to look for the hotel. Fortunately, it wasn’t far away and we were able to get ourselves to the hotel without too much trouble.

Our Madrid hotel is called SleepN Atocha. It’s a quirky place, but the staff are super nice and got us checked in and one young woman escorted us to our room. Our room is small, but comfortable and has a little Juliet balcony. There are are number of eateries in the pedestrian walkway below and around the square up the street.

We settled in and rested a bit. Then we went in search of an early dinner. We’ll have a bit of a challenge with our meals in Spain because dinner starts at about 8:00pm. Lunch is typically tapas from about 2:00-4:00pm. We’re not late dinner eaters so we’ll have to figure out how to work around normal Spanish meal times. Today, we settled in at a nice trattoria and had a pizza. I know, we’re now in Spain, not Italy. But it was convenient to the hotel and we were tired and just wanted something to eat.

We ended our travel day early, so we were tucked into bed by 8:00pm. Tomorrow is our one touring day in Madrid so we’ll have to make the most of our time here.

04-17/18-2024: And We’re Off Again!

A few months ago Christine said she wanted to go back to Malta. While she was thinking of Malta, I was pouring over the Roads Scholar catalog reading about the many trips advertised. I don’t know why, but something about Seville, Spain caught my eye. After pondering over both our desires, we decided to do both, with a visit to Rome also added to the itinerary.

I spent quite a while researching and planning this winter and I put together what I think will be a wonderful trip. We’ll start in Malta, then go to Rome, then hop over to Madrid and then on to Seville for our Roads Scholar course. The trip will be four weeks. So come along on this, our next adventure!

My brother Grant picked us up the morning of April 17 and dropped us off at the bus station in Binghamton. We took the bus to Port Authority in New York City. We made our way to the 8th Ave./42nd Street subway entrance. This was not an easy 2 block hike. We managed to pack just a carry on suitcase each, but then proceeded to fill up a hand luggage bag that each weighed nearly 20 pounds. So we were loaded down. But, we did manage to get to the subway schlepping our luggage down the stairs to the subway platform. The next challenge was getting through the turnstile with the luggage. It was one of those metal circular cage things and the space wasn’t really enough for a body, a suitcase, and hand luggage. I burned up 4 swipes of our MetroCard to get through the turnstile. We got on the E subway, which was another challenge. The car was very full with no available seats. Several very nice people helped hold our suitcases from rolling down the car while we tried to keep from falling over. Eventually, two people got off and a nice man protected the vacant seats until we could get seated. We had help from a woman keeping our hand luggage from toppling off our suitcases. It was actually pretty funny – two old ladies heavy laden trying to deal with ourselves and our luggage. Everyone was very helpful, and quite cheery about helping, as well.

We got off the subway at Sutphin Ave. and walked a short distance to the JFK AirTrain, and then managed to get to Terminal 4 without much trouble. After all this, we needed a sit down, but finding chairs in the cavernous Departures terminal was challenging. Christine finally asked someone where there was a seating area and we were told where to look. Thankfully, we were able to sit down and rest for a while.

We boarded our flight to London Heathrow without difficulty. Departure was delayed about an hour and I was sweating bullets because we only had two-and-a-half hours in London to make our connection. So the later we were leaving JFK, the more I feared we’d miss our connection. The flight was uneventful, although, we didn’t sleep much. The pilot made up some time and we landed just a little later than the ETA. I thought we were going to take a train to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4, but after walking what seemed like 4 miles down very long hallways following signs to Connecting Flights, we found ourselves at a bus stop. This worked out great! There were only 4 people on the bus and we transferred to Terminal 4 in about 20 minutes, and so all my fretting about missing our connection was all for naught as we arrived at our gate about an hour early.

Our flight to Malta was uneventful, but we were delayed by about an hour departing from London. We were flying KM Malta Airlines, a new airline that started April 1, taking the place of Air Malta. I had read in the Times of Malta of a concern that the airline would not require their staff to speak Maltese, but all of the announcements were first in Maltese, and then in English. Maltese is a really interesting language, a smash up of Italian and Arabic.

