Beattys Overseas

We were SO bummed to leave Argentina! 
Goodbyes to Thuy and Marty (Pura Vida owner)We fell in love with the country, especially Buenos Aires, where we had made a nice little life for ourselves in the past month.  Our final day was spent packing, and lunching with my beloved yoga teacher Thuy at our beloved lunch joint, Pura Vida.  We reluctantly left our cozy studio apartment and sat in a 50-minute taxi ride to the Buenos Aires Airport.  Our airport experience left A LOT to be desired, with long lines and inefficient crowd-control.  Soon enough, we were quite cranky and actually wanting to leave Argentina.
Adiós Argentina 

Our flights from Argentina (Buenos Aires to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco) made for a total of 17 hours of air travelling time. We were pretty exhausted by the time we touched down in San Francisco, but pumped to be back in the States.  With happy memories of communicating enthusiastically with our Spanish, Portugese, German, Italian, French and Africaan-speaking friends, our mouths & minds were relieved to be fluent once again... in English! 
Happy Easter!We headed south in our rental car, 2 hours to Whitney's parents house in Gilroy, California.  There are plans for a get-together with family friends on Saturday night, Easter Sunday with the nieces & nephews and 89-year-old Grandma, and lots of bops over to the beach.  You can see all our photos in our album, where the family fun speaks for itself. 

- Whitney

After Easter, we spent the week mainly hanging with the Pray family kids & grandkids, and took a few daytrips worth noting....

John "posing" with the ODC Dance posterMy childhood pal Elizabeth is a professional dancer with ODC, one of the country's leading modern dance companies whose season was coming to an end in San Francisco.  We took my mom Donna's front-row tickets and drove up to The City By The Bay to watch Elizabeth do what she does best.  The performance was amazing.  Truly incredible art, with dancers who made the most incredibly intense & athletic movements look like ribbons floating underwater.  The performance was in 4 parts, with an intermission between the 2nd and 3rd.  Each piece was different from the others, some evoking political or socio-economic themes, while others bore romantic plot lines, or cheerful numbers with music to match.  After the show, we met Elizabeth at the Stage Door to congratulate her on a wonderful season closing in SF. 
Elizabeth, our superstar! P.S. I'm wearing a scarf made by her mother!The good news is that the company now tours the country for a few months, and they'll be coming through New York!  We plan to attend their annual delivery of The Velveteen Rabbit (a very family-friendly show that they perform every Christmas season in San Francisco) in Purchase, New York in a month.  Anyone care to join us??? Our evening of culture in San Francisco was so lovely, and we have our pal Elizabeth to thank for it.  Thanks Liz Biz!

The next day we drove south to the Monterey area, where we were married last February for a lovely lunch at Carmel's "most romantic restaurant," Cassanova's, where we had dined the night after our wedding.  Our lunch was truly impeccable, with the sun shining on our patio table and the staff doting on us, the One-Year Anniversary Couple.  Yummy food, an ice cold Chardonnay and the scent of the Pacific Ocean in the air made for a wonderfully romantic afternoon that we didn't want to end.  So, we continued the fun by driving in to Pebble Beach, along 17-Mile drive to Spanish Bay, a gorgeous oceanside golf club where we perched ourselves on the deck near a fire pit and ordered some drinks.  Soon enough, the benches neighboring ours at the fire pit became populated with other people who seemed to be enjoying an awesome Friday afternoon as well.  We learned that they were all participating in The Pebble Beach Food & Wine, a four-day epicurean event bringing together 50 of the world's most prominent chefs (names like Thomas Keller, Gary Danko, Michel Richard, Tom Colicchio, Charlie Trotter and Todd English)
JB lounging at Spanish Bay with the Pacific at his backand some of the top wines (including Screaming Eagle, Roar, Veuve Clicquot and Paradigm).  To hold such an event in Pebble Beach makes perfect sense, as it's a truly magical spot on the California Central Coast, and all the folks we met that afternoon agreed.  We left our new culinary friends (who were so passionately talking about food that my stomach growled) to have dinner at my brother's house, even passing on the invitation to join them for a spot at one of their dinner tables.  Tempting, but it was our last night in the area before leaving to Napa, and the extra couple hours with the family made me so happy.

