Brasov Romania

"So we have 5 days before we have to be in Berlin. What do you wanna do?" This is how the conversations start when we have a gap between Sits. When the gap is more than a day or 2, we look for somewhere cool and cheap to visit. In Europe they have what is called the Schengen Area. There are 26 European countries that have abolished their internal borders so people can move about freely without going through customs. Sounds great doesn't it? Well for Americans, we get a whole 90 days (in a 180 day period) to stay in the Schengen Area. 90 days for 26 countries. When you are in Europe for an extended period of time like we are, it becomes tricky. We have to keep track of our days in the Schengen Area. Luckily, the UK, Ireland and several eastern European countries are not in the Schengen Area so we can break up our time by leaving the Schengen Area and going to these countries. The UK has provided us with the most Sits so its worked out well.

When we were looking at what to do before Berlin, we realized we are running low on Schengen days and wanted to save some for the end of November before we temporary leave Europe. Our first thought was to go to the UK. I started looking at flights and hotels and costs. Since we were in Amsterdam we thought why not look at some of the eastern European countries. Coincidentally I had been messaging a friend in Asheville who stated we should check out Brasov Romania. So we did. So we went.


Romania is a country known for Dracula.  I myself had no idea what Romania was all about and other than knowing they produce some pretty incredible gymnasts had never given Romania a thought. Well Romania is much more than Dracula and gymnasts. It is beautiful!  The people are friendly and a lot speak English. The mountains, the architecture, the countryside is breathtaking.

Brasov is in the Transylvania region of Romania. Bran Castle, commonly known as Dracula's Castle, is right outside Brasov. We did not encounter any vampires during our stay. 😊 I did get to sit with a lovely lady who saw me watching her as she fed the pigeons. She happily gave me bread to feed them and would "converse" with me through hand signals and hugs. It was the highlight of my day.

Above Brasov is a Hollywood type sign stating that you are indeed in Brasov.

We took a tram up the mountain one day to get a view of Brasov from above. The tram goes up right by the "Brasov" sign.

Mostly what John and I did in Brasov is what we do in most cities. Find local establishments and just hang out to get a feel for the city. We found a little bar down the street from our hotel with good beer and friendly staff. A great coffee shop that also served some amazing cocktails. Good restaurants with plenty of Romanian food.
By the way, Romania is also an inexpensive country by European standards. John and I ordered a dish our last night in Brasov that consisted of 3 types of sausages, potatoes and a salad. We also had soup and 2 draft beers. The total came to $16.00 and we took half of it "home" with us!

We loved Romania and it's people. In deciding on what we wanted to do on the second half of this adventure, we decided to return to Europe. I LOVE EUROPE! The cultures, the people, the places.  It is just so exciting. We have rented an apartment in Oradea Romania for 3 months starting in mid December. We are excited about being able to "nest" in a new city and really be able to take in the local culture. After that we haven't decided but we are looking at some of the other eastern European countries as Romania has been so impressive. We'll have approximately 45 days left before we head back home so all of Europe is open to us!

To see more of my pictures of Brasov, you can just CLICK HERE.

Cheers!
Barb

New Friends

John: The idea of this trip was very appealing to us but as Barb and I discussed the required tasks before we would be able to get on the plane to anywhere, there was some work and research to do. But, as usual, whenever I discuss things with Barb things seem manageable and I know they will get done. While trip logistics consumed its fair share of our effort and conversations, I enjoyed discussing the positive things we each hoped the adventure would provide us, positive attitude and behavior changes, new and exciting places to experience, hanging out in English pubs, drinking German beer, tasting different foods and meeting people with different perspectives. I especially enjoyed Barb’s hope, “I want to meet people and develop a bond of friendship so that they visit us in our home town.” While I liked the idea I had my doubts of its probability of happening.

I enjoyed thinking of the idea of visiting Europe, talking with people and seeing their city through their filters. We would meet their friends, learn some of their customs, create an international web of friendship. In turn, when appropriate, we would tell them about our home. After we learned about some of their preferences we could match those up with comparable activities or things our home town offers, enticing them to visit Weaverville. We would take them to music shows, breweries, have an international party and invite our neighbors and friends to show them how wonderful our town is and the people are.

Barb: I loved the idea of meeting new friends abroad but loving the idea of it and actually going out and meeting new people? Well, for introverts that is not always an easy thing to do.

John: But how and where would we meet our new foreign friends?

Back home in Asheville we met almost all of our friends, since moving there, as a direct result of our time spent at the Root Bar. So, why not meet new international friends at a local pub? Maybe, since we would be staying in someone’s house or apartment we could meet the neighbors, while I was mowing the yard. We could meet them in the produce section of the grocery store, we wouldn’t be dining out for every meal.

