Steph and I had a good night dive on Monday. We headed to Breakwater in Monterey early in the day to avoid traffic. We found a really nice cafe, and I was able to get a decent amount of work done. We grabbed a bit of dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf before heading back for the start of the dive. I didn’t bring enough warm clothing so I got into my suit quickly to warm up. That worked really well, as did the full bladder once we got in the water. The water was a little murky, but still fine for a night dive. We swam out decently far along the wall then did a one hour out and back. The dive was nice and we saw a few nudibranchs, a few sheapshead crabs, and a large octopus. I say large, but it is more that it was large for that area. The octopus had a tennis ball sized head and was mainly bright red to say he was ready to fight. We also saw a strange creature that looked like it had a shell inside, but it was covered in tentacles / feelers and was moving with jets. I saw a tiny octopus about the size of a dime, and only really recognized it by the way it was trying to cover itself in sand. I’ve learned the motion that octopi/cuttlefish make when they are trying to hid in sand. It is adorable when they shuffle a bit down in the sand and then have two tentacles scoop up sand and bring it up and over their head. The whole time you can tell they are staring at you hoping you don’t see them or make a move to eat them. We got back home around midnight and had a quick clean up before crashing hard.
We started from Indian Basin Shoreline Park at Hunters Point and made it up to a public dock at Pier 1.5. The entire trip was around 7 miles and too about 3 hours.
The start was a bit rough as the tide was lower than previously experienced at this location. We were just a bit too late as the tide went out to really go for the entry. Adam sunk up to his waste in mud during the attempt. We decided to portage over to another spot and carried the kayaks for a quarter mile to another spot. We are counting it as a true portage as we were in the kayaks at the original put in spot. Once we were actually in the water everything we very smoothly. We made it under the bay bridge as the winds were really picking up and the tides were turning. With the longer than expected put in we weren’t on track to make it to the intended take out location, so we jumped on the first spot we ran across that would work and it turned out to be a public dock at Pier 1.5. There is a really nice Peruvian restaurant, La Mar, where we had brunch.
Tina made her amazing mochi waffles and we had some in Adam’s new tree design waffle iron. They were amazing. George made some egg sandwiches for everyone that were very tasty as well. Then we played four or five rounds of Pandemic Legacy Season 2.
After Barcelona we headed to Lisbon, Portugal as a part 2 to the Iberian trip. Ricardo and Irene headed to France, so we were on our own for this portion.
Sunday morning we got to the airport, got checked in and through security and sat down for a breakfast. Time went quickly and we almost missed our time for getting on the plane. They had closed the doors, but opened it back up for us and some others who had a late connection.
We got to Lisbon and had a nice pick up from the airport to take us to our Airbnb in the older part of the city, Alfama. We decided to try to bike to Belem, which would have been nice if we weren’t way up a hill that didn’t have straight streets or lots of room and was mostly stairs to get down to the boardwalk the quick way. We left the bikes and decided to walk. I enjoyed the walk, but Steph was starting to have her feet hurt by the time we made it to Belem about an hour and a half later. We got the famous egg tarts and shared a half dozen. We noticed on the walk that there was a Banksy exhibition and made a note to come back, as they were about to close by the time we saw it. We took the bus back to the touristy street and had some ginjinha and gelato.
Monday we went back to the Banksy exhibition in the morning and really enjoyed it. The exhibit wasn’t by Banksy, but about him and featured a good bit of his work and explanations of what they represented and were about. We then took the tram to the top of the hill where we were staying and to the Castillo de George. We hung out at a cafe overlooking the city before having dinner at Cantio do Aviles, which was good.
Tuesday we were supposed to have a cooking class, but after getting to the local market and waiting for an hour we decided the guide was a no show, so we went to the aquarium instead. This was nice and we got to relax and look at fish for a while. The aquarium also had puffins, penguins, and otters to round out their sea life offering. The puffins were adorable, and the otters are always fun to watch. They also had a fascinating exhibit on display of sea creatures made from fishing hooks.
We went to a nearby vegetarian restaurant for lunch, Ohana. It was really tasty food, and if this place were near our house I would be going there all the time. They even had a green smoothie with added turmeric. We then headed to the 24 de Abril bridge for an evening cruise. We took the trolley, and didn’t count on the main coastal street not being crossable by pedestrians. After we made it over a pedestrian bridge some ways away we made it just in time to get on the boat. The cruise was very nice, and relaxing. They gave us a bit of history of the buildings visible from the water.
