Beautiful Barcelona Cool culture. Terrific tapas. Lovely locals. We absolutely adored our week in Barcelona, now topping the list of sabbatical stops we’d like to visit again. I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to match the combination of perfect weather, a well-chosen Airbnb, and a holiday mood induced by two months of something like…
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Nourishing New Zealand Our month in New Zealand was an entirely positive experience, nourishing in multiple ways. We tasted the delights of the North Island, from farm-stand avocadoes to grilled green-lipped mussels. We soaked up the fresh air and spectacular views all the way from the island’s top to its tip. We visited the film…
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Peaceful Penang We arrived in Penang just as the island was preparing to welcome the Chinese Year of the Rooster, which it continued to do throughout our stay with lion parades, fireworks, paper lanterns, and poultry-themed decorations. The ethnic Chinese of Malaysia celebrate Chinese New Year on the first day of the lunar calendar but…
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Chill Chiang Mai. We had a lovely, relaxing month in Chiang Mai, a pleasant surprise considering that we almost didn’t go to Thailand at all. I was ultra-apprehensive about whether Sam and I, with our allergies, could survive a month in the land of peanuts. I had been warned that peanut oil is widely used,…
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Holidays in Hong Kong. After the final tumultuous days of our cruise we were happy to find ourselves on terra firma for the holidays. Airbnb was good to us again, this time with a sea view apartment in Hong Kong’s Stanley Market. From the living room we overlooked a peaceful vista of boats and beaches,…
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Singapore to Hong Kong. We learned we are immune to seasickness during our cruise through the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. Our November cruise on the Norwegian Star was such a hit that I had some concerns about how we’d manage to forget it just long enough to embrace our December cruise…
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Spectacular Singapore. Two perfect weeks in Singapore between cruises was just enough time to fall in love with this small but mighty island-city-nation. Singapore is energetic, young, and ambitious, but with a strong respect for tradition, tolerance, and courtesy. We felt entirely welcome, not least because Singapore, like Canada, is proud of its multiculturalism, a…
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The stellar Norwegian Star. Greetings from Singapore, where we are waiting out the three weeks between the two cruises of our sabbatical. Based on how well the first one went, we are now contemplating adding a third to our itinerary: it was that amazing. We’ll see if the Celebrity Millennium can measure up to the…
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La dolce vita in Italy. Our home base in Tuscany was a medieval tower half way between Florence and Rome, in the charming, walkable town of Cetona. Early on we met Nilo, the local restaurateur who seems to have cornered the Cetona market with his fine dining Ristorante di Nilo, the local pizza joint, and…
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