July 2018: Monthly Roundup

I can’t believe it’s August! As of August 1, 2018 we are officially halfway through our around-the-world adventure! Since we started this travel blog back in February right before our travels, we have written 54 posts (and done all the things to fill up all those posts). Isn’t that nuts? Anyway, back to July – which looks chill on paper but was pretty busy because there were so many things to do in each of the places we went to!

Where we were

This was a little bit more hectic than when we spent the bulk of our time in just a few places in June 2018, especially since we spent almost a full week in Emilia-Romagna and a full week in Hvar during July. So that means the other two weeks were split between five places. Better than the nine spots in May 2018, but this period was still a tad busier than I like!

• Emilia-Romagna, Italy
• Florence, Italy
• Bagni San Filippo, Italy
• Dubrovnik, Croatia
• Hvar, Croatia
• Near Krka National Park, Croatia
• Near Plitvice National Park, Croatia (post coming soon!)

Highlights

All the sports, all the time. There were just so many sports to enjoy in July! Of course, there was watching the World Cup (we so wanted Croatia win; even though they didn’t it is so fun to see how proud the country is – see picture below). There was also Wimbledon to watch, and it was nice to be in the same time zone and able to watch all the sports at a decent hour!

Friends with us on the road. We had two dear friends join us on the road, and it was so fun! First was Merritt, a gymnastics friend Damian made all the way back at MIT. She joined us at the agriturismo in Piozzano and in Florence and it was so fun! We also had my friend Noèmie, who I met at the NBA, join us for a week in Croatia. It’s so nice to have our nearest and dearest with us, as it adds a fun new personality to our mix and also reduces the homesickness. Oh, and also, running into a high school friend I hadn’t seen in 19 years, and hanging out with him and his wife in Dubrovnik was super fun too!

On to Croatia and back to the water. I really enjoyed Italy, truly I did, but one thing that was missing in our itinerary was time on the water. We wanted to do slow travel as much as possible, so we stayed pretty central in the country and didn’t do Sicily, Sardinia, Capri, or really any of the coast. I love being next to the water, and especially in the summer, so it was nice when we headed to Croatia (which has so much coastline) and go to do all the swimming again!

Downtime in the week-long spans. As I mentioned above, we spent a week in Emilia Romagna and a week in Hvar and it was so awesome to be in those places for so long – we were able to unpack, be a little more flexible in what we did each day and relax and recuperate. As we plan the rest of this trip we are continuing to prioritize staying in one place for a longer period of time, even if it means more driving for day trips.

Booking time with JC, Poops, Daniella and Ian in August! Clearly I love having friends on the road and we books a lot of it for August! First, another one of Damian’s gymnastics friends, JC, is going to join us in Bergen, Norway for a weekend. Then, Poops (my sister, of Lefkada fame), will be joining us in Oslo, Norway for a long weekend. And then, Damian’s sister Daniella and her husband Ian will be with us for ten days in Portugal. These people are some of our main people, and we are soooo excited to travel with them!

Discovering maps.me. We have been using Google Maps for all of our directions, which has required us turning on our in-case-of-emergency wifi more than we would have liked. We’ve tried Google Maps’ offline directions but it doesn’t really work well and we haven’t been able to rely on it. I had read about the maps.me app on a bunch of other travel blogs and decided to give it a try. It. Is. Awesome. You can download sections of a map and search it and use it for directions without an internet connection. We used it a ton in Croatia and will continue to rely on it for the rest of our trip!

Lowlights

Our first real illness on the road. We’ve had a little of not feeling well on this trip, whether it was motion sickness or allergies, but until now we had been lucky enough to not really get sick. Sadly this streak was broken in July. Damian started feeling unwell while we were in Rome and we rested a few days while there. His tummy wasn’t doing well and that continued for a bit in Dubrovnik as well. Damian never gets sick and usually can just power through anything so I was sad to see my guy down and out for the count!

European summer heat. It was hot. Like so hot. I know it’s normal for this time of year, but it definitely made for some brutal exploring, most notable our hike in Cinque Terre. The heat affected our daily schedules in cities too, so we would go out and explore for a bit and then head back to our lodging or a bar or café in the afternoon and then not head out again until it was cooler in the evening. The heat also makes us have to do laundry more often, whomp whomp.