After the cruise we went to an area called LX Factory, which was a gorgeous hidden gem. We stumbled on it while trying to get to the boat. This is an artist community with a touristy main street with lots of restaurants. I really liked the feel of the area and would recommend a visit.
Wednesday we spent the morning just relaxing at a cafe before lunch at AO26, a vegan restaurant. The vegan cheese was some of the best we’ve had. They also had a soup we had all the time on the trip (and before the trip with Adam) a strawberry gaspacho. We walked over to the Elevador de Santa Justa, and had a great view from the top. We walked along the ridge and took the stairs down to a small shop Ginjinha de Carmo to have the ginjinha in a chocolate cup. It was delicious and unique. We headed to the airport after a mixup with luggage that got sorted quickly. We got back to Barcelona and spend the night at the airport hotel there.
Thursday we got on our flight back to the US. We were connecting through Philadelphia, but the Philadelphia to SFO flight was cancelled once we got there. We were given a hotel room and got a nice dinner at a tasty Thai place. Friday we had time to kill so we got a nice veggie brunch and then went to see Toy Story 4. The flight back in the evening was thankfully uneventful and we even got back a little ahead of schedule.
Lisbon was a great city, and we could have spent a few more days there with things still to see. We were slowing down at this point in the trip as well, so we weren’t trying to pack in all the things like we could have. I enjoyed the relaxing parts just as much as the interesting ones.
Steph and I decided to do a trip to Europe with Ricardo and Irene, some friends we met through Michael Kehoe. We talked through a lot of the options and based on deals we found decided to do Barcelona together.
Our original flight Monday morning got cancelled and we got moved to one 8 hours later. We got the info when we woke up on Monday. I got some work in before we had to head to the airport. This was nice and bad, as it meant we lost most of a day in Barcelona, but I got time to put my work in a good position before leaving.
We also had our flight plan changed from a layover in the US to a layover in Madrid, meaning we had an 11 hour flight from SFO to Madrid. This was preferred by me, and we had a nice seat layout with Steph in the window and myself in the aisle. I have to say travelling with the switch was amazing. I played a ton of games, and Steph and I were even able to play some multiplayer on it while on the planes. This is something I recommend to anyone travelling together. I will have to get a good set of earbuds to share the audio for next time.
We got to Madrid and made the transfer without issues. I still find it annoying to have to go through customs, then back through security, but can understand why countries want it that way. I was surprised by how easy it was to get through the EU customs. We then got to Barcelona and took a taxi to the hotel, which was a quick. We had originally planned to do a spa on Tuesday, but that got pushed back due to the delay. We were still able to do our dinner plans at 7 Portes, where they had good traditional paella. After dinner we took a walk around the port and then headed into the Gothic Quarter. We found an alley to grab drinks in and had a relaxing evening absorbing the ambiance of the old city.
On Wednesday I headed off to the Sagrada Familia after breakfast, with Steph going to Park Guell. Both are by Gaudi, but they have very different feels. I really enjoyed the Sagrada Familia and the part that Steph had complained about, long lines, wasn’t an issue with the time slot method with reservations. I just showed up when my time slot was, and walked right in. I loved the columns and how they split at odd angles as they made their way to the ceiling. It was a gorgeous church.
We met back at the hotel and walked a little down the street for a nice lunch at Madeleine Mon Amore. We walked down to the old city and had the spa treatment we had meant to do on Tuesday. It was relaxing, with Steph and I spending about an hour in the pools before our massage. We tried all the pools: hot, warm, bubbly, cold, and salty. The cold was very cold, as it has ice melting into it. Getting in gave a shortness of breath, and once returning to the hot pool caused a pleasant tingle all over. We had our massage in the warm pool, and it was different. The floating massage we had involved a neck pillow and pool noodle under the knees for floating support. Then the masseuse would pull and rub different parts of the body. This worked well for the feet, hands, arms, and head. It didn’t give them any leverage on the back, making that part of the massage not as good. I also didn’t like the feeling of my feet and hands being rubbed when they were so pruny.
After about 2 hours in the pools I was ready to get out. I left the others there and headed to a coffee shop to get dry and have a bit more caffeine. Ricardo joined me shortly thereafter and we had some good conversations. Both of us had or most traumatic experiences close to home, and were glad we had moved away. We wandered around the nearby park for a bit before the women joined us. We walked up to the Cristopher Columbus stature and the Arc de Triumph. Steph and I then headed back to the Gothic Quarter to wander around a bit more, and we found a vegetarian place on a little square. The food was decent, and I appreciated the conversation and feeling of being in the old square. We then wandered the quarter some more before finding a place serving churros and drinking chocolate for dessert, which was amazing.
