The Great Freeze - Part 1

Airport, Airplane, Stockholm:

So this year we decided to forgo the layovers and take a direct flight. I say we decided but really we got a cheap flight straight from Oakland, CA to Stockholm, Sweden so there really wasn't much choice in it. But that said we decide to make a repeat performance of our travels last year this time doing Scandinavia via plane, train, bus, ferry, car and foot to get to Belarus and back.

Our first stop for obvious reasons was Stockholm. Igor did a lot of the leg work finding us a nice couchsurfing place to stay and sorting out how to get to town from the airport.

We arrived in the afternoon and headed straight to the bathroom at the airport to put on our extra layers. We set up in the cafe in the airport greeting area, double checked with out host and putting a little extra juice into our gadgets that had been draining on the 10.5 hour flight. Then we were off.

One foot outside the airport doors told us we were definitely not in California any more. There was some (not a lot) of snow on the ground, a crispness to the  air and drifts of snow flakes falling from the sky. Then we hopped on a bus and went straight to the center of downtown Stockholm where our host was to meet us.

We walked out of the bus into the snowy streets of a bustling city center, walked a bit and then found a coffee shop to plop down in grab a coffee and set up a meeting point with our host.

Mind you we are well into the Northern part of the Northern Hemisphere, which means that even though we arrived in Stockholm around 12 noon by the time we got to the coffee shop (about 1ish) and waited for our host for a bit, the sun (what little we could see of it) was already on is way down for the night. The coffee shop was nice, warm and filled with people (it being Saturday and all). They had what I would say is the best coffee we have had so far on our trip and nice big cups (not like the cups from Friends but normal, nicely sized big cups).

We met our host Avinash at around 2:30. He brought with him two other couchsurfers who were from the Ukraine that he had met up with earlier in the day to show around Stockholm. The girls wanted to see this particular bridge in Stockholm that separates the main city from the museum island and has two golden crowns on it. It was just about dark by the time that we got there but we stopped anyway and took some photos there of the city lights and the crowns of course. we left the girls here as they wanted to go walk around the city more before their flight and Igor and I were quite tired and ready to just sit back and relax for the rest of the evening.

We made it back to Avinash's place around 4:30 talked for quite a bit. We had stopped by the store and picked up some food on the way back. Igor cooked us dinner that night and we briefly talked to Avinash about our plans for the next day and invited him if he liked to come and walk with us, but he declined. We made it until about 10 pm and then Igor and I crashed, unfortunately not for long. We both woke up around 4 am and had a hard time going back to sleep despite being quite tired.

And that folks is how we spent our first day in Stockholm.

Oh yeah and everyone lives in America now. This picture was taken on the street corner of where the cafe we went into was, surprisingly or maybe not so surprisingly it was NOT a starbucks. If you look close you can see a Burger King, 7 Eleven, Subway and a Dunkin Doughnuts. (yikes).

Boulder Continues

So after Igor's run we drove down in Boulder. It seems to run about 20 degrees hotter in Boulder than in Ned, which wasn't a bad thing, and made for a very nice evening walk around the town. We found a place to park in a quiet neighborhood next to one of the most beautiful houses (it has a really nice lot that they have made look fantastic, which I think is why it's so pretty).



Anyways, enough about parking. We walked down to the main street in town (Pearl Street) and found some guys planning chess. Naturally I told Igor he should jump in there and play, so he did. He beat the guy in under 5 minutes. lol

Boulder has a bunch of street performs from musicians, to contortionists to circus performs. It's pretty fun and amazing to get to see all this cool stuff. our favorite was this guy (I did not take any of these pictures by the way).

https://thelocalsguidetoboulder.com/2016/04/24/pearl-street-street-performance-culture/

 

https://thelocalsguidetoboulder.com/2016/04/24/pearl-street-street-performance-culture/

Igor enjoyed it so much that he volunteered to help the guy in his performance. Mind you the performed had already picked someone else who was apparently a little slow for Igor's taste so Igor jumped in, to which our funny street performer said "No sir, you're a little eager go away." and the crowd and I and Igor all laughed. The performers last stunt was great, 6-7 chairs (special chairs by the way) stacked on a table on which he did a handstand (20+ft in the air) it was pretty impressive if you have ever tried to hold a handstand for more than 1.25 seconds you will know that holding it for 30 not to mention on top of chairs stacked on a table, is a pretty awesome feat.

We had dinner in Boulder that night at a restaurant call the Rio Grande. It was great! Then we headed back to Ned to enjoy the rest of our evening and plan the day ahead.

Boulder Baby

So I had a work thing to go to on Tuesday in Boulder, CO. So what do you think Igor and I decided to do...well duhHh we decided to spend the weekend in Boulder!!

