by Jeff Drake | Oct 18, 2019 | 2019 France & Spain, Uncategorized
Well, in yet another clear case of “life interruptus,” my hopes for finishing my Alva Noe consciousness blog before leaving on our next overseas adventure have been dashed. Why? Because I was too damned lazy and besides, we are off to Europe tomorrow!...
by Jeff Drake | Nov 4, 2018 | Travel
Only a few hours to go until we leave for Japan! I tried to schedule a Lyft for 4:45am, but didn’t get any takes, so we’re going to the airport by ordinary taxi. Oh, well. My last post left on in Kanazawa. On day 9 of our trip, after tea with a local Kanazawa family,...
by Jeff Drake | Nov 1, 2018 | Travel
We’re getting down to the finer details for our upcoming trip to Japan – making sure our camera SD cards are empty and the camera lenses are clean; charging all our electronic devices; making sure we have the proper cables; printing out important documents (to go with...
by Jeff Drake | Oct 29, 2018 | Travel
Wow, time is flying! Par for the course for all our other Overseas Adventure (OAT) Tours, as the date for our trip grows closer we’ve now had a chance to talk to our country guide, Hiroshi Ninigawa, and have received a list of our fellow travelers. It looks like this...
by Jeff Drake | Oct 14, 2018 | Travel
My wife and I haven’t been out of the country since June and we were getting restless. So many places to see and so little time! Where to go? Our wish list of travel places to visit is long, so we went through a number of choices before making a final decision. We...
by Jeff Drake | Jul 5, 2018 | 2018 Spain & Portugal
Hola! Well, it’s travel time again! Actually, travel time is past due for my wife and I, as we haven’t been out of the country since September 2017! This was a long stretch for us. We normally try to do at least two foreign adventures per year,...
by Jeff Drake | Jul 5, 2018 | 2018 Spain & Portugal
Only 3 days left before our departure. Yay! Long air travel is never something to look forward to. On Monday the 11th we will fly out mid-morning to JFK airport in New York, enjoy a leisurely 2.5 hour layover, then board our flight bound for Lisbon, Portugal. We land...
by Jeff Drake | Jul 5, 2018 | 2018 Spain & Portugal
We depart for Portugal and Spain the day after tomorrow! Tick, tock! Time is flying. Given the really bad news we all received this week about celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and our upcoming journey, I thought the following quote was worth repeating: “Travel isn’t...
by Jeff Drake | Jul 5, 2018 | 2018 Spain & Portugal
Well, we won’t really be in Portugal till Tuesday, but what the heck, mentally we are out of here! We spent the afternoon pouring through more Youtube videos of the places we will be visiting and the hotels, pousadas and paradors where we will be staying, so at...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 28, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
Wow, my wife and I haven’t taken a foreign trip in… months! LOL! Somehow, our last trip, Cuba, seems so distant, but it was actually just last March. Given the current situation with Cuba and Hurricane Irma, we’re grateful we got to see it before the storm. Once...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 27, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
We will be traveling to Switzerland and Italy for a period of three weeks. We will spend one week based in Wengen, Switzerland. This is a beautiful, tucked away town high in the Swiss alps. Here we will have fairly easy access to other points within Switzerland that...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 26, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
Woo hoo! Only 10 days to go! I am starting to feel like the clock is spinning faster and faster! Today Lisa and I nailed the train schedules (finally, yes!) and I even purchased a couple of tickets for all 4 of us for specific legs of our journey which other travelers...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 25, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
Lisa has been extremely busy gathering last minute details that need to be captured in our group travel document (will be shared soon with Mike and Denise). I try to provide as much support as I can, which primarily is editing, as I have probably forgotten more about...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 25, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
Wow, busy times! Lisa is appreciating more and more the benefits of having someone else handle all the itinerary details. Personally, I think Lisa missed her calling. She is so meticulous! She’d have made a great travel agent. One of the Italian cities we’ll be...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 25, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
It’s time. We leave tomorrow morning. We feel very much in sync with our traveling partners, Mike and Denise and are looking forward to seeing them again in the Zurich airport train station. We were fortunate and got good seating in the aircraft. It’s a Delta...
by Jeff Drake | Sep 25, 2017 | 2017 Switzerland
We’re outta here! Mike and Denise have made it to the airport and are boarding as I write this. We’re just doing some last minute checks, taking care of the cats (who are NOT happy about us leaving again – they started getting antsy as soon as we...
