We drove from Croatia to France this week. We stopped in Italy for the night at a beautiful monastery. It was nestled in the hills of a beautiful region we hope to return to one day. And, as we lay asleep this happened:

Laying in bed, with the windows open and the cool mountain breeze lulling us to sleep in a quiet monastery in the hills of Italy near the Avigliana lakes, we suddenly heard a loud series of male satisfied groans. Ben and I have a little giggle. Calico exclaimed, “wow! He must be lifting something really heaving, like over a hundred pounds.”

I cycled the Parenzana trail over Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

What is it? It is a converted rail trail and the first two days were some of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done. Day 3 was along the coast and a bit more urban/busy. The trail is ~123km in length and goes from Istria Croatia to Trieste, Italy. It spends around 13km in Italy, 32km in Slovenia, and 78km in Croatia.

Istria, Croatia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. This is my 3rd time visiting Croatia, and I can’t wait to return. It is one of my favorite countries in the world. 

Lindsey and Calico were my support crew and met me every day around lunchtime (or after). It was nice not to bike with a full load of bags. Huge thanks to them! We stayed in a really nice B&B in Slovenia and did a tasting menu which was a blast. I’ve never done a fancy tasing menu and I really enjoyed it (Calico did a great job as well and did his own kid’s tasting menu).

Rough itinerary?

• Day 1 – ~38km and 440m elevation over 2 hours 25 minutes
• Day 2 – ~30km and 374m elevation over 1 hour 55 minutes
• Day 3 – ~60km and 300m elevation over 3 hours 7 minutes
• Day 4 – We explored Trieste Italy a little but didn’t see much. It was Sunday and very hot. We saw a fort, a restaurant, and some gelato :). I hope one day I can go back and walk around it more. It is hard with a 5-year-old as they can do more but don’t walk the same distances as when they are in a stroller.
• Day 5 – I woke up at 6 am to do a 25km bike ride around beautiful Slovenia and then we drove home. I would love to ride more of Slovenia one day.

Rough map of where we were exploring:

From my trip to Parenzana:

Day 1

I snapped my bike tool, probably going the wrong way when I got a flat on my front tire. Luckily some nice Austrians saved me (especially as I embarrassingly packed my wrong pump as well). My support team picked up a new tool and pump for me :).

Day 2

Day 3

From my bonus ride in Slovenia:

Very fun!

I’ve written before about the fun of driving in Italy… and how insanely aggressive Italian drivers are. I thought for sure I had found the worst drivers in the world yet I was stunned when I started driving in Portugal. Portuguese drivers are the most unpredictable and crazy drivers in the world. Somehow they even beat the Egyptians.

I’ve seen Portuguese drivers stopped in the middle of the highway.

I’ve seen them park on roundabouts.

They use their turn signal to signal when you should move over.

I’ve seen them stop in the middle of the road to let someone out to mail a letter, turn on their blinkers, and wait…

I’ve seen them drive in the middle of two lanes for miles.

That said, they are more random than aggressive. You just don’t know what they are going to do. I do like that I can count on Italians to both be uber aggressive, but are generally good at staying in the lines. Just this week I had two drivers try to side swipe my bike with a random lane change into me.

Driving in Italy is crazy. Sometimes stereotypes seem accurate. My new nickname for Italian drivers is “blindspot”. They also don’t believe in turn signals, staying in the lines, consistent speeds, etc. Riveting few days of driving :).

We drove from the French Riviera to a small town outside of Milan to stay one night before driving onward to Slovenia. We were really careful in this area despite the low COVID numbers. The hotel scheduled dinner and breakfast for us in the room and the entire stay felt weird. The hotel was deserted and the town felt dead. They had strict protocols for check-in, nobody in lobbies, no use of the elevator, masks at all times in common areas, etc. It was great to see compliance and the ways they are changing to keep this in check. Everyone was super friendly.

I had a beautiful 40km ride the morning before we headed out. They had a beautiful path along the river in Parco Regionale del Serio.

We are staying in this area for 3 days to cool off and enjoy a stay in the woods near the coast. Calico is overjoyed as they have a trampoline!

Today we drove down to the coast and I did a 45km bike ride while Lindsey and Calico had some breakfast and played in the sea. The bike ride was amazing. It was a converted rail track and really well done (in Italy?!? WHAT!?). It went right along the ocean and through some tunnels and was super relaxing. Otherwise, we are enjoying some Italian wine, food, and gelato :). Masks are in high use here, which is good to see. Tourism seems like it is low.

I love the taste of Asiago cheese, it almost has this bitter nutty taste at the end. The longer it is aged the more I like it :). Along with Manchengo, it is some of my favorite cheese. I finally decided to dig into it’s history & locale and here is what I learned…

What is it? It is an Italian cheese made of cow milk. The only authentic asiago cheese is made in the alpine region of the Asiago plateau in Italy (they have a EU DOP to stipulate that is the only place that can really call itself Asiago – EU DOPs are fascinating in themselves btw). There are some places in the USA that call themselves Asiago but are not, and they will taste much different than true Asiago (verified). Asiago can be aged or served fresh (I like aged).

Map of region in top of Italy’s boot:

History? They can trace it back to around the year 1000 from that region in Italy. It started off being from goat milk, but by 1500 cows replaced it. Why did they switch? Cows are gentle chewers of grass and stopped digging up the valuable grass roots. Crazy.

It can be hard to find, and impossible to order online still :(

Lindsey and I rented a car a few weeks ago and saw a ton of Europe :), where did we go?