We got to the airport via my new favorite mod of transport, uber (fyi haven't tried lyft yet but I will one of these days ). They board the plane, as is the way the Southwest A's first (I had an A, Igor had a B). So I got on the plane find us a spot save a seat for Igor and wait for him to get on. After what seemed like a long time I noticed no one else was getting on the plane. I thought "that can't be right, they have only boarded the A group." I wasn't wrong. Eventually one of the flight attendants gets on the horn and says there is bad weather in Denver and they aren't letting anyone land. So off the plane we all get and there is Igor coding away in one of the seats in the boarding area.

2 hours later they finally lift the weather ban and we get to go to Denver. We arrived in Denver at almost 9 PM and since I had booked us an apartment to stay in via airbnb.com we went in search of a whole foods or something of the like to get some grub to eat when we got there. As an aside part of the benefit of renting an apartment was that there would be a kitchen so we wouldn't have to eat out the whole time. Also, our airbnb place for 4 nights was the same price as one night in a hotel in Boulder, so I would say we definitely got the better end of the deal.

Anyway, we pick up the car and I put into the GPS "wholefoods" click on the one that looks the closest. We drive for a bit and then get to the exit make a couple of turns and realize... yep, this the wrong place. What happened? The closest whole foods to the airport is in Aurora and it's not a whole foods its the Whole Foods distribution center. So yeah, oopse.

Since all the other Whole foods closed at 9:30 PM which it was just about by this time, we had to come up with something else. We found that there are a bunch of Safeway's there so figured that would work and found one just outside Boulder in Westminster.

Then off we went with our car full of stuff to our airbnb place in a little town called Nederlands, just 30 minutes west of Boulder, population 1,550 (or something like that). We got there by 11 but then we had the lovely task of trying to find the house that our apartment was attached to in pitch black (there are no street lights outside the main street in Nederlands). I got out of the car and started to look around. When I couldn't find it Igor got out and started knocking on people doors to ask where #3 was. Eventually I found it up a hill and very difficult to see, just as Igor found someone to ask.

As we say every time weird things happen to us on vacation: "ADVENTURE!"

So we did find our place to sleep and quickly and quietly got all our stuff inside. In case you are wondering, the owners live upstairs, this is their basement that they have turned into an apartment (which is awesome) and they had left the door unlocked for us and the keys inside so we wouldn't need to come up and wake them when we got in, though the woman (Kim) was up anyway and came and said hi and made sure that we got in, ok.

Igor made us a quick dinner we turned on the Olympics and watch some of that while we ate. Igor went and took a shower, which seems to make a lot of noise and one of the house rules for the place (visa-vi the owner guidelines) was no noise after 9 PM. But when we checked with them in the morning (mostly because I was being paranoid) they said they didn't hear anything so, ok, cool.

So that was Friday and then Saturday woke up and the cold that had been brewing in me since Thursday finally kicked in. All sniffily, runny nose goodness, was mine to enjoy. lol We got out into the town of what the locals call "Ned", walked around the lake (reservoir, whatever) tried to find a trail around the whole thing (doesn't exist by the way) but had a great walk all the same. Talked to some local people on the road about the area, found the grocery store, a bunch of local coffee shops (most importantly) and then the visitors center where Igor had a lovely conversation with the guy in charge about where he should go running the next day. They settled on a 12 mile run that was "mostly down hill" and Igor set his heart on doing.

We took the rest of the morning to go back to our apartment, sit and chat with the owner (mike) and his wife (kim) a little bit. They were super nice people and invited us to use their BBQ and back yard area as much as we wanted.

A little after noon we headed out to get Igor on the road for his run. I was the wheels he was the legs and I drove ahead to meet him at the bottom of the hill and then take him either home or to Boulder, whichever. Of course since I was going to be a lot faster than him and just because in general I stopped many times along the way to get some of these great photos:

Igor and I had agreed that it would probably take him 1.5 hours to make the run so I made it down the hill in 45 minutes and waited at the bottom with the car next to a very nice little creek. I waited and waited and started to think about how the road on the way down the last couple of miles didn't really have a shoulder or a path for Igor to run on. Not that that had ever stopped him before, believe me if you saw where he ran in Costa Rica you would think him all the crazier :) Anyhow I decided I better try to catch him before he made it all the way down just to warn him. So I drove up the hill a ways and found a nice turn out spot where I had a fantastic view of the valley and enough room to hang out for a bit a wait for Igor. And so I waited.