We then landed in Malta and we were both very happy to be in lovely Malta again. Getting off the plane was a trial for me because as we were deplaning, Christine was having trouble getting herself and her luggage down the center aisle of the plane. When I passed by the crew at the doorway, I asked whether someone could help her. I went down the exterior steps (no jetway at Luqa Airport) and waited at the bottom. Several minutes later, Christine hadn’t come down the stairs yet. I went back up into the plane looking for her and the crew said that everyone had left the plane and that Christine had gone down the stairs. Well, she hadn’t, so I was concerned. Crew waved me into the terminal and I was waiting near the immigration desk. A staff person came over to ask if he could help me. I explained about Christine. He suggested that maybe she was coming in the wheelchair contingent of passengers. Before long, a lift vehicle arrived. This vehicle is one that has a platform that raises up to the level of the airplane and allows wheelchair passengers to get on and off the plane. And there was Christine getting off the vehicle. I was very happy to see her!

We then took a taxi into Sliema. Our Airbnb host said he’d be waiting for us. It was lovely to see so many familiar things driving from the airport into Sliema. The address of our Airbnb was listed as 240 Tower Road. The place we have always stayed was 264 Tower Road, so when we discovered that place wasn’t available, we looked for one in the same neighborhood. We were standing outside 240 for quite a while. Eventually, a young woman arrived and told us that we needed to go around the corner to a different building. Our building is Howard Flats and it’s not on Tower Road at all. But fortunately, the Airbnb photos were accurate. This is our view from our 7th floor balcony.

We settled in at our one bedroom apartment and then walked over to Peppi’s Restaurant (one of our favorites) to meet Christine’s 2nd cousin Carol Farrugia and her daughter Francesca. It was nice to catch up with Francesca because she and her husband are leaving for a motorbike tour of France and Italy so this was the only opportunity to see her. Like dumbbells, neither of us thought to get a photo, although we had planned to do so, but the conversations were so interesting, that we forgot. Carol and Francesca had drinks with us. After they left, Christine and I ordered dinner and enjoyed a salmon salad and a seafood starter that had great mussels, shrimp and clams.

So, by now, it’s 9:00 in the evening. Malta is 6 hours ahead of home, so that means that we had been traveling for more than 24 hours and had been awake for about 36 hours. I was absolutely exhausted and spent no time at all getting into bed. But, we did enjoy the view from our balcony for a few minutes.

Tomorrow will be a day of rest. The weather forecast is for high winds tomorrow so we aren’t planning anything.

11-15/19-2023: Goodbye Deeny; Autotrain

On our trip back to Deeny’s from Lehigh Acres, we encountered rain, and then it rained all the next day. This was a Godsend to this area as there has been a considerable drought. It also gave us a day of resting and lounging about, also a good thing.

On Thursday, we visited the Clyde Butcher gallery. We have been to the gallery one or two times before, but it is always a joy to soak in the phenomenal photography of such an artist. Butcher’s specialty is black and white wilderness photography of the Florida landscape. He’s spent a great deal of time standing chest-deep in swamps in order to capture the perfect moment of water, vegetation and sky. Here’s a couple of photos taken from Wikipedia and the internet.

Butchers photos are printed in a gigantic format, covering an entire wall in some cases. You can stand looking at a photo and feel yourself pulled into the landscape. Butcher was a friend of Ansel Adams, who likewise specialized in large-camera, black and white work, mostly in the West. I wish I could afford one of his prints, but they sell for thousands. Even the smaller reprints cost hundreds, so I’ll just have to be satisfied with copying images from the internet. A real treat on today’s visit was that the darkroom was open for viewing. All around nearly the entire perimeter of a very large room were enlargers, and one very, very big enlarger/printer took up the entire middle of the floor. When I say large, I mean prints of 5 by 7 feet. It would be very interesting to actually watch the enlarging and printing process.

After visiting the gallery, we drove over to the Casey Key jetty. There’s a break in the barrier island allowing boats to get into Robert’s Bay where there are many marinas. Unfortunately, the south jetty got damaged by Hurricane Ian over a year ago and has been closed, but it’s still fun to look out over the water. There was a group of Snowy Egrets nearby and one came over to have its picture taken. Their yellow feet are so cool.

Later in the afternoon, George and Lorraine stopped by to say goodbye and wish us well on our trip home. It was nice of them to take the time to come see us.

Friday we spent considerable time getting organized and packing, preparing for our departure tomorrow. But the highlight of the day was going to the Venice Symphony’s concert. The group is celebrating its 50th anniversary. They perform in a beautiful, new auditorium, the Venice Performing Arts Center. Deeny took us to see the symphony a couple of years ago. They had just hired a new, dynamic music director, Troy Quinn. We went to the pre-concert talk to learn about the pieces, which was interesting, especially learning that Berlioz wrote the Symphony Fantastique under the influence of opium. That little tidbit certainly explained that wild work. We heard a wonderful horn concerto by modern composer Eric Ewazen played by Andrew Bain. I really enjoyed how lush the string orchestra was. It was a beautiful piece. And that Berlioz symphony was quite something!

