Brenna Abroad

April 22, 2017December 22, 2017

Our Arrival in Hanoi

It was a long journey, but we made it. For some reason we were not able to check into our flight online or at the kiosk, but the travel agent couldn’t find anything wrong, so she printed our boarding passes, and we were off, me slightly skeptical and definitely wondering at what point something was going to go wrong.

But then we got on our first flight to Chicago with no issues. And then came the big one, 12 and a half hours from Chicago to Tokyo. I had prepared myself for this flight. I bought an amazing travel pillow. And I bought “LegsUp” to allow me to bend my knees and take some pressure off my lower back for the flight. While I can’t pretend I was comfortable, I was way better than I would have been otherwise. The Tylenol PM probably helped with that too.

After our layover in Tokyo, we had one final leg, a 6 hour flight to Hanoi. By this point, we were tired and a bit frazzled, and we still had to figure out our Visa On Arrival. We had 2 options for our Vietnam visas – spend a lot of money for the peace of mind of getting our actual visa before going, or do “Visa on Arrival”, going through a company online to get an approval letter, fill out forms, take a couple pictures, and then wait in line at the airport and pay the stamping fee. Being the frugal people we are, we went with the cheaper option. No regrets! We had a few moments that caused stress (flight agents asking about whether or not we had a Visa), but everything ended up going smoothly!

We got to Hanoi at around midnight… on a Friday night… to our house right down an alley from Beer Corner in Old Quarter. It was madness. Pure, beautiful chaos. Unfortunately we were too tired to take part in it, so we just walked down the street, bought a few beers (FIVE beers for TWO DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS. I love this country), and came back to the house to unwind and catch up on sleep. As we were unlocking our door, a lady was lowering a basket of food to someone else that nearly hit Anthony in the head. Made me smile.

Our house is charming. I love the decor, and the location seriously cannot be beat. Even though we are right next to Beer Corner, you could barely hear the loud music and people and honking from inside.

My plan of sleeping off the jet lag didn’t work, as I was wide awake by 5:15am. Once Anthony woke up, we headed out to walk around Hanoi and drink some Vietnamese coffee. We instantly learned that pedestrians apparently do not have the right of way here. There are scooters EVERYWHERE, never ending, and they do NOT stop for you. It was a real-life game of frogger every time we had to cross a street, but we figured out pretty quickly how to manage.

After breakfast, we went to the Hoa Lo prison, aka “Hanoi Hilton” where American POWs, including John McCain, were held during the Vietnam War. While most of the prison has been demolished, the parts that remain have been turned into a museum.

We were exhausted, so we decided to sit down in a park and people watch for awhile. We watched people zoom by on their motorbikes, carry heavy baskets on a pole thrown over their shoulder, push bicycles topped with insane amounts of goods, and sit on small stools, drinking, eating, cooking, or doing their own people watching.

After we ate some lunch, we decided a nap was necessary. We woke up somewhat refreshed and decided to walk around Old Quarter and do some shopping and exploring.

We headed down to Hoan Kiem Lake, and walked all the way around with a few detours. The atmosphere was so vibrant and fun.

People were playing games.

Kids were in little jeeps or on hoverboards or rollerblades.

Guys were working out?

There were some monuments and pagodas and bridges to be seen.

After making our way around the lake, we went and got some dinner at a restaurant with Vietnamese “street food” style food. Vietnam is known for its street food. A lot of it smells amazing, and a lot of it looks rather terrifying to be honest. As a vegetarian, I haven’t tried any of the actual street food places because I’m not sure how to tell if there is anything vegetarian for me, and there is too much of a language barrier for me to figure it out by asking. But I knew from research that the restaurant we went to would have options for me.

I was SUPER excited when our server explained to us how to eat our meals. Everywhere else just put a bunch of stuff in front of us, and if we asked how we were supposed to eat or drink it, they would just kind of point at some things and then walk away.

We stuffed our faces and then went back to the lake for some evening shots.

We then battled the absolute MADNESS of Hanoi street life to see the night market.

And now I am sitting here typing this up before we venture back out for the nightlife.