Maybe I would take a glass of lemonade out to my neighbor when I heard him mowing his lawn. After I said something clumsy in French he and I would laugh and I would work up the courage to invite him and “la monque”, the misses, for dinner sometime. We would either attempt escargot with chard, a local dish, or, if they preferred, an American staple, 22 ounces of prime cut USDA steak and a pounder-pound baked potato with all the toppings. After they thoroughly enjoyed their meal they would make us promise to let them give us a tour of their city to see the sites and visit their favorite pubs and meeting places. Then, after the tour and several fun outings together we would befriend each other on Facebook. When the time arrives and we have to move to our next Sit our new friends would have a mini-party where we all promised to stay in touch through social media. As time passed and we were following them, not to be misconstrued as creeping, we notice they are planning a trip to the States and it corresponds with our return! They accept our invitation and then you are all invited to meet Pierre and Amandine Macron from Banniers-Charente France at our house party. It could happen!

What about the village square? You know, the center of those European towns. The ones with the 500 year old functioning fountain, with granite steps on four sides where all the people of the area go every night to drink wine, eat local tapas and talk about current events. I would love doing that and the prospect of meeting a future transatlantic friend would be possible. The only problem is we haven’t seen such a place.

Barb: Yep, I had some of those ideas too. I wasn’t sure how we would make new friends, I just knew I wanted to. I wanted to introduce my new European friends to my Asheville friends. I wanted to stay in touch. I wanted to meet new people and then see them again down the road.

John: While almost every friend Barb and I have met since moving to Asheville could be directly linked to the Root Bar we also realize it didn’t happen in the first month from when we started going there. So, going to a local version of the Root Bar in Munich Germany meeting a couple with similar dispositions and attitudes was a low probability option. We did, however, meet a couple at a beer garden in Munich.

The beer garden was set up in a way that was conducive to meeting people. It was outside under a huge chestnut tree surrounded by outdoor vendors selling cheese, charcuterie, beer and prepared food. There were picnic tables lined up in 25 rows of 20 tables with the benches touching each other, to maximize the seating per square foot. We had been there mid-week and on the weekend and it was always busy with people and seats were at a premium. We walked around and saw a table that definitely wasn’t full and asked if we could squeeze in to sit. I would venture out to decide on the food and get a couple of pints of beer. The picnic tables were full of people eating from plastic containers, enjoying a pretzel or had trays of food from one of the vendors and most of the people had a pint or liter of beer. It had great energy and people were talking and laughing. The beer garden in Munich we frequented was in the Marienplatz and called Viktualienmarkt, One night we met a couple,a little older than us, sitting next to us. Barb struck up a conversation with them and before you know it the four of us were chatting away. After a couple of hours they invited us to visit a wine party across the Marienplatz. We made our way there but there wasn’t much energy so they suggested we all take a bus to another drinking place on a river. There was a local band playing mostly German songs. We opted for the first table with four seats and it was just in front of the stage next to group of young people thoroughly enjoying the music, food and beer. They were having a fun time singing raucously to all the tunes they knew. We stayed there until about 11p and the couple rode with us on the bus and walked us to our train to be sure we make it back safely. They were a nice couple and we enjoyed ourselves. But I don’t anticipate we will every hear from them again, mainly because we didn’t exchange digits and they did not give any indication they were social media types.

When I considered what our interaction with our hosts would involve, I didn’t think it presented much opportunity to bond into a friendship. Since we were strangers and would only be together for a few hours it didn’t seem like we could bond to the level of friendship that takes months or years to cultivate. Before our first Sit I assumed it would be a business type meeting. We would meet our hosts, discuss their expectations of us for the animals and the house and we would learn whatever we needed to know that was not included in the welcome kit provided during the hiring process. They would go off on their trip and we may or may not meet them when they returned. But the actual process was a little different for some of our hosts. They usually picked us up from a bus, train or airport terminal. After arriving at their home we and they did discuss responsibilities and ask questions and we got a quick tour of the house and property. The level of detail was different for each set of hosts. After that it was different for some of our Sits. Some hosts asked us to arrive the day before their departure and stay overnight. At first, I felt a little uncomfortable at the thought of staying in a house with strangers and accepting their undeserved hospitality. But, I wanted to challenge some of my unnecessary hang-ups and it did save us a hotel expense, so we stayed.

Barb: That was an uneasy feeling for me too. So we go to a stranger’s house and we have to spend a whole evening with them. What do we talk about? What do we do? Should we go to bed early? Stay out of their way? What if it gets awkward because we just don’t hit it off with them? To say I was nervous about that part of the Sits is an understatement.

