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Dear Fellow Travel Enthusiasts,
Welcome to the 7th installment of the Roamers' Report!
General Update:
We've been living in Basque Country for the past 3 weeks and we are falling in love with Spain a little more every day! And we've been enjoying the cooler early fall weather - a very welcome change from the blazing heat of Greece, Bosnia and Slovenia. Francesca's mother joined us a week into our stay in Spain so we've enjoyed having her travel around Spain with us. Home schooling with Pathways Charter continues to ramp up and despite some challenges switching from our Parenting hats to our Teaching hats, things are going relatively well. We snuck away to Portugal for a long weekend and now we have one more week before moving on to Morocco where we'll be volunteering on an organic farm.
Our Village of Orduna, Spain
Orduna from a hill nearby
Orduna in the mist
Sunset photo on the drive back home from a day trip
Orduna's Foru Plaza at night
Dan, the kids and Lola (Franny's mom) hanging in the town square.
Dan & Fran enjoying a glass of wine at the bar next to our place.
Here is a link to our blog about our time in Spain so far including our day trips to San Sebastian, Bilbao, and Vitoriza-Gasteiz.
Where We've Been & Where We Are:
(An overview of the countries and cities we've been since the last newsletter and an update on where we are currently)
After a little over 3 weeks in Slovenia, part of it volunteering to reconstruct an organic farm after a flood and part touring around the beautiful Slovenian countryside, we spent a couple of days in Italy (Trieste & Venice) before catching a flight to Bilbao Spain.
Dan and Francesca working the land - flattening out a foundation for a future bike repair shed
The Jahns Family and the host's 5 kids plus Yoost, another German voluneer at the breakfast table.
Each one of us had a unique experience at Farm Narava with both highlights and challenges and I am glad we did it, but we were ready to settle back into the slow travel lifestyle with a month in northern Spain. Here is a link to our blog about our time volunteering at Narava Farm and some side trips we took around the beautiful Slovenian counryside as well as the few days we spend in the lovely Slovenian capital of Ljublijana.
Triple Bridge in Ljublijana
Famous Dragon Bridge in Ljublijana
Here are some pics of our two days in Trieste and Venice Italy as well as a link to our blog with more stories and photos from Italy.
Travel Stories:
(Hopefully humorous stories about real events that happened to us on our trip)
Trapped in a Garage: A Real Life Escape Room!
Something didn't feel right about this parking garage. It was too small, there was absolutely no one in it and there were no parking attendants in the office which appeared to be closed. So we decided to turn around and head out, but just as we started to drive down the ramp, the garage door began to shut. We all sat there in stunned silence until we heard the final clang of the metal making contact with concrete. Then Francesca and I looked at each other and said simultanousely "Oh shit!"....... Click here to read more.
In case you missed the previous Travel Stories, here they are.....
To the Bat Cave Ryan (Vyrises, Greece) August 2024
Gentlemen Start Your Bouzoukis (Anatoli, Greece) August 2024
Between Some Rocks and a Hot Place (Myrtos, Greece) July 2024
Homeschool Update:
(Many of you may not care about the home schooling portion of this, but since it's ostensibly the reason we are doing this, I will provide a brief update during these Newsletters.)
Have been homeschooling with Pathways for about 3 weeks now and we are settling in and starting to hit our stride. The kids all took diagnostic tests to level set and we were proud parents that they were all reading above grade level. Math was up there too.
Ryan is a great student for us and we just set him and forget him. For Finley, math is a breeze and she likes IXL, the online tool we are using, but it's like pulling teeth to get her to write (even though she is good at it) and it often ends up in tears. Austen is the opposite. She can focus and write no problem, but math is a bit more of a challenge for her and she likes to push back on Mom & Dad's efforts to teach her and often ends up in tears. We are trying different ways to motivate each of them and keep them on track.
We are enjoying working with Mr. Stasey and love how he is trying to work in local legends, myths and authors into the reading and writing assignments.
Blog Posts:
(Blog Posts Published since the last newsletter - in case you missed them on social media)
Ryan contributed a fabulous blog post this time. It was an assignment from Mr. Stasey to research about the Basque Country, it's people and culture. All You Need to Know About Basque Country
Dan penned a few others as well from our various day trips.
Truth Serum:
(A does of truth about some of the things that did not go according to plan or worries that we've had about the trip)
I described a litte about our struggles with homeschooling, but honestly, for the most part things overall are working out well. Other than the fact that we have all been more or less sick for the past month. We all have this cold/cough/congestion situation happening and it doesn't seem to want to leave our family.
The other truth I will add is that Francesca and I are both falling into some bad sleep habits. You might think that if you didn't have the stress of getting up early to get the kids ready for school or to jump on a zoom for work or commute to an office, that you would be getting tons of sleep, but it seems that the opposite is true.
I tend to go to be late (I am often working on my blog posts or doing some Zoom meetings for the two companies I am doing sales for) and get up early - primarily because I am old and that's what old people do, but also to try and sneak a run in before school. It's been nice doing morning jogs with Francesca. It gives us some time alone to discuss the trip so far, the kids and how they are doing and our up coming itinerary. But the result is an overall lack of sleep.
And to make matters worse, we both have a tendancy to pick up our phones if we wake up in the middle of the night - which we often do when one or both of the girls comes crawling into our bed - and then Francesca will do more trip planning and I will binge watch something or do my DuoLingo Spanish.
I do worry about the ill effects of this lack of sleep, but I figure, hey, I can stop any time I want. And it's only for a year. :)
Trip Stats:
(I'm a little reluctant about this section because this trip is supposed to be more about quality and experience than sheer quantity, but I find stats like this interesting nonetheless)
I am getting a bit more comfortable with keeping the trip stats. As time goes by and the stats grow, it is getting fun to track the various cities we've been to and the modes of transport we've taken, etc.
Here is the link to the trip stats page.
Thanks for joining us on our journey. I have tried to keep to my self imposed routine of sending a Roamers' Report every 2 weeks, but it hasn't always worked out that way. But I do post more regularly on social media (mostly FB, but some Instagram too) so if you want more real time updates please follow our Five Tickets to Roam FB page .
Regards,
The Roamers - Dan, Francesca, Ryan, Austen & Finley
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