Vickie’s Travelz

Packing for a Carnival Cruise

Vickie Travelz

I waited until the last day to pack.

We are leaving in the morning and I have many items laid out to put into the suitcase and I am pretty excited to try out my new packing cubes so look for a post on that experiment soon.

I remembered that one of my students gave me an amazon gift card and I wanted to be sure to get some new books on my kindle before we left — I plan to sit on the deck in the sunshine with my book and my beverage and just relax. I am looking forward to it. I was pretty excited to be able to purchase some books from my wish list but it took me over an hour to choose which ones to purchase – what is wrong with me?

I have had several kindles over the years and I have to say that the touch screen, backlit e-reader is my favorite. I can read without the light on and my husband is quite appreciative of that. My dad was even nice enough to purchase the one without the ads, I mean “special offers”.

I am off to charge my kindle and test out my new packing cubes!

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Family

My father – rather, the man I called my father – passed away. My husband went over for their weekly visit and there was no answer at the door or the phone. When he opened the door to find him “sleeping” on the couch with an ashen face and cold to the touch, all his nightmares came true. He is glad that I am not the one who opened that door but I know it was hard for him.

People ask if they can bring food — takethemameal.com — great invention. People ask if there is anything they can do. I have made those same gestures myself.

But really, what can anyone do? You are sitting there in a daze and have to keep reminding yourself that you should really be doing something. But when you pull yourself out of the daze to cancel the payments, the cable, the telephone, notify the landlord and regular things that need to be done.. everyone wants a copy of the death certificate. You don’t get that for about 10 days.

What do I do for 10 days? Life goes on but somehow I can’t really participate 100%. I am really good at Scarlet O’Hara’s “I’ll think about it tomorrow”. I am scatter brained and hope that I made sense to someone and that I don’t mess stuff up too bad. I have re-read lots of books, nothing of substance because I just want to lose myself in a fantasy world.

Update your will.

Pre-plan your own funeral.

Hug your loved ones and don’t miss any opportunity to tell them that you love them.

Re-join the world, just a few hours at a time.

Packing for Portugal & Spain

I spent quite a bit of time researching and trying to figure out what to pack for our trip. We traveled in late April / early May 2016. Hope this helps you pack for your trip!

Here is a list of what I packed:

Black pants (they are yoga pants but they aren’t tight on my legs and they pass for dress pants – daughter approved)
Gray pants (similar to the black pants)
White pants
Jeans
3 pairs of shorts in the same shade as each pair of pants (black, white, jeans) — I only wore 1 pair of shorts but several people in our group wore them more often.
A dress shirt that matched both the black pants and the white pants — wore this to our farewell dinner.
Enough Shirts to wear each one twice
3 scarves to wear with my plain t-shirts (mix-n-match)
Cardigan for the plane and evenings – brought the one that doesn’t wrinkle easily and is easily stuffed into my bag.
Black warmer jacket
Rain Poncho. This is also easily stuffed into my bag when not in use.
Walking shoes – my research said that women in Europe do not wear tennis shoes — our guide agreed but I saw many tennis type shoes for sale in the shops and I saw many people wearing them.
Chargers and Two converters — good thing because 1 broke!
Sinus medication — packed extra and I am so glad — it was a late spring and my sinuses were very active.
Lotion — I come from a humid climate and it was very dry there — so glad I had some good quality lotion because the lotion provided in the hotels is ok but not great.
Snacks
31 Vary You bag that turns into a backpack. I don’t like the backpack very much but I do like the extra zippered pouch that pick-pockets cannot get into. The inside compartment is large enough for my cardigan and rain jacket and tissues and hand sanitizer and more.
ATM card — super easy to use and get money. Credit Card in case I had problems with the ATM card. Read my blog post on this subject.
Travel steamer — what a great idea — it doesn’t really wash out stains but it kills all the germs in the clothes so when I wanted to wear something a second time, I steamed it and told Mom that I was “doing my laundry”.
Bus Bag / Plane bag — this was a easily folded-up bag that I used to carry the airplane pillow, blanket, books etc on the airplane. While touring I used it for anything I wanted to have with me but not carry around, like the rain poncho or walking shoes and anything I bought. I bought it on clearance from Travel Smith but I liked the lightweight bag my mom had better — it just crumpled up and fit into her purse or suitcase.
Sunscreen — needed it almost every day
My Kindle e-reader and some paperback books with short stories. (My kindle does not have the ‘special offers’ and I love that). The paperbacks took lots of space so I left them behind when I was finished reading – I only brought them in case I couldn’t read the kindle on the plane during takeoff and landing. The Kindle e-reader is awesome, it is lightweight, mine has a back-light and keeps the charge for a long time. I pre-loaded lots of books to read and never ran out.