Saturday, we sadly had to say goodby to Deeny. I hate goodbyes! We had such a wonderful visit. Deeny is facing some possible heart surgery and she is also contemplating a possible move back to Allentown, so she has some serious issues ahead. We hope to be a support network as she navigates through some challenging decisions. We love you, Deeny!

We set off on a 3+-hour drive to Sanford, FL to board the Amtrak autotrain. Unfortunately, the drive took about 5 hours as there was a huge slowdown on the highway that added nearly an hour. Apparently, there was an accident that brought traffic to a near standstill. I was getting nervous about arriving in time. There was a deadline for arrival for boarding cars. After the slowdown, we encountered further traffic slow downs all through Orlando. It was nerve wracking! But we made it to Sanford in time. I made a mistake, though, in not checking in upon arrival. It wasn’t until boarding that there was an announcement that boarding passes were required to enter the train. I went up to the counter to check in and learned that we would be getting our dinner served in our roomette, but not until 8:30. Amtrak has changed all the food service on the train. We heard that there were about 460 passengers onboard and about 280 cars. With all the car carriers, the conductor said the train was 3/4-mile long.

We settled into our roomette, a rather small room with two seats facing each other and a pull out table in-between. We departed Sanford at 5:00pm. We still had some daylight left so we could see things as we rolled by. I got a nice sunset picture when we were passing by a lake.

At bedtime, the porter comes to turn the two seats into a lower berth and pull down an upper berth. With the beds made up you have about 8 inches of space in which to try and change into your nighties. And then, there’s the challenge of getting into the top berth. Guess who got to do that??!! There isn’t enough headroom to actually sit up in the upper berth, so you have to step up on a storage area and essentially throw yourself up into the berth. But what I was dreading was the middle of the night bathroom trip, climbing down out of the berth in the dark and then throwing myself back into the berth again. At any rate, everything worked out just fine. We actually had a pretty good night’s sleep. The gentle rocking of the train was quite soothing.

Sunday morning we went to the cafe car for breakfast. That was nice because you could see out both sides of the train so we saw more scenery. As we got closer to Lorton, we passed over the James River near Richmond and then we were near the Potomac River for the last hour of the trip.

We arrived in Lorton at 10:00am Sunday. It’s a nice station, which is good because you have to be there waiting for your car to be unloaded. There’s no rhyme of reason to the unloading, so they announce the car numbers as they roll out of the car carriers and are brought to the front of the station. We were fairly lucky in that our car came after only a 40-minute wait.

Then we set off for home. It was one of our longest legs of driving, a little over 5-hours. There was a lot of traffic around Washington, DC, but once we got into Maryland, and then into Pennsylvania, the traffic thinned out. Route 15 through Pennsylvania is quite beautiful, traveling up a wide valley with the Catoctin mountains to the west. And then finally onto I-81. It was a long trip, but we arrived just after dark. We were very happy to be home.

This has been a very lovely trip. We saw and did so many wonderful and interesting things. I don’t regret choosing to drive to Florida because it gave us an opportunity to explore areas that we haven’t seen before. We feel very lucky and blessed to have the ability to travel. However, home is the best!

Stay tuned for our next adventure.

11-06/09-2023: Arriving in Florida

I’m a little behind in posting so I’ll try to catch up a bit. We left Brevard on Monday, November 6. One of the things I dislike is constant interstate driving. So, our GPS, whom we refer to as Gigi, actually plotted a route that took us through secondary highways. I love getting closer to the countryside and being able to look at houses, yards, and what’s going on in small towns. Gigi did not disappoint! Our route ambled through South Carolina into Georgia, where we stayed Monday night in Augusta. Tuesday, we ambled through Georgia into northern Florida, where we spent the night in Lake City. I think in those 2 days we were on a bit of interstate for about 20 minutes. And both days provided a lovely drive through the rural south.

We drove past thousands of acres of cotton, just ready for harvesting. The thick cotton tufts looked so nice across the fields. Once harvested, the cotton is rolled up into these gigantic bales and carried off to wherever cotton goes. Along the road are dribs and drabs of cotton spillage from the large bales. At one point, we stopped to try and scoop up some cotton, but the road was narrow and what little traffic there was made it a bit dangerous to park along the roadside.