It was almost to the 1.5 hour mark (2:45PM being the meet time at it was 2:30PM) and I still hadn't seen Igor. I knew I couldn't have missed him on the road. It's too narrow to miss a runner in little running shorts and a bright red muscle tee (believe me no one misses it. It's like a beacon of bizarre runner gear), but the seeds of doubt were starting to set in. I was just about to get in the car and drive to find him (his right knee has been a little bit of an issue for him in recent weeks after he tweaked it indoor rock climbing doing one of these types of moves:

 

it's called a drop knee (Igor has that same pretty green harness though this guys name is Adam Ondra and he is a professional, but Igor will kick his butt some day :p ).

Anyway, as I was saying before I so rudely distracted myself with fun climbing .gif files, I was just about to get in the car when I see the mix of red, shorty running shorts and tan skin jogging down the hill towards me. He smiled waved and when I yelled there wasn't much room on the road he waved me forward and said just a little further. I said ok fine. (somewhat disbelievingly). Nonetheless I drove on a bit further down the road and waited again. When next i saw him I told him this is where the hill gets really steep down hill and there wasn't a shoulder to run on. His response "two more miles! Just two more miles."

I said ok fine again and drove to the bottom of the hill to wait it out. I will say that every time I saw a car go up the hill I hope that they would see him and not turn him into a belarusian pancake. Where that sounds delicious it probably wouldn't have looked too good (most russian food doesn't look too good - but it usually is amazing).

Just so we are clear he made it just fine. :)

We had a change of clothes for him in the car. It wasn't too hot out and there was the creek that he went in rinsed in. We got him all sorted out and headed in to Boulder to walk around for a bit before heading back to Ned.

By the way Boulder is beautiful. More on that in the next post. For now pictures:

Finale Costa Rica

Friday morning we got up super early for our all day fishing trip. Some although maybe not all of you know that I am not terrbibly fond of being out in open water, and sometimes get seasick although usually only if I am force into the cabin of a boat. It's something to do with the rocking and not being able to see the horizon.

Anyhow, the taxi picked us up and drove us over to the boating spot. we had to take a little motor boat out to vessel that were were going to be on the rest of the day. Our fishing boat was captained by two young guys probably between 18-25, they were nice enough but the boat was so small that in order to keep it from tipping there had to be a certain amount of weight distributed on either side. We started out close to shore but after about 30 - 45 minutes of not catching anything Igor suggested that we have them take us off shore and not bother with the snorkelling that we had planned.

So further off shore we went. Once we got the lines in the water it took about 20 minutes and we had something. Igor caught a Tuna and then it was my turn to reel in something. I tried but the fishy was stronger than me. I handed the pole back to Igor but shortly after that the line broke. about 20 minutes after our get away fish Igor caught this monster 30 lbs Wahoo and man was it a fighter, but nothing to what would come later.

Then it was my turn again. It's very difficult with strong fish to reel them in. I had to have Igor hold the pole for me while I reeled so that I could actually get the dang thing in, even with the help of the pole belt. But I did it and I even held the fish afterword. Here's my pretty Tuna (10 lbs)

We trolled around for a bit and then it was time for the fight of his life. It took near 45 minutes to reel in and man was Igor tired but we got him all the same. 80 lbs for fish fighting muscle against Igor the Conqueror. We threw him back of course, you aren't allowed to keep those ones.

Then one more for Katie a 15lbs fish which I can't remember the name of now. My face says it all. We threw this one back too, we already had more fishy than we could eat.

Part of the deal with the fish group was that if you caught something a local restaurant would cook it for you. Igor the master negotiator that he is got it so that we wouldn't have to pay the cover charge of $8 per person. So that night we had dinner in a beach front bar and ate our prize Wahoo, by far the best tasting fish I have ever eaten.

After dinner we walked along the beach front in the pouring rain and Igor decided to go play with the waves that would have been fine minus that it was dark and pouring rain so I couldn't see him at all and got a little scared that I might have just lost my new husband the the pacific ocean. I didn't however and he came back and we went back to the hotel.

On Saturday morning we had scheduled ourselves another little wedding gift of a couples massage with wine and chocolate covered strawberries. Except it was a bit too earlier in the morning for wine so we subbed that for coffee.

We went back to the resaurant from the night before and had them cook us the rest of our fish (tuna). What we didn't eat we had them box up for us so that we could snack on it on the way to and at the airport, which we did. Then we went back to our hotel checked out and got on the bus back to the airport.

And that folks pretty much sums up our wedding vacation.

Marry Costa Rica

Now is the big day. Thursday morning we woke up. Got dressed and headed out to the bus stop to go to Villa Caletas to get married. The bus dropped us off at the base of the hill and we walked the mile up to the hotel lobby. Once inside we let the people know we were the couple that was getting married in the morning and I asked if there way any place we could shower. The gentleman and the front desk looked unsure and I told him "even a pool shower would do." He said oh yes they definitely had one of those and pointed us in the direction. We walked over to where the pool showers were.

