Normally the airport experience after the vacation is a bit of a downer, but even with the basic facilities in Cancun (the Patron Tequila Boutique with free tasting was one exception) we managed to play a few rounds of cards before I left mom, dad, and the boys to head off to Wisconsin (Chika has already left at 6am to make her connection back to Europe.)

This time, I was able to enjoy an upgrade on the way to Chicago — nothing exciting, but at least you were able to get food and drinks. We arrived at Chicago O’Hare more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, which gave the option to catch a bus to Madison instead of the Uber. But my brother Mike (who had flown in on his fraternity brother’s private jet and had been drinking since noon) called for the Uber approach.

I almost thought everyone had gone to bed when I pulled into town around 10pm, but Mike again suggested to meet up for “a drink.” Our cousin Aaron and his crew had been eating at Naples 15, an Italian restaurant in the area, so we decided to make that the rendezvous point. It seemed that a few of Mike’s fraternity brothers had the capacity for a few more drinks, or maybe they had missed me after the long while, and so our crew of six arrived at the restaurant congregated near the bar looking for signs of Aaron or his son Daniel.

What happened next was a healthy lesson in humanity. The owner of the restaurant, seeing us quite lost and confused, comes over to welcome us and starts offering us some wine. Time went on, we found our cousins, there was more wine and some pizzas, and then at the end of the night a check arrived… for $600?! i wasn’t privy to the interactions, but I don’t seem to recall anyone ordering up $150+ bottles of wine. Luckily the bill didn’t come to me, as I probably would have been thrown in jail (or beaten up) for refusing to pay. But maybe being in enemy (i.e. Bagder) country, the other guys decided to take the loss.

The next day was an amazing fall day and the campus was fully alive with weekend festivities. I walked out to meet Aaron and Uncle Allan (who had driven in from Milwaukee) at Memorial Union where we soon discovered we were missing at least one of the tickets (I am not sure I would be using Stubhub after this experience). We circled back to town to meet up with Daniel’s crew and Michael for lunch, and then it was time to get the pre-game started.

One of Mike’s friend’s son was also at Wisconsin, so we started at the first house party along fraternity row. Was was suprisingly refreshing was that even with Penn State emblems blazing, we were all treated like everyone else (although the signage hanging from the frats did not suggest such friendliness and there was the one girl who gave us the bird in the photo below). Mike and I made a solo journey over to Daniel’s fraternity house which had a huge lakefront beach party — I can only imagine how difficult life must be with all these kinds of study distractions.

Finally it was time to roll on to the game. Due to the Stubhub issue, I went with Mike’s Penn State group as they had an extra ticket. While our seats were about as high up as one could possibly get in the stadium (Section AA), we were able to enjoy the game with the help of the local $10+ beers sold at the stadium. It was a solid first half, and I took the opportunity to join the Wisconsin crew down at the 17th row. It was a great game with the Nittany Lions victorius 28 to 13. Afterwards we ended up in the one bar where we were able to get some food and drink.

As it was quite expensive to fly from Wisconsin, I chose to fly back from Chicago and with the help of my old Nokia/BMW colleague Randy, we were able to round up some of the old crew. We had a fantastic dinner followed by drinks and more drinks. You can’t seem to go wrong in that town. Monday was spent flying back and recovering from the weekend — thankfully dad offered to pick me up at the airport.

Tuesday, the boys and I took the train down to Philadelphia (giving mom and dad a break after the long weekend with the boys) to meet Mike and with an extra bonus of Sydney joining. We tried a new dim sum place followed by matcha ice cream cones and even some arcade play time followed by dinner at Mike and Melanies’. While we had planned to hit Great Adventure one last time on our seasons passes, they ended up dropping Wednesday night off the schedule so we just did our usual things of shopping, gym/pool, and eating mom’s food and dad’s fresh grilled burgers.

Finally, it was time for the big Halloween day. As the weather was so perfect, we decided to make a trip up to New Hope for lunch on the terrace at Havanas — a great choice. Then it was time to head on down for the festivities. Times seem to have changed since my childhood of walking around the neighborhood collecting candies. Our first stop was a neighborhood party in Mike’s area with a home built maze (those who finished the maze got an extra large candy bar) as well as food and drinks. Then we jumped into cars going to the second neighborhood with more food and drinks. Then we jumped into the car yet again for a third party (after a stop with Sydney and Kai for $6 bowls at Chipotle for those wearing costumes) complete with a firepit and an Asian Freddy Mercury belting out Queen tunes. With 3 parties down, it was time to call it a night.

