During our days in Las Vegas, we noticed there isn’t that much to do during the day. All the shows are at night. So we did a lot of walking and checked out the lobbies of the other big hotels on the strip.
These were closer to our end of the strip.
Aria was really eye-catching. Just very creative, inspiring and high end. This is where we found our favourite restaurant!
Belagio was just over the top beautiful. The pictures just don’t convey the beautiful sounds and atmosphere in this space. The enchanged gardens in the lobby, the intricate floor tiles, the glass flower ceiling… just stunning! What an ambiance. You really feel like you’re in some flowery paradise!
The strip at night, and Hell’s Kitchen too!
Caesar’s Palace is one that I remembered well. When I visited a long time ago, they actually had Roman Centurians standing around looking impressive. There’s none of that anymore, but there’s still the indoor sky and upscale Forum Shops!
At the end of the strip, Harrah’s and Mirage, which is where I stayed once upon a time when they still had Sigfried and roy and their Siberian tigers.
The pyramid in the daytime. When we first arrived, they “upgraded” us to a slightly larger room. We took the upgrade, but when we got there, we found out the new room was in the tower part of the hotel, not in the pyramid!! It felt like being on a work trip. So we “un-upgraded”, and moved back into the pyramid on the 2nd day.
The rooms are pretty standard, but the cool thing is you have slanted windows!
It looks really cool at night too, with the Sphynx out front.
On the inside, you can take elevators that move on an angle to get you to the higher levels. The vews from the top on the inside are really cool!
And in the middle there’s a raised level where there are more shops, shows and attractions. I loved it! Oh, and those are the new earrings sweetie got me. 🙂
The trip there… took a taxi to the airport, lunch at Phily airport, then some very cool sights from the plane! The video is actually lightning happening in the clouds!
Then we arrive in Las Vegas…
And check in to our hotel, the Luxor. It’s the pyramid, and ever since my first visit to Last Vegas it’s always been a dream to one day stay there. And here we are!!
I did a Canada visit on my own just to visit my awesome family there. I can’t remember now why Lothar and I both didn’t go together but I’m assuming he didn’t have the vacation days or something like that.
I stayed with a wonderful neighbour in their oh-so-cozy basement, and used my sister’s car most days. Yes, there was snow, and I even had to shovel it off the windshield. One time, I couldn’t figure out how to get the trunk open. It turns out there’s a small button that you have to press, but I just didn’t see it.
We had such a good time. One of the things we did was an escape room altogether, and we actually succeeded! Here’s a photo of us at the exit, but it’s from a screen so it’s not great. LOL
I got to see Simon play one of his hockey games. So cool!! I just captured a couple of stills from the videos I took.
When we were back at my sister’s house, we were digging through some old photos, and she found some of our dad when he was young. You could see why he was such an excellent rower!
When the family was busy, I went out around Peterborough and treated myself to several really nice lunches.
I also made my usual stop at my sister’s chiropractor, who always provides great advice, whether it’s about my hip, shoulder, or just general muscle activation. At the mall, they have a tray station where you can leave your tray with all the random leftovers from your lunch, and somebody comes along to sort everything out, separating plastic lids from cardboard containers, etc. Without that, people often don’t know what to do and end up putting everything in general waste.
Towards the end, we all went to a restaurant together, and of course, there was a lot of clowning around from the kids.
And finally, we went to a drive-through Christmas lights show that was coordinated with music and a whole little skit! All you do is drive up, tune into the radio station, then sit back and enjoy. Really well done! The pictures were taken through the windshield, but still ok. 🙂
So this is the story of our Boston trip, the one with Lex. We went to Boston for Lex’s eye checkup and appointment. I was able to go with him because you can bring a partner to assist. You have to get your appointment, and then they have to put eye drops in your eyes, and you can’t see. It’s just moral support. So, we were together, and it was fantastic.
We stayed at the Kimpton None Zero Hotel. They had a white Christmas tree in the lobby, even though it was still October.
We had a great time going around to all kinds of places, just walking, shopping, and enjoying.
We found some really cool wall art, which looked like it was just a bunch of twigs. But when you zoom in a lot, you can see that they had placed tiny little people in between that you could search around and find. I think that was a subway station.
Of course, we went for a movie. That’s us there getting our tickets.
Other than that, we had a lot of cool and yummy meals! Always a highlight for me. 🙂
Lothar spent part of his growing up in Austria, and all of his brothers and sisters are there. It was awesome going together and for me to finally meet everyone who I’d seen only on video calls. Oh, and it was us and Zoë too!
The trip there was somewhat eventful. Mask wearing is still a thing for travel. Our BA flight got delayed by 3 hours. When landing in London, we circled around for a while. It’s hilarious to see that on the flight tracker. LOL
The flight from London to Vienna was delayed as well, so we still made the connection and got our bags too! Once there, we had dinner and made it to bed time.