The pool showers were just these little square open air cubes with side wall that came up to about waist height with an open back. We grabbed some towels held them up for each other while the other one showered and then got dressed in our wedding gear in the little dressing room right next to the showers. Then it was back to the lobby to wait until they were ready for us. I went into the bathroom and did my hair pinning in a little purple flower that I had picked from one of the vines that was growing on the walk way to the hotel and did my make up as best I know how.

The photographer showed up first and so we got a little time with him to take some pictures while we waited for the Lawyer to show up.  In Costa Rica, it is compulsory to have a lawyer at the wedding to do all the legal readings and work. When the lawyer got there it was show time. Igor got to stand at the bottom of the amphitheatre and I descended from the top down some rather precariously narrow stairs, bouquet in one hand and railing in the other.

We had no idea that our lawyer was Antonio Banderas (no, not really but he sounded exactly like him). Complete with Latin enthusiasm and passion he recited the legal and spiritual lines with great emotion (imagine puss in boots saying something to the affect of "and you will love each other with all your heart, to the end of your days...").

And then 40 minutes later we were married. We ate lunch at the hotel and then the cab arrived to take us ziplining which Igor had arranged the day before. So 1.5 hours after getting married we were speeding through the jungle canopy.

Wedding Photos Here

I am sure that everyone thinks this about the person that they marry, but I truly have the best husband out there. He is always thinking of fun, new things for us to do and try, helping me continue to learn and grow. Pushing me to be my best and better. I hope that I in my own way do the same for him.

Costa Rica Dress

Villa Caletas was a bit on the expensive side for our taste as a place to stay so we headed over to Villa Lapas, which was only a couple of miles away. We put our stuff down in our room and decided to head to Jaco, the surf town.

When we arrived we found a tourist information place, with a very nice and helpful lady who would help us a couple more times during our stay. She pointed us in the direction of a small surf hotel (Hotel Zabmara) which Igor negotiated a super good rate to stay there from Wednesday until Saturday when we would have to head back to the airport.

We had dinner in Jaco and then caught the bus back to Villa Lapas. Igor decided we should get to hot tub since they had one and asked the staff (in spanish) to turn it on for us. unfortunately the temperature gauge or something like that was broken so it wouldn't so we settled for a swim in the pool (while it was raining outside) then playing pool and foosball with a large toad as our audience. FYI I lost every round of pool and foosball. Hard to when against this guy. I have better odds when we play backgammon at home though. :)

Wednesday Igor made a plan for himself to run all the way to Jaco from Villa Lapas. He put me on the bus to Jaco and then off he went in the mid day sun in 95% humidity and 90 degree heat.

I got to Jaco, checked us into the hotel and enjoyed to lovely air conditioned room. I waited for Igor and sure enough he showed up after running for about 2.5 - 3 hours. He had also gone and negotiated a fishing trip for us on Friday and I think had a little dip in the ocean as well.

As it was getting a little late Igor rested a bit and then we went in search of a wedding dress for me. I must have tried on every white or whitish dress in that town and finally ended up back where I had started with the first dress I tried on. It was a bit too big so after buying it I asked the girl in the shop if she knew where I could get a needle and thread.  we found a nice shirt for Igor, guys are soooo much easier to shop for when it comes to wedding stuff. Pick them out any beach button down and your done. I got the needle and threat and spend the better part of the evening pinning and sowing the dress to fit.

The remainder of our evening was spent eating half a rotisserie chicken and rice while watching Game of Thrones on Igor's laptop and sharing headphones to listen (one ear piece each). :)

Costa Rica Destination

Monday morning after setting up the wedding location, Igor and I headed back into San Jose for the day to walk around and explore, and maybe? find some wedding rings. We did and Igor is very proud of the fact that we spent under $5 for both of our rings lol

We played in the city almost all day, got a bit wet in the rain. Below are some fun pictures from exploring San Jose.

Tuesday morning I called Villa Caletas again, and asked if they could find a photographer for us. They said give them a few hours but yes they were pretty sure they could.

We left Michael's and headed back to San Jose to catch a bus to Jaco, a small surf town near where we were planning on getting married. We just missed the bus to Jaco and had to wait another 2 hours for the next one. No big deal really we just hung out in the bus station.

When it was time to go we asked the bus driver, at least as best we could, if they could drop us off at Villa Caletas, we thought maybe we would check out this place before getting married there. The driver responded yes he could drop us off and I kept the GPS running on my phone to make sure that we didn't miss the place.

When we got dropped off, one of the gentlemen on the bus told us that we had quite the hike ahead of us to get to the hotel from the road side where we were at. He was right. It's about a mile up a rather steep hill.

All the venue options at Villa Caletas are about equally lovely so when the price difference between them is $300 we decided to go with the Amphitheatre.