Fun in Cabo

I'd been meaning to write a big post about our trip to Cabo San Lucas, but it's dragging out so I'll forgo the nicely written bit ("nicely written" is in the eye of the beholder, of course) and just go with some bullet points of interest from our trip.

- wasn't sure what it would be like to vacation with Cam.  Turns out it's relaxing but not restful - not much sleep for us, but we didn't do anything so we just relaxed.
- we went on a whale watch cruise for free, courtesy of attending a timeshare presentation.  Didn't see many whales, but it was nice to sail on the water, especially when they cruised right into Land's End with all the big rocks and the famous arching rock - El Arco
- it was on the cool side there.  Daytime temps in the mid 20s which is comfy but not hot as we were expecting for Mexico. Our resort was a big wind tunnel so it was always cold walking around the resort
- Sea of Cortes was freezing cold... not that it stopped me from swimming in it.  It was also ridiculously salty; I had trouble diving down deeper than about 3 feet and there were white salt stains on my trunks once I dried out on the beach.  I've never seen that before.
- it was great fun with Cam in the kiddie pool and on the beach, and everybody loved him
- Cabo itself is a weird mix of ghetto run-down Mexican town with big money luxury stuff for tourists: the tourist Golden Zone right on the marina featured swanky open-air lounges and restaurants right on the water and a beautiful (and expensive) mall, while right across the street was scary back alley-type buildings housing seedy looking shops.  Great restaurants over there, though
- speaking of restaurants, we had some really great food, including taking a freshly caught fish to a restuarant and having them prepare it four different ways for us.  We didn't catch the fish ourselves; it was given to us by the timeshare seller who hails from Edmonton
- we had a good time there, and enjoyed it so much we actually ended up buying into the timeshare at the presentation - maybe that's why he gave us a fish.  :)  Now we have a great vacation destination every year at a good price

Check out the pictures of our Cabo trip.

Next stop on our European vacation was Bruges, which is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The town has many grand old buildings that are all in great shape so there's a lot to gawk at.  There are also working windmills which are attended by workers who are actually working on grinding grain into flour while you visit.

Not quite Dutch windmills, but close enough

We walked all over the city and Sara was a trooper - no complaints and minimal rest stops needed.  We stopped for waffles all over the place so they helped to keep us going...

Anyways, the baby's coming soon so I've no time for a big article here... check out the pics.

During the initial planning of our trip to Italy, I figured Rome would be just another big city and I wanted to spend more time in the countryside. It was really only after reading Angels and Demons that made me want to spend a little more time in Rome, so I could retrace the book and see the sights in person. We allocated three days/two nights stay in Rome and I was actually thinking that may have been too much.

I couldn't have been more wrong.    more »

For the next portion of our Italy trip, we visited Mount Vesuvius and the ancient Roman city of Pompeii. This was an amazing experience.   more »

Okay, so our trip to Italy was over two and a half years ago, and it's been a year and a half since I posted the first set of pictures from Italy, but there are still lots of great pics from the vacation. In this edition, I've posted pictures from our day trips to the Amalfi Coast and the island of Capri.   more »

The second leg of our European trip was in Amsterdam, where we spent two days with our friends Vedran and Milena...    more »