I wasn’t able to sleep that night, which was a bit of a issue as we had scuba diving the next day. The place was about an hours drive outside of Barcelona on the Costa Brava. We ended up at the dive shop early enough to have a bit of a breakfast there. We geared up, which was a little disconcerting. Steph’s tank was having issues, and by the reactions of the staff that might have been common. I was also only given a pressure gauge, no depth gauge. We didn’t cover any profiles before the dive, so I was just trusting that we would be staying in limits, but based on max depth and time we weren’t even close to issues. I was still uncomfortable with it. We got to beach Badia de Tossa which was gorgeous. The castle and beach combo was so picturesque. The dives went off without too much going wrong. One of the people who tried to join us had a mask issue and wasn’t able to resolve it. This was probably for the best as he was super flaily, and then tried to come join us on his own once he had it fixed. We got to see more than I was expecting in terms of life. There were a lot of large schools of fish, and dozens of eels. We were able to see two octopi. The octopi were about the size of a basketball all together, which is bigger than the octopi I’ve seen before. I was impressed by the life and variety.
We got back and had a much needed nap, then headed to a nice dinner at Bistro Rastroterra.
Friday we had a tour to see the Spanish wine country. We got to the tour launching point early and grabbed a coffee before getting bussed to the first winery, Jean Leon. It was a pretty area, but the ego of the place was a bit much for me. The next winery, Familia Torres, was a much larger estate with a really well done tour. I enjoyed it much more. The third, Friexenet was a sparkling wine that is termed Cava for the region, much like Champagne is for the region in France. This was by far my favorite as they had an elaborate set of cellars, and the product was in my opinion the best of the grouping.
Dinner was at a place in Barcelona called Can Nico and it was the worst meal of the trip. The food wasn’t seasoned well and overcooked.
Saturday we relaxed fo the morning and then headed to a place near the hotel for lunch. In comparison dinner the night before Xorus was amazing. It was probably the best meal of the trip as the food was amazingly well seasoned and perfectly cooked. We split up after that with Steph and myself going to the Teleferic de Mon Juic. This was a gondola going up to a castle overlooking Barcelona. The ride was ok, but the views from the top were certainly worth it. We ended walking down from there through the Garden de Larybal to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. This was a massive museum that we could have spent all day in. We got to see some old Romanesque church frescoes as well as modern art, including a Picasso self portrait.
We met back up with Ricardo and Irene for dinner at Hissop. The tasting menu was amazing, and we had a great conversation about music and games over dinner. Afterwards we got lucky and found a tea that Steph’s mom had been asking for in the quick mart right outside the restaurant.
I really enjoyed Barcelona. The city has a great history, great food, and is very walkable and bikable. The tree lined streets with large pedestrian routes down the medians made it feel much more inviting as a city. I was especially happy to see that all those routes were very much in use. I would recommend a visit of a few days here.
Andrew hosted a lot of people for his and Haru’s birthday at his place. Debby did most of the coordination and prep, with Andrew handling the meat. Steph and I brought some drinks: ginger cider, and cucumber basil smash. We had a great time, and took home a bunch of the clay work that Irene had made. Once they started the poker game Steph and I headed out.
Adam hosted a nice dinner for Andrew, Tina, George, Adisa, and us. We had some amazing food provided by Adam: steaks, gazpacho, and corn. We brought some veggies pasta. We got in the hot tub after, and had a good conversation. It was a lot of fun.
We finished up Gloomhaven at Georges on Wednesday. We had a group of characters that were ideal for playing this scenario. Adam had the summoner who just threw little guys in front of the big enemy. This caused the main enemy to use up all its giant attacks on the summons and not on us. I was the Quartermaster and was able to refresh all the items for people multiple times. This meant more stamina and healing potions for the whole group. We didn’t really feel like we were threatened for the scenario. We look forward to the expansion but I think we are going to have a break for a bit to do some other legacy game.
Adam got tickets to Hamilton and he was kind enough to have us join him there. The musical was the first I’d been to where the entire performance is singing. They also had an amazing stage that was concentric circles that could rotate. The casting was also interesting in that multiple characters were played by the same actors. I liked it a lot and would see it again as it goes soooo fast. We were also joined by Owen, a contractor who worked with Steph at Mayfield.
It's an Exciting World 