After spending a wonderful week with our new friends, the Bombaci family, in their country home near Todi, it is abundantly clear why both Andrew and I feel so at home in Italy.   Open arms.  Our home in Seattle and now in Barcelona is often described as a place where friends and family, and friends of … More A Week in the Italian Countryside

We made it back to Barcelona on three different airlines and with three different routings…Eitan from Northern California, Ruth from Cape Town via Dubai, and Andrew and I also from Cape Town via Istanbul.  It took a lot of logistics on Andrew’s part as amateur travel agent, but we all actually arrived in Barcelona within … More Getting back to Normal?

Ruthie and her two friends, Megan and Lukas, came along with us to The World of Birds sanctuary in Hout Bay today, and it was a real treat!  I cannot imagine that there is anywhere in the US where we could get so up close and personal with so many varieties of birds, with a … More The World of Birds: a Walk Through the Crazy Myriad of Feathered Friends and Others

We´d made the decision to stay in a variety of different accommodations throughout our trip and that has been a real gem of an experience.  In Cape Town itself, we first stayed in a rental apartment that overlooked the waterfront…centrally located, secure, and close enough to the beach promenade to run along the water.  An … More Cape Town and Beyond: Garden Route Reflections

Having lived briefly in Lusaka, Zambia a few years ago, I only had that metropolitan city as a baseline of what to expect in Cape Town.  But Cape Town is full of surprises. It is a city chock full of dichotomies…surrounded by some of the most spectacular natural scenery, there is no direction you can … More Cape Town: Breathtaking Beauty, Emerging Technology, Cultural Mosaic, Abject Poverty

While getting my hair cut and much-needed colored this morning, I read back over my Camino entries and decided that writing and reflecting for me is more cathartic than I realized.  So, if no one ever read my blog again, would it really matter?  ( a little like if a tree fell in the forest … More Adventure in Tarragona

Sitting in the Santiago airport with Ruthie waiting for our delayed flight home, gave me time to reflect…. We have had two very relaxing, pampering days at a lovely resort hotel, quite a change from being on the road. Honestly, we didn’t do much roughing it on the Camino other than wearing the same couple of … More Reflections on the Camino Past

Our Day at the End of the World After having seen the movie The Way about a father who walks the Camino in honor of his son who died attempting the French route, and seeing him reach Finisterre (literally means “end of the earth”), we had to go. Pilgrims and explorers who reached here over … More Our Day at the End of the World

We walked into the small town of Amenal and were greeted by Andrew, waving to us over a beer and sitting with two women from London on a brief Camino on break from work. It was a bit like a bad movie…swarthy middle-aged (handsome) man heartily greeting his “women” trudging in from the fields! It … More Our Final Camino Chapter: Reunion, Completion, and Looking Forward