More travel planning burnout. I mentioned this last month, but as much as I love travel planning, I’ve never had to do as much as I do on this trip. This month we spent a lot of time (again) planning for Croatia, Norway and Portugal (and starting to plan Madagascar as well). We would normally probably fly more by the seat of our pants’ but we had to do these more in advance because we were going to be in the locations in high season. Usually I try to just block out a full day and do it all, but this took more than one day for all these locations!

Too many early mornings. The way our schedule went this month we had a lot of early mornings. I am not an early morning person. I am barely a late morning person. But, we had a couple days with early flights and a couple days with early activities. My natural body clock wants to stay up late and sleep late and these early mornings left me a little cranky and with a little bit of a headache, so that was less than ideal.

The wi-fi blues. Grrr, I get frustrated just thinking about this. We had major, major wifi issues in July. I never realized how good the wifi is in the United States, and naïvely assumed that being in Europe would also mean good wifi. But, it was just not the case. Almost every place we stayed had a big wifi issue (wifi only works next to the door, wifi is too slow, wifi drops, wifi won’t connect, etc.) and it was so frustrating. I may sound elitist, but it’s important to me to be able to be in touch with my friends and family and to be able to write to be happy on this trip!

Crowdedness. Our plan for July included more tourist-y areas (Rome, Florence, Dubrovnik, Cinque Terre, etc.), which meant more tourists. I obviously don’t fault anyone else for being there (after all, we are too!), but I definitely missed the isolation and quiet that we had at our favorite agriturismo in Montecarlo.

What I read

I only read three books in July, which was less than I had hoped for. I think it was the combination of a lot of active travel and a lot of travel planning, which left me less time (and less energy) to read. Luckily I really loved two of the three books I read!

Here’s what I read this month:

Molly’s Game: From Hollywood Elite to Wall Street’s Billionaire Boys Club, My High-Stakes Adventure in the World of Underground Poker by Molly Bloom – This book was meh. I was pretty excited to read it, hoping it would be like Bringing Down the House, but it was a bit too high-level. The basic premise is that this woman was running big poker games (with Tobey Maguire, Ben Affleck, etc.) and living entire in this crazy world of underground high-stakes gambling. There’s some interesting tidbits in the book for sure, but not enough of a story or depth to keep my interest.

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan – I loved this book and I am so excited to see the movie (I hope I can find it somewhere over here!). I sometimes hesitate to read books that are super popular, but then there are those that are super popular for a reason, and this is one of those. I really felt like the author understood the culture he was talking about and got deep into the background of the characters and culture he was describing. The basic story is about a guy who is bringing his girlfriend home to Singapore to meet his insanely rich family for the first time and the book is about all the hijinks that happen. I can’t wait to read the rest of this series.

Educated by Tara Westover – This is another book that has been super popular but I’m glad I read it. I feel weird saying that I enjoyed this book because it made me really sad, but it’s a great book. It is really well-written and the story itself is so gripping. It’s an autobiography and the author was raised in a family that lived “off-the-grid” and eschewed traditional education. She talks about her childhood and her desire to leave and get an education for herself. The author is such a talented writer and it’s great to see what she has been able to do, but the suffering she (and others) had to go through was difficult to read.

What’s next

August is going to be busy and diverse and awesome! For the start of the month we are in Croatia, enjoying the nature and the cities that it has to offer. Then it’s off to Norway for ten days, which I think will be unlike any other country we will see on this trip. And then we’ll end the month in Portugal, with more beach time and delicious Portuguese food! And, we’ll be spending more than half the month with friends and/or family traveling with us, yay!

Travel blog posts from July

And finally, I thought to help us keep track of what’s happening in this little travel blog I’d put in a list of all the posts from July here. Enjoy!

• Our four days in Bologna
• June 2018: Monthly Roundup
• Life on an agriturismo on a vineyard in Tuscany, Italy: Part 2 (Chianti region)
• Visiting wineries and wine tastings in Chianti, Italy!
• Our day exploring Siena Italy
• Our third (and final) agriturismo in Italy – in Emilia Romagna
• We are in Croatia! Our plan for the next three weeks
• Best food day ever: Touring a Parmigiano Reggiano factory and a balsamic vinegar producer
• Our day hiking Cinque Terre – five beautiful coastal villages in Italy
• Our three days in Florence, Italy
• Brunello wine tasting and natural thermal baths in Italy