Today we walked to Abbey Road Studios, then to the zebra crossing where the Beatles shot their eponymous album cover. Since there were only two of us, we took a photo of the area when 4 Japanese women in kimonos were re-enacting the album cover. Because, why not?
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Freedom Day! Thursday, July 22 was our first day without quarantine. It was thrilling to step outside and see people not in hotel uniform, restaurants, stores, and occasionally, sun. One right turn out of our hotel (heading west) and we’re on Kilburn High Road, a busy street with many grocery stores (Tesco, Sainsburys, Marks & Spencer, Iceland), the equivalent of Dollar Tree (Poundland!), salons, bars, restaurants, cell phone stores, and of course, Starbucks, McDonalds and KFC.
When watching movies like Shawshank Redemption or Cool Hand Luke, have you ever wondered whether you could tolerate solitary confinement? As a devout introvert, Darcie assumed that she would survive, if not flourish. Reality has proven otherwise. Even in the comfort of our hotel room, which includes internet, cable tv, A/C, and a little room for pacing, we are going bonkers.
We traveled to London so that Dale could teach virtual class from the same time zone as his Europe-based students. At the Minneapolis airport, we took the on-site Rapid Covid test, an efficient but expensive ($50 per nostril per nose) precursor to checking in for our flight. Thirty minutes later, we received negative results (thank you, Moderna!), and headed to the Delta ticket counter. The agents also had to review the latest travel requirements and examine our paperwork before issuing our boarding passes. The flight from MSP to ATL was delayed by 45 minutes with a tight connection to Heathrow, so Darcie was nervous about missing our flight. However, the gate agents at ATL were also bogged down reviewing travelers’ documents, so instead of being late, we waited in line again for about 30 minutes before boarding. The overseas flight was run by Virgin Atlantic and was another reminder about how much better overseas airlines treat their customers. We landed at Heathrow slightly early and then queued for 90 minutes for our 3rd round of documentation review. Finally, we Ubered to our hotel, the Marriott Maida Vale. This hotel is perfect for our needs—Dale is able to work at a desk in the bedroom whilst Darcie putters about the living area, which includes a kitchen and washer/dryer. We’re stuck in the room for a 10-day quarantine, which will end on the same day that the UK plans to loosen the Covid quarantine and testing requirements for everyone else. Sigh.
Our ultimate destination in Poland was a wedding in Trzcianka. As Americans, neither of us is able to pronounce the t-r-z-c combination, nor the name of the first city on our Germany-to-Poland drive, Wroclaw (how to pronounce Wroclaw). We read it as "rock" + "claw" which soon morphed into a nickname, "Rock Lobster". Upon hearing this, Darcie's dad reminded us that Poland and Sweden had once been at war, which was settled when Sweden got rights to all vowels and Poland got all of the consonants.
On our way to Poland to attend the wedding of Dale's friend David and his fiancee Dominika, we flew to Berlin and spent a few days here before continuing to Poland.
Our flight from JFK to Berlin was only 7 hours but felt longer after watching The Avengers Endgame on the flight. Passage through immigration was so fast and painless it felt criminal. Because we were driving to Poland, Hertz limited our car choices to economy, manual options. Hence, we drove a Ford Kuga (apparently it only dates younger models?) to our first hotel in Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. At least it wasn't a Trabant, the infamous East German car.
Malaysia was our last stop on this adventure. Per usual, we reserved a centrally located hotel because we love walking around a city. We quickly learned that KL is not a walkable city. To quote the travel website Travelfish, whose KL article is titled, Walking in Kuala Lumpur: Are you mad?: "Kuala Lumpur, with its energy-sapping climate, would be a tough place to be a pedestrian at the best of times. But combined with inadequate pavements, dangerous road crossings, and drivers who never, ever, stop for you, it can often be a complete nightmare to walk in the Malaysian capital." True that! Nevertheless, we persisted...
Good morning [from] Vietnam! We spent several days in Hanoi, in northern Vietnam, where everyone and their mom owns a motorbike. There are literally millions of them! Similar to Shanghai, Hanoi traffic horns seem to be everyone's second language: drivers honk their horns, not in rage, but as a continuous communication tool ("Let me in," or "I'm passing on your left...on the sidewalk.")
We had 4 days in between our Galapagos cruise and our annual pilgrimage to Mexico for Thanksgiving (pun courtesy of cervezas) with Darcie's family. To fill the time, we spent 4 days at Rancho Las Cascadas, a horse ranch and spa outside of Mexico City, before heading to Puerto/Nuevo Vallarta.
Named after the giant tortoises that inhabit the islands, the Galapagos Islands are famous for their endemic species and for inspiring Darwin's theory of evolution. Ecuador was not on our original list of destinations, but Darcie's dad recommended the Galapagos as a bucket-list excursion, especially since we were already in South America. After comparing cruises vs. land-based tours, we opted for a week-long cruise on a smaller (16-guest) yacht.
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