Orlando, Florida

First: I apologize for taking so long to finish posting about our trip. We got home and life got busy, and I kept intending to do it and... Well, here I am! My intention is to continue using this blog to post about our travels -- more on that when I've finished out the posts from the year.

On December 3 of 2013, we finally flew back to the US for the first time in over eight months. We flew from London nonstop to Orlando in order to visit the last of the Disney parks of the year.

Meaning, of course, that I have a picture of Carter in front of every Disney castle in the world! That is fairly extraordinary, and looking back eight months later, I'm amazed that we actually did it!

Dublin, Ireland and London, England

Dublin, Ireland

Dublin was one of those places we've always wanted to go to, though we weren't sure what exactly we wanted to see and do there. We knew we wanted to go to an Irish pub and to see some of the city, and that would probably be about all we had time for in our two short days there.

Cardiff (Wales), Stonehenge, and Edinburgh (Scotland)

During the decade before Carter was born, Doug and I spent nearly every Thanksgiving weekend in London. It was a quick trip during which we'd go out to eat at our favorite restaurants and go to a lot of theatre, and do a little bit of Christmas shopping, if we had time. The last time we went was when I was pregnant with Carter, and I basically haven't been to the UK since. When we realized that we could organize the trip so that we could be in London over Thanksgiving, we decided it would be a lot of fun to continue that tradition.

We spent two weeks in the UK and Ireland: We started in Cardiff, Wales (and took a side trip from there to see Stonehenge), then headed to Edinburgh, Scotland. After that we went on to Dublin, Ireland, and then to London, England.

Jerusalem, Israel

Our final stop in the Middle East was Israel. Doug has been to Israel for business on several occasions, but this was my first time there. It was a quick half-hour flight from Amman, Jordan to Tel Aviv, Israel, and from there we had a road transfer to Jerusalem.

Jordan and Petra

Our original plan had been to fly to Cairo from Dubai and spend a few days in Egypt. But it became clear several months ago that Egypt is probably not a good place to go as a tourist at the moment, and so we changed our plans and stayed in Dubai a little longer before heading to Jordan.

Our primary reason for going to Jordan was to visit Petra, the ancient city carved out of the rock faces of a canyon. But first, we spent a day in Jordan. We had a nice room at the Sheraton in Amman with a balcony and lots of space to hang out, and we really enjoyed it.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

I think the first time I heard about Dubai was about ten years ago. One of seven emirate states of the UAE on the Persian Gulf, Dubai is the most populous by far - though the vast majority of the population are immigrants from other places in the world who've come to work.

Dubai is a city of excess in nearly every way. The wealth on display is unbelievable, jaw-dropping. We saw incredibly expensive cars, families with a nanny for each child, and new buildings and roads going up everywhere. There are huge construction cranes in nearly every direction you look, and everything seems designed to make you feel like you're surrounded by glamour and wealth. It's like Las Vegas without the vice.

And it has the (current) tallest building in the world: the Burj Khalifa.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amsterdam is another city I hadn't been to in at least 15 years. We only had two nights here, once again, so it was a quick stay. Our hotel was conveniently located close to the train station, so we didn't have far to wheel our luggage.

Brussels, Belgium

I haven't been to Brussels for twenty years, and so it was a place I was really looking forward to seeing again. We took the train from Paris and arrived mid-afternoon, which gave us a chance to drop off our stuff at the hotel and head to the Grand Place, one of the most beautiful and iconic central squares in Europe.

Paris, France

Paris is one of those quintessential European destinations, a city not to be missed on the itinerary of a traveler to this part of the world. Despite that fact, it had been more than a decade since my last visit to Paris (though Doug has traveled there on business many times). It's an incredibly beautiful city -- perhaps the most beautiful in the world, and its reputation as the center of art, fashion, and cuisine is definitely deserved.  

Bordeaux, France

Doug has spent a lot of time in Bordeaux over the years on business, but it was a place I'd never been. One of his colleagues there offered to show us around during our visit, and so the four nights we spent there were absolutely fantastic. On the first night we arrived, we were invited to dinner at the home of Yann (Doug's colleague) and his wife Sophie. Sophie is a fantastic cook and prepared some classic dishes from the region for us, including duck liver, some incredible local wild mushrooms, and some cheese made by a friend of a friend. We enjoyed many bottles of wine and great conversation, and Carter was even brave enough to try both duck (which he loved) and scallops (which he didn't - but at least he tried).  Their hospitality that evening was only the beginning of a wonderful time in southern France.   