It was a big agenda and we did it all (less the Great Adventure visit). It wouldn’t have been possible without such a great team making it all come together so thanks to everyone who helped make it happen. We all had such a great time, planning already started thinking about how to do it all over again, but for now we will simply have to return to our civilian lives.

Given all the uncertainties about the world of tomorrow, the best course of action is making the most of today. So when the window opened for another holiday across the pond, we didn’t dither and we didn’t dabble – we bought the whole enchilada.

The boys school holiday provided a 2 week window, an ample canvas but with many aspirations. Having been to the Caribbean at an all-inclusive resort a few years back (and Club Med Florida as well), the idea of sunny resort life was still resonating in our minds – especially being able to celebrate Kai’s birthday together. Then we had the chance to enjoy a proper American Halloween (although cutting our jet lag recovery time into slim margins for error). And lastly, the opportunity to join my brother (and his Penn State fraternity crew) and my Wisconsin/Atlanta family for a big football matchup in Wisconsin was too big to waiver.

Meanwhile, the execution was not without its challenges. Hurricanes were wreaking havoc in the Gulf, airlines were pricing tickets as if it were Christmas (at least the Christmases of a few years back), and Chika had a business trip in London starting after the first week of the holiday.

But for our crew of fearless travelers, there was nothing to deter us from our mission. One Sunday evening on a train bound for Munich the airline fares dipped, and after a few hours we had our planes booked, our Caribbean adventure secured (with refundable frequent flyer tickets and cancelable resort rooms), and a manic deadline to get as much sorted out as possible with the office before leaving (which all got delivered.)

The good news about our travel abroad was that we were able to go as the whole family – Teo didn’t have to charm the ladies guarding the lounge to let us have an extra guest this time and I had someone to share drinks with.

While we were able to have an easy start of the journey (8am house departure), we landed quite late in the USA (with a huge security queue) and arrived at my parents almost 4am Berlin time.

The upside to the late arrival was that we could chip at some of the jet lag we needed to get past and Sunday is the perfect day to relax and chill. But that would have to wait because it was William’s 10th birthday extravaganza in New York City!!!

Our Uber (dad) dropped us to the train where we commuted to NYC. As we had already done the observatory at the Freedom Tower, Chika decided to go running in Central Park, while the boys and I hit Chinatown to hunt for Pokémon cards and get some luxury bubble tea. We met up with the crew at the Black Tap Soho, a carnival of calories featuring an eclectic menu of burgers (I shared a wagu burger with Mike that was delish) and the most insane milkshakes I have ever seen. Even Frankenstein would have been taken aback.

The party ventured on to hit golf balls at Chelsea Piers (I was having nightmarish thoughts of what Teo could do) while our crew strolled up the sunny New York Streets to Penn Station.

Monday then became our rest day, with French Toast, gym/pool, some shopping, and a steaks on the grill dinner.

Tuesday we were off at 7am to Newark Airport to catch our flights to Cancun. On the downside, the lounge passes for mom and dad didn’t work but on the upside we were able to get an upgrade for dad for the flight down. Luckily we were heading for plenty of eating as our airport sushi was pretty weak.

By 3pm we were checking in at the Hilton All-Inclusive. It’s a nice new property quite secluded by a big wetlands — great for a chill few days, but not a launchpad for exploring (pyramids will be visited the next go around). We were taken care of by a great host — Dulce Castro — who has the biggest smile and is incredibly warm and friendly (if you should somehow happen to meet her, say hello from us). We did (as planned) secure a nice upgrade to a connecting sea-view suite, which was great to allow everyone to do their own thing even with the jet lag still lurking. As if fate were complicit, the first activity of the day was a Möet Champange tasting as if they knew Chika was arriving.

The weather was pleasantly unpredictable – we had more sun than clouds even when bad times were predicted. I can happily say that I made it into the ocean 4 days in a row. From our room to the pool/beach was only a few minutes so as soon as the sun showed itself we were in our loungers.

