Upcoming blogging break

As much as I enjoy writing this for all of you (and for myself), I have to take a break from blogging until Friday, May 16 to attend to my parents.

They're coming, they're coming! On a Lufthansa plane like this!

I just won't have time to keep you updated while attending to their needs. Considering our jam-packed touristy schedule, there will be plenty of posts after they go back, so don't fret.

On their first day, we're going to the wine fest along the Rhine. I saw them setting up yesterday morning:

On the other side of the bridge they have the Mainz Strand - it's a beach they setup (including trucking in sand) for the nice weather!

But anyway...

I will keep posting to my Instagram account as they happen, so check us out there.

In the meantime, set your calendars for Friday, May 16th for the dramatic return!

Wrapping up grad school class #4 this week!

Whoa, last week of class, how'd you sneak up on me so fast?!

It was a particularly challenging course this time around, and it wasn't totally because of all the traveling I did during the last eight weeks. Although that really upped the challenge-factor. My class is called Leadership Development and requires a lot of self-reflection (and taking a multitude of self-assessments) throughout the course.

As I finish my portfolio project, a 10+ page paper all about where I am in terms of my leadership development, I've grown to realize I still have a long way to go in certain areas. There's some stuff I'm good at, according to the self-assessments anyway. But still, it seems like there's always something else I could be doing to be even better.

I also learned my limits as to how hard I can push myself to complete the work. Because we were gone for a ten-day cruise, I had to frontload a lot in order to turn in assignments before the due date. I also had weekends where I wasn't around (off doing fun things) so I had to chain myself to my desk most of the time during the week.

For those that think grad school is easy and requires minimal effort and the only ability to pay for it, you're wrong. At least at CSU, these are difficult if you don't pay attention, don't do the readings, or just all around don't care. Luckily I do care, and even though I hate dealing with all the little required grammatical fluff and strict adherence to APA writing standards, I just have to grit my teeth and bare it.

I also tend to reward myself after I complete an assignment with some delicious treat from a trip, or thirst-quenching glass of wine. Mmm. It's a good incentive system. Now we can also add to the reward list the ability to take relaxing saunas with our new essences:

(We were very excited to find these over the weekend.).

Class #5 begins next Monday, so there is no lull in getting this degree. After this week I'll be 1/3 done. With a fresh start I'm hoping that I can manage my workload a little easier, and not leave such a large chunk of the final paper until the very end.

But we'll see. There's no telling what the sunshine and spring temperatures will bring in terms of new adventures to take...

The forgotten France trip: Reims, take 2

Just before the cruise, Matt and I tagged along on a spur of the moment adventure to Reims, France, where a few of our friends were going. Matt and I had been there before but who says no to the capital of the Champagne region?

Since we knew we were going to come home with more bottles, Matt and I decided to treat our car companions to some mimosas, using one of the remaining bottles of champagne we had left.

We were under a time crunch to drink it before the border to France. We made it in plenty of time.

After arriving (it's a short 3 hour or so drive), it was time for lunch and some wine....

Since I was in France, I immediately ordered the beef tartare. Mmm. Dessert was of course a cafe gourmand.

Next, the group drove down to Epernay, which is where they were all going to take the Moet & Chandon tour. Since Matt and I had already done it, we decided to walk around the city as well as along the Avenue de Champagne, where all the pretty champagne houses are located.

See what I mean?

We also relaxed in the park in the center of the city.

To kill more time, we tried out this place too.

When we met up with the others, it was about time to eat again. (Gosh I love this country). So we settled into a table outside and I prepared to eat what I'm confidently calling one of my top 5 burger experiences. Take a look at this:

What's all that you say? It's a beef burger, sauteed onion, ooozy burger sauce, and it's topped with seared foie gras. All on a buttery brioche bun. Man that was good.

With our food comas taking over, we all eventually make our way to the hotel and settle in for the evening. The next day we decided to check out some more champagne houses. Here are the ladies at Mumm:

Then you guessed it- time to eat again. It was a really great meal, but I had to take my French speaking skills, which I promise are nothing special at all, to the very max. There was no menu so the waitress got up in my face and told me everything (even though the items were listed on a wall behind me. Why she chose to do this I'll never know). She knew maybe one or two words in English and all that French gave me a headache.

