Hogwarts Train from Universal Studios, Florida

Christmas Ornament Update for 2018

Several years ago I posted an article about my Christmas Ornaments.  The article is in the archives if you want to see the original article.

Cuba

I have been collecting Christmas Ornaments since we lived in the Philippines back in 1979. We didn't have any ornaments with us when we lived there, so I went out and purchased some local ones for the tree.  Every since then I purchase an ornament whenever we travel anyplace.  My tree is very eclectic. I have a combination of ornaments I have from my travels, as well as glass balls I have on the tree just because they fill in and reflex light, as well as ornaments that I have made and that friends have given me.

The ornaments I collect on my travels are never touristy ones that say the name of the place.  Instead I want something that will remind me of the trip, but that is still interesting and pretty on the tree.

This year we travelled more than usual.  So I collected a lot of new ornaments.  Below are pictures of this years purchases.

Iceland, Tree ball and Puffin and Ceramic Bus from Cartegena, Columbia

Guatemala, beaded snowflake and Quetzal bird

Russian Matryoshka doll

Russian fairy tale character

from St. Petersburg

Amber Heart - Poland

Poland

Home from Another Trip

We just returned home from a cruise through the Panama Canal, followed by a road trip up to Orlando the visit Walt Disney World and Universal Studios.  It was an enjoyable trip for the most part, although certainly hot and humid, which did wear us out some.  As always, George wrote emails home to family and friends.  I have taken those emails and put them under Trip Reports of Trips We Have Taken, on the side column.  If you would like to read about our trip you can click on this link -

https://havelistwilltravel.blogspot.com/p/saturday-15-september-we-were-so.html

I hope you enjoy reading about our latest adventure.  Now that we are home, we are in the process of adopting a dog.  We have picked out a rescue dog, which we will be getting soon.  My last posting was about our year without a dog.  Although we still miss Baxter and Sadie every day, it is time to have a new dog to love.  I will post pictures soon.

"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened"

Anatole France

"If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it, to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and prospective to equally profound sadness" 
Marjorie Garber

Our Year Without a Dog

We had 2 dogs, Baxter and Sadie.  They were miniature schnauzers, and they were part of our family.  Last February Sadie was diagnosed with lymphoma, 2 weeks later she was in so much pain we had to have her put down.  Baxter had diabetes for 3 years, but was doing okay with insulin shots twice a day.  Sure, he was losing his eyesight and his hearing, and at age 13 was certainly slowing down, so we knew we wouldn't have him much longer. But then suddenly in October one morning he just couldn't stand up.  There wasn't anything we could do for him.  So we lost him too.  For those who know the love that dogs give you, you also know how hard it is to lose them.  

Sadie and Baxter

We can't imagine a life without a dog, but we did decide we could go a year without one.  It is very costly to get a dog/housesitter everytime we travel.  So we decided to go a year and do a whole bunch of trips, and then get another dog.  So, with that in mind, I started thinking about where we wanted to go.

The first trip I booked was to Iceland for the end of January.  Yes, it would be cold.  But seeing the Northern Lights had been on my list for a long time.  Iceland seemed like a good place to find those.  We live in Southern California, so we didn't own heavy clothes.  We had to go purchase coats, boots, overpants, and silk long underwear.  And then we headed out on our adventure.  We loved Iceland, it was very different. It was very cold.  And it was very cloudy every night, so we didn't see the lights.  Oh well, we had a nice trip and saw a new place.

Click on this link to read about our adventures in Iceland.
Our Icelandic Adventure

George and I in the Blue Lagoon

Downtown Havana

Then my girlfriend, Bonnie, called and said that there was a Holland America cruise that stopped in Cuba.  She's always wanted to go to Cuba.  I've had Cuba on my list for years.  Would I go with her.  Her husband didn't want to go.  My husband would have gone, but this was a girl trip.  We had lots of fun on the cruise.  We stopped in other places besides Cuba.  We stopped in Key West, Florida and Cozumel, Mexico.  Then we did 2 nights in Havana with a full day to explore.  And the ship went around Cuba to the other side where we stopped in Cienfuegos, Cuba.  Then on to Jamaica and the Grand Caymans.  We had lots of fun together, and loved Cuba.  If you would like to read about our adventures on the cruise - Cruise to Cuba

