I took some pictures of our apartment this morning. We haven’t really moved in yet, we’ll be doing that today, but we’re pretty happy with the layout of the apartment. There are 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a living room/kitchen combo room. Yesterday we bought a little TV (we get 1 Portuguese station right now) and a little FM radio/CD player (haven’t had time yet to check for stations.) I’m also uploading a few other pictures we’ve taken around Coimbra so far. - Jason [View Full Entry]

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Well, we officially live in Portugal now! We got an apartment today that we’re really happy with, have already gotten cell phones, and have applied for bank accounts (which required a whole other set of minor administrative tasks that went surprisingly smoothly). We even went to Carrefour today and got stocked up with kitchen supplies and sheets and towels and stuff. Coimbra seems to be a fairly pleasant city, despite being kind of hot right now. We’re told that the heat will soon give way to months and months of cold, rainy weather, which actually sounds pretty nice right now. The [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Lisbon after taking a 7 hour flight from Detroit to London and a 2 hour flight from London to Lisbon. We were expecting to pay extra money for all our luggage, but we got lucky because only Northwest tacked on a fee (and it was pretty small). We didn’t have too much time in Lisbon. Just enough to grab dinner and walk around the downtown area for a few hours. I’ve posted a few pictures including a kind of blurry one of the old castle overlooking the town. We hope to go there next time we’re in Lisbon. [View Full Entry]

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Lindsay and I went to Cedarville, Michigan for the week of July 4th. Cedarville is just over the Mackinac Bridge and east of St. Ignace in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula for all you non-Michiganders…..but I kept calling it the Northern Peninsula since I’ve been out-of-state for so long) Lindsay’s family has been going up every summer for the past 30+ years! We spent time hanging out on Lake Huron; we went to the 4th of July parade and had pancakes at the local Fireman’s breakfast; and we went to Mackinac Island one day to bike around the island, check out the [View Full Entry]

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For the 2nd weekend of Lindsay’s Spring Break we took a road trip. Vegas was okay. Palm Springs was pretty fun, Joshua Tree National Park was our favorite and we had fun getting stuck in traffic in L.A. (actually, traffic wasn’t too bad except on the 405). - Jason [View Full Entry]

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We went to Lake Tahoe for the first weekend of Lindsay’s spring break in March. There had been a bunch of storms the week before we went, so the snow was great. It was probably the best snow Lindsay and I have been on. Lindsay skied and I snowboarded. We had to use chains on my car (actually 2 sets because the first set broke). It was a fun trip, but we had to work hard to get back because of another big snowstorm. We had good weather on the way up to Tahoe, so the trip from San Jose only [View Full Entry]

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We left Singapore to return to Seoul for a day and a half and this time we stayed with Lindsay’s relatives, Ken and Mary. They showed us a great time in Seoul. We saw some fun neighborhoods, a few temples and palaces, went hiking in Bukhansan National Park near their home, and ate some delicious Korean food. After Seoul, we hopped back on Korean Airlines for our flight back to San Francisco. [View Full Entry]

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After Hoi An, we flew back to Singapore and had a few days of easy traveling again. Singapore was a very easy place to be a tourist, with plenty to see and do, plenty of taxis and other public transport, and great food too. We went to a few of the most popular tourist sites: the Botanical Gardens, Asian Civilisations Museum, and Orchard Road (for shopping). [View Full Entry]

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After KL, we flew to Vietnam, where we spent 3 days in Hanoi in northern Vietnam and 3 days in Hoi An in central Vietnam. Our first impression of Hanoi came from the crazy cab ride into the city from the airport, which involved more horn honking than I've ever heard before in my life. We had read about how crazy traffic in Hanoi is, but that didn't make it any less overwhelming. Basically how it works is that the traffic never stops, but drivers expect people to cross the road, so what you have to do is just step out [View Full Entry]

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After New Year’s in Seoul, we flew to Singapore for one night before catching a bus to Kuala Lumpur (about 4 hours away). In KL we stayed with our friend from Michigan and the Bay Area, Mike. Lindsay’s friend, Megan, also met us in KL. She came up on a break from her assignment with the Peace Corps in East Timor. It also turned out that another friend of ours, Vishen, who we knew from AIESEC and college was in town along with his wife and a few of her friends from Estonia. While in KL, we went out for dinner [View Full Entry]

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