Good thing lunch was so amazing. I had this chef salad and Matt had a "potato burger" which was a genius idea- it was a burger with hash brown patties as buns. So smart. Round that out with another cafe gourmand....

And we were back on the road. After parking at Veuve Clicquot but deciding we didn't want to pay the pricey entry fee, we wandered elsewhere.

Taittinger sounded like a good place, and we got to bypass the cellar tour and go straight to the tasting. Since it was late in the day, the accommodating staff said we could buy a bottle and drink it in the tasting room, so we did just that.

I also enjoy their logo on the door.

....huh?

I didn't take pictures of the last place, but I feel like we missed out on a really great tour. We hit a small champagne house where they really don't do a lot of exports. As a result, their tastings were very reasonable, we got to try a ton of things, and we basically liked them all. The server had just gotten back from Texas, and Matt and I thought this was super comical because she just went on and on about how great Texas was. She said people were coming up to her and seeing if she needed help, everyone was so nice, blah blah blah. She was incredibly excited to be going to Florida the following week, and then over to Seattle. Small world.

After a long day of drinking, we returned to a restaurant that Matt and I had been to on our last trip and got some flammkuchen, French-style.

When we woke up the next day, we found a little corner restaurant for a quick breakfast. It barely looked like a restaurant though - we're fairly certain we just walked into someone's house (which happened to have a little storefront to it) and had breakfast. We all ordered coffee (and hot chocolate for Matt), and it came out. Then croissants came out. Then toast and jam. Then breakfast meats.

We were the only ones in there and she just kept bringing out food, we didn't know when it would end, or if by accepting the food we were somehow adopted! After the strenuous French speaking the day before, I was pleased that this lady was so patient and all around sweet to us. Plus, everything tasted great.

Good stuff, France. You don't disappoint.

On the way home we stopped in Belgium at an abbey where they make Orval beer. They only make it here, so we decided to have a nice lunch and see what all the fuss was about.

Matt had the duck...

And I had the meatballs in the beer-cheese sauce.

Yes, they were as good as they look.

There were so many things on the menu that we had trouble deciding, so I suppose this means we'll have to return. (We of course got some beer, two more Belgian glasses, and a huge chunk, a kilogram, of the beer cheese.).

A fun weekend was had by all, and Matt and I are now stocked up on Champagne for awhile.

Until next time, France!

Why cruises aren't for me.

Don't get my wrong, cruising has a lot to offer. In particular, I was drawn by the idea of having one room, one check-in, and being taken to all sorts of places. No worrying about getting there, getting lost, or any of that typical business we might encounter otherwise. Plus, it enables you to visit a ton of places that might not be easy to get to on land, all in a relatively cost-effective way.

But let's talk about "cost-effective" for a minute. One of my main gripes with this cruise, and what I later found out to be the industry standard as of late, is the frequent use of upselling. I'm well-acquainted with upselling as I spent time as a waitress and tried to get people to buy all sorts of add-ons for their meals. It was annoying to ask, and it's annoying to say no thanks. Repeatedly.

On Norwegian Cruise Line, it's not limited to upselling in the dining room but it starts there. NCL is pushing this idea of "freestyle" cruising, which essentially means that there is no set time for dinner, and you as the guest are "free" to choose what time you want, and it doesn't have to be in the main dining room at all - they now have more specialty restaurants on board than main dining rooms. The specialty restaurants on our ship included Asian, French, Italian and a Steakhouse. Sounds great, right? It is until you realize that there is a (per person) upcharge for visiting each specialty restaurant, somewhere between $15 and $30.

Matt and I didn't visit any of the specialty restaurants. I'm sure they were a little better than the main dining rooms, but we didn't see any point in shelling out the cost of a typical meal when we were already paying for a meal.

We were also buying alcoholic drinks and sodas each time we wanted something. I was okay with this because it lessened the chance of over-indulging, but having to hand over my room card and sign for each and every drink was a bit of a hassle. Why bring pen and paper into each transaction?

Other pricey add-ons: buying those professional photos they take (which was sad since I really liked one, but wasn't going to buy it for $20), crazy expensive internet access (did not partake) and fitness classes (bummed I missed out on yoga!).

We did enjoy the towel animals, though.

We even went to the towel folding demonstration, where they were actually selling DVDs of the event. Take it easy, NCL, don't you know there's this magical thing called the internet?

