Neil & Derek have aways wanted to do a Football Weekend – College on Saturday and NFL on Sunday- but could never do it because we were playing or coaching.
This year is different – neither of us are. We started looking for games and weekends that’s would work. The best was the end of November in Seattle – Oregon Ducks at Washington Huskies and Minnesota Vikings at Seattle Seahawks. Now that Ben is a Vikings fan, we decided we should invite him – better yet let’s surprise him.
Lora needed to be involved. Getting Ben removed from his busy schedule, without him knowing would be a tall order but we forged ahead. Everyone at CLC knew but kept quiet. With Ben coaching the interns on their speaking coming up the Friday of our weekend, the schedules of half a dozen people had to be changed.
Lora discovered in the first few days that Ben’s passport had expired – he would need a new one. After looking at the alternatives, (it’s not really possible to get someone a passport without them knowing) we realized we had to had to get his help in getting the passport. Lora told him he had to get his passport photo and he is not allowed to ask any questions. Ben later said he assumed that Lora was planning a trip for the spring because she wouldn’t plan anything until after the new baby arrived.
The passport was to arrive on November 29, the same day we were scheduled to leave! Yikes!
We made it home after a tense hour or so when there were 9 seats and 11 standbys. We barely made it and were not seated together but we squeezed into the last seats.
Ok here is the trip by the numbers. We did, in 20 days:
10 km biked,
182.2 km walked,
211 km Sailed
80 km driving
~ 50 km Scooter much of it around in circles
262,142 of Neil’s Steps,
233,949 of Colleen’s Steps but she didn’t take her phone many days
255 Flights of stairs,
7 Air BnB or Hotel rooms,
3 Metro rides,
3 Bus rides,
3 Cab rides,
4 Train rides,
7 Tours – 3 Rick Steves and one other audio tour
4 Flights
18,233 km Flying
8 beaches
4 caves
7 swim the lines
24 Blog posts,
6 New friends
And we were reunited with the long lost AirTag!
Colleen and I have been discussing about the kind of travellers we are. We saw many couples our age who were travelling around without a tour group. We realized these are probably the same people who, like us, did this in the 70s and 80s. Now we don’t have to stay in hostels (they don’t call them youth hostels any more). We all stay in Air BnB or VRBO homes instead. We are a little older and a little more picky than we were (€100 per night doesn’t cut it anymore) and we have some baggage in addition to our carry on. This was the longest vacation we have taken in 30 years! I think the last one was in 1983 when we backpacked around Europe. Although we were mostly in Greece, we did see three countries and the island hopping and sailing made each stop feel really unique. The detour to Strasbourg was a real highlight too. I always enjoy the stress of navigating new places, languages and customs. Colleen is always right there making sure I don’t go off too far in the wrong direction chasing after some new experience. As always we enjoy hanging out together and are happiest when we get to our destination with time to sit and watch the people go by. We wouldn’t choose to experience life with any one else!
This morning I got up early as the workers were arriving at work. There goes the baker with his tray like always, the same old bread and rolls to sell. Every morning is the same, since the morning that we came to this poor provincial town.
Bread and cheese and coffee for breakfast. We set off the morning with a few things to do – coffee at a cafe, check out the train platform for later, check out the boat tour and check out luggage storage. We ended up not going on the boats as they were all booked. Something strange happened here over night – it is like it exploded with people. Then, the bells started – all the bells in the whole city went for 15 minutes at 9:15, 10:15 and 11:15. It was so loud you couldn’t talk. Colleen can’t hear me at the best of times – she says I mumble, I say she needs her hearing checked. It’s probably both – we sound like our parents.
The food places all were open as usual, but none of the shops. We finally asked – it was the ascension holiday. Then the people started arriving – by tour bus full. Tour bus people feel like cruise ship people only in smaller groups and they were everywhere. We hadn’t anticipated the crowds today so everything was booked. We kind of wandered around looking for Belle. No luck but I’m sure we saw her house.
The Cathedral in Strasbourg is also called Notre Dame. When it was built it was the tallest building in the world. When we arrived this morning the fire department was there – not for a fire, but for a photoshoot. Colleen was hopeful that they would take off their shirts for the photos but disappointedly it was only for fully clothed firefighters.
We had a sit down lunch and watched people and then went back for the train journey to Paris – the next leg of the trip home. The train ride was uneventful. I put the bags up above but on the other side of the train where we could see them and I locked them together. No repeat AirTag story today.