The secondary routes passed mainly through farmland, but into southern Georgia we came to timbering country. We rolled by thousands of acres of Southern yellow pine groves and lots of logging trucks. I didn’t realize that Georgia and northern Florida were such big producers of timber. And clearly, the logging companies are into renewables. As we drove along, each mile had groves of trees of differing ages. You could see a clear cut area, followed by 3 foot tall saplings, followed by 10 foot tall young trees, and on down the road until we saw groves ready to be harvested. The other crop that was very prevalent was pecans. We saw lots of pecan groves with straight lines of trees rolling across the low hills. We really enjoyed these two days driving through the countryside. It was very pleasant and very interesting. And the price of gas in South Carolina was $2.69 a gallon! When we left Binghamton, I paid $3.89. Gas is routinely lower priced in the southern states than in New York. Even in Florida, the price is just a couple of cents over $3.00.

On Wednesday, November 8, it was back on the interstate for a 4-1/2-hour drive from Lake City to Venice. We arrived at our friend Deeny’s mid-afternoon. We were glad to get there and be off the road.

On Thursday, we spent the day doing laundry, catching up with Deeny and settling in. Thursday evening, we went to Sharky’s for dinner. This is definitely a tradition for us. Venice Beach has a long pier and Sharky’s (and it’s neighboring more upscale Fin’s restaurant) is a real draw. It’s always crowded, especially if dinner is around sunset, which it was for us. It was a fantastic evening to be out strolling the pier and enjoying a good meal at Sharky’s. Being with Deeny is always wonderful, but doing our “traditional” outings with her makes it that much more special because we have good memories from the past to share and are making more memories to share in the future.

01-10/14-2023: Off to Australia

Happy New Year! We’re celebrating the new year by traveling “Down Under” for a visit to the Aussie cousins. We are traveling from Elmira to Detroit to Los Angeles, with an overnight stay, and then on to Sydney. My brother Grant drove us to the Elmira airport. We were lucky with the weather, as traveling in January may mean snow, but it was essentially cloudy but clear. We’ve been having a mild winter so far, so we were relieved to be getting out of both Elmira and Detroit. We had no problems at all with our flights, which is nice. And being able to sleep in a bed before our very long flight to Sydney was a blessing. However, figuring out how to get to our hotel in LA was a bit of a challenge. Taxis and Ubers are not permitted near the arrivals area so we learned you have to board a shuttle bus and travel about 15 minutes to get to the area for taxis and Ubers. Even thought our hotel was less than 2 miles from the airport, it didn’t provide a shuttle, which irked me, but we did manage to get a taxi to the hotel. The shuttle bus to the taxi area was longer than our ride to the hotel.

Wednesday we had a late checkout of the hotel, but it was still way to early to get to the airport, so we hung out in the lobby of the hotel for a few hours. We eventually got an Uber back to the airport (much less expensive than a taxi!) and managed to navigate through bag drop off and security without much fuss, although trying to check in using the required kiosk was a no go and we got sent to assisted check in. We often don’t do well with kiosks, so I wasn’t surprised we got sent to the flunked automatic check in line. Our flight was only 15 minutes delayed and at about 9:15pm we were off to Australia on a 15 hour flight, ugh. The flight wasn’t too bad, although sleeping was difficult. We make sure to get up and walk up and down the isle every couple of hours. The airplane was totally full with 306 passengers on board. Quite mind boggling, really, to think of all of us, and all our baggage, in a relatively small space high in the air.

We arrived in Sydney at about 7:15am on Friday, skipping over Thursday. It’s hard to get our heads wrapped about the date/time flying across the International Dateline. We’re 16 hours ahead of Eastern time. Cousin Louis had sent a message to us about pick up arrangements, but we didn’t receive it in the air and only saw it when we landed. Instead of Louis, cousin Gloria and her husband Alex were waiting for us. It was lovely to see them. They drove us to Richmond where we were meeting up with Louis, cousin Margaret and her daughter Clare. Where we’re staying with Lou is in Rylstone which is about 3-1/2 hours away so Richmond is about a third of the way. Margaret and Clare were getting haircuts there so it was a good rendezvous spot. Alex and Gloria were so nice to have volunteered to pick us up. They are wonderful people, always giving and helping. We had a good time catching up with them driving to Richmond and waiting for Lou.