Here is a list of what I wish I had packed:

An umbrella to go with my poncho. Sometimes it just sprinkled a little bit and a small umbrella would have been nice instead of having to get in and out of the poncho.
Puffs-plus. I had sinus problems and remembered to bring the medication but had a difficult time finding soft tissue.
Charmin Toilet Paper – not going to discuss this but I think you understand
Wash Cloth
Second pair of walking shoes — just one pair was not enough.

Things I didn’t need:

Shampoo, conditioner, soap — provided by every hotel. I would only pack a single sample of each in case of an emergency.

Good Ideas / Bad Ideas:

I was concerned that eating lunch at 2pm and dinner at 8pm would cause me problems but after the first week I didn’t need any additional snacks. I would still take snacks but not quite so many — plenty of stores around if I needed to restock.
I wore flip-flops on the plane — that was also a great idea!
Pack your toothbrush & toothpaste in your carry-on. After the over-night flight you will be happy you did!
Leave room in your suitcase for purchases or bring stuff you will use or leave behind (like paperback books), leaving extra room in your suitcase.

#VickieTravelz

My mother and I are taking a trip called the Back Roads of Iberia: Spanish Paradores & Portuguese Pousadas. These are our daily adventures – written for our family while we were traveling – April / May 2016.

Day 15 – Madrid

Today is our last day in Spain. We are free to explore the city on our own and we decided to walk around without worry and if we got lost we would take a taxi back to the hotel.

We made our way to the Plaza del Sol and the Plaza Mayor, both places we had been yesterday. We walked uphill & downhill & into some stores & had a small sandwich & walked some more. Apparently I had learned more from yesterday’s guide than I thought because we kept seeing the landmarks she pointed out and finding our way back to the Plaza del Sol. Last day 20160510_115257 web

In the Plaza there are lots of people dressed as characters and will take pictures with you, they would like a donation of course. None of them are exactly right and most if them are way too tall. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, Mario, Luigi, Olaf and more. There was also a guy balancing on a motorcycle. At first we though he was balancing on his arms but then we decided he was laying on something and just keeping his arms and legs extended.

Our farewell dinner was preceded by a Flamenco demonstration and learning time, the history of the dance is pretty cool. It is important to pronounce the “c” as a “k” and not a “g”. It is a dance and not a bird. At t 20160510_184656 he end Mom volunteered to learn the dance, she said she did it to embarrass me but she really did it to have fun.

We had a fabulous and incredibly loud dinner. The room had an oval ceiling and the sound was everywhere. I guess we sounded like a Spanish party. The food was good and of course there was plenty of wine. When we returned to the hotel, we all said goodbye and promised to email pictures.

All that is left is a long travel day.

#VickieTravelz

Day 14 – Explore Madrid

Tour of Madrid this morning. We started by bus and ended by walking.

There is an Egyptian temple of rah in the middle of the city.. I don’t know what that is about. She told us when it was moved here and all about that but she didn’t tell us why it is here.

Our guide’s voice made me sleepy when we were on the bus and when we were walking around she walked very fast and then stood and waited for us. There are some pretty steep hills and it is so crowded here that it is hard to stay together as a group. As she spoke to us, she kept turning around to make sure we all heard but instead, we all heard a little of it instead of all of it. She was not my favorite guide and I did not figure out how to go anywhere even though she kept giving us directions.

This afternoon there are no s palace web(2) cheduled activities so palace web(1) Mom and I decided to tour the palace. It is still an active palace and you can only tour it when the royal family is not using it. We only got to see about 20 of the 2000+ rooms but it was still a big place. The courtyard is huge and can open up to the cathedral next door. There is a large staircase when you enter and there is a huge courtyard in the center of the building that we got to look over from the windows. Every ceiling is painted but my favorite was a 3D ceiling. They would not allow pictures so I can only tell you that it was pretty cool. They also had umbrellas for us to use when we crossed the courtyard to the main building — that was a nice touch.

After a short siesta, Pilar took us for hot chocolate and churros. It is like a cup of melted dark chocolate and you dip fried bread into it. Much too rich for me.

Then mom and some of the other ladies went to the bull fight. She has described it to me and I am glad I did not go but she says she had to experience it one time.

We did not stay at a Parador or Pousada in Madrid, it was a hotel. At this hotel we had access to the rooftop gardens and pool — we went to look at it but the rain and the cold kept us from staying there long. We also had access to a club room with some snacks and drinks. I spent some time in this room with the other people from the group while Mom was at the bullfight. It was pretty cool to just hang out with these world travelers and find out about their other trips and experiences. It was also nice to stop by the club room for a cold water, coke or beer (no wine here because wine is associated with food) and little snack when returning from walking around Madrid — made a great place to meet people from the group and find out what they did that day.