Our airport hotel tonight is the CitizenM hotel. It is really funky. The rooms are tiny – only slightly bigger than our room on the boat. The shower and toilet are a unit made of frosted glass. Not very private. Everything is red and white. All the lights and blinds are controlled from an iPad – we can change the color of the lights in the shower. There is even a colour matching game to play – with lots of distractions.
Tomorrow it is off to Calgary. At this moment we are standby number 4 & 5 and there are 11 standbys and 9 open seats. Hope we make it…
This is a cool town – . We did our AirTag bike ride and a 3 hour walking tour. Colleen has been really great all vacation – It is amazing that she was hardly walking before we left.
The name Strasbourg is pronounced “Straws” “Boor” (like poor). It is really French with a huge Bavarian background. It doesn’t look like the war touched much – probably this was taken by Germany very early in the war as it is right on the border
There is a canal that goes around the whole main old town. There are bridges every few blocks. There are a couple sets of locks to go up and down the waterways.
I keep marvelling at the infrastructure in Europe. The tram system here is very modern. These towns with old buildings have the most modern transportation – trams and metros. I don’t know how they can afford to build these things. We can’t even get an LRT to the airport. They have these old buildings and the super modern bike lanes and bikes.
Here is my blog from then. Feel free to skip to the present day if you know the story from last year.
Me Roberon la maleta en el tren
OK, It’s been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple days. I’m writing this on May 4th at 8pm. (Happy Star Wars Day!).
As I was writing the last blog while sitting on the train, someone was stealing my suitcase from the overhead shelf above me. As we were pulling out of the station at Sant Celoni (about 1/2 way from Barcelona to Girona). He reached up behind us when we were not looking and grabbed the bag and stepped off the train. I got a notification on my phone that my bag was no longer with me. Huh! I looked up and sure enough the bag was not with me. I’ve read to not put stuff up there as it is so easy to grab and get off the train leaving the owners on the train. I looked on my FindMy app and sure enough the bag was just outside the train station.
Maaan! I feel so stupid! We got off the train at the next station which was 30 minutes later. We talked to the lady at the train station and the next train wasn’t for another 30 minutes. She called a taxi for us but he was even longer. The bag wasn’t moving so we decided to go back for it. It was only 2 pm so we had lots of time.
By the time we got back to Sant Celoni the bag had started moving again – this time down to Barcelona. We have been able to watch it take a different adventure from us over the last day. For the last 24 hours it has pretty much stayed put (last seen 6 minutes ago!).
The bag really only had clothes in it. All my valuables (electronics, chargers, meds, toiletries were with me in my backpack).
Remember how Colleen and I always laugh that the last 10 years, all of our travel photos have us wearing the same clothes… well – problem solved.
We spent yesterday from 4-9pm finding the mall and various stores so I could buy clothes to cycle in and some underwear and socks to wear.
I look good now!
In addition to finding clothes we visited a couple police stations (they have local and regional police and each time we talked to them we needed the other one). We finally talked to a nice police officer who was getting coffee at our hotel and she gave us great directions for tomorrow morning. In my journal from our trip to the south of France in 1985, about 100 km from here, I noted that the police were only good at giving directions then too. (We had our car broken into and our bags stolen then too!)
I guess the lesson learned is don’t bring clothes, you are going to have to buy them when you get there anyway. While Colleen, was very smug about not putting her bag on the overhead shelf on the train, we note that she is still wearing the same clothes from 1985…
Tomorrow – Cycling…
May the Forth Be With You (Girona)
May 5, 2024
Now that’s more like it.
So Yesterday was a bit of a pain. Running around trying to do a whole bunch of stuff we didn’t want to do. I had to shop… There is a reason I’m wearing the same clothes for 10 years.
Today I got up and headed to the police station by 8:30. It was only a 15 minute walk. It took about an hour to get the police report done (for insurance). No one appears to interested in going to Barcelona to get the bad guy or retrieve the bag. We’ll have to go look when we get there. I looks like it might be in a bush next to an apartment building. Maybe it’s in a dumpster.
May 9, 2024
Today was pretty much a travel day. I got up to watch the sunrise and read and then at 7:30 went down to get coffee. Now I remember a rule – don’t send the guy with Parkinson’s down to carry cups of coffee up two flights of stairs before the meds kick in.
