We had to set the alarm, due to concerns over traffic. We got up, got dressed, packed, and then realized that the app that LAX’s website had recommended for us to use to book a cab to the airport had never booked the actual cab. It had registered the trip, but had not actually assigned …
Category: Travel
Riley Goes to Los Angeles Day 4
We woke up and walked down to Sunset to find breakfast. We walked up the remainder of the hill and then walked down a long hill. We didn’t know the LA Marathon was on so we were very confused by the traffic patterns and the randomly blocked streets.
Riley Goes to San Diego and Los Angeles Day 3
We discovered there was a café like two blocks away that had featured on The Best Thing I Ever Ate so we headed over there for breakfast. We did not order that dish, given that it was absolutely a dessert and not a breakfast, but we did make good choices nonetheless. Jenn got biscuits and …
Riley Goes to San Diego and LA Day 2
In the morning, we went out for breakfast and found a great place only a few blocks away, Breakfast Company. Their menu looked amazing and I had trouble picking what to eat. Jenn had the chilaquiles and I had the shrimp enmoladas. (Both with poached eggs, because: breakfast.) They were both great. It’s the kind …
Riley Goes to San Diego and LA Day 1
In the first 40 years of my life, I went to California once, specifically to Anaheim, Los Angeles and Palm Springs. I went with my family and it wasn’t my favourite trip we ever took. Well, in the last year, I’ve now been to California twice. Last year we drove from Portland to San Francisco. …
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 15: Home Saturday September 9, 2023
Before we left, we went on a brief grocery run to try to find cachaça. The selection was not great and the only reasonably sized store near us, so we decided to try the airport.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 14: Rio Friday September 8, 2023
After two nights of sleeping okay – one of which I actually did mostly sleep – I did not sleep much at all. I spent a rather long time trying to structure a bed and half’s worth of pillows to prevent myself from coughing and I have no idea how late I was up doing …
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 13: Rio Thursday September 7, 2023
I slept! I was only up 3-4 times, I think. Things seemed to be looking up with the respiratory problem but the traveler’s diarrhea ramped up so it was a trade off. I took too many Imodium and it didn’t do enough.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 12: Rio Wednesday September 6, 2023
I slept better than I had in a couple nights, but it’s relative. I was still up way too many times. When I woke up I thought it was just a sore throat now but that soon changed to intense coughing.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 11: Rio Tuesday September 5, 2023
My fever broke the night before I felt a little more human though I didn’t seep again.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 10: Interregnum Monday September 4, 2023
Today I turned 42. I didn’t sleep, as I had started coughing an awful lot and I had what I thought was a fever, with accompanying fever dreams and general confusion. Based on the way I had felt the night before, I hadn’t booked a day trip to an island or beach for today, as …
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 8: Salvador Saturday September 2, 2023
It was basically the same buffet this morning but it was missing prune yogurt. I forgot to mention it yesterday, but it was right up my alley.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 7: São Luís Friday September 1, 2023
The buffet breakfast at this hotel was the biggest we’ve seen so far, with multiple tables and all sorts of options. It was still very much Brazilian, which we appreciated.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 6: São Luís Thursday August 31, 2023
We once again had a very nice breakfast, though this time they forgot our juice for quite a while. Before we left the pousada, I went for a dip in the river. It really was just a dip, though, as it was too shallow to swim.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 5: Lençóis Maranhenses Wednesday August 30, 2023
Once again, I screwed up the AC and it was freezing in our room.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 4: Maranhão, Tuesday August 29, 2023
We landed in São Luís after midnight to find the airport just full of people. Apparently the internal flights in Brazil don’t stop. There were flights at 2 and 4 AM, for example. Glad we didn’t have to take any of those.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 3: Olinda/Recife Monday August 28, 2023
We woke up and sat down to a slightly different breakfast than the day before. Like most hotels outside of North America, Brazilian guesthouses have great breakfasts, as do their hotels.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 2: Olinda/Recife – Sunday August 27 2023
We slept pretty well despite how warm it was. Breakfast was a fairly elaborate buffet for a guesthouse. The buffet had lots of fresh fruit (standard in Brazil) with a bunch of interesting baked goods and savoury stuff. We tried most of it over the days we were there.
Riley Goes to Brazil Day 1: Saturday August 26, 2023
I was a little more anxious for this trip than I had been in our recent “post-pandemic” travel. We had initially planned to go to Africa, which is the story of our travel lives. Why did we decide on Brazil, instead? We couldn’t figure out which country in Africa to go to, Brazil seemed a …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 9 Sunday May 21, 2023
The Bay to Breakers was today. Something we were totally unaware of. We asked about how early we should leave and we were told it could take at least an hour to get to the airport with the road closures, even that early in the morning. So we left extra early.
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 8 Saturday May 20, 2023
We headed in the direction of Telegraph Hill and found our way to Moe’s, a burger joint that had breakfasts. They have a bizarre rotating grill in the front window, which is probably more common than I think but I also couldn’t take my eyes off it. We had extremely heavy – typically American – …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 7 May Friday May 19, 2023
Staying in a B&B, we actually had our breakfast delivered to our door and could have had breakfast in bed, had we so chosen. (There was also a table.) So that was nice. (It was also a nice change from B&Bs where you eat at the dining room table with a bunch of other strangers. …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 6 Thursday May 18, 2023
The Best Western we stayed at in Eureka, didn’t just have a resort-esque pool area, they also had one of the better continental breakfasts I have encountered, which you could eat in said resort-esque pool area. Though they had the usual suspects, they also had a few things you’re more likely to find at a …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 5 Wednesday May 17, 2023
We had a very meagre continental breakfast and proceeded to get lost in Bandon, Oregon (population 3,300) trying to find Face Rock. (Yes, another rock. There are so many rocks along the Oregon coast. How do you determine which are worth looking at? Guidebooks, I guess. And arbitrary decisions.) Turns out there are a not …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 4 Tuesday May 16, 2023
We got breakfast at the Newport Cafe and I got to eat my first ever oyster omelette. We then headed back up the road to the Devil’s Punch Bowl. (Well, one of them…) Though it was often cloudy or hazy or foggy on the coast, and sometimes quite windy, it was never stormy. And on …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 3 Monday May 15, 2023
We had to set an alarm in order to get started. We walked across the road to a neat place called the Elephant Delicatessen, which is sort of like the Portland, non-Italian version of Pusateri’s. When we checkd out and booked a Lyft (since our cab was so expensive and the Red Line would take …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 2 Sunday May 14, 2023
We woke up relatively early – jet lag – but I slept pretty well this night (though not some future ones). We went to find a coffee shop and had some breakfast burritos. After breakfast, we walked up to Washington Park. We got a tiny bit lost on the way but we eventually found our …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 1 Saturday May 13, 2023
I’ve been on the west coast of the United States for the past week, fulfilling a tiny part of a lifelong dream of driving down the west coast of the Americas. This was only about 1200 kilometres of that dream, from Cannon Beach, Oregon, to San Francisco, but…baby steps. It’s the first proper road trip …
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 5: Tuesday May 31, 2022
I didn’t “sleep in” as much as I wanted to on our last day. I think I generally have trouble when I know I have a flight to catch, even if that flight is in, like, half a day.
Riley Goes to Colorado Day 4: Monday May 30, 2022 – Denver
We “slept in” for the only time this trip. I used quotes because it wasn’t very late. I blame the time change.