What We’ve Done, What We’ve Learned

While the overarching idea, rent our home in the states and stay rent free traveling Europe and elsewhere by Pet Sitting for a year was very appealing and financially sound, we still had to overcome some obstacles - physically moving all of our belongings from place to place, coordinating schedules for Sits while identifying and organizing the different modes of transportation, balancing our budget and finally, enjoying the experiences of our lives.

Etta in France

A critical component for us to be able to travel six months in Europe is Pet Sitting. Pet or House Sitting is when homeowners, going on holiday (vacation) or a business trip for days or weeks, open their home, rent free, in exchange for feeding and attending to their pet’s needs. So, for feeding and playing with animals, we live, temporarily, in homes located in towns and cities throughout Europe meeting some wonderful people and experience things we never thought we would. Since the animals are not on life support requiring 24/7 care and we are not trained veterinarians, we are able to venture out in the area for hours at a time while our furry friends sleep, oblivious to our brief absence. Fantastic! Although the Sits with our new furry friends has been rewarding and memorable, the purpose of our trip was to experience people, places and things.

Since we are in our 50’s, with me closer to 60, moving our 40 pounds of luggage between the six Sits (so far) and four additional stops, almost always via multiple transportation modes in three months has been challenging. Luckily, Barb is a determined person and devoted partner and does her fair share of the physical moving and I have been able to provide any extra muscle when needed. We learned to shift as much weight to our backpacks for the ground transportation since there is no size restrictions and distribute it into our handbags when flying. This has helped tremendously. We realized the difficulty of moving our luggage as we made our way to our first hotel in London but the impetus for change happened boarding our plane on Flybe airlines. I still recall the feeling of angst as I entered our plane’s fuselage, each with our 20 pound backpacks and seeing the overhead not much bigger than a bread box realizing they would never fit. During our next Sit we worked on a solution. Just recently we received our collapsible handcart that should help even more.

The coordination of the dozen or so Sits we will probably need for the six months in Europe have been handled perfectly by Barb. She applies for Sits, always mindful of available time slots in our schedule, arranges interviews and makes sure I look somewhat presentable when we have a Skype call. As far as the travel arrangements, Barb must have travel planning in her DNA or blood because she has always done that in our relationship and has been fantastic on this Adventure. I’ve watched her sit in front of our laptop with her eyes glazing, toggling between many different screens for schedules for trains, buses, airlines, hotels and their cancellation policies, Google maps for walking distances from terminal to terminal to hotel, and other websites. It’s too much for me to comprehend and since she enjoys it and skilled my input would just muddle things.

We did learn a valuable lesson on over committing to our hosts. Between our second and third Sit we had to leave at 3:30AM in Ward End, England to meet our third host in Edinburgh, Scotland by noon. We took a taxi to the airport, flew to Edinburgh, caught a tram into the city to get the keys for our AirBnB, then a taxi to meet our host and finally an Uber to our AirBnB. That was a grind but we did it and since then we make realistic commitments with adequate time between Sits.




After three months of traveling we are reasonably satisfied with our expenses relative to our budget. We still need to be aware of our budgetary constraints but also want to enjoy these experiences. Since we travel to locations based on the Sits we have been to places we never heard of so we never considered them as a place we would want to go. Our third Sit, Edinburgh Scotland, was such a place. After reading a travel book and doing a little internet research the city size was adequate, it had mass transportation, we could easily walk to places and their temperatures would be a high of 75 degrees. We stayed there for one month and saw a good portion of the city and it far exceeded our expectations and we would love to return. Another time we had four days before our Munich Sit so we selected Gdansk Poland because it was exotic, for us, and the flight was reasonable. Our research indicated the temperatures and cost of living was reasonable. Since it has a population of 450K we knew there would be activities we enjoy. We loved it! We could just as easily traveled to popular locations and had fun but I can’t imagine they would be more memorable than Gdansk. We knew the budget could be doomed by rationalizing expensive travel and hotels to popular but out of the way places by the phrase, “We should spend the money. We deserve it and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

Pintxos 

I think people, friends, bloggers, writers, recommend places because they enjoyed them, of course, but they probably don’t have the same expectations of places or the same interest as us. Those suggestions are a good place to start but a decision should only be made after some introspection and research. Also, books or the internet should be taken as generally accurate. For instance, Barb found a blog that described a city in northern Spain having a style of eating and drinking that appealed to us, bars giving a free tapas with the purchase of a glass of wine. We enjoy eating small plates of food, going to bars and drinking wine or beer so we planned a trip to Bilbao, Spain. Well, the city was fantastic and we loved it but we didn’t get any free tapas. My point is if we had expected free food we would have been disappointed. We did expect bars to serve small plates and they did and we thoroughly enjoyed our meals and experience.