Hanoi is a crazy, crazy city with the most active street life I have seen in any of my travels thus far. I can’t imagine trying to live in a city like this, but it sure is fun to visit.

December 10, 2016December 13, 2017

Bay Islands, Honduras

The Bay Islands, Honduras is one of the cheapest places to learn to scuba dive in the world. They also have a huge, beautiful coral reef right off the coast, part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which is the second largest coral reef in the world. Utila even has whale sharks throughout the year. So when we had about a week available for a quick trip, I decided to go for it.

We flew straight into the island of Roatan. Getting to Utila is much more difficult, however. Three days a week, they have a direct ferry between the islands, but unfortunately, the one on the day of our arrival was earlier than our landing. Instead of wasting a night and staying near the airport to catch the ferry the next day, we decided to book a charter flight with Captain Angelo on IslandAir.

The plane can supposedly seat nine people, but there were three of us, and it was pretty tight with our luggage. The flight was only 13 minutes from takeoff to landing, and it was smooth and easy. If you’re short on time, I’d definitely recommend doing the charter flight option.

We were picked up from the “airport” and taken to our treehouse in the jungle. The treehouse was about a 15 minute walk, or 5 minute tuk tuk ride from town, but it felt like a world away. Utila is a rather flat island. There are two big hills, Stuarts Hill and Pumpkin Hill. The treehouse was built in and around a strangler fig tree up on Stuarts Hill, so from the deck we could see most of the island, but the only company we had were Betsy, Bob, and Junior the resident tarantulas living in the bathroom, nearby cows, a million geckos and other lizards, and some bats in the evening to help take care of the mosquitos.

The architecture of the treehouse was amazing, as were the views.

However, it was a struggle if you had to pee in the middle of the night. Unlocking 3 different doors to get down to the bathroom, navigating around the various critters, and having the tarantulas stare at you while you’re peeing half-asleep was quite the adventure. Particularly since the property managers mentioned when we checked in that “If we were really lucky, we’d see a boa constrictor.” Maybe some people would think that’s lucky. I thought it was terrifying, so walking down the treehouse in the dark paranoid that a boa constrictor was going to slither out in front of me at any second, was enough to make me suffer with a full bladder throughout the night. No boa constrictors made an appearance, by the way.

Utila itself was a decent little island. But the true draw is the underwater life. So, our first morning on the island, we arrived at the dock of the Bay Islands College of Diving (recommend) at 7 am to get our gear together, load it onto the boat, and take off. We had completed the education and confined water portions of Open Water certification back home, so all we had left were four open water dives.

Our first day of diving had fabulous weather. We first went to Stingray Point where the colorful fish and coral left me in awe. The highlights of that dive were our first stingray sighting and an adorably shy porcupine fish peeking out of the coral at us. Next, we went to Big Rock where we saw several giant barracudas (one of which looked rather disturbing, as though he were hissing at us) and numerous stingrays as well. Huge success. We absolutely loved it. We did not want to worry about trying to take photos while learning to dive, but fortunately, we met a couple that were getting involved in underwater photography. The underwater images here are theirs, so check them out on Instagram, @blueblanketimages!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNyHjmrA3xr/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNyHRe9Ak23/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

Day two, we were out on the water bright and early again. We went to Black Coral Wall and Airport Reef. We got to dive down to 60 feet this time, and saw an incredible array of beautiful fish, a shipwreck, and an eel.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNLISvPgGKU/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNFQTEhA0DI/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNLPZQXAX_a/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

Once that was over, we were officially Open Water Certified! We came back to land, celebrated with some beers with our instructors in the Lodge, filled out our Log Books, signed some documentation, and went on our way, happy and excited.

After some lunch, we walked back to the treehouse, rinsed off under our bucket shower, and relaxed for the evening.