Vienna
We stayed at Lothar’s sister Helen’s apartment since she was staying with a friend for most of the time we were there. They did come back part of the time, and we squeezed everyone in those days.
It was an F1 race weekend, and we managed to stream and watch the race too!
When we weren’t sightseeing, we played lots of VR with the kids, having brought our Quest 2 headsets with us for just that. We showed them Zenith. Clara liked the essence mage (which I play) and Phillip liked the blade master (which Lothar plays), so it worked out perfectly. Phillip even drew a picture of himself, playing the blade master and fighting a large enemy.
During the days when Helen and her partner were available, we all did sightseeing together.
Helen is vegan, so lunch was at a vegan place. There were some nice bowls, but I think we both would have rather had some nice deli meats and cheeses, or local specialities like schnitzel.
In the evening, we went to Prater amusement park. Highlights were the 5 loop roller coaster, dark indoor coaster with mirror maze, and the Sau roller coaster. The wild Mouse was crazy rough though. Roller coasters are always my favourite but that last 5 loop one was the best roller coaster I’ve been on, and that’s saying a lot!
A guy got arrested from the Siamese swings ride while we were standing right there in line. He had a gun on him, which was confiscated!
Had that sausage with the cheese in it and the mustard. Chri got a garlic flat bread that was awesome. Then had the potato bash brown pancake thing with garlic sauce on top. Dragon breath in the morning. LOL
The rest of the time, we went sightseeing on our own. Lots of lovely places and views including a lovely pedestrian-only shopping street. For food, we went to a burrito bowl place and also had some awesome caramel crunch ice cream.
Vienna Aquarium!
The aquarium is where we bought these little eggs that “hatch” as gifts for Phillip and Clara. Phillip did his on his own. We put Clara’s in water at the family reunion since she wanted to do it together, and watched it grow into a little frog and sent her pictures (it took a few days)!
At an outdoor food court, I had pork belly with crackling and mushroom salad with a mix of small local mushrooms. Yess!
This is the castle gardens. You start in front of the castle, then the gardens, walking paths, ponds and the restaurant are all behind.
Lots of walking on the paths around the gardens.
At the end of the gardens, we had some dessert and drinks at the little cafe there. I got the big ice cream. LOL Kidding of course, I had mango cake and lemon raspberry juice. There were wasps everywhere we ate outdoors! But we got used to it after a while.
Later in the evening, we walked through Vienna, and ended in the Bermuda Triangle (!!) district at “Krah, Krah” restaurant, where we enjoyed a lovely street atmosphere and amazing Schnitzel! Finally!! Oh and of course Austrian potato salad. Yummm!
Train to Countryside
Next we headed to the countryside to Helen’s partner Chri’s parents’ farm, where we stayed and had a little electric Mini to drive around even! We had a lovely train ride there.
Chri’s Mom picked us up at the station, and hosted us at their place for dinner that first day. What wonderful people, and what wonderful food! It was NOT vegan. 🙂
Ratchendorf and Countryside
There was a girl staying upstairs who was working for the summer at a neighbouring farm. She had a couple of huge pet snails in a terrarium, and let us hold them!
The farm was large, and Zoë drove around on a Tuk Tuk little 3-wheeler electric vehicle. Loads of fun! There were tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, raspberries and blackberries to pick. I really loved the tomatoes with kernol (pumpkin seed oil). Yumm! In the area, there’s a little tourist spot where they actually have Camels!
Slovenia for Dinner
Lothar’s step mom and husband (Anne-Marie and Ian) came over, and we all drove to Slovenia, as the border is really close by. Lothar’s sister Moira and her boys James and William joined us too. I had chevaps (!!) with lots of onions and lepinja bread hot from the oven. It was perfect! The bread was so fresh it was too hot to touch at first!
Bad Radkersburg
After dinner, we went to Bad Radkersburg, where they have their evening festival, much like Harbour Nights here in Bermuda. No, it’s not a Bad town, it just means “bath” – it’s a natural spring spa town. Burg = small town (vs. Berg, which is Castle).
This was when I took a picture of the perfect half-moon, but in the photo it turned out like a perfect full moon! How??? I promise. It was a HALF moon!
Mur Tower
Lothar and I went to the Mur river and tower. The Mur river runs through a lot of places around where we’re staying. The tower has a cool design, and we enjoyed a nice walk, climb, and views!
Gunther’s Cottage at Heimschuh
I finally met Lothar’s brother Gunther, and family! We’ve been on video calls many times, and enjoy Formula 1 banter and predictions. We went to their cute cottage in the country. The brothers tinkered with a record player to try to get it to play a Rodriguez record louder, but it wasn’t cooperating. LOL
We went walking up the hill nearby where there’s a restored Celticwood fort / lookout. And yes, it’s a great lookout!
