With the end of this mixed bag of a year, I am seeing all the Top Ten/Bottom Ten of 2021 lists in every part of the news. I usually read the ones about movies and photos (there are lots about the latest music but it makes me sad when I have never heard of anyone on those lists ?). If you have been following me for a while you know I love lists. I even have a page of nothing but lists I have made. Most were posts first and then added to the list page. Check them out sometime if you are new to the blog. You can expect these new ones to be added to that page as well.
This year I have decided to do my own set of Top Ten Lists. I am already doing my Top Ten Photos I Took in 2021 on Facebook and Instagram (I will post them here tomorrow). In that spirit I have decided to do a post about my Top Ten Things That I Loved About 2021. Then, when I started listing that Top Ten, I also thought about a bottom 10…or maybe 5. Then I started thinking about other lists from 2021 like my favorite meals or my favorite just about anything. But I decided that this could just go on forever. So I decided to do four lists (including my photos). First, the aforementioned Top Ten and then a Bottom Five of 2021. That leads us to this post, The Top 5 things I ate or drank in 2021. And I was going to do them all in one post but I knew that would get too long so I broke them into four posts (for today the next three days) so I hope you enjoy them.
Food, Glorious Food!
My top five things I ate or drank in 2021
You know I love food and drink so here they are in no particular order. I had two of them in one meal and three of them within two days and the other two in the same week (Did you get all that?).
Chicken Sandwich with slaw (Houstons restaurant in Irvine, CA)
Wood-fire grilled artichokes (Houstons restaurant in Irvine, CA)
Blue Coyote’s margaritas (Blue Coyote Grille–Palm Springs, CA)
Sango De Camarón (onboard Celebrity Flora in the Galapagos)
Fritada and Llapingachos (EB Hotel—Quito, Ecuador)
As you can see the first two things come from the same restaurant, Houstons. This is a small chain (11 outlets) of restaurants located across the US. I had first heard about them while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Armchair Expert. The expert himself, Dax Shepherd, raves about them and my brother and his bride had been wanting to take us to the Irvine, California location for a while but we didn’t have a reservation the first time we went. But in April when we went to visit them for a few days, we stopped there for lunch right after we got off the airplane and based on the recommendation from Dax, we ordered the chicken sandwich.
Then, based on the menu description, we ordered the artichoke appetizer as well. Suffice it to say, these were both AWESOME! How much did we like them? Well, six days later when they took us back to the airport we had an early dinner ordered the same thing and when we went down to see them in October, we had lunch when they picked us up and dinner when they took us back to the airport and we ordered the same thing all over again. Yes, they do have other things on their menu but when something is this good and you don’t live nearby, get it! If you are ever in a place with a Houstons, go have these two dishes. You won’t be sorry.
I mentioned that I had three of my top five things within just a few days time. Well the first two were at Houstons and the third was the next day after both our visits to Houstons. We stopped by the Blue Coyote for margaritas. Blue Coyote is a restaurant in Palm Springs (my and my brother’s hometown) and we first discovered it years ago and then took Steve and Jamie a few years later. When I was a kid if you wanted Mexican food in Palm Springs, you went to Las Casuelas. They are still there but the tourists have taken over the place and it just isn’t as great as it used to be…so now we go to Blue Coyote.
We used to just order a round of margaritas but the last few times when we have been there with Jamie and Steve we have started getting a pitcher…they are that good. I do feel a little sorry for Steve because he is always driving and that means he only gets one (but not too sorry ?).
The last two items in my list of food are both from our trip to the Galapagos in July. I had the Fritada and Llapingachos at the EB Hotel in Quito where we spent the night both before and after our visit to the islands. I ordered this the night before because it sounded good (it is a pork dish with potatoes and lots of other stuff) but it was so good, when we came back a week later I ordered it again—yup, still just as good and since I don’t know of anyplace to get it besides Quito, ordering it again was a no-brainer.