But back to my complaining...

• The food wasn't that great. Maybe I've grown snobbier (if that's even possible) about food since being over here, but it just wasn't anything special. At times I could actually taste the additives of the mass-produced items that I definitely don't miss in the U.S. We did enjoy the double chocolate chip cookies that were served during snack time, though.
• The boat felt crowded. All the time. With 2,400 people on board that isn't hard to do. Add in older people mulling about, kids running around wild, and everyone walking around like it's their first day, it was fairly obnoxious. (Though I'm the first to admit I don't particularly like crowds; there is only so much I can take before I'm done). Being crowded wasn't limited to the ship, either- all the big attractions seem to arrive the same day as school trips full of angsty teenagers.

Gah, I just wanted a nice relaxing trip! So much mulling!

Plus, I got sick. Kind of a bummer.

What WAS nice was hanging out with friends, that saved it for me. Visiting the places we did was equally great, and I even got to see a bit of Turkey, if only for one day. But I think from now on, I'll just stick to land trips. Or shorter cruises where the destination is a beach and not a major city.

If you're interested, here is the overview of the ship we were on.

All about Italy (Naples/Pompeii)

The final excursion day of the cruise was to Naples, Italy, where Matt and I had briefly spent time before. We got the chance to visit Pompeii in January 2012, on our weeklong engagement trip through Italy. (We called it an engagement trip because on the first day, Matt proposed in Rome).

I still say that second day in Pompeii was slightly better than that first day. No offense to Matt, but it's freaking POMPEII!

Anyway, I was starting to feel slightly better by the time we docked in Naples, so I headed out. Our tour guide arranger extraordinaire, Chris, had arranged a guide to take us to Mount Vesuvius (which Matt and I hadn't done the first time around), do a wine tasting lunch, and also have an afternoon guided tour through Pompeii. We were pretty stoked; I was still groggy and a tad out of it from all the medications I was taking.

First stop: Vesuvius. We had to walk all. the. way. up.

Not entirely enjoyable considering I wasn't feeling 100%, plus you know how hard it is to walk in sand? Well, that's essentially what the terrain was like, soft and pliable volcano ash and dirt.

In typical Italian style, the first visit time was manually change to 9:17, because, you know, 9:00 or even 9:15 was too early.

 But there were some outstanding views of Naples to be had!

What we could tell from our Italian volcanologist (?) who was talking far too fast to really keep up, was that when it erupted in 79 AD and destroyed Pompeii it actually was so violent that it split the mountain in two, hence the giant crater left in its wake.

 Super high and puffy cloud adjacent!

 Wasn't planning to, but uh, okay.

 Matt wanted a picture posing with this volcanic rock. Happy to oblige.

 Still not feeling great, but trying! Matt was trying to cheer me up too, in between all my sniffles and coughing.

After surviving, we carefully walked back down the mountain and over to wine and food. At the foot of Vesuvius was a great little winery where I swear you could taste the influence of the volcano in the soil. I swear.

And the food? Oh....

 We all died and went to spaghetti heaven. This was hands down the best, most al dente-ist and tomato basil perfection I'd ever had. An old grandmotherly lady brought out this enormous bowl filled to the brim and said we couldn't leave until we had finished. We were just doing what we were told and I think nearly everyone had two helpings.

Can we briefly talk about this cake? This cross between a coffee cake and ricotta cheesecake? Matt still talks about it.

Finally we made it to Pompeii and met our guide who showed us around. When Matt and I came, we had winged it and spent an entire day just walking around, so it was nice to have a little more context and guidance, and to see areas we hadn't seen before.

 Here's the gang mulling around.

 One of the commercial streets.

 This was once a fast-food type business, where the merchants would sell hot meals to patrons.

 Inside one of the grand houses...

 With even a table bottom still there!

 And a great-looking backyard view.

 Here's more of the ruins. At this point we were standing on land that had yet to be excavated - so there's even more underneath!

 Inside one of the richly appointed bath houses....

I even found the pillar I took a picture with on my first trip! Here's me in 2012...

And then in 2014.

(I'll totally do it again if we go back, too. I've decided that's my piece of history. Mine.)

Pompeii, you will always be a source of adventure with more to see and do every trip.