Tag: car

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in slovenia in the netherlands traveling

things we do on roadtrips

we test new eyewear and check for directions… often.

we cringe as we cross big bad tunnels and buy vignettes when we get to the other side.

we brave the weather and get stuck in never-ending traffic jams… sometimes for hours.

so we snack on spekulaas and watch star wars to pass the time.

when things go well, we drive on endless roads without a speed limit… this is europe afterall.

and sometimes… well… sometimes, things don’t go exactly as planned…


after four separate diagnosis of “this doesn’t look like a simple problem”, we bid goodbye to our focus (who is now waiting for a diagnosis on a garage somewhere) and drove the last 100km to our destination in a taxi. and here we are now, in glorious amsterdam!

i left this country four years ago, almost to the day. it’s been too long – yet all the details, the smells, the sights, the sounds… they’re all coming back to us with such fierce familiarity that in some ways, it’s like we never left. for us, this is not a mere a sightseeing visit: we’re definitely more interested in revisiting all the things we love about the netherlands, all the particularities we’ve missed throughout the years. i’m really looking forward to this week :)

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just life traveling

could you act human? i got neighbors.

summer light

well, crazy july is behind us, all the pinkness of building a website for young teenage girls fading with it. i css’d while listening to hannah montana, the jonas brothers and taylor swift, corrupting whatever poor sense of musical taste i had before (and dragging down those around me too!). i saw twilight, and then read (practically devoured) the 4 books and a half that stephenie meyer wrote on the series – all in the same week. i’m up to speed on all the cute idols for <16, their schedules and mischiefs. for a whole month, i was a giddy teenager all over again, but i actually had a lot of fun doing the site, and the last 2 weeks were pretty intense. i wish i could slip into this sort of focused working mode more often.

the website is a sort of portal, so it required a big infrastructure: drupal was our “community plumbing” system of choice. drupal can be quite messy and scary, with its panoply of modules, options and versions and it took me some time (months, actually) to get used to it, to motivate myself to learn it. right now, i can say i got over most of my grudges with it… and i even like it, a little. that stuff might not be straightforward, but sure as hell is powerful and i will probably use it again someday, if another big project comes along. for the small stuff, wordpress has my undying loyalty.

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on other news, our dealer found us a nice focus station wagon that we’ll officially purchase soon, as soon as we figure out insurances and other details. it’s pretty, and i’m already used to it since my family currently owns 2 of these. we weren’t pushing for a third one, but i think i’m secretly happy it turned out that way :)

it’s a nice car and though it is a little big for us, the size of the trunk comforts me, and i find myself making mental lists of the things we’ll be able to fit there. things like foldable bikes to use in the cities we’ll see, and ski/snowboard equipment. i’ve tried snowboarding once before, in a indoors place in shanghai and loved the feeling of it, so i’m looking forward for new tries (and falls). i think we’ll pick a nice country for that. :)

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just life

1.8 tdci 100cv 5dr etc wtf

so we’ve been thinking about getting a car. something simple, small but comfy, used but decent, diesel, 4 or 5 seats, and with some space to put our stuff. something to hit the road with when the time comes.

the plan is to stay in europe for a while, hop around cities and countries, discover a bit of what we’ve been missing – what we’ve been almost taking for granted. europe looks mostly predictable to me, organized and easy… but i’m willing to prove myself wrong, and i’m eager for the surprises these roads will throw at me. roadtrip

getting a car is kind of a big thing for us… we’re cautious about this sort of big commitments… but i think there’s potential. europe is small enough to be drivable, i like roadtrips and i like driving as much as i like being in the passenger’s seat, taking pictures, suggesting pit stops and fiddling with the radio and the maps. i can see this working out.

paulo took this photo from the passenger seat of our borrowed ibiza, who effortlessly took us to the douro region this last weekend despite the narrow bumpy road chosen by the gps. :)