Lastly, Sango De Camarón is a traditional seafood stew with a plantain base and I ate that onboard the amazing Celebrity Flora while we were cruising through the islands. One afternoon Kathleen and I were looking at the menu for that evening outside the dining room and I told her I was sad because there were no real Ecuadorian dishes on the menu that night. I had learned on the four previous nights (plus the night at the hotel) that I LOVE Ecuadorian food. The maitre’d overheard me saying this and asked if I really liked the food from Ecuador. I said, “Yes I do!” So he said he would see what he could do. That night when we went to dinner—still no Ecuadorian food on the menu ?. But the next night…I had already told our waiter what I wanted when the maitre’d walked up and said he was cancelling our order (of an octopus dish I knew I would love) and the chef had made a wonderful surprise for me. Being an idiot and looking a gift horse in the mouth, I told him that this sounded great but I loved octopus and I really wanted to have that entrée. He said to wait a few minutes and he would see what he could do.
About five minutes later he was back with an appetizer that was not on the menu. It was a big salad with a HUGE portion of braised and broiled octopus on top and tons of avocado (the avocado in Ecuador is amazing!). After eating that he brought me the regular octopus entrée I had ordered and set it down in front of me and then brought a huge bowl of something that smelled amazing. He set that down in the middle of our table (there were four of us) and said, “This is sango. It is a traditional Ecuadorian dish that is a seafood stew with a plantain and rice base.” So I had to taste it and it was AMAZING. If there was a kind of local seafood that was NOT in there, I would like to know what had been left out. There was shrimp, clams, mussels, different kinds of white fish, calamari, scallops and…octopus. The stew/sauce part reminded me of a very good risotto.
Sadly, because of Kathleen’s allergy to shellfish, she couldn’t eat any of it. And the better half of the couple we were eating with (Jamie and Catherine) said she couldn’t eat anything with tentacles. So it was up to Jamie and I do make that chef happy…and we did. We ate it all.
One of the main reasons I want to go back in 2024 is to have this dish again. The taste and texture were delicious but I think the thing that really made it special was the fact that just because someone had overheard me talking about my new love for Ecuadorian food, the chef had made me this wonderful dish that represented his homeland. Food experiences don’t get any better than that.
Eating is not merely a material pleasure. Eating well gives a spectacular joy to life and contributes immensely to goodwill and happy companionship. It is of great importance to the morale.
First, I know that I promised this post almost three weeks ago when we cancelled our three week trip to Europe. I really was going to write it fairly quickly after that, but I got so depressed about not going, the state of the world and the pandemic, that I just kept putting it off. But since I know that many of you may have to do some cancelling of your own someday I wanted to show you how, as of today we have cancelled four flights, one cruise, three tours, lots of land transport and event tickets. In all cases we have either received refunds or vouchers for another trip at another time within a certain time frame so I feel I really have a handle on this. That means we had already paid for this and they had our money. If it says No then we had not paid anything but they had our credit card they could charge if we didn't cancel.
Things to Cancel
At Risk
Amount at Risk
Outcome
Viking Christmas Market River Cruise
Yes
$15,000
Cancelled and voucher/rebooked 2023
Car Service to SEA
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
British Air Flight to Lisbon, Portugal
Yes
$1,500 plus 120K miles
Cancelled and Refunded
British Air seat reservations
Yes
$785
Cancelled and Refunded
Talixo Limo Airport to Hotel in Lisbon
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
Hotel Portugal, Lisbon
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
Lisbon Food Tour with Eating Europe
Yes
$150
Cancelled and Refunded
Sintra Tour
Yes
$200
Cancelled and Refunded
TAPP flight Lisbon to AMS
Yes
$325
Cancelled and voucher
Talixo Limo Airport to Banks Mansion
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
Banks Mansion hotel in AMS
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
Reservation at Pantry Restaurant
Yes
$100
Cancelled and Refunded
Reservations at Restaurant Zaza
Yes
$100
Cancelled and Refunded
Boom Chicago Tickets
Yes
$75
Cancelled and Refunded
Tour with Tours by Locals around AMS
Yes
$420
Cancelled and Refunded
Van Gogh museum tickets
Yes
$80
Cancelled and Refunded
KLM flight from AMS to Prague
Yes
$720
Cancelled and voucher
Delta flight from Budapest to SEA
Yes
$3782
Cancelled and voucher
Car Service home from SEA
No
$0.00 paid in advance
Cancelled
As you can see we were not able to get all our money refunded but we were able to get vouchers that we could use on future travel. Some of that future travel has expiration dates but as much as we travel we have been or will be able to use it.