We met up with Lou and waited a bit more for Margaret and Clare. Here’s a group photo that Alex took while we were waiting.

By the time we were on our way, it was after noon. We stopped in Windsor so Margaret could do some shopping. Lou, Christine and I wandered around the pedestrian mall. Windsor is quaint and has a lovely historic district. One of the things I love is all the beautiful wrought iron railings on the historic buildings.

Here’s a great picture of Lou and Christine.

We then set off to Lithgow for a late lunch and then headed to our final destination, Lou’s home in Rylstone.

Rylstone is a small, rural town. It is very quaint. Lou’s place is absolutely wonderful. It is in a pastoral setting. He calls it his Shangri-La, and it is that. He is very happy in his new home. I’ll show more of Lou’s home in a later post.

We had a long day and managed to stay awake until bedtime, which I think helped us with our jet lag. The next morning, we took a walk with Lou. He walks into town most mornings at 7:00am and goes to a cafe for a cup of coffee.

Banjo, Lou and Christine taking a morning walk

Saturday was to be a day of rest, but Lou got a call from his nephew Darren (Gloria and Alex’s 2nd son) and he asked if he could come for dinner. Lou had already planned one of his special baked dinners for Saturday night with Margaret, Clare and Daniel, so it wasn’t much extra effort to add a couple of more people. And so late in the afternoon Darren, wife Selina and their 2nd daughter Rachel arrive. That livened things up considerably. It was a wonderful evening full of stories and a lot of laughing.

Margaret, Clare, Lou, Rachel, Darren, Selina, Christine, Linda and Daniel

So we’re now settled into our home away from home with Lou and looking forward to our time here.

10-19/20-2022: Final Day in Israel; Off to Athens

This is Wednesday and our final day with Carol and David in Israel. Tomorrow we fly from Tel Aviv to Athens. I can’t believe how fast 16 days has flown by. I’m already saddened to be leaving.

Today we spent time doing laundry and getting organized. Later in the day we packed. In between, Carol walked us around the kibbutz on our way to another small museum housing many artifacts dug up on the kibbutz as buildings went up. The most significant finds all went to big museums. David showed us a display case in the Museum of Israel of stuff that came from Mishmar HaEmek. I was pretty impressed by the collection remaining at the kibbutz. It told a story from paleolithic times through more modern times.

It’s amazing to me how in a dig many shards of broken pots are found and then are pieced back together again. When we went up to the first mosaic site, Carol was constantly looking on the ground trying to spot ancient coins. Many were displayed in a case in the museum. Eron said that he had found several coins in the woods near the place where we went to see the second mosaic. Apparently, that area was an army encampment of soldiers of King Herod and there were many items recovered from that site. At any rate, it was very cool seeing things recovered from essentially underneath where we have been standing.

Mishmar HaEmek has about 600 apartments that are grouped into neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are by the age of the buildings. Eron and his family are moving into a new apartment in a neighborhood being just completed on the kibbutz.

It is interesting to see the various neighborhoods. Some of the oldest apartments are being totally renovated, some even torn down. Assignment of apartments seems to be done by seniority so that the oldest residents of the kibbutz get the larger, newer apartments. David, who has lived on the kibbutz his entire life, except during military service and for one year in the U.S., said that the apartments used to be only 44 square feet in size. Now, the newer larger apartments have 3 bedrooms. Most of the residential buildings are two apartments, typically side-by-side. Some of the older ones are up and down. One of the nicest things around the kibbutz is the vegetation, lots of flowering shrubs and trees. It’s really a lovely place.

Eron , Dana and two of their girls came for dinner. They wanted to say goodbye. We have so enjoyed getting to know all the family. Christine and I are so taken by how lovely they all are. It is so nice seeing a close, loving, and supportive family. And to David and Carol, our heartfelt thanks for a fabulous visit.

We were off early Thursday to the airport in Tel Aviv. We arrived in good time, about 3 hours ahead of our flight. Carol walked us in to the terminal and steered us to the right check in queue. We said our goodbyes, always a teary thing for me. I just love Carol. She is a wonderful woman, and a real hoot.