We drank our 1/2 cups of coffee on the deck over looking the beach and then went down to have breakfast with the rest of the crew at 8:30. We left at 10:15 by taxi for 6 people, and then got on the fast train from Figuries to Barcelona, We had finally decided to rent a car in Barcelona and drive south toward Alicante. The rental place was across the street and picking up the car was easy. We got a Fiat 500.
We decided to drive over to where the AirTag has been living in the hopes that it would be somewhere we could find it. The GPS didn’t work in the 4 stories down rental car parkade, but I thought it would kick in as we pulled out of the garage. It didn’t. I pulled out of the garage into the busiest traffic (around 1 pm at the main train station). It was crazy. There was no where to pull over. There were 6 lane traffic circles with busses and motor cycles not following any particular rules. At the biggest circle I just kept going around the circle until I could figure out how to change lanes to the outside and exit the circle. I just headed north or east until I found a street I could pull over and get the GPS coordinates from the AirTag into the GPS on car play on the car.
You know the scene in every Amazing Race episode where something goes wrong (usually while driving) and one of the people in the couple is very animated and loud and the other just keeps driving because they don’t know what else to do. We always yell at the TV to just pull over and figure out where you are going. Well it may not be the easiest thing to do.
Once we got there, it was obvious the AirTag and suitcase were not on the street. I had a quick look in a couple of dumpsters but was not prepared to go wandering around low income housing by myself. Afterward I thought I should pay a teenager to go into the building and find the AirTag. Maybe when we come back next week.
Jump to present day – May 2024 – May 2025
I has been kind of fun watching the AirTag (with my bag) go on its merry way across Europe. After giving up on the bag in Barcelona, I have continued to watch it over the next year. After about 3 weeks in Barcelona, the tag got on the move. It traveled up the coast from Barcelona, mostly on the freeway. It would get a hit any time there was a truck stop. It left Spain and continued to travel North and inland, passing through Paris and finally arriving at a town called Strasbourg in around September. It was inside an apartment building at 24 Rue Marcon. In the winter some time the AirTag moved from inside the building to a spot outside. I assume the new owner of the bag got tired of the iPhone warning that there was an AirTag following them. They threw it in the bushes behind their parking spot.
There it has sat for the last 5-6 months. It is near to a little green area between bike paths. People ride or walk past quite frequently as the app says it was last seen every 30 -40 minutes. I often joked that I should hop on a plane and go look for it.
A couple weeks ago, the Amazing Race went to Strasbourg. That got me thinking again. When we were planning our way back from Greece, I found a cheep direct flight from Athens to Strasbourg. We even got it on points! So here we are in Strasbourg. The Find My app says we are about 6 km away.
This morning we went for a bike ride. We followed the Google route from the FindMy app location. This town has really embraced the bike, but the ancient infrastructure, slippery cobblestone and funny angled streets and the waterway that goes around the old city made it less than a straight ride. We rented bikes using the bike app – Velhop – only 1.2 Euros per hour.
The ride was supposed to be 30 minutes each way but all the back and forth made it about double. Google had real troubles finding a good route.
When we got to the spot, I felt like I knew the place. I have been wandering around this area for the last 6 months on Google Maps.
While I was crawling around putting my hand through the fence and using a stick to dig to where the sound was , a lady stopped and was curious to see what I was doing.
Her expression is priceless as I explained in a mixture of English, French, Spanish and “Ellie Speak” that I am here from Canada to pick up this little white circle.
From Port Leone we went south around the tip of Maganisi to some huge caves – Think the end of the Goonies. We got the dingy out and went inside to see. Unfortunately the treasure had been taken away already.
We then went west across to a Silvota on Lefkada for lunch and then back across the straight to the North end of Maganisi and the Port off Little Vathy on Meganisi. I’m not sure how two ports within a couple hour sail of each other ended up with the same name …
The next day we tried to sail again across the ionic sea. In the middle we stopped at a shallow area to swim and fish and have lunch. The water in the Ionian Sea is so deep the depth sounders don’t register. At this little spot the sea bed rises to about 5 meters. Josh was hoping for fish again. Instead of catching it he bought it from a guy on the dock. He says he can look at the dead fish’s eyes and tell if it lived a healthy life. We had it for lunch.