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#VickieTravelz

Day 13 – Overland to Madrid * Explore Toledo

Travel day…

It is first communion Sunday and our lunch restaurant was hosting 19 lunches starting around 2p.m. or later. The lunches are huge affairs that look much like a wedding reception and the little girls (about 9 years old & had their first communion today) are dressed in white frilly dresses and the boys (also about 9 years old & who had their first communion today) are dressed in sailor type outfits. We arrived at 12:30 and many of the family and friends were at the front patio area havi 6 escalators to top web ng a drink and just hanging out talking until the lunch time, the kids were running around playing. Interesting tradition.

On to tour Toledo (toe lay doe). Cool set of about 6 escalators going about 3/4 of the way up the hill and then we walked the rest of the way to the cathedral. Steep hills but they didn’t hurt as bad as they did on the first day… Finally getting used to it I guess. This cathedral had some pretty cool paintings that had all sorts of incorrect timing things wrong with it, for example a spanish suit of armor and a piece of paper during Bible times. Apparently that is was how Greko painted. Our guide, Carlos, was very informative and interesting.

After a few more stops, we drove to a point in the city where we could see the entire city. Very beautiful!

6 20160508_173356 web

Here we are in Madrid, our last hotel before we head home. Mom wants you to know that in her opinion, the bidet is a waste of bathroom real estate.

After exploring the backroads of Iberia, the city is loud and crowded. Many people here speak English and the Starbucks and Dunkin are next to each other across the street from our hotel. The waiter at the restaurant spoke to us in English and we said the words we know… Gracias, Cervesa, and Vino Tinto. I imagine the breakfast buffet will have choices of things we like to eat and maybe some good coffee (if not, I know where I can find some).

#VickieTravelz

Day 12 – A Day in the Life of an Andalusian Village * Explore Ubeda

Olive oil.. Wow
The things I will remember without my notes:
* 50% of the worlds olive oil is produced in Spain
* There is an expiration date on the back of the bottle
* Use regular olive oil to cook and use extra virgin or virgin oil to flavor bread, salad, etc
* It has a spicy after taste

Cool, huh??

Home Hosted lunch today. We were broken into groups for lunch. Each group had 5 Euros to buy something from the grocery store to bring to the hostess. Our group bought empanadas for 4.99.. still warm from the oven. We thought it was a dessert but turns out these were tuna instead of fruit so we brought an appetizer.. Lol.

The lunch was so so so very good … YUM

After a short Siesta we took a walk around the city and saw a few of the 10 churches (only a couple of priests who travel around) then several of us visited a hidden sinagog.. Tour was in Spanish but the tour guide was so nice she told us some things in English.

Then we went out for drinks and tapas. When you order a glass of wine they bring you food. Some places bring olives or nuts but this place brought tiny sandwiches the first time and open faced sandwiches the second time. If you have 2 glasses of wine, you have had dinner. (Still takes two hours).

Another good day!

#VickieTravelz

Day 11 – Visit Cordoba * Journey to Ubeda

Travel day today. Stopped at a little gas station for a break and saw a huge field of cilantro growing. It had gone to flower for the corriander seeds. Very cool.

Stopped in Cordoba to visit a very old Mosqu that has a Catholic Church in the middle. It is like two different buildings .. But the active Catholic church is in the exact center of the old mosqu… Wow.

Had a carriage ride through town that finished just as the rain began.. Perfect timing.

On to our parador.. Another great place. This one has really high ceilings and an indoor patio.

Tomorrow we get to find out about growing olives and making olive oil!

#VickieTravelz

Day 10 – Explore Ronda

Walked around Ronda today on a city tour. Good guide, the history of this city is very interesting.

In our free time we took a hike 1/2 way down the gorge to see the waterfalls. It was steep and no hand rails. Going down was not so bad but coming back was difficult. I almost had a panic attack several times because I am just not good with heights. It was a very nice view.

In the evening several of us went to a guitar concert. He was good. I have never seen someone play the guitar like that. He strummed and picked the top strings with his fingers at the same time.

I want to take a moment to talk about the hotel. It is in the best location.. Looking over the gorge and we have great balconies. The rooms are big and it is nice. The pillows are not very comfortable and the water temperature fluxuated the entire time I was showering. So far in Spain, they actually let you keep a towel for two days if you hang it back up. The towels have also been huge! No air conditioning but outside weather is cool so we open the window or door and let the air circulate. Such little differences make the trip more interesting.

For dinner we went to the McDonalds next door to the Pousada and had a beer, because we could!

We are walking quite a bit each day. I think the lowest mileage so far has been about 4. The walkways are also cobblestone and uphill more than this flatlander is used to. If I weren’t eating and drinking so much i would probably lose some weight.

Goodbye Ronda!

#VickieTravelz