We made it through check in, passport control, security, and immigration in good shape and found our departure gate. After a 90 minute wait, we boarded the plane to Athens. We were all ready to push back from the terminal when the captain made an announcement in Hebrew. Most everyone on the plane gave a loud groan and many stood up and started getting things out of the overhead compartments. Since the pilot’s message was not translated to English, we didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t look good. We managed to get enough translation from surrounding passengers to learn that the plane would not be able to land in Athens on schedule so we had to wait another 35 minutes before taking off. Apparently, the Athens airport is very small and has a capacity issue. At least the flight wasn’t being canceled which is what I thought was happening.

About an hour and fifteen minutes later, we were in the air. We had a smooth, two hour flight. As you may recall from other trips, I love airplane pictures, especially coastlines. We flew over a lot if Greek islands, too, that looked cool from the air.

Because we were delayed, I worried that our hired car would not be waiting, but once through passport control, immigration, baggage pickup, and custom, our driver was waiting for us with Christine’s name on a tablet. We rode about 40 minutes to Piraeus where the cruise terminal is. On the way, we had some fantastic views of the Acropolis, which brought back great memories of our time in Athens with Eve in 2018. We got checked into our hotel, the Triton Hotel, and settled in for the night.

Sad to be leaving Carol and David, but excited to begin the next part of our trip. We’ll be boarding our ship Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow, we’ll wander around the hotel neighborhood and see some sights.

05/23-24/2022: Homeward bound

After a night at the Hilton Rome Airport, we learned of a much easier way to return to the airport than the route we took to get to the Hilton. We even found a trolley along the way and, since we knew the drill for checking in, we were at the Delta line pretty quickly. The one concern was about the COVID test requirements for a test taken the day before travel, but after a bit of discussion with the agents, showing a boarding pass from yesterday (don’t throw out a boarding pass if your flight is delayed/cancelled!), and a copy of the test results from 5/21/22, we got checked in. Then through Security, passport control, and immigration and then the long walk to the departure gate. We kind of felt like pros, having done all this yesterday.

We boarded the plane on time. The plane was essentially 60% empty, the whole last third of seat rows vacant. Our assigned seats were in front of two children who kept sticking their feet into our seat backs. Christine nicely asked them to not do that (yeah, right) and so we asked if we could change our seats. We did, and then lots of people started moving to the back of the plane. The lead flight attendant was not happy since now passengers were spread out all over the plane, but that’s the way it goes. We were delayed a bit pulling back from the gate and during that time there was a banging sound coming from underneath the plane producing some anxiety, but we eventually departed.

The flight was fine and we landed at JFK. We cleared immigration, retrieved our luggage and then set off to find the AirTrain to take us to the hotel shuttle pickup area. That was all accomplished easily. Thank goodness for trolley carts, however, in the rest of the world that we explored trolley carts are free. Not so in the U.S., to my consternation, but I forked over $6.00.

We got checked in to the Hampton Inn and had a restful night. We were having breakfast and Christine had a little incident. She was trying to open a cup of fruit cocktail, and in pulling off the foil lid, she was also apparently squeezing the plastic cup, so when there was an opening in the foil lid, all the juice squirted up into her face and all over her torso. Yuck! A sticky mess ensued and Christine was quite upset. We got that all cleaned up back at the room and then set off for our next travel challenge, the NYC subway.

We took the shuttle back to the AirTrain station at Federal Circle at JFK and rode it to the Howard Beach station. That AirTrain is a great service, especially since it nicely connects to a subway route into Manhattan. We mastered our MetroCard reload, had a challenge pushing two suitcases through the turnstile while trying to get our bodies through, but soon we were seated on the A Train. Nineteen stops later (about 45 minutes) we were wandering around Port Authority trying to find our way. A guy, who we first thought had an official role, asked if he could help us. He nicely escorted us to an elevator telling us exactly where our bus would be departing from. He, we and another man were in the elevator. After pushing the floor buttons, the door closed and nothing happened. Both the men were pushing buttons trying to get the doors open. Nothing happened. The other guy pushed the emergency bell and then he called the emergency number to report that we were stuck in elevator P1. He said this happens all too often. Someone on an intercom said help was on the way. We heard noises on the other side of the door. The door was being pushed and at one point, a couple of fingers were seen trying to pry open the door, but the door wouldn’t open. Eventually, after more pushing and whatever else they were doing, the elevator started to move and we were on our way to the 4th floor. We were awfully glad to get out of that elevator. The man escorting us talked with a bus person to confirm our gate and then he asked for a tip. Okay, I had been had by a very clever fellow who must spend his day picking out confused people to escort so he can get a tip. I gladly gave him a dollar.

