Tales of Zorro

We have now made it into our 3rd week in Gdansk, Poland. Time seems to be flying by. Luckily we have at least another 50 weeks left on our journey. Everyday we try to find a new activity to participate in. Yesterday we went to Leba which is a large national park full of sand dunes where people are not allowed to walk on. Its like being in a massive dessert full of rolling hills. It is an 8 KM walk along the shores and a 7 KM walk back through the forrest. Lots of walking but well worth it.

On Friday, we went out for Karolina's birthday who you have seen in some of the other posts. It was a lot of fun. The drinks were flowing. Our 3rd stop in the nights festivities put us at a Mexican restaurant, creatively called "The Mexican." All of the waiters and waitresses were Polish but they had a live Mariachi band. It is kind of Surreal being in a Poland at a Mexican Restaurant listening to Mariachi music. Anywho, the story we want to share with you all is ordering cheesecake. Mila and I ordered the cheesecake to wash down the Grande Margarita. All of a sudden, the lights go out and the band starts playing adventurous music. From the shadows comes Zorro fully dressed up with our cheesecake. It was awesome. He delivers it and then runs away. After Zorro, we went out to a club full of people 10 years younger than us, playing hip hop Polish music. We danced the night away. Well I moved my arms back and forth, but Emilia danced the night away.

Here are a few other pictures for your viewing pleasure

Emilia (and my hand) with her Babcia getting DRUNK! jk

Emilia with her Dziadzio:

In Gdansk, city center:

The stadium that was built for the Eurocup (futbol). Its gonna be crazy!

Well that is all for now folks. We miss everyone very much and we can't wait till you come visit us. :-)

Living "La Vita" Loca

We have spent the last few days hanging with friends, chillin with grandma and grandpa, and soaking in the joys of our "mini retirement". It is rather hard explaining to our Polish relatives that we have left our jobs to go travel. No one really understands how this is possible and why you would want to leave a job "in this economy". With 3 bottles of wine under our belts, we tried to explain our plan to take over the world. Perhaps not take over but we definitely want our souls to absorb all the wonders this planet has to offer. Today we walked a few miles from Gdynia to Sopot along the shores and ended up at a little italian restaurant called La Vita. Although relatively cheap in our American standards, it is more than we have been paying for our 4-5 dollar meals. Being in Poland definitely brings me (Emilia) back to my roots of origin and makes me grateful for speaking the language. Here is a picture from where this blog is being created. Sorry the pictures have been so terrible, but we don't exactly want to be pulling out the iPad openly and we haven't quite found an internet cafe to upload the pictures to the blog, but at least you get to see out pretty faces. :-)








- Posted around the world from our iPad

Location:Plac Zdrojowy,Sopot,Poland

We have arrived!!!

After 24 hours of travel, we finally made it to Gdansk. We slept almost the entire first day and half of the second day but we are now back on track.

Our flight to Poland was as follows:

San Francisco > London > Copenhagen > Gdansk

Emilia's family and some friends, who have chosen to remain anonymous (you know who you are) came to the airport to see us off. A gracious gift from a dear friend left my head with a cushiony surprise for the long journey.

Our first flight was not without some excitement. Due to the addition of some new body scanning technology at the airport, we were left with 8 minutes until our flight left. Emilia took off like Usain Bolt toward the Gate. "Passengers Emilia and Scott, last call, Emilia and Scott." We ran as fast as we could, dove under the closing plane doors, and ended up safely in our seats gasping for air. Count it!

After grandma (babcia) greeted us at the airport in Gdansk, we knew our extended vacation had truly begun. Warmed up with homemade chicken noodle soup, we fell into an endless sleeping coma. In the next month, we plan on spending quality time with babcia, aunts and friends as well as daily trips to the bakery for fresh bread to have along with our Nescafe coffees.

Here is a picture of our first day in the city center with Mila's childhood best friend Karolina.




- Posted around the world from our iPad

Location:Gdansk, Poland

Last day in the USA

It is finally here and we could not be any more excited. One more family dinner and then off to see the world. "Where first," many people ask. "Thank you for asking," I say. Well, we are off to visit Gdansk, Poland. We will be there for four weeks living with Emilia's grandma before we move on to Zakopane, Poland to hike for two beautiful and exhausting weeks.

Let us start out by telling you how this all came to fruition. We had just gotten back from a seven day trip which covered almost all of Ireland. When we woke up at 5:30 AM to go to work the next day, vacation ending depression starting to creep in. After several hours into the work day, I called Emilia and proposed a brilliant yet imperfect idea. "Let's move out of the country. Ill work at Merrill Lynch, London and you can find a nursing position." She thought for one second and replied, "Why would be want to work?" SOLD. Shortly after, we asked Emilia's family if we could live with them to save some euros and they were gracious enough to support our dream.

Our plan is to gain some perspective by seeing how other people live and truly immerse ourselves in new surroundings. We have a brief outline of places we want to go, but we really love the freedom of being able to go where the wind takes us.

Along the way, we have had some amazing moments with friends and family which have led us to this day. Thank you everyone for your love and support. We look forward to sharing our year with each of you when we get back or even better, COME VISIT US somewhere in the world.

-Scott and Emilia

Location:Dublin, Ca