Bachelor Pad!

Hey blog readers, I'm back!  No, not Megan, this is Todd again.  And I suppose I use the word "again" a little loosely since this is approximately the second time I've posted.  I guess Megan and I have really accepted our roles as blogger and loyal photographer.  But anyway, with Megan out of town in some fancy place where they call apartments "flats" and glasses of beer "pints of ale", Jackaroo and I were left to have a little "guys" weekend of our own.

I had anticipated this weekend since I was excited not to have any particular plans, but in the end, the adventures are a little less adventurous and the fun is a little less...fun...when Megan isn't around.  However Jack and I tried our best.

Friday when I was done working, we started our weekend with a trip to the beauty salon (a.k.a. the upstairs shower) where Jack received a good scrubbing, drying and overall scent-improvement.

In the "crimpy" phase just after the bath.

Then we carried on the ritual we observe before dinner quite often when we have visitors, which is the Wine and Cheese Party.  However, we gave it our own twist and made the minor replacement of wine with a fine Belgian barley soda.  

Bier en kaas feest?

We then had a quiet night of taking it easy on the couch where I again fell asleep to Carlito's Way.  I've had this movie for about 3 years now and still hadn't been able to finish it.  It might be because the movie just isn't any good despite the strong recommendation and absurd comparisons to Good Fellas and Casino that accompanied it when it was gifted to me.* 

When we awoke on Saturday morning without a plan and with all the time in the world to define one and execute it, I decided we might want to travel to the nearby town of 's-Hertogenbosch** just to walk around.  I fired up the computer and naturally searched trip advisor for the top sites, remembering that there was a park near the center of town that might be nice for a walk.  As chance would have it, the second highest rated attraction in 's-Hertogenbosch was, indeed, a national park.  I would come to later find out that it was closer to the town of Tilburg and not really what I had in mind at all.  However, Jackaroo and I were in for a pleasant surprise, because the park we had found was massive, had several types of trails dedicated to all sorts of activities including biking, mountain biking, cyclocross biking, gravel biking, walking, running, horseback riding and leash-less dog walking!  

No joke, these were the trail markers for our dedicated leash-less dog walking trail. 

See, it's easy to follow the path, because there's a picture of a dog on the post...

Also, I finally learned how to "leash-less dog walking route"  in Dutch.  The language comes in small doses, I guess.  

Jack had a great time, met a lot of other leash-less dogs (and humans).  I didn't mention that I forgot to bring her tennis ball, so if you see her please don't say anything, I think she'd be really disappointed thinking about the opportunity that was lost to chase it through these trails.  

Oh, and Jack didn't go the entire trail "leash-less" because she temporarily forgot her manners back in Eindhoven.

Finally off the leash...

Overall the park, called De Loonse en Drunense Duinen (for those keeping track of the fact that I still hadn't mentioned where in the world we were), was a delight.  Perfect for our quick 2 hour discovery (and probably never to be seen again).  

On the way out, we saw a restaurant called "De Molen", which threw me off a bit because there is a really famous brewery in the Netherlands called De Molen ("the mill" or "windmill" in Dutch, totally creative, right?) which I have yet to visit.  Nope, turned out that this was merely just a restaurant built into the base of a windmill, which happens to look exactly like that brewery (which is quite a bit further north). 

Poser restaurant.

Anyway, it did give me an idea, which ended up being our next stop of the weekend.  Since we were close to Tilburg and one of my other favorite spots (which also happens to be a brewery) is near Tilburg, we decided to stop at La Trappe for lunch.  

Dogs are allowed outside in the beer garden at La Trappe (and as it turns out inside the tasting room, as well).  Jackaroo was mostly getting her manners back, but this was disrupted by a dachshund that was really asking for it at a neighboring table.  After the owners of the dachshund noticed that Jackaroo and I were barking at them, they decided to come over, talk my ear off in Dutch and drop off some treats for Jack.  It was one of those awkward situations where someone gets way too far into saying something to you in Dutch that you start to sweat a little and think "can I possibly tell them that I only speak English at this point?".  For the record I did tell the gentleman twice that my "Nederlands" was not so good, but he didn't seem to care and rambled on.  I decided to just give him the repeated "dank u wel!" until he walked away.  

After I decided to steal Jack's treats from the ground and use them for obedience. 

For the record, I had the "spicy" chicken sandwich, which, as always, was a little low on spice, but very high on delish!

And that's the Jubilaris ale (25 year anniversary brew for some old monk).

When we got back from La Trappe, we laid low a bit.  Jack slept a LOT and I finished the most recent book by BikeSnobNYC (highly recommended for anyone of those that appreciate bicycle commuting and also don't mind a few crass words to get a humorous point across).

It was Saturday, so naturally that night we stayed in and watched football.  Ok, so to go on a bit of a Jeff Foxworthy-esque tangent...you know you live in Europe when:  you're kind of excited to spend a night in to watch "football" (the kind where they bounce the ball off their heads), between two cross-city rivals (in this case Madrid), a derby if you will (and in your head you actually pronounce that word "darby").  To top it all off, you enjoy the action with a fine Belgian Strong Ale, which you bought for EUR 1.37 at the supermarket.  Not a bad evening in...

Jackaroo didn't make it to the end of the match.  I think all the losloopen caught up to her...

