Europe Fall 2024 - Finale, Great Navel Gazing Post

We are back home after a relatively uneventful trip back home. Actually with the exception of the chaos of our getting out of Alicante to Amsterdam, the rest of the trip was smooth. We were even able to get our bags in Albuquerque and secure an Uber home in record time. Both Wife and I have done a good job at managing the jet lag and have been very productive despite having only been home for a couple of days. The transition from the travel life state to the home base state has been relatively smooth. I will discuss that in the next post. But, as I have done ever since we started our significant travel life a decade ago, I will conclude with my analysis of our experience or as #3 has called it the 'deep navel gazing'. 

Accept and Enjoy

The backdrop of this trip was Wife and my desire to transition from travel oriented on going to many places to a more single location oriented model in line with our decreasing capabilities as we age. However, finding the 'place', that locale where one would be happy going back again and again had proven to be a mighty challenge. 

Thus a major goal of the first part of our trip was trying to find this elusive 'El Dorado', the place that would have all the features we wanted. As you know, that turned into an exercise of extreme frustration. We even carried this attitude of looking for the 'perfect place' into Spain when we first arrived in El Campello and started to visit the other coast side towns of the Alicante area along with the accompanying frustration.

It was at this point that Wife had a powerful realization. Something she had read talked about the importance of accepting, meaning accepting where you are at and taking joy in that as it is. She said she was ready to make that leap. And if she was, I sure was too.

From that point, we just immersed ourselves into our lifestyle in Campello. I wrote four posts on the specifics of why this small city resonated with us and why the specific apartment we were in was such a big part of it.

The Transition Bullet Train Keeps Chugging On!

In July, I wrote about the growing realization that my 'transitioned lifestyle' was not an even but an on-going process with (it seems) no end in sight. I took this to heart for this trip. 

First, had to do with letting go of managing Theodora day-to-day. My Board members (aka #2 & #3) had beat me up with this at our annual meeting in July. When I was in Ghana in August, I worked with the team to let them know they would have to take responsibility for their day-to-day work. And with my departure to Italy in September, I did just that. And, low and behold, the team stepped up and have taken care of just about all of the regular execution of their business. I will write a separate post about this as it is actually a fairly major accomplishment.

Second was now filling in the time that we'd created by not running around all the time, and, for me, the time I was using to manage Theodora. We did this by renewing projects we'd both put on hold. Wife threw herself into her photography. She essentially created her own 'course' by going to multiple online resources. I found my 'new' passion going back to an old one, the writing of my 'Story'. This had been essentially been on hold/stuck (depending on your point of view) the whole time I'd been creating Theodora from scratch. Suddenly, I found breakthroughs in the story line. There followed an out flow of ideas that have led to an outlining of the end of the current book in the series, along with the first parts of a next book. I will write more about this in a future post.

Pluses and Minuses on the Physical Capabilities Front 

One of the most amazing things of this trip was a rebound of sorts by both Wife and I in our physical capability. Please! Don't get me wrong. We are not suddenly back in our early 50's. But over the course of our trip, particularly while we were in Campello, we found ourselves doing more and more walking, and particularly climbing. Issues we've both had for quite some time, seemed to mellow out.

Be assured, we felt it. I think there is another whole post I can write on dealing with pain as you age. But the point is we were doing things we couldn't do just last year. We still had to be very circumspect and not do too much, stop when we recognized the signs that we were going over the limit. 

But it was a joyous realization. It made us much more upbeat about what we will be able to do going forward. 

Now the negative. It is so clear that there is only so much stress I can handle. And if you combine stress with significant load bearing physical effort (i.e. moving luggage around), I am going to go into an exhaustion mode pretty quickly. This was fully brought to light during the Italy part of trip with our having to find and move into many different lodgings. I would find myself completely drained and barely capable of doing anything. Scary. Fortunately, it would only take 2 to 3 hours of rest for me to bounce back. Nonetheless, this yet another motivator to make the transition to staying at one place for longer periods of time.

The Miracle of Our Being European Drivers 

A key to our ability to do as much as we have done traveling in Europe during the decade of the transitioned state has been our ability to drive. I discussed this right after we arrived in Italy. As we continued our trip, especially during our time in Spain, I continued to be amazed at how much we've learned and incorporated. I am very proud to say during this trip we managed to not have ourselves inserted into narrow, dead end mountain village roads. We only went the wrong way in parking garages when there was little to no traffic. And for the most part, our guests seemed to not have their hair turn white while they were driving with us. I know this is a bit egotistical ("but hey, you're de-I? Isn't egotistical a synonym for you?") but I take a lot of pride in Wife and I (for we are a total team in this) in our late 70's being able navigate and get around in Europe.