Barcelona, Spain

The first time we ever visited Barcelona was when Carter was a baby. We took a trans-Atlantic cruise and one of the stops was Barcelona. It was a rainy day, and we spent much of the 8 or so hours we were there sitting on a bus, looking through dirty, rain-streaked windows while Carter dozed in our arms. Two years later, we had another cruise that ended in Barcelona, and so we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to explore the city. We ended up really loving it, and so it was a place I wanted to visit again on this trip.

Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul is a city we've been meaning to visit for years. It straddles two continents and is one of the most multicultural cities on the planet, but it also has an incredibly rich history.  Neither of us had been there before, so we weren't entirely sure what to expect. I thought it might seem exotic and intimidating, but instead it was somehow both unique and familiar. The old part of the city looks like a typical town in southern Europe -- and then you turn a corner and see the slender minarets of the nearest mosque piercing the sky. Church bells ring on the hour, and then you hear the Muslim call to prayer -- often a real person singing, rather then the taped version we've heard in so many other places. It's one of the only places I've been where you see women who look like Swedish underwear models sitting on a train next to women in niqabs, and no one blinks an eye at the contrast.

Munich, Germany (Oktoberfest)

On a trip like this, you get to check a lot of things off your bucket list. For me, one of those time was to go to Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. I've always loved Oktoberfest celebrations, even when I was a kid. I liked the festive autumn atmosphere, and the German music and food, and when I got older, it was a fun place to enjoy a giant glass of beer as well. Oktoberfest celebrations are popular in the US as they are all over the world, but I wanted to see the original one myself.

And so we went to Munich in the middle of Oktoberfest. I had an idea of what to expect because Doug spent a night at Munich's Oktoberfest about 15 years ago, but the reality of it is so much bigger than I could ever have imagined. 

Venice, Italy

Venice is one of those special places on the planet that is iconic. Nearly everyone has heard of Venice and has a mental image of what it looks like, with palazzi surrounded by canals and sleek blacks gondolas pared by men in striped shirts with straw hats. And the thing is, that's basically what it looks like. It's one of those rare tourism experiences that meets your expectations almost completely.

Rome, Italy (part 2)

As I mentioned in the previous post, we spent  most of our time in Rome just hanging out and enjoying. We went to our favorite restaurants (like Taverna La Scala below) and also discovered some new ones.

Rome, Italy (part 1)

Rome is a city we've spent a lot of time in over the last almost-two-decades. It was a city Doug spent a month in when he was 19; he fell in love with it then, and I was utterly enchanted by it the first time we visited together. Rome is a sort of enigma -- it's not the cleanest or most beautiful city in the world, nor is it set in a stunning location. It can be noisy and chaotic, and hotter than hell in the summertime, but it always has an indefinable sort of charm.

And of course, there's all the incredible Roman ruins everywhere.

Bucharest, Romania

Short post here! From Mfuwe, Zambia, we flew to Lusaka, where we spent the night before catching a flight to London early the next morning. The flight was ten hours long, but it went very smoothly, and we made it to our hotel at London Heathrow with no difficulty.  And of course, our arrival in London meant that we've now visited seven continents in 2013.

South Luangwa (part 2)

In the previous post, I wrote about the house we stayed in and shared some pictures of many of the animals we saw. Here are even more pictures from our week in South Luangwa.

South Luangwa, Zambia (part 1)

Our third and final safari stop was in an area we'd never visited before: South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia. We kept hearing great things about it everywhere we went in southern Africa, including the fact that this area has the largest concentration of leopards of any place in the world. Since it had been nearly a decade since we'd seen leopards in the wild, we were really excited about that.

We flew from Livingstone to Lusaka and then on to Mfuwe on small prop planes.

Livingstone, Zambia

We had a road transfer between Chobe in Botswana and Livingstone, Zambia. The border crossing is at Kazungula, where the Zambezi River provides the border between the two countries. Actually, there are four countries that meet at Kazungula: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia. The river at this point is about 400 meters across, and there is no bridge. The only way to cross is on the Kazungula Ferry. This is also one of the major trucking routes of southern Africa, and the ferry is only large enough to take a few tractor-trailers at a time.

As we approached the border, the queue of tractor-trailers was at least a mile long. We asked our driver how long they would have to wait for their turn to board the ferry, and he said as long as a week! As we drew closer to the border, we could see that a small town was set up on each side of the river, with shops, food stalls, bars, and all sorts of things needed to keep the truckers occupied while they waited.  We also saw many prostitutes, of course.  We got our passports exit-stamped and then took a small passenger boat across the river. I wish I'd taken photos of the ferry and the lines of trucks and the stalls along the side of the road!