02 Saturday Apr 2016
Posted in Travel
Looking down the Cours la Reine from atop the wheel at the Tuileries. The Eiffel Tower is on the left, the River Seine, the Grand Palais (glass roof), and on the far right, at the end of the Champs de Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe.
To be in Paris for a month with no plans is something like gazing over a 26,000-acre box of chocolates. You won’t get to them all, but no matter where you start and where you go, it’s going to be delicious.
30 Wednesday Mar 2016
Posted in Travel
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An Icelandic geyser. There are hundreds. (Wikimedia)
We are in Paris, where we will stay for a month (sing it now: “April in Paris”). We flew here via Icelandair.
29 Monday Feb 2016
Graphic of Freda Kahlo hanging in our room
We’re back in Puerto Vallarta!
(Well, not for long. Ten days is all. We came down here to attend to a dental issue but when we got here we were told there really was no issue, so now our visit is entirely pleasure. We’re not disappointed. There’s no disappointment in Puerto Vallarta.)
23 Saturday Jan 2016
Playa Conchal
This part of Costa Rica – the northern Pacific Coast – is a paradise of beaches and not much else. (This is why you’ve read nothing uplifting about our visits to ancient Mayan ruins.) Yesterday we visited Playa Conchal (Beach of Shells), recommended for having the clearest blue water around.
14 Thursday Jan 2016
Posted in Accommodations, Gallery, Travel
Louise at El Vaquero; Tamarindo Beach in background
According to Wikipedia, Portland, Oregon has at least sixty breweries within the city limits, more than any city in the world. Many attribute this to our natural resources (hops, barley, and our remarkable Bull-Run water), but I’m convinced it’s because I live there. When it comes to beer, I am the industry’s greatest asset.
11 Monday Jan 2016
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
When we started planning our Costa Rica trip, I filled out one of those online quizzes from the tourist bureau about what I wanted to do and see. Rain forest? Sounds hot and humid. Cloud forest? I live in Portland; don’t need no cloud forest. Ziplining? No. Fishing? Um, no. Volcanoes? Not really. Jungle trip to see crocodiles, poisonous frogs, howling monkeys, boa constrictors and crocodiles? Absolutely NOT. I cannot stand anything even vaguely reptilian.
I was able to check Beach and Lunch, but there was no little square for Shopping. I abandoned the quiz and just Googled “Best Beaches in Costa Rica” and found one that had a cute town attached. That was Tamarindo.
09 Saturday Jan 2016
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
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It’s a breathy, guttural roar, echoing above the tree canopy like something from Jurassic Park. When it awakens you in the darkness before dawn, your eyes fly open, the hair stands up on the back of your neck, and the flight or fight response kicks in, leaning decidedly toward flight. Run!
Trouble is, there’s a jungle outside your door. Things with teeth live out there, and one of them is looking for breakfast.
29 Tuesday Dec 2015
Posted in Travel
The bungalows at Hotel Luna Llena in Tamarindo, Costa Rica
Dedicated readers will remember the SNAFU with a real estate agent in Puerto Vallarta that left us without a place to live for the first two months of this year. We adjusted, but were left holding two plane tickets, which Alaska Airlines graciously agreed to let us use in any way we liked—as long as we flew Alaska.
13 Tuesday Oct 2015
Posted in Travel
Lenin’s corpse in perpetual repose. He’s freshened up every now and then, but his is probably not the afterlife he had in mind.
I kept wondering why the buses from the boat went to the Kremlin over and over again. After all, Moscow is an enormous city. But the Kremlin, which is the old walled city where Moscow was born in the Tenth Century, is not the gray place of newsreels. My childish mind likes color and clever design, and that I found aplenty.
04 Sunday Oct 2015
Posted in Accommodations, Travel
Fuel in the tank: check.
Battery charged: check.
Tire pressure: check.
Oil in the crankcase: check.
These are the things one must do before taking a cherished car out of retirement after months of inactivity, and these are the things, figuratively speaking, we’re doing here at the Almanac.
The Expat Almanac 