For instance, we have already rebooked the Viking River Christmas Market Cruise. We really do want to go on this cruise but we had to push it off to 2023 because we will already be in Europe in fall of 2022 and we really can't afford to get home in September and then go back in November.
I also need to point out that we got really lucky with the British Air seats. Normally we would have had more of a problem with them. They were for a one-way ticket from Seattle to Lisbon, Portugal via London Heathrow. Our original flight left here at 6:45 pm, arrived at Heathrow at noon the next day and then we had a 2.5 hour layover before our flight to Lisbon. About two weeks before we were scheduled to go we got a note from British Air (and Alaska Air—we booked the tickets through them using miles) that they had cancelled our Lisbon flight and moved us to one that didn't leave Heathrow until almost 8:00 pm and did not arrive in Lisbon until close to midnight.
When they move you that much you can cancel and rebook elsewhere at no cost...so when we cancelled with them, we just cited the change of schedule as the reason and Alaska Air cheerfully handed us back the miles and the taxes (Heathrow taxes are outrageous—$750 each)and British finally (last week) refunded our seat reservations. We have hopefully taken our last flight on British Air. We love everything about them except for the high taxes at Heathrow and the fact that even though you have Business Class seats, you still have to pay $750 each to choose your seat prior to check in the day before the flight. That's just wrong.
Some of the other expenses we were pleasantly surprised to get back were the Boom Chicago (an improv show in Amsterdam, done in English, where Jason Sudekis, Seth Myers and other US comedy folks got their start) and the Van Gogh museum. Both state on their websites that there will be "NO REFUNDS." But when I wrote them both a nice e-mail explaining that we just had to cancel due to COVID, they both said they understood and gave us full refunds. It should be noted that both of those are in Amsterdam and Amsterdam is locked down today so there is a good chance we might not have been able to go to either anyway.
Other tours (Sintra and the food tour in Lisbon or the Tours by Local tour in Amsterdam) we knew in advance were refundable right up to a few days before the tour. The same with the restaurants. I should note that this was the first time I did restaurant reservations that I had to provide a credit card and they charged me a refundable (up to 24 hours before) deposit of $25 per guest. And this happened at all three places we were going to eat in AMS.
Almost everything was completely cancelled and refunded within...3 days. The only things that we waited on were the British Air seat reservations and the Boom Chicago and Van Gogh museum tickets. And I only had to make a single phone call. All of the rest were either cancelled with an e-mail or by filling out a web form, except for my calling Alaska Air—which was super easy.
All-in-all I am VERY pleased at how easy this was to do. But even saying that, I would NEVER want to do it again. When you are a travel freak like I am, there is no bigger downer than cancelling a major trip like this. It put me in such a rotten mood that we had to quickly (like within three days) get refunded and get something booked for January. Now if Omicron would just get over itself so that doesn't get cancelled, we are all set. I promise to come back and tell you all about it soon.
One last note about a date I missed. Last Thursday, December 16, was the third anniversary of this travel blog. The post you are reading is my 199th so I think I have done just a "fair job" of writing an average of two posts a month. If we had been traveling like we normally do (damn you pandemic) then it would have been a lot more. With three major trips planned in 2022 I truly believe that there will be a lot more in the year to come. Stick with me.
Cancelled isn't a bad word because it happens everyday.
