Showing posts with label Throwback. Show all posts

Throwback Thursday!

Spending any holiday without the company of friends and family is always a little disheartening. In America we have a few "big" holidays where it is customary to come together and celebrate: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and the Fourth of July to name a few. This is the second "Fourth of July" we have spent together abroad - it also seems to be one of the most awkward holidays to celebrate from another country, because it's exclusively an American holiday. Now that have a few "Fourth of July's" abroad under our belt, we feel qualified to discuss what to do as an American overseas for this occasion!

For those of you who do not know, July 4th is our Independence Day in the United States. We celebrate by having BBQs or picnics, waving Old Glory (our flag), and wearing red, white, and blue. In the evening we watch firework displays around the city, on TV, or set off our own! Of course outside of United States, July 4th is just another day on the calendar.

Two years ago we were in London when July the 4th rolled around. For some reason, Megan seems to think not celebrating this holiday is devastating... probably because she has a degree in American History. Either way, to satisfy our patriotic obsession we Googled "4th of July events" that were happening in London. Ironically there are a lot of festivities planned for Americans to celebrate in the UK. We ended up finding a group of University of Texas Alumni who was planning on meeting in Regent's Park to picnic.

Walking through a local Sainsbury's, we grabbed the quintessential 4th of July goodies - any "American" food and drink we could get our hands on! We settled on Budweiser's, Oreo's and Doritos, then grabbed hot dogs and hamburgers from a nearby food truck. Google had informed us that the group of Texans was meeting somewhere in the park, but anyone who’s ever been to Regent's Park knows that it's not a small place; so we walked around scanning the horizon for our fellow patriots. After about twenty-five minutes of searching Megan spotted a backwards Texas hat... GAME ON!

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the park listening to Country music, eating, drinking and tossing around the old pigskin, a "real" American FOOTBALL! If you know your world History, the irony in all of this is that we were celebrating our independence from England, in the heart of central London! Although we didn't have fireworks, we have some great pictures and memories of our first, Fourth abroad.

As you all know we are in Tenerife right now, so yesterday was another fabulous Fourth away from the USA. Once again we did our research, looking and hoping to find a group of Americans meeting up somewhere on the island. Unfortunately we came up empty handed, and haven't been able to locate a single American in the eight days we've been here.

We decided the best way to celebrate our lonely 4th of July in Tenerife was to take some traditional American food down to the beach. Pacing the Supermercado in search of true "American" food was not easy - we once again found American beer, this time MGD's and Budweiser's, we also scored with a big juicy watermelon, Doritos, sunflower seeds, and the traditional BBQ foods - hot dogs and hamburgers! When we got back home we realized we had no access to a grill, so we made the hamburgers and hotdogs on our electric stovetop, packed up a picnic and headed to the beach. Soaking up the sunshine and munching on our American food brought big smiles to our faces. Despite being 5,300 miles from home we still managed to have a fantastic Fourth of July!

Xo,
M&K

Traveling has defined so much of our relationship, as well as who we are as individuals. We have tons of pictures and stories from past trips. We thought it would be fun to do "Throwback Thursdays" to share with you the fun we've had over the years! For our first Throwback post we would like to highlight a real "in the moment" trip, San Diego-Los Angeles-Big Bear in January 2011. Yes, it spontaneously unfolded into a triple destination vacation and all in under 48 hours!

Bored from winter break, and dreading the five months of student teaching that was ahead of her - Megan decided spur of the moment that she was packing up the car and heading out SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE... When it came to packing we knew we had to prepare ourselves for anything, which literally meant cram your beach, snow and upscale attire all in one bag. As luck would have it, Megan was driving and she decided on California, more specifically San Diego! We took the I-10 South toward Tucson, hopped on Interstate 8 from there and off we went into the desert. :)

Highlights of the drive included Kyle's first time seeing the sand dunes between AZ and CA, our close call with being stopped at the border, and eating enough Goldfish crackers to feed an entire pre-school! Our first stop in San Diego was Seaport Village - Megan wanted to cruise the gift shops and sip craft beer on the pier. After that we headed over to the Gas Lamp Quarter to have a quick peek around the bars and restaurants - unfortunately nothing caught our eye so we headed to Old Town San Diego FOR TACO TUESDAY!!! So of course in our true silly style we purchased Mexican inspired "serape" Baja Hoodies to help us get in the mood. We ransacked every restaurant and taco stand we could find. After we were bloated we bought salt water taffy, and continued walking around. We got to an area Kyle deemed "familiar," claiming he had once eaten excellent sushi there with his friend Barrett... and somehow we cleared room in our stomaches for sake bombers and sushi rolls at Harney Sushi.

The next morning we headed out to the Birch Aquarium, and as luck would have it no one was there, we ran around like we owned the place! Later that afternoon we found ourselves back on the road again (Pacific Coast Highway) in hopes of meeting up with our friend "Daddy Kyle" who is a Navy Medic in Encinitas, but all we found was crappy burritos and consignment shops. Back on the PCH we stopped in Laguna Beach to watch the sunset, there we played in tide pools and took pictures. Megan's PinkBerry addiction led us to a mall somewhere in Orange County, and a trip across the Long Beach bridge left us spending the night at Barrett's place in Sherman Oaks.

Early Thursday morning we headed home... Until Kyle got a call from his good friend Haley, who invited us to come up to Big Bear for the weekend to hangout with her friends and boyfriend! Megan jumped on Hotels.com and booked a room in a lodge/log cabin. After a lengthy trip up the mountain we spent the night in Big Bear, CA - a town that time forgot. Unfortunately we didn't snowboard while there, but we did spend a great night hanging out with good friends... here's to playing beer pong in the snow, and yes, the mountains are always blue! Friday morning we headed home, and of course Kyle wanted to take the path less traveled, which took us down the backside of the mountain and toward Ninety-Nine Palms, and on the North side of Joshua Tree National Forest (if you've ever been to Joshua Tree, you know that there are no "Joshua Trees"), and there wasn't much to see on the North side of the park either. Megan strongly believes that is where the government hides UFOs and alien activity ;)

Overall the trip was amazing! The driving was intense, and it was a lot to do in four days - but we are professionals! We always recommend taking short driving trips when possible, you never know where the road might lead you.

Xo,
M&K