Category: travel
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Rioja: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Winemaking (and a teeny bit of actual drinking)
Our three-day visit to the Rioja wine route in Spain has made us experts at making wine. Prior to this trip, my personal sommelier XFE and I felt fully confident that after watching two seasons of Moonshiners, several tours of distilleries (including Jameson in Ireland) and quite a few breweries (mostly in Colorado), and probably…
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Take a Bow, Bilbao
Bilbao. The name itself fills the mouth. I’ll admit, at first, I kept messing it up. Pronouncing it like the last name of a certain famous movie boxer. I could not quite get my tongue around it. For the record, it’s Bihl. Bow. As in, take a bow. And indeed, the resilient Spanish city by…
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Spain Does Not Suck
Hola chicas (y, un solo chico, possiblimente)! Como estamos? I’m great! And back from a fabulous vacation in Northern Spain. Petunia really wanted to go. She’s Calico, which is kinda close to Catalonian, so she thinks she should go to Spain. In the photo above, she is sitting on my travel binder. Oh, do you…
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It’s Beginning to Smell a Lot Like Porktober
October is a very special month around thePoeLog household. It’s the birthday month of XFE, aka my boyfriend-for-life. It’s also the month we met. Yep, seven glorious years ago this month he wore me down and convinced me to go out with him. A couple of weeks later, on Halloween, he tricked me into our…
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Birthday Ham
It’s not every day that one can say they brought home the bacon. Or, even, the ham. But my main man XFE’s birthday is today (Tuesday). And, well, he loves his cured meats. Which is fairly surprising considering the Great Northern Italy Food Poisoning Incident (Involving Salami), Spring 2011. I personally still have some hard…
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Sunburns, Manta Rays and Multiple Injuries: Things I Learned in Costa Rica
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m back from Costa Rica and sorta tan! And by tan, I really mean more of a vanilla color. Even this shade shift takes a lot of dedication, involving hours by the pool, high-level sunscreen, and multiple magazines. I usually burn within 30 minutes of the first day of vacation. Almost…
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Packing Strategy for a Week in Costa Rica
We leave tomorrow for a week on the beach (And in a fishing boat. And a scuba boat. Basically, we can’t or won’t sit still.) Nevertheless! Vacation looms. Which means so does my favorite part of vacation – packing! I’ve already referred to my obsession with packing. And, I’ve come up with a tentative packing…
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Don’t Be That Guy: Metro Edition
It’s finally summertime in Washington DC and therefore, it’s time to partake in a season ritual known as “complain about metro.” (There’s even a whole blog about it) Don’t get me wrong….this is a sport that can be played year round. It’s just that it becomes especially strident when the town is (a) incredibly muggy…
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Real Housewives Vacation Packing List
Our trip to Costa Rica is only a couple of weeks away, so, of course, I’ve begun obsessing over what to pack. Usually, beach vacations are pretty easy to pack for. But, then I saw the Real Housewives of Orange County on their trip to Costa Rica and much like Gretchen, I’m now having a…