Sunday was back to our normal routine (although still without Megan) where we remembered the tennis ball and went to the more nearby park to do some laps.  

Anyway, back to the daily grind for me this week.  I'm sure Megan will be back to update you with her adventures to London over the weekend.  

Have a great week!

* I did end up finishing Carlito's Way on Saturday afternoon when we got back to Eindhoven, only to confirm my suspicions that it was highly overrated.   

** Most often referred to as den Bosch because all of the punctuation within the name intimidates people.  But, it's really not that hard to pronounce folks.... ser-toghghgen-boose.   

Amore Mio, Italia

Did you miss me?  I apologize for my disappearance over the last week and a half, but I have a good excuse, I promise.  My parents came over to Europe for their 3rd visit, and we've been living it up, Italian style.  Are you ready for a photofest of Italian goodness? 

Let me back up first to mention that my parents arrived last Tuesday, and we spent a couple of days in the Netherlands.  On their first day we visited Haarlem, where a highlight was taking a tour of the Corrie Ten Boom house. Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian woman, who hid Jews from the Nazis in her home in Haarlem. I can definitely recommend that tour of her home for any of my readers who gather travel tidbits from this blog.

On Thursday, my parents and I hopped on a plane, destination: Florence.  Todd joined us the next day, so it was just the 3 of us for our 24 hours in Firenze. Clearly not enough time to spend in this incredible city, but I'll just hope it's not my last time there.  Our first stop upon our arrival was the Galleria dell'Accademia, home of the David.  No photos are allowed in this museum, but David is quite the specimen.  Perfectly sculpted by the orange ninja turtle, the David really is a masterpiece. For dinner that evening, we wandered the streets, stopping to read menus and settled on a lovely spot called Tratoria Marione.  Delish!

After dinner, we sauntered back to the hotel, stopping for some espresso and cappuccino (total rule breakers there since Italians don't drink cappuccino after noon) and a look at the Duomo, with the harvest moon peeking over the roof.

Due to our limited time in Florence, we spent the next morning taking a 3-hour guided tour of the city.  This was an amazing way to see the top sights without feeling like we were rushing around.  And it gave me a break from using the map, which is always appreciated.

Our guide.

 

Courtyard in the Strozzi Palace.

Ponte Vecchio.

Arno River.

Vasari Corridor.

Masses of people on the Ponte Vecchio.

Palazzo Vecchio.

David replica, where the original used to stand.

Il Duomo.

Interior of the dome.

What an historically vibrant and beautiful city!  Firenze was wonderful, but next we were off to more goodness as we headed northwest to the Cinque Terre.  Translated as "Five Lands", the Cinque Terre is five small villages perched on cliffs along the Ligurian Sea.  I have been wanting to visit Cinque Terre for years, so I was so happy that it worked out to travel there.  We met Todd in Pisa and all took the train together to Riomaggiore, the first of the five cities. Riomaggiore was our home base for the weekend, and it was the perfect little town.  Our first day there, we did a walking tour of the city, grabbed wine on a bar overlooking the sea, and had a wonderful dinner.  Here's the spoils of our first day:

Nearly too pretty for words.  The views were stunning, and the whole place had an ethereal quality to it.

On Saturday, we did the hike between 3 of the 5 villages.  We would have done the entire trail between all 5 villages, but the area was badly flooded in 2011 and they are still repairing parts of the trail.  So we took a train to Corniglia, where we first explored the village and then set out on our hike along the coastal trail.

To Vernazza.

View from afar as we approached Vernazza.

Getting closer...

That portion of the hike took us about an hour and a half, and it was decently challenging.  We were all pretty sweaty as we headed into Vernazza for lunch.  Some pizza was calling our name.

After refueling and cooling off, we set out for the second half of the hike. This time on the trail connecting Vernazza to Monterosso al Mare. This portion of the hike was slightly more challenging, but the views were once again incredible.  Each bend of the path led to another breathtaking photo op.

Starting on the second hike.

Looking back to Vernazza.

Monterosso.

We did it!

Taking a break.

This was definitely some of the best hiking of my life.  I love the juxtaposition of the cute, old villages with the nature in between. Just lovely.

That night we ate at one of our favorite places of the trip, called Dau Cila, which was perfectly located in the Riomaggiore harbor.  And we found some cannoli afterwards to finish up the night with something sweet.

The perfect way to end an awesome day.

The next morning, we took a boat to the one city we had missed the other days, Manarola.   This was definitely one of my favorite villages.

On the boat, here's a great view of Riomaggiore.

On the boat, approaching Manarola.

And now a panorama of Manarola, pretty great right?

This might be my favorite photo of the bunch.

What a memorable trip!  I love you Cinque Terre!

Our last evening in Italy was spent in Pisa, since we'd be flying out of there in the morning. Or course we showed my parents the Leaning Tower and then had another excellent meal of great food and wine.

Push it just a little to the left.

We headed back to Eindhoven on Monday.  The last 2 days with my parents (again poor Todd needed to go back to work) were spent touring the Postel Abbey in Belgium and of course spending time in Eindhoven, shopping and eating at our favorite places.  What a blessing to get to spend that time with my parents and share such great experiences!  Thanks for coming again, Mom and Dad!