First we drove up to Milan to meet two friends, then to Lake Como, then through Switzerland to check out Geneva, and then down to the Cathar region of France near the Pyrenees mountains to hike.

What does gas station food in Italy look like?

In Lake Como Lindsey found us an amazing place to stay, we managed a little hike even though it was windy.

We visited Geneva for a day, and drove through all of Switzerland which was pretty stunning. Our photos from that area didn’t turn out well since they were all taken from a car :). We spent a half day exploring Geneva since that might be where Lindsey goes to grad school too!

Next we drove down through France to the Languedoc region where we did a lot of hiking. I’ve always wanted to go to visit this region of France, I was very interested in the Cathar religion, the Crusade against them, and the castles that emerged from that fight and subsequent border fights with the Spanish. I got to crawl around a lot of castles, we went on a lot of hikes, and we tried to stay warm as the Tramontane wind was out in full force.

Lindsey is an awesome navigator and got us from point A to point B which was hard considering we had no net/gps and no paper map :).

I also realized I’ve now been to 40 countries with my trip to Switzerland :)!

I’ve posted previously on my love of Italy since they will never be any kind of economic threat due to their “sandwich” economic policies. Any country that makes you stand in line to buy a ticket, then to stand in another line to trade your ticket for your sandwich is a danger to the world. Anyway, it turns out their best and brightest are fleeing the country as well. Which was inevitable given their sandwich policies and terrible political leadership.

Faced with soaring unemployment and declining economic activity, young Italians are following previous generations in seeking their fortunes abroad, disillusioned by an economy in which graduates must often take precarious and menial jobs.

Data from Italian statistical institute ISTAT show that the proportion of emigrants who have a degree has doubled between 2001 and 2010, to 15.9 percent of all migrants.

In the crazy news blasphemy charges are on the rise in Pakistan. So what might get you charged with blasphemy which carries the death penalty?

Recent cases have included a teacher who made a mistake setting homework, a man who threw away a business card belonging to a man name Mohammed, and a Pakistani Christian girl, Rimsha Masih, who was accused of burning pages of Muslim holy texts last year.

The teenager was cleared by a court after it emerged that she may have been framed by a cleric trying to evict Christians from his area. She and her family are now in hiding.

At first I thought an Onion article slipped into the real news except the last one is scary. Who hasn’t wanted to charge their teacher with blasphemy for assigning homework…

Wow what a jam packed January! Work has been insanely busy and slowly our new business project is coming together. Just have to keep mumbling to myself that slow and steady wins the race :).

This last weekend I went to NY and had a blast with friends, although I’m feeling the effects as I spent the last 24 hours getting over a cold. I’m hoping to go again in the next few months and actually see a play and the insides of a few museums. Somehow managed to run 10 miles through central park which was great! I can’t wait to run outside again once spring comes!

Upcoming Travel
February – SuperConf in Miami
March – SXSW in Austin and WHD in Germany + Short Vacation
April – Paga Ultimate Tournament Italy + Short Vacation
May – Fayetteville for Jasmine’s Graduation.

Possibles
June – WHD Conf in Thailand
August – San Fran WordCamp and Fayetteville for a wedding.
November – PubCon Vegas
October – Octoberfest maybe?

Over the last few weeks I’ve have had a blast, I played Fright Flight with Liquor and Cleats, went to the Rally To Restore Sanity, and then played Harvest with our college alumni team back in Fayetteville. Liquor and Cleats got second at Fright Flight and our Alumni team lost in semis at Harvest, but we did win the spirit disc (and both were costume tournaments with great people which are always fun). Fright Flight is one of the funniest tournaments I’ve played in and I’m really looking forward to playing Paga in Italy again this year.

Some pictures of the DC rally below:

I did not make a wise choice when I decided to dance barefoot in the disco as all I had were flip flops. Apparently what I thought were plastic cups under my drunken feet were shards of glass, luckily I couldn’t feel any of this. I left a trail of blood everywhere.

And this is around 5am when the pain feels a little more real.

And my fav pic from the trip:

What I love most (and hate if you are there) about Italy is that they will never be any kind of economic threat to the rest of the world, ever… Why might you ask? Because if you are wanting to buy a drink at a disco, you might think oh i’ll go buy a drink, but nay, you must first buy a ticket in a very long line, and then after that you must go to another line to present that ticket for that drink, oh and they don’t really take credit cards very well, and they have nothing like a tray to hold all the orders. I’m so glad I was not born in Italy as I would have shot myself in my sober sober head years ago from frustration. I encountered this again with sandwiches etc. My only guess is they like lines, or they like to pretend they are employing twice as much people, or they like being inefficient.

I exaggerate a little as I wasn’t that frustrated (mostly cause they have a lot of cheap wine which makes you very patient), but it is very evident they will never be able to complete globally with the USA and China’s and even Japans of the world. It’s just sad to see. Beautiful country through, and at least they make great ice cream.

I am also biased as I HATE their “soccer” team, I use quote marks as their team is mostly just a bunch of pussy actors who spend their time practicing their dives. And when I start to love a head butting french man over you, you might be in trouble as a country.

Venice was absolutely amazing, most expensive place I’ve ever been though. Go for a day or two and see a dieing city and just imagine how amazing it would have been 300 or 400 years ago.

It was a great trip, the beach tournament was fun and after a few days feeling more confident in that I know how to play on the beach. After that headed to Cique Terra and Venice, not a lot of pictures but most are from those locations.