Since we hadn’t had enough diving, we were out early once again on our third day, for our two free “fun dives” (meaning there was no educational component to them). It had been raining all night and morning, but they decided to go out to the north side of the island anyway, where the better diving is. The boat ride was long and cold and rough, but once we got suited up and in the water, it was a whole new world. We went to The Maze first, where it’s a maze (surprising, yes?) of coral walls with a deep drop off. Somehow, despite all the rain, the visibility was absolutely amazing. We could see all the way down, and swimming over the corals displayed brighter colors than we had seen before. Right toward the end of that dive, we saw a massive stingray.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNCR9qSgl_l/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

Coming back out of the water, I was nearly freezing to death in my wet swimsuit out in the wind and rain, but we huddled under towels in the dry area until we got to our next dive site, Moon Hole. Here, we saw another small ship wreck, and a frog fish, which might be the weirdest creature I’ve ever seen.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNmACPJA4_w/?taken-by=blueblanketimages

The following day, we first took the ferry to La Ceiba on the mainland. I was surprised by how mountainous and beautiful the mainland looked as we approached. I’ll have to make a point of coming back for it someday. After a two hour wait there, during which we grabbed some food at a tiny restaurant packed full of local workers, we then caught the ferry to Roatan.

Roatan had a much different vibe than Utila. Much more tourist-y. The island was a lot bigger, and there were actual cars instead of just tuk tuks and scooters. We made it into West End where we checked into our apartment on the water on the outskirts of town, and then went wandering. The day was spent walking, drinking on the beach, and eating on over-water balconies. At one point, we were in a shop where a woman was loudly complaining about the lack of a tennis court at her resort. “I mean what’s the point even? I guess I’m just not used to slumming it. And this is slumming it.” Clearly she had no shame, but I was embarrassed for her.

The next day, we took a water taxi in the morning over to West Bay beach. While the beach was lovely, I can’t say that I was a big fan. Since it was low season, there weren’t very many tourists, which may sound nice but we were constantly being harassed by people selling tours or bracelets or massages. The beach is lined with resort after resort, and if you’re not staying in one of those resorts, you have nowhere to sit and hang out unless you want to pay one of them to be able to sit in their chairs (I did learn the next day that the bar Beachers has chairs in front for general use). We ended up wandering up and down the beach a few times, stopping in a couple places for drinks and lunch before deciding to head on back to West End for the rest of the day.

Our final full day, we decided to check out the scuba diving Roatan had to offer and went with West End Divers (again, recommend). On our first dive that morning, we went out to Blue Moonshine where we saw a green sea turtle! To be honest, I forgot about everything else because I was so excited to see my first turtle while diving.

Brocken Inaglory [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

We came back to the dive center to warm up with some coffee before heading out again to West End Wall. This was to be a drift dive where we went with a current along a coral wall. However, the current was much stronger than anticipated, and little ole me was being swept out very quickly, and I spent the whole dive trying to swim back into the current just to be able to stay with the group. Due to all this effort, I got low on air and had to surface early, exhausted. Anthony thought it was a blast, for the record.

Afterward, we decided to get some papusas at a local restaurant, and ran into some friendly Polish tourists. Since I am an American Polish woman myself, we sat around and chatted about Poland and our various travels. That evening we went to a bar on Half Moon Bay to have a couple drinks, watching the waves lapping the shore.

The following morning was stunningly beautiful. The temperature was perfect, sun was shining, and the water was calm and turquoise as could be. We saw multiple people wander out for some shore diving, as we sat on a balcony eating breakfast. We decided to hang out on the beach, soaking it all in, for as long as possible before we had to go back, pack up, and catch our taxi ride back to the airport.

In short, we love scuba diving, and we hope to come back to Honduras in the future to see what the mainland has to offer us as well.

June 8, 2016December 22, 2017

Highlights of Scotland/Ireland and What I Would Do Differently

Ireland had a place on my bucket list since I was young. I would always imagine renting a quaint cottage out in the middle of nowhere, a fireplace crackling, and rolling green hills surrounding me, and just existing in all that beauty. Scotland made it onto my list a bit later on, and jumped higher on said list after I started reading the Outlander series. Once I knew I was going to be taking a two week spring vacation, the Scotland/Ireland combo made sense.

A lot of planning went into this trip. I did tons of research, asked multiple questions on forums, looked at SO MANY vacation rentals, and finally built out our outline. I think I was right on track for most of it, but if I were planning it over again, there are a couple changes I would make.

But to start, the highlights.

