This was the day that Ruthie and the gang headed to Amsterdam on their way ultimately to Brussels and the music festival, Tomorrowland.  We had such a great time with them but we had the arrival of our dear friends from Seattle, Kathy Kline and Louis Holtzman, to look forward to.  Before everyone was mobilized… Read more

All of us wanted to get an overview of Stockholm as an urban center made up of many islands connected by bridges and ferries, and one way to do that was on the 2 1/2 hour boat cruise through some of main channels.  In theory, this “cruise” made sense, but in practice – while we… Read more

This was the first very full day of exploration with our band of young folks gathered by Ruthie to enjoy both the home exchange and Stockholm with us – and they are loads of fun to be with! This was our day to do some of the “must sees” in the city so we started… Read more

We chose the house in Taby not only us to use as a launching pad to explore Sweden, but to share the experience with others. We are lucky to have had this work out well. Today we picked up Ruthie and two of her dear friends – Alex and Marshall – at the airport. Later… Read more

Jet lag in the rear mirror for the most part, Andrew and I used the day before Ruthie and friends arrive to do some very chill exploring. With the days so long we don’t have to rush to grab the daylight – we left the house around 9am and didn’t return until nearly 8pm…still light!… Read more

Despite the fact the Andrew and I do a lot of international travel, our ability to combat jet lag is not always in top form. Usually we can tough out the very long first day going to Europe and beyond, stay awake through dinner time, then crash and wake the next morning reasonably coherent. Not… Read more

Saying goodbye to New Zealand was hard. Andrew and I had such an amazing experience exploring these incredibly beautiful islands, it was sad to think that our adventure was coming to an end. To be frank, we agreed that we’d been away long enough – and were missing our family, our dog, our own comfy… Read more

Our last few days on the South Island – and in New Zealand – was spent back in Queenstown, and we took advantage of the more sporty activities this go around.  We were treated to front row seats on Hamish’s Jet boat.  These boats literally hydroplane on as little as a few inches of water,… Read more

We’d been told that we could not miss visiting Milford Sound if we got to the South Island, and I absolutely understand why now.  We booked a day-long kayaking trip that would take us on the sound, and what made sense was to drive to and stay in the small town of Te Anau –… Read more