Mazie

Escaped the Legends of Dubrovnik room at Puzzle Punks with 0:02 to spare! Fun room and the puzzles were the perfect level of difficulty- once we stood there for (several) seconds and figured out what was going on. We were moving relatively steadily (emphasis on relatively) until we got stuck on the same puzzle for the last 15 minutes and needed extensive clues to work through it :)

6:45 Tammy wakes up 8:45 Mazie wakes up 9:20 Leave apartment in search of the e-bike rental place 9:30 Found it! Filled out form online to hopefully rent bikes for tomorrow 9:45 Stopped for pastries from Pekka Bakery. Burek and Nutella filled donut. 9:50 Began the trek to Robinson beach via the coastal trail. The trail begins after the road out of town ends, so we almost deemed it nonexistent and turned back. 11:00 Reach Robinson beach, our initial destination, and decide to continue to Milna. 12:09 Reach Milna, walked around in search of European picnic supplies but slowly realize that literally nothing is open. It is a beautiful setting though. 1:00 Back to Robinson beach. We dissected some almonds. 2:00 Back to Hvar Town. Tammy is about to pass out from hunger and Mazie is about to pass out from thirst. 2:15 Procure European picnic supplies. 2:30 Return to Airbnb to eat European picnic. Enjoyed the view of the harbor and Adriatic Sea from our little balcony. Our cheese selection this time around was bad, but our choice in chocolate was impeccable. 3:45 Leave for Španjola Fortress. Short 10 minute walk from town, but it is starting to rain. 4:00 Enter Fortress. Very cool ancient feeling. There is even a prison we got to walk around in. 4:45 Leave Fortress, visited a tiny church on the way down. 5:00 Arrive at the oldest public theater in Europe (and maybe the world). We hung out for a while because the theater was adorable and dry and there were kids practicing for a play. Very cute. 5:45 Head back to Airbnb to grab umbrellas. 6:00 Watched dad/Jamie’s polo and realized the urgency of his situation. We knew he was sick before but didn’t realize how sick he really was. 6-10:00 Text, email, telephone campaign to alert people of Jamie’s situation and get him the help he needed. All of the friends and family we contacted were so amazing and willing to help, but still very scary. 10:15 Jamie is getting proper attention and has Tyler and Hector there with him. Watched one episode of “Never Have I Ever”. 11:00 Tammy goes to sleep. Mazie kind of does a bit of homework. 2:00am Mazie goes to sleep after covering herself in every blanket and comforter she can find because she is incurably cold.

• 7:45 Tammy wakes up and goes for a run
• 9:10 Tammy wakes Mazie up
• 9:45 Leave our apartment- bye bye!
• 10:10 Leave luggage at a storage place on the harbor after finally getting cash. Walk to Cookie Lab pastry shop
• 10:40 Hazelnut eclair and hazelnut mousse dessert at the Cookie Lab. Tammy enjoyed the eclair “very much”.
• 11:10 Began the walk back to the Old City along the beach. Saw some crazy waves
• 11:45 Walked around the Substructure of Diocletian’s Palace
• 12:30 Tried to go to the Cathedral (oldest one in the word) and the Temple of Jupiter but they were not open :(
• 12:30 Smallest street in the world!
• 1:00 Ethnographic Museum of Split
• 1:30 Discovered a random staircase while trying to exit the museum. Led to a beautiful rooftop looking out across Split that was called the Vestibule Terrace. We were probably supposed to pay…
• 1:45 Uncovered some new streets!
• 1:50 Quick tourist stop for some souvenirs: Beach towel with Croatian boats and wooden boat wall art.
• 2:00 Gelato stop at the same shop as yesterday. Tammy tried the salted butter caramel flavor and we wandered around one last time.
• 2:30 Return to storage place and collect our luggage
• 2:40 Figure out that our boat is docked at Port 21. Board and sit there rocking in the waves for an uncomfortable amount of time.
• 3:00 Depart for Hvar island. It’s a smoothly rocky ride.
• 3:50 Arrive at Hvar Town.
• 4:00 Met with our lovely Airbnb host to get acquainted with our apartment. It is quite a beautiful place with a balcony overlooking the Adriatic sea.
• 4:15 Banana, trail mix, and marvel at the four chambered garbage
• 4:30 Left to explore Hvar Town. Walked through some quaint streets and along the shore.
• 6:00 Dinner at Mizarola, right down the street from our apartment. Vegetable Tagliatelle, roasted chicken breast, “pizza bread”, tiramisu- a Tammy standout!
• 7:40 Back to the Airbnb. Both Tammy and Mazie shower.
• 9:40 One episode of Young Sheldon before bed

