Hi, we’re Rose and Jeff! We split our year between Boulder, Colorado and Leonidio, Greece, with plenty of travel in between. Together we’ve visited over 60 countries across 5 continents. Our beloved cat Goldie has been along for many of these adventures, and she recently gained a companion – Ellie, who we adopted in Greece. This blog captures our wanderings through stories and photos.
A Country That Doesn’t Exist Tiraspol is the capital of Moldova’s breakaway state in Transnistria (the Romanian name, the official Russian name is “Pridnestrovia”). By “breakaway state”, I mean that Transnistria is a fully functioning country. It has its own currency (Pridnestrovian Ruble, not accepted anywhere outside of Transnistria), border with passport checks, and government. Everything except its own language […]
Together we’ve traveled to over 60 countries across five continents. Of all of them, Moldova is the most off the beaten track. Few Americans have heard of it, much less could place it on a map. Moldova first appeared on our radar a few years ago when we shifted focus from Western to Eastern Europe – drawn by Slavic cultures, […]
We emerged from the central train station into downtown Warsaw – skyscrapers overhead, bustling streets in every direction. What a better way to enter a city than via an airport! The five-hour journey by train from Berlin was remarkably pleasant too – I worked comfortably, ate a hot meal in the restaurant car, and watched the Polish countryside fly by. […]
Berlin is about as opposite of Cairo, our previous stop, as you can get. It’s orderly, clean, cold (snowy, in fact!) and quiet. Egypt, by contrast, has filthy streets, air so thick with smog you can taste it, and a soundscape that demands earplugs on even the smallest street lest your eardrums be ruptured by constant honking. Yet people there […]
The typical way a tourist experiences Cairo is via guided tours: visit the pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum, stroll through the Khan al-Khalili market with a guide at your side. This is how I first traveled there with my family nearly 20 years ago. And it was amazing! So much so, that a few years later, I returned for […]
We’ve added another (furry) member to the family. Here is Ellie’s story. Kittens! Rose actually rescued Ellie the day she was born. Her mom is a street cat, and had just had her litter in a field near our house. We had been feeding the Mom for a few weeks and knew she was quite pregnant. She was also severely […]
Singapore has a feline identity crisis; known as both the Lion City and one of the four Asian Tigers. Within the span of a few decades, Singapore went from much of its population living below the poverty line to one of the wealthiest countries by per capita in the world. It was fascinating to finally visit a place I had […]
“Organized chaos” is the phrase that kept floating through my head while exploring the energetic streets of Ho Chi Minh. Well, that and “please don’t die.” This was the mantra whenever crossing a busy intersection, as motor scooters weaved around me like a school of fish. Ho Chi Minh, more commonly known among locals by its pre-independence name “Saigon”, is […]
“Life in Hong Kong transcends cultural and culinary borders, such that nothing is truly foreign and nothing doesn’t belong.” – Peter Jon Lindberg Having explored over fifty countries and numerous cities within them, I can attest that Hong Kong is among the top when it comes to vibrant urban life. It left me wonton for more (groan). The very landscape of the city […]
Rose and I went on a short, overnight bike trip to the tiny Peloponnese town called Kastanitsa. I made a short YouTube video of the trip. It’s my first time editing a video, but I think it turned out pretty well! Kastanitsa is an ancient town nestled between the surrounding hills. The town is known for its white and blue […]