How do you start a post where you are both sad and mad? Today is November 24. Next Tuesday, November 30th we were SUPPOSED to be flying to Europe for a four night stay in Lisbon, a three night stay in Amsterdam, a two night stay in Prague, a one night stay in Nuremberg, a seven night Viking River Cruise from Regensburg, Germany to Budapest, Hungary with stops in Vienna, Passau and Krems. After the cruise we would spend an additional two nights in Budapest. We were going to be out doing what we love best for 22 days in glorious Europe. We would have seen the Christmas Markets of Europe, done a plethora of tours, gotten to travel with my brother and his bride once again…and so much more.
But last week we learned two things that made us reconsider the entire trip. First, due to a spike in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths Germany closed all their Christmas Markets–one of the main reasons we were going. At that point we thought, “Well, let’s go ahead and go and we can do the Christmas Markets in Prague, Budapest and Austria.” On Friday of last week, Austria went into lockdown so the cruise was going to just be a lot of time on the river and not a lot of time in those cities that we really wanted to visit. When I called Viking I was told that they had rescheduled all the Austrian stops (3 days out of the seven) as river cruising days and that they might schedule a day in Bratislava, Slovakia but there probably would not be any independent touring allowed in any of the stops we would make except maybe Hungary at the end of the cruise. With all those restrictions, not to mention the risk of getting COVID ourselves (even though we have had three shots) we decided to cancel.
This was a pretty bitter pill to swallow. We had originally booked and paid in full for this cruise in 2018. We were supposed to have taken it last winter (December 2020) but of course that got cancelled. And because it was cancelled by Viking, we could have either had a full refund or a voucher for 125% of our fare to use on a future Viking cruise. We opted for the voucher and used it to book the same cruise again in 2021. Now that we have cancelled that one Viking has again offered us a full refund or to reinstate our 125% voucher so we can try again. That’s what we decided to do. As soon as I have the voucher we will book this same cruise in 2023. If any of you would like to join us, we would love to have you travel with us. I will post all the details after we book it.
So that’s what made us sad. We had to cancel. Then we got mad. Not at the cruise line, not at the airline, not at all the tours and shows we had prepaid to do because they all gave us either a quick refund (in less than three days) or a voucher for future travel (which we are OK with since we intend to continue to travel). Of course we could have still gone to Europe but then we heard that other countries were also shutting down. Which brings to the people I am mad at. The people who caused our cancellation. The freakin’ European idiots (who are no better than our home-grown American idiots) who refused to believe in science and get themselves VACCINATED—they are why this happened.
We have two friends who live in Bavaria. They are both retired physicians. Their kids are all doctors. We were corresponding with them on a regular basis leading up to our decision. They were telling us that due to the infections in the unvaccinated, there were so many people who needed ICU beds they were shipping patients to Italy. How stupid are people? I guess we all know the answer to that one.
That’s all for now. Suffice it to say that we are sitting sadly at home and staying there until at least January…but that’s a whole other post. Stay tuned to find out how well we did with cancellations and where we are going instead.
To my US readers, have a great Thanksgiving. To everyone else–stay safe (especially if you are in Europe).
When things are a disappointment, try not to be so discouraged. –Carol Burnett
Just dropping in with a couple of things I have seen in the last few days that I wanted to share…and a comment on my writing.
Follow up to my Seattle post
If you read my last post you know that I am really unhappy with the state of the city we live closest to—Seattle. This morning this was in The Seattle Times:
If you have been here, you know that the number two (after the Space Needle) tourist attraction in the city is Pike Place Market. It’s now a haven for drug users, panhandlers who are aggressive and lot of other problems. This happened yesterday (October 4). Everyday brings new reports of problems. If you are coming to Seattle in the next months, be VERY careful.
Cruising is the safest way to travel right now
Earlier this week I saw an excellent article by Gene Sloan about cruising. Gene used to be the travel editor at USA Today. He now writes for the website, The Points Guy. (If you aren’t familiar with The Points Guy—the site is all about the best way to use points and mileage rewards but also covers major travel stories.) The story he wrote is all about why cruising is probably the safest way to travel right now. His reasons include the fact that most cruise lines are requiring everyone on a cruise to be vaccinated. They are, in many cases, requiring masks to be worn as well. The people who are on these cruise ships have agreed before sailing to these rules. There’s no discussion about vaccinations and no fights about masks. If you are onboard, you have already indicated you will comply. If not, they put you off at the next port.