As usual, we tried to make the most out of the eating options. For our dinners, we did Italian the first night, then Mexican, and closed out the last night at the grill restaurant. Thanks to my Hilton AMEX, we had $200 resort credit and freely splurged at the grill with a 40oz porterhouse and grilled lobster. They were so happy, they even comped us a delicious bottle of red wine. As far as the other meals, breakfast was always good – there was always some interesting mexican dishes to spice up the routine. And with lunch, there were always great salads (including ceviches) plus tacos and burgers. One day with Chika and the boys we tried the asian a la carte menu which was also a nice diversion. And last but not least there was an ice cream bar with churros — mom was in heaven.

Probably one of the unplanned highlights was that chess.com was having their convention at the hotel. While we couldn’t get a face to face with the grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, Chika was able to get a whole bunch of schwag from the chess.com people and Kai was able to join in the ongoing games in the lobby.

For Kai’s birthday, they delivered cakes on the eve of his birthday, the day of his birthday, and again at birthday dinner. As the adage stated: let them eat cake.

As the first chapter came to a close, Chika flew back to Europe to catch up with business appointments, mom and dad brought the boys back to the homestead, and I continued on to Wisconsin via Chicago.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Every trip to the USA ends with feedback from the boys: why can we stay longer? So this year I decided to extend the trip to 4 weeks with the thought I could work the first week (and also meet up with my USA counterparts). But this apparently was against BMW rules and so my 3 week vacation became a 4 week vacation. Oh the horror. Chika had business to attend to in Japan, so we needed to make the journey on our own.

Somehow in the planning, I chose to do the outbound via Brussels (maybe was a little cheaper). But in the middle of the transit Teo asked: why didn’t we fly direct? I started asking myself the same question. At least we were able to pickup some good belgian chocolate on the way.

We arrived tired after a long day, but we quickly settled into our routines. Mornings with Pop Pop’s french toast and other breakfast delights, followed by the gym/pool and then some additional outings. We were able to catch up with the bigger clan starting with a day at the Great Adventure amusement park with Uncle Mike and cousin William (the first of many outings thanks to a great deal on season passes with upgrade to Diamond — more about that later). We followed this with a great grill/pool party with Aunt Melanie. The next day we met up with William for some great dim sum (where Will ate more than I could have imagined) and the Franklin Institute.

The timing of our trip allowed me to participate in my friends Brendan and Raquel’s son Benjamin’s Bar Mitzvah in NYC. A fantastic event with their great friends and some fun kibbitzing with local congregants after the service. And of course a great opportunity to catch up with Patrick, Stirling, and an impromptu visit from Allan to enjoy some fun NYC experiences — including an amazing peruvian meal at Artesano which was amazing and a great bike tour through Brooklyn (thanks Patrick!).

I rejoined the crew in Atlantic City and took advantage of the proximity of the bus depot to the best cheese steak in the world at White House Subs. We settled into our beach routine enjoying the beach life — beach, eat, beach, eat, etc. We did manage to mix it up with some fishing activities. While we upgraded our gear from last year, we were not able to catch any dinner.

The rest of the clan joined us down for a long weekend, kicked off by Aunt Melanie’s successful triathalon, followed by lobster fest, belated birthday celebration for Mom and Dad at Chef Vola’s, an epic bikeride with Mike to Strathmere, and of course a visit to Ocean City boardwalk with cousins Jeff and Oliver.

Having conquered the beach, it was now time to head north to visit our friends in New England — Ben, Tonya, Asher, and Arya Mezrich. With an morning break departure, we were able to get to Vermont by lunch time. Undaunted by the weather, we managed to visit their lake front 2 days in a row but also fit in some major table tennis action (I was mainly undefeated, with the exception for 1 loss to Simon who was up writing up a story about Ben.) When the weather finally broke, we went to Storyland for a great day at our second amusement park of the trip followed by a great house party where I ran into an old friend (and Chika’s former work colleague) Soo.