• 8:45 Tammy wakes up
• 10:18 Tammy wakes Mazie up (almost 12 hours of sleep!)
• 10:50 Leave and walk to bus station
• 11:10 Buy bus tickets somewhat successfully
• 11:30 Bus to Klis
• 12:10 Get off at Klis Fortress and realize that we took the wrong bus, so hike down the hill to the bus stop we wanted to get off at and hike back up on the pretty path to the fortress.
• 1:00 Explore Klis Fortress. Thoroughly.
• 2:30 Leave the fortress and raid the local supermarket for European picnic supplies
• 3:00 Find a nice spot on the hillside to enjoy our European picnic. The cheese was incredible.
• 3:15 Realize that buses are scarce up in the mountains and the next one for a few hours is arriving soon
• 3:25 Run back down the hill in record time, successfully buy our second round of bus tickets, and hop on Bus 35. It arrived and left 8 mins early, which I didn’t think was exactly allowed.
• 4:00 Walk to Airbnb to drop off our extra bread and cheese.
• 4:30 Walk around town. We like the vibe when stores are actually open. Bought designer vibe t-shirts and gelato while exploring. Salted butter caramel and Kinder.
• 6:00 Began hike up Marjan hill
• 7:00 Reach the weirdly modern viewpoint at the end of the peninsula. Includes a bathroom. Begin hike back down.
• 7:30 Back down from Marjan hill
• 7:45 Dinner at Cicibela. Stone bass and pesto gnocchi with grilled bread and virgin mojitos. -8:45 Wander back to Airbnb. Stumble across Boris, a local guitar player and singer who entertained Tammy and Mazie until Tammy got tired and cold and went to bed.
• 10:20 Mazie stays and hangs out with Boris and Vivian (studying abroad in Madrid) until past midnight. Boris imparts a lot of wisdom, shares lots of very long stories, and plays lots of music for us. He even teaches us a bit of Tai Chi. We are joined partway through by three other students, including- get this- Maisie, who is studying (permanently) in Prague. At the end of the night we exchanged phone numbers and took a selfie together
• 12:15 Mazie back to the Airbnb and to bed :)

I am not a fan of flying. In fact, I really don’t like flying and am continually annoyed by how takeoff puts half the plane to sleep while it only ever seems to jolt me awake out of fear. That is why, when the flight attendants buzz the classic “enjoy your flight” message over the loudspeaker as the plane is approaching 10,000 feet, I don’t expect to actually enjoy it much.

But my flight back from Paris was different. To start off, we were the last flight out of Terminal 3 for the night which was equal parts fun and depressing. The people on our flight were pretty lively, which made the airport feel fuller than it really was. I noticed a few people sporting Disney Paris merch! Soon after we finished boarding, the pilot gave a full blown speech over the loudspeaker. He talked about many things, notably how two of the flight attendants had just gotten married (to each other, I think?) and how handsome they both were. He had the entire plane laughing and clapping.

He then went into a little section about how aviation is the safest mode of transportation nowadays but why many people are still wary of flying. I’m not sure a pilot should joke about the safety of their passengers, but there were plenty of jokes sprinkled in. At one point during his explanation of airplane safety, he said: “Well, we’ll see about our flight tonight. Hope for the best!”.

And then he repeated an abbreviated version of the same speech in English and French (actually I’m pretty sure all he said in French was “Welcome aboard, we value your safety…. I really don’t speak French”), meaning he was talking for close to 10 minutes. Definitely the most connected I’ve ever felt to a commercial pilot! Aside from the intense turbulence storm as we came into Barcelona, he did a great job flying the plane as well :)

Remy (our adorably hilarious mouse friend from Ratatouille) invited us to dinner at his restaurant. He himself prepared us a delicious three course meal and, because he has a special place in his heart for our family, reserved us the best table in the house. Hardest part was figuring out how we were going to fit in the mouse sized door as very much as not mouse sized humans.