Contrast that with some places in the USA where many are unvaccinated, won’t wear masks or think COVID is a government conspiracy. Or airplanes where people who won’t wear masks fight with the flight attendants. So I get where Gene is coming from and I couldn’t agree more. You can read the entire article by clicking HERE.
It’s October!
Of course you knew that, but it is really exciting to us because now we can say that we are traveling this month…and next month…and the month after too. Sadly not until the very end of October and November but we are still traveling.
Later this month (on Kathleen’s birthday–October 27th) we are off to Southern California for a few days. The big reason we are going is my 50th high school reunion in Palm Springs on October 30th. Happily, it also means we get to see my brother and his family as well as spend a couple of days with them in Palm Springs.
Then on November 30th (see what I mean about the end of the month) we are flying to Europe! First up, five days in Lisbon, Portugal. Never been there before but can’t wait to go. Then we fly to meet my brother Steve and his wife Jamie in Amsterdam to stay at our favorite hotel in the world…The Banks Mansion. We stayed there in 2017 when we did a British Isles cruise and can’t wait to go back.
That part of our trip is on our own—not a cruise ship or tour group in site. But after we leave Amsterdam we come under the care of Viking River Cruises as we fly to Prague for a three day pre-cruise visit. Then we move on to Nuremberg, Germany for another one day pre-cruise visit.
Then the cruise starts. We board the Viking Long Boat Atla in Regensburg, Germany for an eight day cruise to visit the Christmas Markets in the cities on the Danube River. We stop in Passau, Germany, Vienna, Austria, Krems, Austria and then finish in Budapest, Hungary. Of course I will be blogging it all so you can follow along with us as we go. Expect a whole lot of Christmas!
Being verbose
A while back my best buddy Bob told me that I was verbose. I answered him in a post that you can read by clicking HERE.
If you don’t feel like going back to read it, here’s the definition:
Why do I bring this up now? Because I know I write that way. I mean this post was supposed to only be a quick look at three topics. And here I am at 713 words so far (WordPress keeps track of it). But about three months ago I heard a great quote about being verbose and I had to share it for those of you who read my ramblings. It is below. I had originally heard it attributed to Mark Twain but I found that it wasn’t but it does sound a lot like me.
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. —Blaise Pascal
When we were on Celebrity’s Flora two weeks ago we spent a bunch of very pleasant dinners with two new friends, Katherine and Jamie (that’s them on the right). Jamie and I (even though they are both young enough to be our children) had a lot in common. He loves beer, Formula 1 racing and octopus. All three of those interests make him a great person to have a conversation with…in my book.
Then it turned out that I had two things in common with Katherine. First, she is as big a fan of the what we (Katherine and I) consider to be the greatest television show ever made—Ted Lasso (back tonight for season 2 on Apple TV+! We can’t wait! If you haven’t seen it, go watch the first season now) and she also (like me) can’t stand to finish a vacation without having another one planned.
It just about kills either of us to have nothing coming up and booked. Thankfully for Kathleen and I, we have so much booked I don’t have that problem (but there have been times I did) with our annual beach trip with the grandkids next month, my 50th high school reunion in Palm Springs in October, our Portugal/Amsterdam/Christmas Markets cruise in December, our Pacific Coastal cruise in May 22 and our Mediterranean cruise in the fall of 22.. But Katherine had that problem—nothing booked. I told her to get going. I gave her some suggestions but sadly, I can’t be her travel agent because she works for Royal Caribbean and gets some really nice employee discounts. I am pretty sure that’s how they wound up on Flora.