Then back down the hill for a lovely dinner all together near the bottom. I had their amazing breaded chicken that lasted me several days as leftovers back at the farm. Yey, protein!
Family Reunion Party
In honour of Lothar visiting, and with Zoë and his new girl, me, the family arranged to all come together at the farm. And everyone came!! All 7 siblings where there together with partners, and kids. It was amazing meeting everyone!
Of course we took a lot of group photos. Just like at weddings where you run through all the different combos of people. I made it into a few of them too!
All 7 brothers and sisters
Everyone!!!
There was even a bit of VR playing, just between us kids. 🙂 Some playing, some watching.
Ruegursburg Castle
Emil and Elizabeth came with us. We took a sloped elevator up the side of the hill rather than walking all the way up.
We toured the inside of the castle, and saw a very interesting Witch exhibit.
We had fun taking some pictures outside the castle too. I love the dragon one, with Lothar as the fearless knight fighting the dragon, and Emil as the princess in peril!!
They also had a Birds of Prey show, where we saw falcons, hawks, buzzards and owls do impressive fly-bys. One of the handlers got scratched by accident. The birds enjoyed doing low swoops over our heads. It was impressive!
And then finally, back down. Driving around the countryside is just lovely, with so many instances of “little town on a hill”. Just beautiful to see.
Graz
We met Lothar’s friend Igor at a nice restaurant in a big department store. I had a nice big schnitzell.
We walked around the town a lot, and went inside a couple of churches too.
We went up to Graz castle. It’s a nice winding path up to the top with the iconic clock tower. Half way up both of us had to find a toilet quick! LOL Something we ate I guess. At the top, we sat down at the café, and I had a sachretorte – a local must-have.
Lothar did a Zoë pose imitation picture on this metal platform where Zoë stood just like that in a photo from many years before. We made sure we got the same angle, distance, background, foot position, everything. Sweet! There was also a Metal on the Hill concert the same day we were there. What a coincidence! I would have loved it, but we didn’t go because it’s more of an all day thing and I only recognized 2 bands across both days.
Down by the river where there’s a neat ‘island’ cafe right out in the middle of the water.
Someone has a Red Bull racing car hung up on the cliff wall!! Austria is their home race after all.
View from inside the Modern Art gallery, and some more walking around. Hey, Oh my god, it’s the Oh My Dog food truck!! LOL
Visiting some more of Lothar’s old friends in the country.
Wine Country
We drove along the winery street. Literally, all the wineries are along this one road. We found a really nice quaint bouchenshank. Many were very modernized, and all glass and tall metal pillars, but the one we found really had a nice vibe and terriffic view. It was raining but it didn’t matter because we had a table outside under the veranda. I had their Moscato white wine, and bread board with the pork fat spread and delicious dried house sausage. Lothar had a cheese and bread board. It was a real highlight!
New Glasses!
Lothar has an optometrist friend. He’s really thorough, and uses a much more advanced measuring and fitting system. There were at least 2 additional parameters per eye, distinct measured prescriptions for near and far, and diopter precision down to .01 (vs. the nearest .25 that we usually get). He was able to fit me in, and we picked up the new glasses a few days later! We also went for a walk in a nature reserve nearby.
Family Lunch
We were able to get most of the family together again for a lunch at Deli! The food was great.
Family Dinner
This time at Gunther’s home rather than cottage. Had a great dinner with bread, guac, hams, eggs, cheeses and stir fried zucchini. We rewatched a great summary of the final F1 race of 2021 where Verstappen won the world championship from Hamilton. Then we played board games, including the stacking camels game, and some of Gunther’s own games that he designs.
I’ve never seen a family with 3 kids so organized! Everyone has their own mini-closet, storage bins for misc items, and posted schedule. Wow!
Go Kart Racing!
Gunther booked us in for a little race day at the track – just for our group.
We ran a 10 minute qualifying round, then lined up in our grid positions. We raced for 20 minutes. There were several yellow flags. LoL I passed 2 right away, then took several laps to pass Zoë. After that was Chri, and I couldn’t catch him. I finished 7th out of 11, so that’s pretty good, I think!
Gunther, Lothar and Wolfie had the podium, Elizabeth had it but was crushed when she crashed in the very last lap!! Such a great time!
And lunch at the track restaurant afterward. Everyone had such a great time!
Later we went to visit where Gunther goes gliding.
Around the farm
Helen and her friend joined us at the farm. Then the kids joined because their grandma had Covid. We all went to Murek, walked around a park and had lunch at a restaurant right on the river. I had some nice fried fish with potato salad. They we got some ice creams from the Bio food store. Mine was caramel of course.