Sharing the Experience 

One of the joys of our stay in Spain was our ability to share what we were enjoying with others. We had our niece, RMG, visit us. We went to see our granddaughter, 2.2, in Valencia twice. We had the VEFS mercenaries 3.1 and 3.2 visit us from Sweden. Seriously. This was such a joy. 

How Good Was This Transition? We're Going Back 

Yes, even before we had completed our trip, Wife and I talked and decided we wanted to come back to Campello, to this same apartment in 2025. And we have so committed. We booked the apartment again for October 2025. All our guests from this year have already expressed interest a desire to repeat. This is so exciting.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Two months of European travel with a lot of beauty and enjoyment. Some great personal growth and I believe the laying of a foundation for the next stage in our personal travel adventures.

Age: The Final Frontier. These are the voyages of de-I Sandia Outfitters' Eldership. Its mission to keep going and not stop. To go boldly go where few elderly have gone before.

Europe Fall 2024 - Last Foodie Post

The enjoyment of our apartment in El Campello with its great outfitted kitchen, beautiful views when we ate, and access to the markets, meant we did way more cooking and eating at home than going out. Still, this is a de-I travel adventure and food will always be a major component of the tapestry of our trips.

Chocolate and Churros

This is one of the Spanish classics. Their hot chocolate (when made properly) is like a hot chocolate mousse. The churros are salty crispy fried dough served with granulated sugar. What's not to like? The Valor chocolate company (a really high quality brand in our opinion) has branded restaurants all over Spain offering it. 

Whoa! That's a lot of fried dough

Well it turns out the whole thing was mostly too rich for our taste. Oh well. (BTW we did finish every last churro!)

 Home Cooking

I had a bunch of things left in the fridge and this is what I came up with

The sausage was a chorizo. I did a take on deep frying it to get a really crispy skin (something I'd not tried before). The green beans are a broad type you find all over Europe but almost never in the U.S. They were done in olive oil and garlic. The potatoes were a not quite mashed potato cooked in fat until there was a lot of crispy parts. When your grandchildren eat every last morsel of what you've cooked, you can be happy indeed.

Success Eating in Tourist Land

After our successful assault on Santa Barbara Castle in Alicante, it was time to feed the mercenaries (and their employers). The central part of Alicante along the water is 'tourist central'. You can find a lot of mediocre, over priced food. However, with us being so tired, I was not going to totally fight the realities. However, I did stay off the waterfront itself. We ate a place that was on a Plaza. The menu was pretty standard for the area. However, here is where we had a very pleasant surprise.

We purchased a number of Tapas. There is a lot...A LOT...written that these tourist restaurant dishes are not 'authentic' tapas which are small plates that go along with the long drinks process the Spanish enjoy. Nonetheless, a lot are based on things found in real tapas places. One of the major complaints is you pay way more for these in the tourist restaurant than you do in a real bar serving tapas. However, we did a bit of post eating research by looking at the cost of things on site at various places. What we found was, yes the tourist places charged much more. BUT they also were serving full servings, not small bites. For example, in the meal I will describe below, each portion was the equivalent size of 4 'real tapas' servings. Analyzing the prices accordingly, there was not that big a difference in price.

The VEFS (Viking Expeditionary Force from Sweden) relaxing, eating Spanish tapas in the conquered city of Alicante.

 

 Tempura Shrimp - Hardly a classic of Spanish cuisine but raved on by the three women of our party.

 Fried Brie, also not a classic, but again the women loved it. This place did deep frying exceptionally well.

Well Fries are Fries and the mercenaries loved them

 Now. On to what de-I loved.

Croquettas. These are so often insipid. But this version, you could really taste the ham.

Abondigas/Meatballs - these too are often tasteless. But no, here they were really flavorful

 

 And could a meal like this be complete without Ensalada Rusa? No!

 Honestly, I keep being amazed at the variations on this seemingly simple theme.

Nothing says conquest like a good Helado!

 Hasta Luego Espana

A big part of Spanish culture is taking a drink and just sitting and contemplating the world whether through conversation or just by one's self. We didn't do enough of that. But on our last day in El Campello, I did just that with a coffee as Wife did a last photo shoot.

 

 Unexpected Treat in Amsterdam

Flying back, we overnighted in Amsterdam so as to not totally kill ourselves. Airport hotels are an iffy lot at best. We were not excited at all about eating at the hotel. Fortunately there was a town only 15 minutes walk from the hotel where we found,

A sort of bar/gastropub/restaurant

The menu so intrigued us that we each had a first course while sharing the main. That turned out to be a very good idea.

Wife's whiskey and my dark beer

My first course, a selection of cold fish including tiny shrimp, smoked eel, and cured salmon. For those of us who enjoy such things, it was very delicious. The shrimp in particular were thumbs up because often they are tasteless.