But if YOU don’t have any travel plans and it’s killing you too (blatant and shameless plug coming ?), drop me a note. I have plenty of ideas of where you might be able to go and I can even help you to get there.
When you can look forward to something outside of now, then you have an open door. —Esther Peril on Armchair Expert
As you can see the first two things come from the same restaurant, Houstons. This is a small chain (11 outlets) of restaurants located across the US. I had first heard about them while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Armchair Expert. The expert himself, Dax Shepherd, raves about them and my brother and his bride had been wanting to take us to the Irvine, California location for a while but we didn’t have a reservation the first time we went. But in April when we went to visit them for a few days, we stopped there for lunch right after we got off the airplane and based on the recommendation from Dax, we ordered the chicken sandwich.
Then, based on the menu description, we ordered the artichoke appetizer as well. Suffice it to say, these were both AWESOME! How much did we like them? Well, six days later when they took us back to the airport we had an early dinner ordered the same thing and when we went down to see them in October, we had lunch when they picked us up and dinner when they took us back to the airport and we ordered the same thing all over again. Yes, they do have other things on their menu but when something is this good and you don’t live nearby, get it! If you are ever in a place with a Houstons, go have these two dishes. You won’t be sorry.
I mentioned that I had three of my top five things within just a few days time. Well the first two were at Houstons and the third was the next day after both our visits to Houstons. We stopped by the Blue Coyote for margaritas. Blue Coyote is a restaurant in Palm Springs (my and my brother’s hometown) and we first discovered it years ago and then took Steve and Jamie a few years later. When I was a kid if you wanted Mexican food in Palm Springs, you went to Las Casuelas. They are still there but the tourists have taken over the place and it just isn’t as great as it used to be…so now we go to Blue Coyote.
The last two items in my list of food are both from our trip to the Galapagos in July. I had the Fritada and Llapingachos at the EB Hotel in Quito where we spent the night both before and after our visit to the islands. I ordered this the night before because it sounded good (it is a pork dish with potatoes and lots of other stuff) but it was so good, when we came back a week later I ordered it again—yup, still just as good and since I don’t know of anyplace to get it besides Quito, ordering it again was a no-brainer.
Lastly, Sango De Camarón is a traditional seafood stew with a plantain base and I ate that onboard the amazing Celebrity Flora while we were cruising through the islands. One afternoon Kathleen and I were looking at the menu for that evening outside the dining room and I told her I was sad because there were no real Ecuadorian dishes on the menu that night. I had learned on the four previous nights (plus the night at the hotel) that I LOVE Ecuadorian food. The maitre’d overheard me saying this and asked if I really liked the food from Ecuador. I said, “Yes I do!” So he said he would see what he could do. That night when we went to dinner—still no Ecuadorian food on the menu ?. But the next night…I had already told our waiter what I wanted when the maitre’d walked up and said he was cancelling our order (of an octopus dish I knew I would love) and the chef had made a wonderful surprise for me. Being an idiot and looking a gift horse in the mouth, I told him that this sounded great but I loved octopus and I really wanted to have that entrée. He said to wait a few minutes and he would see what he could do.
How do you start a post where you are both sad and mad? Today is November 24. Next Tuesday, November 30th we were SUPPOSED to be flying to Europe for a four night stay in Lisbon, a three night stay in Amsterdam, a two night stay in Prague, a one night stay in Nuremberg, a seven night Viking River Cruise from Regensburg, Germany to Budapest, Hungary with stops in Vienna, Passau and Krems. After the cruise we would spend an additional two nights in Budapest. We were going to be out doing what we love best for 22 days in glorious Europe. We would have seen the Christmas Markets of Europe, done a plethora of tours, gotten to travel with my brother and his bride once again…and so much more.
When we were on Celebrity’s Flora two weeks ago we spent a bunch of very pleasant dinners with two new friends, Katherine and Jamie (that’s them on the right). Jamie and I (even though they are both young enough to be our children) had a lot in common. He loves beer, Formula 1 racing and octopus. All three of those interests make him a great person to have a conversation with…in my book.