Me in the back of a 1952 Ford Convertible

The Alamo

The Alamo

In May we took a 4 day trip to San Antonio, Texas.  My husband wanted to go to a convention there of the Old Antarctic Explorers. It is an organization for anyone who has been to the Antarctic.  When George was in the navy he spent a year at McMurdo Station in the Antarctic.  The get together gave him a chance to see some of the people he "wintered over" with.  And I had never been to San Antonia and thought it would be fun to go and explore the area.  I did like the River Walk area and we did a walking tour of an area that had some beautiful old homes.  We also did a day trip up to the town of Gruen, which had some neat antique shops as well as a winery and an old mill which is now a very good restaurant.  It was a fun few days, and George is now looking forward to the next time the group gets together in 2020.

St. Petersburg- Hermitage Museum

Just a week after getting back from Texas we boarded our plane to Russia.  We had booked a  river cruise with Uniworld, which went from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  It was 14 days.  We spent 4 nights in St. Petersburg on the ship, then set sail down the lakes and rivers toward Moscow, stopping at islands and farming villages along the way.  At the end we had 3 nights in Moscow.  

From there we flew to Warsaw.  We have friends that we met years ago on our travels.  They live in Scotland.  We have met them somewhere in the world every other year since 2001.  This was our year to meet up with them, and they had chosen Poland as our destination for this year.  So we spent 2 weeks traveling with them, starting in Warsaw, then onto Krakow, with a day trip over to Auschwitz, then to Gdansk.  It was a great trip, and we enjoyed our visit with our friends.  To read about how we originally met them on our September 2001 trip - click here.  How we met our friends from Scotland

Russia - Poland Trip Report - May 2018

Our friends from Scotland, Myra and Malcolm, taken in Gdansk, Poland

My little car

Of course in July we took our annual trip up to Washington to our cabin and to visit family and friends up there.  We always took our dogs with us on this road trip, and it was sad not having them along.  They always enjoyed being up there.  At the cabin I would grab and inner tube and walk up to the rapids, with the dogs trailing behind me.  Above the rapids I would get into the tube and then both dogs would jump in my lap and we would ride the river back down to the cabin.  I really missed that this year.  But because we didn't have the dogs, we decided to take my little 2 seater convertible car up this year, which was fun.  We could never do that with the dogs, not enough room.

Baxter and Sadie floating down the river with me

So now it is September, year is not quite up.  We have one more trip to go.  We board a Celebrity Cruise Ship in San Diego and we are taking a 15 day trip through the Panama Canal, with stops in Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Columbia.  When we get off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale we will drive up to Orlando where we will spend 4 nights at Walt Disney World and then 2 nights at Universal Studios.  We have never been to either resort.  Although I can honestly say that we have been to that location.  Somewhere there is a picture of me with our infant daughter (who is now 49 years old), standing in a field in front of a sign that says - "Future home of Walt Disney World."  But that doesn't really count.

So we will be back home on October 1st.  Then we will start looking for a new dog to join our family.  I am thinking maybe a rescue.  But I have to keep in consideration that my husband is allergic to dogs that shed, so it has to be hypoallergetic.  That is why we had schnauzers before.  Poodles would also qualify.  And there is now so many cross-breeds, including the schnauzer/poodle mix know as a Schnoodle, which I would certainly consider.  George says I just like the name, and it is fun to say, but I think one would make a great addition to our family.  So we will be looking to see what is available upon our return.  And I have to say, I'm almost more excited about getting the dog, then I am about this trip.

So, will we be staying home once we get a dog?  No! But we won't be taking 6 trips next year.  We do have a trip scheduled for January.  We will fly to Norway and do a few days there on our own, then fly to Finland and join a "Northern Lights Tour" which will take us up to Lapland and the Arctic circle, hoping to see those elusive lights this year.  We will only we gone 2 weeks.  Then we do plan to take our annual trip to Washington - with the new dog.  Hopefully he or she will want to ride the river with me in my inner-tube.

So that is our "Year Without a Dog", and next year will be the beginning of our lives with a new dog to love.

Home From a Trip

We just arrived home from another trip.  This time we were in Russia and Poland.  We started in Russia with a 2 week Uniworld River Cruise which went from St. Petersburg to Moscow, with stops along the way.  We then flew to Poland to meet up with our friends from Scotland.  We meet them somewhere in the world every other year.  We traveled around Poland with them for 2 weeks.  If you would like to read about our trip, you can go to the Trip Reports on the side column and click on Russia Poland Trip, or click this link to go directly. Russia Poland trip

"Cuba is such a beautiful country, and everywhere you go, there's music

and people dancing - especially in Havana." 