There was just a bit of commotion prior to our departure when the driver showed up, had some kind of a loud disagreement with a bus attendant and stormed off. The driver came back shortly and said we would be departing from a different gate so we all trudged down to another gate. We boarded and were soon on our way. There were about 30 people on the bus and I think 25 of them got off at the only stop the bus made, Monticello. It seemed like many of them were regular route passengers. Before long, we arrived in Binghamton and our friends Eve and JoAnn were waiting for us. It was nice to see friendly faces.

So, after 6 weeks of travel we arrived home happy, tired, and very grateful. We had a wonderful adventure, one that I’m sure we’ll be processing for weeks to come. One of the reasons I do this blog is for us to remember all that we did. You can’t imagine how often we look something up on the blog to jog our memories. But again, I appreciate you, dear readers, for being with us and especially those of you who comment. We revel in your reactions, thoughts, ideas, and comments. So, thanks.

And to give you some anticipatory information, our next big scheduled trip is in October. We have a cruise booked starting in Athens with stops in Cyprus, Israel, and Santorini Greek isle). Pre-and-post travel has yet to be planned, so stay tuned.

05/22/2022: The joys (not) of travel

We awakened at 4:30 a.m. for last minute packing and putting the apartment in order. Our eCab was waiting for us at 5:30 as scheduled and off to the airport we went. At that time of day traffic is very light so it only took about 15 minutes to get to the airport. Our flight from Malta was to Rome and then from Rome on to JFK in New York.

Once in the terminal it was pandemonium. The queues for every flight departing that morning we’re lined up. You have to look at a big board showing what line you’re supposed to be in and about 20 flights were all in the same row. There were hundreds of people. We waited patiently in line and in about 45 minutes we were at the check in counter. We were told that we had to retrieve our luggage in Rome and re-check in with Delta. Rats!

We left Malta pretty much on time. For the first few minutes it was lovely seeing Malta, Comino and Gozo from the air. Then we settled in for the flight and landed in Rome in about and hour and 20 minutes.

If I thought the Rome train station was confusing, the airport is worse. Arrivals come in Terminal 1. It seemed like we walked 5 miles to get to luggage pickup. Along the way, you have to scan your passport and then go through immigration where you again get your passport scanned which opens a little gate and then you have to stand on a marker and get your photo taken which then opens another little gate that allows you through. Christine had a little trouble with that and was stuck in between the gates for a while until the camera got a good photo. We collected our luggage and then couldn’t figure out which way to go. Fortunately, we were able to snag a trolley to tote our luggage. We managed to find someone to ask how to get to departures. He kindly pointed us in the right direction with very specific directions that he made me repeat back to him. Off we went outside terminal 1 towards terminal 3, another long walk.

As you would expect, the Rome departure terminal is huge. Again, you look at a big board to find what check in row you need. At least it was by airline and we found Delta where a couple hundred people were queued up. We joined the line. During the wait they had agents asking for the COVID test report and checked passports so that by the time we got to the counter, the check in and luggage drop off was relatively easy. So that went okay and we were off to security. What a confusing mess that was! There were no clear instructions anywhere so we weren’t sure how to proceed. Some lines had agents yelling at everyone; our line barely had anyone to ask what the protocol was. And all the bins for putting your stuff in were jammed up in a long line. Of course, because we travel with computers and iPads, all that has to come out of backpacks and into bins. It was hot and frustrating, but we finally got through security and into the departure terminal.

And of course, right into the duty free shops, which I swear was the biggest, longest duty free I’ve ever walked through. Once through that, it was another 5 mile walk to the gate area. Our backpacks weigh about 25 pounds and so with those slung over a shoulder or on a back, it gets very tiring. We decided to take a break and have a cup of coffee and something to eat. We found a place where there were tables but all the chairs were taken. I managed to snag one chair and sent Christine off to get our food and coffee. Everyone was doing what I was doing, looking for chairs. As soon as it appeared someone was leaving, a swoop of people rushed over. Fortunately, the people right next to me started to get up and I asked that when they stood up, could one of them push their chair in my direction. Nicely, they did just that and Christine and I had a cappuccino and a little nosh, both seated.