- Whitney

Steph, Kristen & Whitney, Day 1 of wine tastingOur friend Kristen invited us a few weeks ago to join her at her parents' place in the Napa Valley for the weekend following our time in Gilroy.  We heartily accepted, looking for any way to extend our trip and the days in sunny California.  The house sat atop a hill in Calistoga, overlooking hundreds of vines, with a huge property that housed a pool, a tea garden, a large BBQ patio and huge fireplace facing large picture windows. 
The amazing houseKristen's friend Stephanie joined her, as they would be at a legal conference later in the week in San Francisco together.  We were all bowled over by the house and it's property, and wondered why we even want to leave this amazing place.  Yet, the wineries called to us, and we made the best of what was already a wonderful situation.

Our first visits on Saturday afternoon were tastings at Clos du Val and Miner Family wineries.  Sunday, we were joined by John's cousin John Love (who was in Sacramento for work and drove into the Napa valley to see us!) at Vincent Arroyo vineyards, then we forged on to August Briggs, then Salvestrin, and ended the day with a long and lazy tasting at Mumm for some bubbly.
Our group at Vincent Arroyo Winery  Frankly, after wine tasting all day, you really do go through palette fatigue!  The sparkling wines were pick-me-ups for our mouths, and we finished the night with dinner at Rutherford Grill.  Monday started with downtime for each of us, and we all managed to meet up at the pool around 11:30 when the temperature just hit 70.  Ahhhhh.  We had an appointment at Neal Family vineyards on Monday afternoon with the winemaker, Gove, who gave us a very thorough and personalized tour of the fermenting tanks, the barrel caves and the bottling stations of Mark Neal's booming business. 
At the Neal Family Vineyard fermenting roomI can say that I learned a ton more about the winemaking process than I already thought I knew, and Gove was an excellent teacher, answering my stupid questions and correcting my misunderstandings. We had an awesome dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, a friendly and very chic little restaurant in downtown St. Helena.  The food was tremendous!!!  We definitely recommend Cindy's...

Tuesday morning we had an appointment for a private tasting at Spring Mountain Vineyard.  At 10am, none of us were really ready to start sipping wines, but after an hour-long tour of the gorgeous property (some of you may know it as the Falcon Crest house) with the super-dooper friendly and loquacious Brian.  Brian, a former sommelier and wine rep, now works for Spring Mountain doing marketing and sales, and was the best tour guide we could have asked for; he had us sipping really interesting wines at 11:30am, and explaining every little quirk and knack to wine tasting.  We all wished that we had our little "lesson" with Brian at the beginning of our weekend in Napa, since we learned so much about taste recognition and wine protocol with him. 

The perfect view of vineyards and the Silverado Trail from the patio of the houseOver the course of the weekend, we endlessly oohed and ahhed at hundreds of vineyard views, dozens of delicious wines, and the perfect daytime temperatures.  Our four days in the wine country were the perfect wrap up to our 5 months abroad...  In many ways, it was the classic "vacation from the vacation" that people always claim to need after a common holiday.  Our holiday was nearly half a year and in 15 countries, so why shouldn't we relax at the end of it in a gorgeous locale surrounded by good friends and fine wine?  Cheers to that.

Arriving into LaGuardia airport on Wednesday afternoon was surreal.  We stepped out of the airport into the cold April air and saw a very long line of yellow taxi cabs and a bunch of NYC buses - it looked like a scene from a movie.  The nippy temperature and the noise levels were shocks to our systems after the peaceful calm of the Napa Valley.  Thankfully, we were soon greeted by friendly faces: John's sister Grace and dad Dan came to pick us up and bring us to Long Island for the afternoon. 
The Beattys Overseas, with luggage and jetlagThere, we all got caught up and were able to see some of John's other siblings who live nearby.  Although we didn't see our Cramsie nieces & nephew, we saw the other Beatty grandkids and were shocked at how much they've grown!!!!  Five months is a longtime when it comes to the height of toddlers, man. 

