TRAVEL WITH US
Paris was fantastic. We’ve heard and read so much about it, but it exceeded all of our expectations. It is visually stunning, its people are cool and sophisticated, and the food is sublime. We especially loved its parks – ideal for families with wild toddlers.
We’ve only had a few days there and we did all the cliche things: Eiffel tower, crepes, Notre Dame… Will definitely be back for more.
Aug 25
Recently Reddit and Russian blogosphere were discussing world’s biggest tourist traps. Rome, Athens, Venice, and Paris were topping the list. Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Cape Code were the American cities on the list.
I haven’t been to every place on the list, but I have been to many. And I cannot say I was utterly disappointed with any particular place. Every really popular place will suffer from having too many tourists: smell of urine, garbage, overpriced food… But if you live like a local – off season, live in an apartment, walk around town slowly, talk to people and make friends – every place will offer its charms.
Take Hawaii, for example. When I first got there, I thought it was very overrated – muggy, hot, crowded, terrible and expensive food. But once I got outside of Waikiki and ended up living in Honolulu, I fell in love with the place, its people, and yes, its food. Same could be said of Paris or Venice, or any other place.
The most popular post on this blog is “Top 5 regrets of dying people.” I didn’t fully realize it at the time, but living your life now rather than delaying it is so true. Here in Vegas, we became friends with our neighbors. They are amazing, lovely people. Unfortunately, the husband neighbor was just
Since we have an incredible luxury of living in Paris for six weeks, we got to explore every imaginable attraction accessible to us and our kids. Our favorites so far: 1. Musee D’Orsay. By far, the friendliest Paris museum for kids. Incredibly beautiful art, gorgeous building. The infamous clock on the top floor. There was
So, we are returning to US a lot sooner than anticipated – at the end of next month. A tenant renting our house was diagnosed with a terminal illness and moved out. We bought another property which needs some work. Life is calling us back. Instead of going through Belgium (for chocolates and beer), Tuscany,
Since sabbatical started, we were able to learn a lot more about things that are not producing money but that do make our lives richer and more interesting. So I was excited to find out that Met has put up their entire 400k collection online. It also posted beautiful videos by the curators, discussing their
We are very happy here in our small Irish cottage, cows and all. Based on our experience in different settings so far, the best homes for a sabbatical, have: green surroundings, like campo near the house in Spain or lush emerald Irish fields; terrace or a small yard for alfresco dining; walkable area to explore
Since we have been doing our sabbatical for ten months now, we are making some conclusions. One of them is that our kids benefitted tremendously from this experience. For a background, our older son is 13 and the younger one is two. From the outset we anticipated that the little one will benefit the
Last weekend we made a failed but very educational attempt of renting a car in Dublin. Since renting a car in US is a relatively straight forward proposition, we reserved one in Dublin airport for a sweet price of $10/ day and went over to pick it up. Several frustrating hours later here’s what we’ve
Since we are in the middle of our journey around Europe, we wanted to share some accumulated tips. Some may be obvious and others are not so much but each came in handy as we planned and implemented the trip. Be very selective about the destination. Generally, you already have criteria for choosing the right