We then walked another long way to find our departure gate, E22, of course at the end of the concourse. At least we got our exercise for the day. Our Delta flight to JFK was scheduled to leave at 12:30 with boarding starting at 11:45. That time came and went with an announcement that departure time was pushed back to 1:30. Then another announcement that departure time would be 2:30. Then another announcement that departure would be 3:30. Uh-oh! Not a good omen. Finally, an announcement came that the flight was canceled. Yikes, now what?? I had a Delta app on my phone and had received a notice about the cancellation and it gave me an option to re-book. I saw that there were several available options the next day so I knew we could probably get to NY tomorrow. The bigger issue was where to stay tonight.

I have a Hilton app on my phone so I quickly started looking for Hilton hotels near the airport. Within a couple of minutes, the Hilton Garden Inn was booked up. The other Hilton brand options were not near the airport, but there was a Hilton right at the airport. I quickly made a reservation via the app. So with a room reserved, I then re-booked our flight.

We had to go pick up our luggage, but didn’t know where, but knew it was probably at baggage claim. Christine had heard something about carousel 10 so that’s where we headed, another seemingly 5 mile hike. We had to once again go through entry immigration into Italy since we were leaving the secure area of the airport. Once at baggage claim, confusion and pandemonium as everyone was kind of in the same boat of fretting about hotel rooms, re-booked flights, and where’s my luggage. Christine spotted our bags, fortunately. So, we had luggage, a room (hopefully), and boarding passes for a flight tomorrow. So now we had to get ourselves and our luggage and backpacks to the Hilton, which supposedly was a 5 minute walk (not). Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a trolley so we had to set off pushing and pulling our luggage with backpacks on. A consultation with Google maps gave us an idea of where to head.

Along the way, I did spot a trolley and quickly ran over to retrieve it. That made our trek to the Hilton a lot easier. Of course, the airport doesn’t want their trolleys to leave the premises, so there are barriers along the way. We decided to try and navigate our way through many parking ramps and managed to get lost and turn the wrong way. Christine flagged down a car coming out of a ramp and a very nice guy pointed us toward the Hilton, which we could now actually see. The parking ramps all had exit barriers bars and were just at the height to block the trolley from going through. We finally figured out that unloading the cart enabled us to get the trolley under the bar by lifting up the front of the trolley and pushing the back down under the bar. Scofflaws we are! We did this a couple of times and finally raced across a busy street to get to the Hilton entrance. We did have to abandon the trolley at the edge of a parking lot on one side of the street before our dash across, but we arrived at the Hilton where, as we expected, there was a queue for check in. I wasn’t 100% sure our reservation would actually get us a room, but thank goodness, it did. We were so very relieved, totally exhausted, very sweaty, and pleased as punch to be at the Hilton (I’ll fight with Delta later to see if they will reimburse at least something for the high Hilton room rate). We even got a coupon for 2 drinks at the bar, complimentary bottles of water, and free breakfast in the morning. Nice!

A funny thing is that sitting in the airport waiting for our departure to JFK, I had just clicked check in to our Hampton Inn at JFK when they announced the flight cancellation. Since I was already checked in, I couldn’t change the reservation on the app. I tried calling the hotel from the airport, but the connection was bad and all the number prompts weren’t working and I couldn’t hear what was being said. Once in the hotel room at the Hilton, I called again, and after a little finagling, I managed to get the Hampton to switch our reservation to Monday night. Hopefully, we’ll get there. I also was able to change our Megabus reservations to Tuesday from Port Authority to Binghamton. Let’s hope all the new arrangements come to fruition.

We rested a bit and then went down to the restaurant for dinner. It was quite busy and so we had our drinks in the bar waiting for a table. I think Hilton is very smart to have limited seating in the restaurant and asking everyone to wait in the bar until a table is ready. I’m sure they make quite a lot on their bar business by doing that. Hilton prices are pretty expensive, Christine’s Aperol Spritz was 13 Euros and my bottle of Schweppes lemon was 8 Euros. Good thing we had a coupon for complimentary drinks. We had a nice dinner and shared a Greek salad and lasagna, the smallest portion I’ve ever seen, but very yummy.

So what a day of challenges. I’m very happy that I had a working cellphone, thanks to an Orange Holiday SIM card that has carried me through the entire trip even though it was all in French and I had a French phone number. But it worked and Google Translate got me through all the messages and instructions for making the thing work. Traveling means having to put up with things happening and adjusting. But, it’s all my fault because early this morning I said to Christine that we had been relatively lucky with our travel and that with very minor exceptions, a couple of missed trains and the delay in getting into the Naples train station, everything had worked out well. Then I said, I shouldn’t have said that because I probably jinxed us. Indeed I did. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.