John's car had been kept on Long Island, so when we drove back to Manhattan in the early evening, we were greeted with the Manhattan skyline sight near the 59th Street Bridge. 

It should have been a welcome vision, but for me, it was bittersweet.  Our trip is over.  The picking-up-and-going-anywhere-we-choose has ended.  The anticipation of finding a new city/country/language/culture is no longer. 
A homemade welcome sign was so touching, made by nieces Meghan & Kara and nephew EddieAnd, as you may or not imagine, it's a bummer.  Yes, I'm excited to be back to normalcy and to see our friends.  Of course, I'm aware that I'm SO lucky to have just taken this trip and I should be counting my stars for the past 5 months of my life.  Nevertheless, the blast of reality smacked us both in the face as we sat in the chaotic rush-hour traffic of New York City last night. 

The young lady who subleased our apartment left it in such a state of filth that I spent my first 4 hours "back at my home" scrubbing and scouring every surface I could find.  John wrote her a perfectly reprimanding email about the state of our place, but alas, I've accepted that it's just part of subleasing your place to someone who you really don't know.  At the end of the night I realized that it was a perfectly New York-style welcome back to it's gritty city... traffic and grease and stink.  Welcome da heck Home.                                              

- Whitney

A bunch of people have asked us, "What was your favorite country?"  To which I end up answering my top THREE favorite countries.  I won't speak for John (if he wants to, he'll make his own blog entry on this matter), but I loved the countries that surprised me. I'll explain... listed below with the main reasons why I found my Top 3 so interesting:

#1  Austria: I didn't expect Austria to be so awesome.  I thought it would be a little German wanna-be country with lots of Eastern European presence.  Instead, I found it to be the hub of Bavaria, with just the right amount of tourism to prevent it from being as tour-overloaded as Germany, France or Italy.  
Salzburg along the riverOur stay in Salzburg - including picturesque day in the Alps (see our Obertaurn entry) - provided a glimpse into the mountainous scenery of Austria with one historic little village after another.  Our short stay in the capital city of Vienna was awesome... I felt that Vienna was what Paris might have been like 50 years ago: Gorgeous architecture, amazing museums, great city restaurants & cafes, but none of them overrun with tourists or angry locals.  Vienna was the most welcoming big city of all the European cities we toured on this trip.  Bravo, Austria, for surpassing my expectations. 

#2  South Africa: I was a little nervous about going to South Africa.  Afraid of what I'd heard on TV or movies, I braced myself for an aggressive, crime-ridden experience.  Instead, we found South Africa to be delightfully hospitable. 
Senzo and Xolani The history of this nation is deep and storied, but the future is bright, and we saw this almost everywhere we went.  South Africans laugh at visitors' fears, pointing out that many people are terrified to visit New York City (Touché!).  We learned not to judge a place on decades-old injustices; otherwise we'd have missed out on the vibrant South African experience.  South Africa's scenery is breathtaking.  Between our beachside jaunts in Cape Town, the wine valleys in Franschhoek, and our wild game viewing in Zululand, we absolutely loved this dynamic country.  I said it once, and I'll say it again: Go To South Africa!

#3  New Zealand: It's not a place full of sheep.  In fact, New Zealand is anything but sheepish.  It's the adventure capital of the world, and we tried a bunch of death-defying/underworld/peculiar endeavors while touring New Zealand.  Our screwy activities were not overshadowed by the amazing sights in New Zealand; it seemed that every single one of the world's terrains exist on the two islands of New Zealand.  Volcanoes, glaciers, green pastures, rain forests, fiords, white beaches and rocky mountaintops can all be seen in a six hour drive along any of of the country's major highways (which are almost always dinky little two-lane roads).  New Zealand's juxtaposition between quaint undiscovered country and wild adventure confluence was a dazzling surprise for me, and I loved every day of it.   