Sometimes we like to take the “On-Off Tours” of cities. It’s a way to see some of the city and identify sections that we would like to see. We took one of those tours in Munich Germany with the plan to stay on the bus for a complete route identifying stops we would like to go back to on the second time around route. I used the map provided to make note of interesting places. While listening to the guide and seeing the areas I filled the map with notes and asterisks on stops that were places we think would be worth going to. So, we finished the route and decided to go for lunch and discuss what we saw. There were several places on my map I made notes about and two with asterisks. As we read the tour bus brochure we realized we paid for the three different tours so we agreed to try one more tour after lunch. By the time we approached our last stop on that second tour I had made notes on five stops with asterisks next to three. Then we saw the Marienplatz, looked at each other and agreed this is the place to go. Well, two weeks in Munich and we went back to the Marienplatz every time we took the train into the city. Barb and I had a great time in all of our visits to the city but we can’t say we saw anything but one small section. I think most people judge their experiences on cities they visit based on what they have done, makes sense. So, if I tell a person Munich is a great city and we had fun I am actually describing one small section. The converse could also be true if a person tells us a city isn’t worth seeing. My point is if you adhere to limited guidelines based on your desires and a city meets them, it’s probably a place to explore.

I think seeing most of the world class and popular cities would be a great experience but I question if it is worth spending the extra money when you can go to a place you may never have heard of for far less and have a comparable or more memorable experience. Also, cities are not monolithic and are made up of several or many sections each possibly providing different experiences so unless your wants and needs match the personality of the person doing the recommending, you should do you own research and decide if you want to visit.

A minor point and possibly contradictory, is when you are considering saving a euro or two by taking a sleeper train through Madrid, Spain to a destination to avoid a hotel cost. We had that very situation and quickly decided to pay the additional euros for the hotel in Madrid even though we would only be there for part of day. Since we would be going through Madrid anyways why would we not want to see Madrid! This decision to spend the additional money in a city we didn’t research as opposed to sleeping on a train through a world class city was a wise one. (Note: That trip planned through Madrid fell through when we landed a Sit in Amsterdam Netherlands!)

Cheers!
John


Note from Barb: John expressed really well the thought process of how we have been traveling these last 3 months, our expectations, challenges and logistics of meeting every Sit. I am truly lucky to have such a wonderful partner to share this journey with. It can be stressful at times and it was a LOT of work just getting to the point of boarding the plane to Europe but we have said over and over and over again, it was worth it. We have met incredible people which we hope to stay in touch with and maybe host at our home, visited places I never dreamed of and have collected so many wonderful memories.

Stockbridge Market

While sitting in a restaurant in downtown Edinburgh, our server engage us in conversation when she found out we were visiting. We were lucky enough to get a few tips from her of must see's and do's. One of them being Stockbridge Market.

Stockbridge Market is held on every Sunday. It was an easy bus ride from our flat and we were not disappointed! The food vendors were incredible and the energy of everyone partaking in food, browsing the merchandise and just socializing was contagious. We loved it the first Sunday we went that we went back again the next week. If we hadn't been leaving Edinburgh I think we would have continued to go every Sunday.

Our favorite food? Gyokas, served with a soy like sauce. They are a bit like pot stickers filled with pork. We ate them each week. We sampled several items and took home meat pies of  potatoes and venison and wild game.








You can find more pictures from the Stockbridge Market here.

Life with Phillip The Cat

Phillip The Cat

In the UK, the sky starts to brighten around 3:30 AM. It's crazy. We have been staying in Edinburgh Scotland for almost 3 weeks now. If you have read any of our previous posts, you know how much we love Edinburgh. An extra bonus of staying in Edinburgh, we get to live with Phillip The Cat.

Phillip is a handsome chap as you can see from his photos. Phillip was shy at first and it took a good few days before he would allow us to pet him. Now, we are all great buddies! As all cats do, Phillip has personality and quirks, which brings me back to the 3:30 AM mention. Phillip likes to eat breakfast while watching the sun come up. Phillip is also very vocal. As his Mom Fiona told us, Phillip likes to announce everything he is doing or about to do. So most mornings Phillip likes to let us know that he needs breakfast served as the sun is about to come up. This can happen anywhere from 3:45 AM to 6:00 AM. Now you may think that this would annoy us to no end but it doesn't. Fiona has created such a wonderful space to relax that we usually just get up, feed Phillip and fall back asleep. Plus, we really love Phillip!

At first, when Phillip was unsure of who these strangers were in his house, he would silently stalk us. I woke one morning to Phillip sitting in the doorway, watching me sleep. Creepy!

He stole a chicken leg off the kitchen counter one night. He heard John coming into the kitchen and he ran off with his guilt before he could taste the chicken. We are now on to him and he knows it. 😊

He loves head rubs and Dreamies. Dreamies are Europe's version of cat treats.

