but very tasty lean brisket - better than Rudy's lean, IMHO- with paper "plates" and white bread, at a NYC restaurant called Hill Country. :) Rudy's BBQ Sause is better, though.
John and I have been talking about going to New Zealand since we met. For our 10th wedding anniversary, we decided to go BIG, and go there for three weeks - I mean, when you fly halfway around the world, you need enough time to adjust so you can enjoy the trip, right? We wanted a way to see lots of things in a short time (and not have to drive it all ourselves). John came across the Sir Edmund Hillary Explorer Rail & Coach tours. So that took care of the south island, but there's so much to see on the north island, including Hobbiton ! For a small country, NZ sure has a lot of "highlights." There's a link to my google photos at the end of each day, starting with Friday. Week 1: North Island Adventure We left Austin on March 2, and because we crossed the international date line, we missed March 3 entirely and arrived on Tuesday, March 4 . :) I booked our Auckland hotel with points, thanks to a special deal from Chase in January that offered a 70% bonus when I tr...
Well, we did it. We rented an apartment! We were going crazy in the tiny Vrbo, so we were extra glad to get out of there a day early. Those of you who were playing along with the "House Hunters International" game: we ended up renting the 3BR version of apartment #4 ( see previous post ). Was that your guess? Here are some photos and a quick video (sorry if you get a little motion sickness, I sped it up by 2x!) It took four trips to get everything moved - one by Uber black ($) another in a taxi (that we hiked a few blocks to catch) and two on the metro. We stopped and bought a wheelie grocery cart after the second trip, so I filled that with the non-fridge stuff and it was pretty easy to move - although I wish I'd looked for the metro elevators more closely - too many stairs to bounce up/down! Once we got everything moved and enjoyed the central air for a while 🫠, we unpacked and started laundry. I washed the new sheets but they're still a little... crunchy. ....
Phew. Made it to Barcelona, reunited with my sweetie. Hooray! Of course, the Universe decided to poke me a few times along the way, to see if I was paying attention. [Picture: my two ~50lb suitcases and one giant duffel, plus my non-wheeled carry-on. Yes, everything has a luggage tag from SC!] My plane was leaving at 9:20pm from Dulles. It had been pouring rain on and off all day, so we tried to make a run for it between rainstorms around 4:30pm. Unfortunately, so did everyone else in town, so we sat in traffic for an hour just to get out to the Tyson's area. [The traffic was made worse by the Presidential motorcade, which came out just as we hit 18th & Pennsylvania Ave. I made sure to blow some raspberries in his general direction. I might have also waved a few select fingers...] It was about the time that we got to Tyson's that I realized that I had left my medication (and the handy little cold-pack travel case I bought for it) in the fridge at the house. ARGH. Mom sa...
Comments