- Whitney

Now that the Beattys are no longer Overseas, there's little reason to upkeep this blog.  We're both busy getting our lives back on track (John starts at his law firm next week; I'm working for a designer and attending school), and our International travels have ceased (to see how bummed out I am about this, see the Big Apple Homecoming entry).  Therefore, my little website project comes to an end. 

Endless thanks to all who read our blog, watched our videos and cruised our photos during the past 1/2 year.  I enjoyed creating this website so immensely; it provided me a "job" while on the road, encouraged my writing and allowed us to keep in touch with our loved ones.  We are truly flattered by all who logged on to read this site (over 300 unique visitors!),  we appreciate all the comments of support and enthusiasm, and we apologize if we didn't respond to every single email! 

With this final blog, I thought it would be fun to share a few points of the trip's highlights and lowlights. 

Signing off,
Whitney Beatty, Editor-in-Chief
and John, guest columnist

Best flight: Our December 25th flight from London to Johannesburg, South Africa was awesome.  The British Airways business class section and flight crew were super posh, making us feel like royalty.  Plus, the cabin was filled with many family members of the plane's crew, creating a very Christmas-y family vibe.  Also, there's always a positive buzz on a trip going from a cold place to a warm place.  All that flip-flop & sunscreen anxiety makes everybody giddy. 

Worst flight:  We actually had amazing airport karma.  We were so lucky not to deal with a single delay, cancellation, nor did any piece of luggage go missing. 

Latest dinner hour: Buenos Aires, Argentina, 11pm average dinnertime.

Most fashionable city: Paris, France. Obviously.

Least charming 'old world' plumbing feature: Separate Hot and Cold faucets in bathroom sinks.  We encountered these in rural France and Austria.  Try getting a handful of warm water when one spout delivers icy agua and the other's eau is boiling hot... Difficult. 

Country where we met the most Americans: Tie between New Zealand and Argentina.   

Most awkward encounter with fellow traveller:  Our first day at Mkuze Game Reserve in South Africa, a fellow guest walked by me and nicely asked where I was from.  When I said, "USA," he angrily responded with "Your President is an ass."  Um, okay.  That, however, was the only anti-American thing said to us, which isn't all that bad (or false, even).  We had been worried that we'd get a ton of flak for being 'ugly Americans,' but never had any problems. John said it right when he said, "People like respectful & nice people, no matter the nationality." We are very respectful and quite nice; and people generally welcomed us everywhere we went. 

Most annoying overcharging at restaurant: Vienna, Austria... a traditional Vienese restaurant charged us for the bread & butter consumed from the basket placed in front of us at our table.

Hottest climate encountered: Cairns, Australia.  Average daily temps were 36° Celsius (96.8° Fahrenheit) during our nine-day visit.  Yowza. 

Items we toted around the world, but didn't use (not even once): Money belts. We never felt the need to put our money or IDs underneath all our clothing. Unlike what our Grandma Helen says, the "vigilantes" were not looking to steal from us. If you are going to a place where pickpockets are common, you can borrow our never-used money belts.

Items I didn't pack, but wish I had: more ponytail holders.  I kept losing the ones I had brought, and couldn't always find replacements in other countries.

Most enjoyable and enlightening museum:  It's a toss up between the Louvre (duh) in Paris, France and Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau's Residenz in Salzburg, Austria.

Museum where John freaked out when the camera battery ran out about 1/8 into our visit: the Naval History museum in Lisbon, Portugal.

Most expensive Internet connection: 5 Euro for ONE HOUR (roughly 8 US dollars) at the Melia Aurelia Hotel in Rome, Italy.

Cheapest Internet connection: FREE ones at our friends' homes...  Thanks Jon & Vanessa, Alex & Karen, Amgad, Sylvia, Doug & Yoly, and Augusto!