Fiona has a great, little flat. She has furnished it with wonderful, quirky pieces of artwork and made it a place you are comfortable in. The location of her flat is ideal. Leith is a part of Edinburgh. Leith has wonderful restaurants and pubs, all within walking distance of the flat. The bus stop is literally right in front of the flat and will take us anywhere in Edinburgh.

We have a little over a week left in Edinburgh. Although we will be traveling to many great cities, we will miss the energy, people, places, and a cat, of Edinburgh.

Cheers from Edinburgh!
Barb

Mary King’s Close in Old Town

On Thursday we went on a tour of Mary King’s Close in Old Town Edinburgh. Old Town was the center of business and community up until the 1700’s. As the bus approached Old Town I could see more and more of the building centuries old. Just before the bus reached our stop I saw the Edinburgh castle, built in 1130, to my left, magnificent. Our bus stop was on the popular tourist road called the Royal Mile. 

The Royal Mile

A “Close” is an alley or narrow road and they’re located everywhere in Old Town every 12 feet or so between the old and new buildings. Closes were named after prominent businesses or people from the time and Mary King was a successful business merchant in the 1600’s with tenement houses in that Close. 

One of the many Closes

Edinburgh was a walled city so as the population increased, buildings were built up because there was no room to spread out. The buildings in the Closes were as high as eight stories with the poor living in the basement level and the wealthier living in the upper floors. The Bubonic plague ravaged the city in 1645 killing 50% of the population. In the 1700’s Edinburgh’s Old Town was losing business to New Town so a decision was made to build the Royal Exchange. The location selected was directly over the tenement houses in some of the Closes. The residents were displaced from the designated buildings with some of them razed while others, like Mary King’s, had the top floors removed and the lower buildings used as a base for the new Royal Exchange. Some businesses continued to operate as a literal underground market with the last one being evicted in 1902 for expansion of the exchange. In 2003, archaeologists found daily life from the mid 1600’s could be recreated from the covered builds and the site became a popular tourist attraction, that’s why we were there.

Our tour guide, Tom, was a theatrical and comedic young man providing us the information and directions in a very entertaining manner. Mary King’s Close has been carefully reconstructed adding wooden flooring and increasing the height of the bottom floor ceiling to accommodate modern tourists. The road on the close was very steep leading to the Loch Ness, North Lake, at the bottom. The steep roads were utilized for drainage and every day at 07:00 and 22:00, the church bell rang alerting residents of the buildings it was permitted to pour their slop buckets and chamber pots, a bowl kept in the house and used as a toilet throughout the day, from the windows into the street where it would ooze down the slope into the loch. Built into the sides of the buildings were small kiosks where merchants sold their goods. In the warm months the inhabitants walked the close in ankle to knee deep muck. In the winter, the road would freeze making walking treacherous causing a less sure-footed person to fall. Consequently, that person would slide down the road sometimes knocking unsuspecting people down on the journey all ending in the loch, which we now know was full of muck! Many of the faces grimaced after hearing that story.

We went to one room on the bottom floor that was perhaps ten feet wide and 20 feet long and Tom explained up to 16 people would inhabit that room. Before Edinburgh expanded past its’ walls, the concentration was 30,000 people per square mile. In the U.S. today there are only four cities with a greater density than Edinburgh in 1650 and NYC has a density of less than 28,000. Edinburgh included farm animals in rooms of the bottom floors of the tenement buildings. The crowded conditions and their proximity to animals made conditions of squalor with rats impossible to contain. Listening to Tom explain the conditions the people had to endure was difficult to the point of being almost unimaginable.

St Giles church

But seeing the actual living quarters and streets with Tom’s explanations of what life was like was amazing. The location of the Royal Mile is a must see with the old and new buildings side by side. The sidewalks are wide and busy with people, with many shops, restaurants, bars and a 500 hundred year old church, St Giles. The only complaint is it is difficult deciding where not to take photos with so much amazing scenery.

We are both planning to take the bus back to Old Town to people watch and take some more photos. 

Cheers from Edinburgh!

John

NOTE: Unfortunately, we were not able to shoot photographs in Mary King's Close. The Close is under a federal building which prohibits photographs. 

A Day in Leith

This  is our third day in Edinburgh. We flew in early Friday, June 16th. We had a good feeling about Edinburgh as soon as we entered the airport, it was nice and inviting. As we took the tram into the city, we were blown away by how beautiful the city was, buildings so old I couldn't wrap my head around their age. Just street after street of beautiful, old buildings.

We are staying in Leith, a part of the city on the water. Today, we walked around our  "neighborhood". We had drinks, had some lunch and just enjoyed exploring this little part of the city we will call home for the next month.

John sitting with the serpents

Barb sitting with same serpents

The Cameo Bar just across the street

First drink of the day at Teuchters Landing

Waterfront

Waterfront less than a tenth of a mile from our flat