Julia Sawalha

My Visit to Cuba

I recently visited Cuba.  It had been on my list for a long time.  When my friend called me and asked if I would go on a cruise with her, which stopped in Cuba, I jumped at the chance.  We only had 2 days in Cuba, so it was a quick visit, but it gave me a preview, for I hope, a future trip.

Cuba had been closed to U.S. citizens for many years. That is not to say that Americans did not go there, many did, but they had to go through Canada or Mexico or other places first.  And they had to go without our government knowing they went.  You had to be careful that you didn't have your passport stamped in Cuba.  During those years Cuba still had tourists from other countries throughout the world.  During President Obama's term in office he opened up Cuba for American tourists.  There are restrictions though.  If you go, you are required to take a "People to People" tour.  I have never been a big advocate of tours, so I was never that excited about going there and being confined to a tour.  However, even on the cruise, we were required to do the tour.  

We arrived in Havana and we took our tour.  It took us to a senior center which was really quite a nice surprise.  We were greeted by a group of 5 women, all in their late 70's and 80's.  They performed a Cuban rap song for us, which we really enjoyed.  We toured the center, and met some of the people who worked there.  It was fun to meet the Cuban people and talk to them.  We also toured the neighborhood where the center was.  We had lunch in town and visited the old fort.  We got to walk through the Old Town section.  At the end of the tour we were free to go out and explore on our own.

And explore we did.  And yes, the old cars were everywhere.  We even took an hour ride in a pink 1953 Ford convertible.  The ride cost us $30.  The driver was a young Cuban male and he was accompanied that night by his wife, who was riding along with him.  They had a young baby at home and this was a chance for the young couple to spend some time with each other, while her mother babysat.  We found out that the owners of these cars can make more money giving tourists rides than a doctor in Cuba makes.  We enjoyed the ride.  They took us all over the city, even into residential areas that we wouldn't of seen otherwise.  They chatted with us, and we learned a little about their lives.  They were a delightful couple.

The couple who took us for our drive around the city

An example of a crumbling

building

We also spent several hours wandering the streets of Old Havana.  Checking out shops and taking pictures.  There were many beautiful old building, but many in sad shape.  There infrastructure is crumbling.  As one person said to us - "Castro had a plan for the present, but he didn't have a plan for the future."  And of course, now the future is here and they haven't done anything with the infrastructure for years.  There is a lot of building going on now, so things will probably improve for the Cuban people, but in order to improve, a lot of the old buildings will probably be torn down, many are past saving.  I am glad I was able to see Havana while it still has a lot of its history.  I fear it may become very modern and sterile, but I hope not.

Our ship pulled into Havana at 7AM and did not leave until the next morning at 2AM, so we did have a full day to explore Havana.  The ship then went around Cuba to the other side and we pulled into Cienfuegos, and we had a day to explore that city. 

We were again required to book a "People to People" tour.  It was a much shorter tour, and again it took us to an area that I found quite interesting.  We went to a community within the city that is full of artists, poets, musicians, and performers.  They put on a short show for us and we toured the artists showroom.  All of the housed had paintings on the outside, and the whole community was there to meet us.  We only spent about an hour there, but it was quite enjoyable. 

We then took a short drive that showed us some of the nicer houses in a residential area, and then to the town square, which was Jose Marti Square.  The Parliament House was in the square, as was the Tomas Terry Theatre, and church.  There were also shops and an outdoor craft market area.  We were able to explore on our own from there.

The Tomas Terry Theatre was quite pretty.  We were able to go inside.  Caruso used to perform there, as well as many other performers.  We were not allowed inside the Parliament house, but we enjoyed the craft market and wandering around the park, where there were street performers and local people who were quite friendly.

Tomas Terry Theatre

Parliament

Street Performer

Too soon our visit to Cuba was over and our shipped sailed off to other destinations in the Caribbean.  I was glad we had the chance to see a little bit of Cuba, and it made me want to see more.  I urge people to go now, before Cuba becomes too commercial and touristy.  Right now, things are just starting to really open up, and it is not overrun with tourists. That probably won't last.  The Cuban people were wonderful, very friendly, and happy to have us there.