At some point early in the week the zipper at the rear end of the sail bag ripped off. I volunteered to sew it and Josh tried to find a needle and sail mending whipping thread. He finally got some on the last day but I only had a couple hours to work on it. Starting at the attached end so it wouldn’t rip further, I hand tied each knot so it wouldn’t come apart further. I had to sew through two layers of thick canvas and two layers of plastic cloth with just a needle and I used the reel from the thread as a palm needle driver. I did this while standing on the seat at the aft end of the boom. I was facing the folded sail and my face got fried! My sail sewing augur would have made quick work of the job but I only got about 1/3 of the way before I had to stop while we were underway.
We arrived back at the TradeWinds base and started the sad job of packing up our stuff and preparing for our last night on board Gratitude. We went for dinner across the bay (5 min dinghy ride would have been a 2 hour drive).
The last night on board was squeaky again. I don’t think I mentioned that the joint between the bed and the boat made a loud squeak with any movement. I stuck a piece of paper in between and fixed after the first couple nights but someone (likely Abigail while cleaning the room) removed the paper.
The next morning we had our last breakfast band were off the boat by 9am. We said good by to the crew and we all went off on their own travels back to reality.
After saying goodbye to our sailing friends we took a taxi back to the Lefkada bus station and caught the bus from Lefkada to Athens. The 5 hours was long and pretty cramped but was better than driving as we originally planned and there was not much to see. Corinth was a big industrial city. All along the way most vertical surfaces had graffiti.
Corinthian mountain
We grabbed a taxi from the train station. The driver didn’t know where our place was and asked me to find it on my phone. I had troubles getting it working as I didn’t have data at the moment. When I finally got it, he took my phone in his left hand and crossed himself multiple times with his right hand every time we passed a church (in Greece, there is a small dollhouse sized church on the corner of every lot.). He had to cross himself multiple times almost every block. I’m not sure who was driving all this time. (Perhaps Carrie Underwood knows).
He dropped us off at the spot on my phone but we couldn’t see anything that looked like an apartment. We wandered up and down the street until a man sitting on a chair at his jewelry shop asked if he could help. It turned out the door was right where he was sitting. We had the three sets of codes to get into our place on the second floor (up 3 flights of stairs). We dropped off our stuff and headed out to get our bearings in Athens.
We were right in the middle of the tourist walking area of Athens. There are 4 million people in Athens and about 4 million tourists all here too. What a contrast from living on a boat anchored at a small cove with one or two other boats nearby, to being crammed into a small street (wide hallway) with people, venders, stands with stuff to sell and restaurants to coax us into. It wasn’t really unpleasant – just a huge contrast.
Changing of the guardArch of HadrianFind Neil
Yesterday we toured the city with Rick Steves – it took 2 hours and we stopped at our room for a rest part way. It is a wonder that anything is standing – Athens has been conquered by essentially everyone who passed by so many times.
Odeon of Herodes Atticus
The Acropolis (high city) isn’t the highest point in the city but it had a big plateau to build things on. It is a long hike up a lot of stairs and switchbacks. We actually did the hike to the ticket booth twice – saved 20 Euros buying it at the ticket booth instead of on line, but had to book it for later in the day. We picked 5 pm so we would be there just before sunset. It didn’t take us the full 2 hours to do the Rick Steves tour. The most impressive building is the Parthenon.
Shadow Selfie
I find it fascinating that they purposely made all the pillars bend inward and thicker in the middle so it wouldn’t look crooked with the large rectangular structure seen along the long lines. More about it here if you are interested.
After our tour we made our way back to the apartment for a little rest from the crowds and then back on the street to get some sunset photos of the Acropolis. We ended up walking around the whole Acropolis with me promising it would only be 15 minutes to get home by continuing around rather than retracing our steps back.
Find Colleen
We were back home by 10 – in under 15 min as promised ready for tomorrow.
Here is an interesting observation about Colleen and I. Outdoors, I usually know my way, what direction we came from and what direction we are going. I rely on the sun and the shadows mostly. I have a harder time when it is cloudy. Colleen pays attention to the details – she can easily find her way in a new mall as she knows the shops and the sights along the way. Sometimes we disagree on the way to get to the next spot. These little disagreements usually end with “I told you so…”
On Tuesday morning we got up early to catch our 10:50 flight to Strasbourg, France. Why Strasbourg France? Well it’s a long story.
It deserves its own post. In short, my suitcase with an AirTag was stolen in May last year. I have been able to track it while it took its own vacation across Spain and France to Strasbourg where it has been for the last few months. Tomorrow we go to finish the story on my little adventurer.
Coopers Travel Adventures 