 

 Wife had a French Onion Soup. She said it was a bit more tomato flavored than she usually saw. But she ate every drop. 

 

(An Observation: Wife hates, HATES, wet bread. Any moisture touching her bread product and it becomes taboo. So no dipping bread in sauces, or bread puddings, or anything like that. With ONE exception, the cheese covered bread on French Onion Soup. She scarfs this down like it is the ambrosia of the Gods. I asked for a bite to try it and was told in no uncertain terms, "No Way". Evidently cheese covered soggy bread in French Onion Soup is its own unique food group.)

It was accompanied by a very lovely dark bread.

 The main course we split was a huge wienerschnitzel with bernaise sauce, frites, and salad. We were very glad to have split it.

 UNBELIEVABLE! A really good U.S. Airline Business Class Meal!

If one flies international business class a lot (which I have over the last 15 year), you find there the quality of catering can vary substantially depending on the airline and the city from which it is flying. In general, while the food and service is miles better than in Economy, it is not usually anything to write a blog post about. This is especially true of the major American carriers (United, Delta, & American). So you can imagine how SHOCKED I was when the meal we were served on our flight from Amsterdam to was not just okay, it was excellent. I mean blog worthy.

Let's start with...

 This was one of the wine's offered. How many times before have I seen a Chateauneuf du Pape on an airline? 

0

This particular wine retails for about $50 a bottle.

The first course was a very nice cured salmon (hats off the Netherlands catering?

 Accompanied by nice Dutch dark bread and butter

 The main course was a braised Pork with white beans. It was good enough that I ate very bit.

 All in all a perfectly fine ending to our trip

A Final

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

Badhoevedorp, Netherlands, Capital of Formula One Tow Truck Racing.

Europe Fall 2024 - Winding Up El Campello & A Bit Of MUPGT Fun

Wife and I are ending our European tour tomorrow. We will fly to Amsterdam. Then the next day we will return to the United States.

This morning we were returning the grandchildren to VEFS HQ and had to get them to the airport very early. Of course the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel had to have a little bit of fun with us. #3 had given us the airline's very specific instructions on how the girls were to be handled. Of course we get there and the airline does everything different. We needed their Swedish residency proof (which no one had said anything about). So we're calling the parents (thank you 3.1) to get a picture of them at 5:30 in the morning. Then instead of the airline taking them through security, they said Wife and I needed to do that. THEN our access passes wouldn't work going through security so we had to find someone to let us in. But in the end we sent our beloved mercenaries back to Sweden where they will train, grow stronger, and hopefully join us in the future for more Re-Reconquista fun. 

A few miscellaneous pictures

 Final Sunsets

Our team of Swedish Viking Mercenaries enjoy the beach before heading back to the Norseland.

One last Giant Cactus Photo (Oh, I think this is the only Giant Cactus Photo)

Care and Maintenance of Your Photographer (by 3.2)

 

Fotograficus Espouses Domesticus

Last SIGNS OF THE WORLD

Dangerous Triangle Zone

True Relationship Pathway

On the left - No kicking of food while smoking with a dog on your bike

On the right - Only people with dark clothes allowed

Things prohibited at our apartment building

Sandwiches, floaties, ghosts, wine, any kind of gel, dogs, soccer balls, and men with white shirts.

Europe Fall 2024 - R&R For The VEFS At Valencia Aquarium

After the glorious victory of the Viking Expeditionary Force from Sweden (aka 3.1 & 3.2), it was decided to make use of their plundered Euros to visit the Aquarium at the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. And as 2.2 (as readers know from our previous post) is also in residence in Valencia, it was a great way to reconnect the cousins.

After another joyful driving experience in Valencia picking up 2.2 and getting to the City of Arts and Sciences (insert dripping sarcasm here), we immediately gave back a huge amount of our plunder from Alicante paying for tickets to get into the Aquarium.

Let us start with an activity that will certainly bind the family together

 Study of incredibly enthusiastic grandchildren

We are happy because we are at the dolphin show. It is in Spanish, which none of us understand. But we will get to sit on our butts for an hour

The Matriarchy takes charge.

 Study of aquatic fowl

Semi-aquatic fowl

 

 Mmmm Maybe Not

I keep saying I want to do a photo shoot totally focused on the City of Arts and Sciences. Hasn't happened yet but hope it will

 

 Things that remind the grandchildren of their grandfather

The Rebranding of de-I

"Listen my trusty steed I have a very important mission. You must let his man become your master!"

"On to Victory!"

3.1 thinks this should become by LinkedIn Profile Picture. What do you think?

SIGNS OF THE WORLD

So if the Pacific is the 'Greatest' and the 'Most Profound' where does that leave the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean? Is the Atlantic the 'Wanna Be Understudy'? Is the Indian the 'Okay and Giddiest'?