Disneyland Paris: The second leg of a wonderful weekend with some wonderful people!!!

Hashtag our family is reunited in Paris! City of ❤️- We really planned that well :)

Después de la misa salí de la Sagrada Familia para encontrar la calle llena de gente gritando. Tuve suerte de estar en el lugar perfecto al tiempo perfecto para ver los corredores del Maratón correr al lado de el Sagrada Familia! Entré en el muchedumbre y empecé a gritar y animar a los corredores con los demás. Fue divertido simplemente mirar mientras tantas personas pasaron. Había un letrero que dijo que los corredores habían ido 14km (8 millas). Casi un tercio del maratón!

Decidí que debía caminar hacia Arc de Triomf, donde completó la carrera, para ver algunos de los corredores élites terminar. No llegué a tiempo para ver las atletas mas élites, pero vi muchas atletas muy buenas (porque cada participante era buena!) cruzar la linea de meta. Entonces encontré otro calle donde continuó la ruta (todavía estaba relativamente temprano en la carrera; la gran mayoría de las atletas no habían terminado) y decidí seguir los corredores en la acera para sentir mas como una parte de la carrera. No aburrí de caminar y tres horas mas tarde, crucé la linea de meta con las ultimas corredores (quienes que, a este punto, hubieron transformado en caminantes también).

Pienso que caminé las ultimas 7-8 millas de la carrera al lado de los corredores. Al fin estaba sudando y motivando a mi mismo para seguir adelante. El calle siguió haciendo curvas y virajes, pareciendo como nunca iba a terminar, pero estaba intenta en llegar el Arc de Triomf usando mis propios piernas. Lo poquito de triste que había sentido al principio por no estar participando había desaparecido y fue reemplazado con un sentido de asombro por todos los corredores: si mis piernas me dolieron como resultado de caminar una sección de la carrera, como fue posible que ellos estaban corriendo todavía?!

No obstante, experimentar el maratón de manera tan intimo me hizo completamente seguro de que voy a hacer un maratón un día. Seguramente estoy idealizando la experiencia de hacerlo, pero quiero experimentar lo que estaban experimentando los corredores hoy y poder decir que lo hice. Podías sentir la energía del muchedumbre en cada calle, validando la lema del carrera y patrocinador oficial, Hoka: “Barcelona te hace volar”.

Hola! Para los que no quieren practicar su español, pueden usar el Google Translate :). Mientras que estoy en España, parece que debo escribir algunas blog posts en español!

Hoy fui al servicio de Misa Internacional en la Sagrada Familia. Es una oportunidad especial por does razones: Puedes atender una misa en unas de las iglesias mas famosos de todo el mundo, y puedes entrar al iglesia sin pagar (aunque no están felices si intentas sacar fotos o explorar fuera de tu silla). Aprendí de mis errores la ultima vez que intenté ir (no había espacio porque llegué en un espíritu optimista 5 minutos antes de que empezó) y llegué a las 7:45- mas que una hora temprano. Me admitieron, pero fue bien que no llegué mas tarde porque solo admitieron 20 o 30 personas mas después que yo.

Fue una experiencia muy bonita y estoy feliz de haber despertado tan temprano en un domingo para ir. La única parte desagradable de la experiencia fue sentando en mi silla para 50 minutos esperando para que el servicio empezara. Nos dejaron entrar unas pocas minutos después de las 8 pero el servicio no empezó hasta las 9, así que quedó mucho tiempo para mi sentar y leer mi libro de Kindle. Hubiera explorado el interior de la iglesia y sacado fotos pero las guardas se pusieron enojados cuando salías de tu asiento.

Jamás había visto el interior de la Sagrada Família; solamente he podido imaginar lo que pudiera tener basado en el extravagante que es el exterior. No me decepcionó! El altar fue decorado y iluminado con velas, había estatuas por todas partes, y el techo tan alto y intrincado fue muy impresionante. Pero mi parte favorito, sin duda, eran las ventanas. Eran tan grandes y muy, muy altas- casi llegan del suelo al techo- y de todas las colores del arcoíris. Los diseños fueron suficiente impresionantes, pero cuando filtraban la luz según el arcoíris fue una belleza de otra planeta. Tomé todas las fotos que podía antes de que las guardas me empujaron por la puerta.