What the Blog?

The streak of travel continues! Although we hadn't planned our Easter trip until the very last minute (just 2 weeks before), we managed to hook up with friends living in Lausanne to meet in the middle of the Black Forest, which was also right in the middle of our two cities. We booked a bauernhof urlaub - our second attempt at a farmstay holiday - just outside the town of Wolfach. I would say the two best lessons learned were (1) book early for the best price on accommodation and food. We definitely overpaid due to late booking, and could have probably negotiated a better price on meals; and (2) have a backup plan for bad weather. We had a full rainy/gray day and could only find outdoor or open-air activities nearby. Luckily the other days were sunny and warm-ish, but alternate options would have been good. Oh yeah and (3) when hiking to a  vesperstube , make sure they're open! We walked for over an hour up a steep hill to one, only to discover they were closed. We were star...

It's rare that I travel for work, so it's always extra exciting to get a few days away on my own. Unfortunately, I caught the flu during my much-anticipated Munich trip (meant to be 3 days), and so did my youngest. After miserably attending a presentation for half a day, giving up and going back home a day early (which led to a different fiasco thanks to Deutsche Bahn, involving being stuck at Frankfurt central station at 1 am. Which is typically a less than ideal place to be after dark... and taking a pretty expensive taxi ride home from there... ), I was far too excited about my recent 3-day trip planned to Lisbon for a team offsite. I knew most of the days would be spent in a conference room at the lovely Hotel Tivoli , but we were able to carve out time to see many of the city sights. The hotel was a bit of a walk to many touristy sights, but fortunately Uber is all over Lisbon to save the day (and legs). Day 1:  The first day, our group did an organized scavenger h...