John: More than half our sits asked us to arrive the day before they departed. In each situation, our hosts either took us out to dinner or prepared a meal for us, each picked us up when we arrived in town. Each of the dinners included liberal drinking and the conversation flowed effortlessly, talking about the weather, American and English politics, and almost any other topic. Each of the dinner celebrations lasted for a couple of hours and carried on into late night drinks at their homes and in each case Barb and I felt a connection with them. We were intrigued by some of our conversations about our country and they told us they found Americans to be friendly, which we were pleasantly surprised to hear.

Barb: We made friends! All our hosts have been so welcoming and accommodating. Whether it was leaving us train cards, flowers, wine, coffee and jams, we always felt appreciated. But the hosts that we got to spend time with, whether it was staying overnight or meeting beforehand and seeing them after they got back from their trip, have kept in touch with us. With them we shared drinks and conversations, had dinners and breakfasts and walks together. Memories we will treasure. We have met new friends, friends of our hosts, that were so friendly and sweet to the American pet sitters who like sparkling wine or wanted to see an English garden. And of course there is Mou, the one who fed us and introduced us to the best Bangladesh cuisine.

Of all the experiences we have had here in Europe, meeting our new friends are the best.

John: While I wasn’t confident we would make transatlantic friends on this adventure and believed the limited time with our hosts precluded that possibility, I admit I was wrong. Considering the people we’ve met I would not be surprised if we maintain a distant relationship or, possibly, another face to face visit. Of course, we will invite all of you to meet them.


Cheers!
John and Barb

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.

Hello World!

So here we go. Our first blog post. It is now 2 days before we start our journey!

This crazy idea started over 5 months ago. Both John and I are semi-retired and in our mid 50’s. We had part time jobs working at home for various internet companies and even did some Mystery Shopping. John asked me one day if I ever thought of living overseas. My answer? No. We talked, mostly over coffee in the mornings and I started to get comfortable with the idea. The more we talked the more I realized that this was an incredible opportunity. We had no full time jobs, no children or pets at home and had saved up some money from our part time jobs. If we didn’t do this, would I regret it? Would we ever have this opportunity again?

We decided to give it serious thought. One concern was our health and healthcare. We ain’t no spring chickens!  Being our age, issues come up but if we did run into any problems, well, let’s face it, healthcare overseas will be as good and probably better than what we have here in the states. Our insurance will cover certain situations. We know our limits. We won’t be hiking the Swiss Alps but we can trek through Munich and Edinburgh, walk dogs in England and hop trains in Norway.

So the research started. We gave ourselves a month to research traveling, renting our house, expenses, etc. At the end of January, we knew this was something we could do. In fact, we realized that it would actually be cheaper to travel for 1 year than to live at home! In February, we told our family and friends about this journey. By mid March, we had a signed 1 year lease for our house. We sold 1 car, bought backpacks, sold a camera and bought a new one, bought sneakers, got a new credit card and checking account, applied and received our passports, researched phone plans, packed up the house and moved it all into the basement. By the beginning of May, we had moved out of our house and into our good friends Bob and Marcy’s house where we had our first dog sit of our adventure, staying with Addie while Bob and Marcy took a trip to Florida.

The adventure idea started off as moving to another country, but we love where we live too much and decided to rent the house. Then we thought we would live in 1 country for a year. Costa Rica was the first choice. Somewhere in our internet search, we discovered house sitting. That opened up the world! We have done house/pet sitting before and along with fostering for our local shelter, it was a perfect fit for us. We take our jobs seriously so we got our background checks, joined 4 different house sitting websites and created a website showcasing our experience with house/pet sitting. Once we had the signed lease for our home, we started applying for house sits. We had no idea where we were going other than we would start in either Europe or Central/South America. Our first confirmed sit came in and it was Europe!

We currently have 7 confirmed sits. We will be traveling to England, Scotland, Germany, France and Ireland. We have scheduled a week in Gdansk Poland in between sits. We have close to 7 weeks that we still would like to schedule for sits. We will be spending a week in Norway before we fly out of Oslo back to the states so John can officiate a wedding for the daughter of my dear friend Gayle. Yes, John also officiates weddings on the side! After that, we think we will go to either Central/South America or Asia.

We hope you follow us along our journey. We’d love to read your comments. Both John and I will write about our experiences and every once in a while we will include what we learned while planning this adventure, such as where to begin your research, picking or not picking phone plans and SIM cards, how we chose our backpacks and much more. I’m sure there are others out there planning their own adventure or just wondering if it is possible for them to pack up and travel. Information is power and we would love to share what we learned.

Cheers from beautiful Asheville NC!

Barb