Train back to Vienna
Well, we’re reaching the end, and catching the train back to Vienna. There, we visit with another friend of Lothar’s.
A bit more last-day sightseeing around Vienna where we walked and shopped in the afternoon, and stayed at the Hilton.
We found a lovely restaurant in the evening with another excellent schnitzel to finish off our trip.
First time back to see my sister and family in Canada since right before Covid! Wearing masks was still required at airports and on planes.
The airports were understaffed, and every part of the process suffered some kind of delay. Our bags didn’t make it, but would be arriving on the next flight. So we hung out at the airport to wait for that. Then when we finally got our bags, our rental car counter had just closed, so we had to wait in a long line while one person helped all the people who were in our situation. All together it took us 24 hours to get through. Longest BDA to Toronto ever! LOL
We were there for Simon’s graduation from grade 8. We were so proud of him looking excellent in his blue suit. Next year High School!
And Claira’s looking all pretty and sophisticated. They’ve changed so much in the 2 years we didn’t see eachother!
Lothar and I stayed at a nearby hotel, and the kids came to hang out with us for a while. We enjoyed the game room and the outside atmosphere.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to Peterborough without a lunch at St. Veronus, Belgian retaurant. And a few other nice meals out.
My birthday fell during the visit, so we celebrated that together. What a treat!
We enjoyed some great sightseeing and outings as a family. Dinner by the beautiful lake with geyser fountain at sunset. Gorgeous!
And we too a boad ride up and down the lift locks!
A big hilight for me was going to a Tree Top Adventure park, where we climbed, hung and swung over all sorts of obstacles. I wasn’t the quickest, but was super happy that I was able to do all of it. I brought my workout gloves to protect my soft hands, and found I had the strength for all that was required!!
In case you’re wondering why Simon and I are walking… he kicked off a shoe from up above somewhere, so we went hiking around the ground looking for it. We found it!
The night we decided to stay somewhere for 2 nights. And the room had this right in the bedroom!! Ooooooops!
Back on the road and off to Ruby Falls – underground waterfall in a cave!
Later, we rode “The Incline” to get some great views from the top! Really disappointing food though! LOL
Ziplining!! Boy was that ever fun
Unsuspecting, we headed to Gatlinburg, which was recommended to us by friends. Holy smokes!! It was like a Disney World town. What a surprise and blast!
And it happened to be Oktoberfest while we were there for an extra special treat on top of the mountain!
Neat place for an evening of live music and a LOT of purple!!!
Finally we hit the Blue Ridge Parkway, and did some hiking trails as we made our way along the twisty scenic roadway.
We stumbled upon a quaint little town called Blowing Rock to spend the night between hiking days. Excellent dinner at Cafe Violette!
Onward to another hiking day, which took us on a part of the Appalacian Trail!
We took a wrong turn off a loop trail and did some very steep climbing on some pretty loose terrain to try to reconnect with the path.
Then we drive out of the mountains and into Virginia. We see some of the sights, including University of Virginia. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s famed plantation home.
Visiting Nancy!!! Nancy and I go way back to penpal days. Wow! And we got a ride in their Tesla – what a cool car! If I didn’t live on a small island, I would definitely want one.
Some sightseeing around their town and railway.
Then on to some lovely gardens near Dule University – Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
Some sightseeing around Durham including Tobacco District down town. Then our last evening back in Charlotte, where we stumbled upon a large inflatable rabbit event
And a stadium full of pumpkins and vendor stalls
And finally, homebound, with a great shot of Charlotte from the air.
Our first trip off the island after Covid!! And first time at the New Bermuda Airport too.
The lovely Boston Commons Park, where we had some fantastic soup at this little park bistro.
Some really cool plants – I always love that!
Stumbled upon some Opera in the Street. You just sit on the steps, and enjoy!
Some sightseeing…
Following the freedom trail, as you do when in Boston…
Had some ridiculously rich lobster bisque. It was probably 95% cheese sauce. LOL
What a small world – ran into folks from Bermuda!
Lucked onto a great little Asian place on Newbury Street
Took the subway to Harvard campus. Masks were still required on transit.
After, we had lunch at a really cool spot.
Of course lots more sightseeing. Around the water…
And around the city.
Science Museum! One activity we did is use materials like straws, clips, bits of cloth and weights to design little sleds that could either be the fastest to go down the “bobsled slide”, or the slowest. I tried for slowest, and got it! 🙂
Of course, catching a movie and dinner. Lex loved those pickles so much, they brought him a second jar!
The next day was Union Oyster House, and of course lots more walking and sightseeing.
Of course, had to visit Fenway Park. Went on a nice tour of the entire place!
