Admittedly, buying our house has limited our travel of late, but it certainly hasn’t squelched our adventures both grand and not-so-grand! One of the things we’ve been excited about lately is prepping our flower beds for the warm summer ahead. We’ve been carefully trimming back the Northwest native plants while laying slaughter to the invaders…
Author: Charity Kuahiwinui
Keep St. Johns Weird-er
Since we moved out of the hustle and bustle of downtown to the ‘burbs of Portland and squarely into the quirky neighborhood known as St. Johns – named for a hermit who first settled the Peninsula. It is said that he was a quiet, saintly man — and also that he didn’t frequent the local…
A Cry from the Middle Class
Our favorite Burlingame political activist has been at it again with eye-catching commentary on life in these United States. Strategically placed exactly opposite a popular freeway exit in Portland’s high-priced West Hills neighborhood, this graffiti takes direct aim at the squeezing of the middle class in America. Unfortunately the artist believes the concept and truth…
Smart Street Art
While Portland has its fair share of random, non-sensical let-me-mark-my-territory-arr-arr-arr graffiti, it also has a wide variety of thoughtful street art too. In the Burlingame neighborhood of Portland recently, it seems one artist has been trying to force commuters to think critically about the world around them. The first bit of brown spray paint that…
SMILE ~ LAUGH
Laugh – Smile Why not?
What a Marvel…
In preparing for our European adventure, we put one city on and took them off the list several times – unsure if we should visit or not. It is Spain’s 3rd largest city and not one of Rick Steve’s Best of Europe. We did, however, enjoy Samantha Brown’s episode describing the amazing aquarium and science…
Poh-ta-gee Revenge!!
So in a way very much like Montezuma’s Revenge wreaks havoc on the poor, innocent traveler to Mexico, Maylene and I have fallen wickedly prey to da Poh-ta-gee Revenge in Portugal. We have both been stricken by food poisoning (we think). I had it for five days and Maylene is now on day 3. I…
They’re Harmless…Really…
When booking our hotel room in Madrid, there were a lot of considerations – as always. A strong one was that since I couldn’t find availability anywhere – including our hostel – for Fri/Sat night, we could only stay for two nights and we needed to be in a central area. I chose a “cheap”…
Playing High Roller in Monaco Baby!!
Before beginning our journey vagabonding around Europe, we knew we wanted to go to Monaco — Maylene’s “things-to-do-before-she-dies” list included playing a round of blackjack there and we wanted to visit a tiny country – we’ve missed them all so far except for Monaco! When I began searching for a hotel, of course I found…
Nice…it’s nice…
We were so happy to arrive in Nice after spending so much time in Northern Europe. This part of the French Riviera is right on the coast and has a broad promenade with a pebble-beach where you can soak in the sun. At least 10 degrees warmer than in Paris, we wore short-sleeves and loved…