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| An artist’s rendition on a wall on a side street as we made our way back to Palermo Soho, an hour-long walk. |
It was a late start to the day. We didn’t awaken until 8:00 am after a fitful night’s sleep. Tom showered and dressed first and then headed down to the lobby for coffee and a light breakfast of ham, cheese, and eggs while I stayed behind getting showered and dressed for the day.
By the time I sat down at my laptop in the lobby, my tea drink in hand, it was 9:00 am. Loading my computer (I’m still using the old one), I discovered I had three updates that required I wait patiently while they packed.
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| As we walked along Santa Fe Avenue in Palermo, we entered this church, Holy Eucharist Parish, taking some photos, saying some prayers, and thanking God for our health, well-being, and never-ending adventures. |
The Internet is slow here, especially when there are several guests as there are now. The updates took a good 25 minutes to complete. Finally, close to 10:00 am, I began today’s post two hours later than usual.
With no big plans for today, I have plenty of time to get done, but I’m always thinking about our readers out there in cyberspace who may be waiting to read with their cup of coffee or tea in hand.
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| Not unlike other visits to churches, we often see parishioners also in prayer. |
Over these years, we’ve had many readers write to us explaining they have a ritual of reading our daily posts at home, at work, while on public transportation, or sitting in the park with their phone, iPad, or Kindle in hand. We’re very aware of this fact and make every effort to get it done each day consistently.
Unfortunately, circumstances prevail, and as consistent as we’d like to be, sometimes it doesn’t come to fruition as readily as we’d prefer. I suppose that’s how life is, not always as we’d like it to be and certainly, not always on time.
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| A little-lopsided view of the altar at Holy Eucharist Church. |
But, we’re here now and anxious to “get the show on the road” and share some details of our upcoming plans to see family in Minnesota in 15 months. Last time we visited the USA to see family, we started in Minnesota and ended in Nevada.
This time, we plan to visit each location at two entirely different time slots based on dates of cruises we’ve booked during these two periods, as indicated in our most recently published itinerary, which may be found here at this link.
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| Stained glass windows are culturally interesting in each country we visit. |
We plan to visit Minnesota from 4/8/2019 to 4/25/2019 for 17 nights and Nevada, California, and Arizona from 11/8/2019 to 12/3/2019 for a combined total of 25 nights. We’ll spend a few days in California visiting my sister Julie in Los Angeles and a week visiting Tom’s sisters at their winter homes in Apache Junction, Arizona.
This schedule will leave us two weeks in Nevada. We’ll stay with son Richard in Henderson, visit sister Susan in Las Vegas, and renew our driver’s licenses, which require an in-person visit this time instead of the online renewal we did while in Bali in 2016.
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| Statues and lit candles along a wall. |
In between these two USA visits, we have three cruises, a three-month stay in Ireland as shown in yesterday’s post, a three-night stay in Amsterdam, and a 62-night stay in a home in England, hopefully in the countryside.
All of the above are booked except for the three-night stay in Amsterdam as we await the Baltic cruise and the 62-night stay in England, where we’ll wait for another cruise from Southampton, UK back to the US.
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| The Nativity scene was still on display after the holidays ended. |
Once we’re settled in Africa, we’ll book the house in England, hopefully, close to the Cornwall area.
As for Minnesota, yesterday we booked the same hotel where we stayed for six weeks during our last visit in summer of 2017. I contacted the corporate rep who worked with us last time, and we were able to negotiate the same rate we paid in 2017 at US $107 (ARS 2,002) per night.
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| Tom noticed this artistic wall art in an obscure location as we walked along the boulevard. |
The cost of staying in hotels and generally staying in the Minneapolis area is very expensive for travelers, often as much as US $200 (ARS 3,741) to the US $300 (ARS 5,612) a night for a hotel and well over US $100 (ARS 1,868) a day for meals.
Rental cars are also more expensive in Minneapolis than we’ve paid in most countries. We’ve budgeted over US $5,000 (ARS 93,423) for the 17-nights in Minnesota, even with the great hotel rates.
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| A colorful historic building, most likely with apartments. |
In Las Vegas, since we’ll stay with Richard for two weeks of the 25 days, cooking most of our meals, our overall cost will be considerably less. In Los Angeles, we’ll bite the bullet and pay outrageous rates for a hotel near Julie. I’m allergic to cats and she has two making it impossible to stay with her.
In Arizona, most likely, we’ll stay in a vacation condo or hotel for a week in Scottsdale or Apache Junction. At the same time, we visit Tom’s sisters, preferring not to impose on any of them other than Richard. As we’ve mentioned in the past, we prefer not to stay with family or friends. We have our own routine, spend lots of time online, and have this way of eating, not easy for a host to accommodate.
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| The Argentine people love color and design. |
When staying with Richard, he’s at work all day, and we cook dinner most nights. We stay in a separate area of the house with its own bath. This avoids stumbling over each other, and it’s relatively easy, especially when we don’t screw up the alarm system!
That’s it for today, folks. After a while, we’ll head out for a walk through this diverse and interesting town of Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, enjoying every moment.
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| A bright green corner shop. |
May you have a happy and fulfilling day!
Photo from one year ago today, January 10, 2018:
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| This scene made us “squeal” with delight at the Gnomon Pig Farm in Penguin. Check our link here for the video above to see and hear! Tasmania, mainly when we listened to the pigs squealing over their right to occupy the mud hole. |