The Highlights

Skellig Michael – 100% the highlight of the trip. While the boat ride there was a bit harrowing, the island itself was awe-inspiring in its history and beauty, and the puffins and other birds (and seal sighting!) made it that much better. The entire time, I tried to imagine I was a 6^th century monk – riding in a little wooden boat out on that crazy Atlantic sea, pulling it up to this island without the landing bay, climbing up the steep cliffs prior to any steps being there, building the beehive huts and figuring out how to actually live on this little jagged island with no fresh water and only bird life as company.

If you want to visit Skellig Michael, you need to plan way in advance. They only have landings during the summer months, and even then, it is completely weather-dependent, and only 13 small boats can land per day. I had thought I could wait until the week before to book so that I could better pick a day with good weather, but two months before the trip, I saw that the days I could go were already booking up. Fortunately, I found one operator that still had space and I took it, and we lucked out with wonderful weather the day of.

Trotternish Ridge, Isle of Skye – The Isle of Skye is full of dramatic scenery, but driving the northern loop, and stopping to hike provided some of the most spectacular scenery of the whole trip. We hiked the Old Man of Storr, which was fabulous, and the Quiraing, which was even more fabulous. The whole ridge was formed by landslips, and the Quiraing is still moving, creating some truly unique vistas.

Glenfinnan Viaduct – Ok, so this is mostly because of me being a Harry Potter nerd, but the viaduct is actually really cool, and the scenery around it is gorgeous, and seeing the steam train pass was AWESOME. You have to time it right to see it, and there is a path with the best views, so don’t just go to the lookout point at the visitor center. And make sure you take time before or after (or both) to explore all the lochs and mountains galore.

Glencoe – It’s kind of weird putting this on my highlights since it was rainy and dreary the majority of the time we were there so that we weren’t able to do much, but Glencoe itself is a really pretty little village with tons of outdoorsy things to do in the surrounding area. The drive to Glencoe is wonderful, the trail system was more than pleasant, and if we had had the weather for it, it would have been awesome to take a kayak out on the water or go hiking the various glens and mountains.

Dingle Peninsula – Dingle town was not my favorite, as it was just a bit too busy and full of tourist buses, and Anthony and I were about the youngest ones there. We did enjoy the town, but we enjoyed other towns on the trip more. The peninsula, however, was probably our favorite drive of the trip. In fact, this is where I experienced that daydream I had about Ireland as a kid – sitting by my fireplace in my home, surrounded by green hills and sheep. And it was every bit as great as I figured it’d be. The peninsula was lush and green, and the coastal views were spectacular with cliffs jutting out, and there were multiple quality beaches which I never really imagined for Ireland.

Galway – I’m not sure how much I would like Galway in the winter, but with the sun shining and 65 degree temps, I loved it. It was at the end of our trip when we were content to slow down a bit, and walking around the pedestrian-only part of town, listening to musicians, watching performers, and stopping to sit on a patio to eat and drink, without a care in the world, was heavenly. It’s a small and attractive city, and both Connemara and the Burren are close by, so it would make a good base for anyone traveling to Ireland.

What I Would Do Differently

Day 1 – Stay Put – I knew we weren’t going to want to drive a long way after a trans-Atlantic red-eye flight. I figured we could handle a two hour drive, though. And technically, we could and did handle it. But it wasn’t the smartest decision ever. Anthony was sick which made it even worse, but in general, we were tired and grumpy, and probably would have been better off if we had spent that first night in Inverness, instead of immediately jumping into driving on the opposite side of the road, on narrow one-track streets through the mountains after very little sleep.

Do More, Drive Less – I planned out some truly awesome road trips. None of them involved more than five hours of actively driving, and all of them had incredible scenery that could be a highlight of any vacation. But there were too many. They all started to blur together. It felt a bit like we had seen it all already. Because of this, we ended up skipping out on our last one (Connemara) because we were just done with the whole “let’s-drive-around-and-look-at-beautiful-things” thing. I wish I had planned a couple different activities, whether that was taking a short flight or ferry over to one of the Aran Islands, or getting a bike and cycling around Killarney National Park and Gap of Dunloe. A 16 night trip requires a bit more variety.