The following day, we needed to adjust the schedule because it was family baseball day for the Mezrich family at Fenway Park in Boston. They were extra kind sharing their extra seat with Kai, who at his very first game was treated to seats in the owners box behind home plate — not sure how I will ever top that. Teo and I in the meantime decided to head into Boston China town for some excellent dim sum at Dynasty. I somehow let Teo take over the ordering, and the next thing we knew we had huge amounts of food arriving — including a brisket with rice roll dish (very tasty, but way too much fat on the brisket).

In the evening, Ben and Tonya took me to the Quinn House, a cool refurbished social club in the redone Algonquin, with our friend Russ. A great time to end the northern part of the trip.

We departed the next day to the Six Flag New England, since our Diamond Pass upgrade got us into every park. Was fun to try some new rides, and we especially liked the Superman rollercoaster. From there we took the long leg of the trip back to Yardley.

While it was supposed to be the winddown part of the trip, I managed to make 2 excursions to Philadelphia. 1st, I just randomly noticed a Facebook post showing a book tour stop of my old friend Adam from my Nokia days. Was super fun to suprise him and catch up (and strangely enough was my introduction to Soo from my earlier post.) Then the boys and I decided to try the Hurricane Water Park at Six Flags topped with a few rollercoasters to wrap up on this trip. And then in another last minute call, I decided to drop back into Philadelphia to catchup with Allan again for a happy hour tour — hitting not just Dirty Franks for some great Yuengling beers and darts but also capping it of with giant slices from Lorenzo’s on South Street. Even better than I remembered.

4 weeks seemed to fly by too fast, but then it was finally time to go. A great time was had by all, perhaps too good — my scale noticed a non-negligible change since I left. But all in good service of family and friend time. Can’t wait until the next one.

Every year in Germany we have this crazy holiday season in May with 3 out of 4 weeks (depending on your region) having days off. This year, Chika was off working in Japan so I needed to source a plan. I suggested doing a “glamping” trip to my friend Kunal, and his son Linus signed off (after getting permission to invite a friend).

As Kunal and I are both overly busy with work, traveling, kids, it took us some time to settle down on a final venue. We had finalized on the idea of a houseboat, but at the last minute the one we were looking at around Brandeburg was gone. I found another one in Poland close to the Baltic Sea and we decided to close the deal.

We left on Thursday and met up in Szcechin for some pierogis in an intersting market hall (after fighting through some nasty holiday traffic) and then finally to Kamień Pomorski, the inlet where our houseboat was located. Kunal had arrived early and took care of all the registrations. While compact, the boat had many ammenities. There were 2 sleeping cabins, a living room (with convertible couch), kitchen with gas stove, dining table, refridgerator, bath with shower, roof deck (which we brought up table and chairs to enjoy the early evening) — all while being part of a boat.

We decided to do the mandatory boat driving training to fulfill the insurance requirements the next morning. We wanted to explore the local fish restaurant, but it was closed and then the kitchen in the marina restaurant was closed (because it was after 8pm), so we ended up eating the morning’s breakfast taco plan for dinner (which the boys liked). And since we found a great bakery in town, we had more than enough to eat at breakfast (although the boys asked for more egg tacos).

The boat training was quite the adventure after the engine died (because the gas wasn’t properly connected) and we started drifting into other boats. Kunal and I were thinking how pleasant it was with our 10 ton boat in the harbor (which would demolish any thing we hit), but the boys made us press on — “We came here for advenure” cried Linus.

The boys wanted to eat on the boat, so Kunal and I went out shopping. Since the kitchen gear was very limited, I decided to do a simple pasta meat sauce with some fresh noodles. My clients were quite satisfied. Afterwards, we headed out into the harbor. Kunal did a great job piloting the boat, and we were able to anchor for a while to let the boys go swimming. As we wanted to get back this time for dinner, we returned back home on the earlier side. The local fish restaurant turned out to be great.

All the boys decided to come on the last bakery run. On the way we decided to check if the ice cream place with giant cones was open. It turns out the owner was there! But the soft icecream wasn’t ready 🙁 We asked how long (in our Polish gesture language) and he said 5 minutes. As we needed to go to the bakery and come back, it was on. And yes, at 9am the boys were having ice cream for breakfast. As we needed to check out early at 10, we decided to visit the beach by car. It turned out to be much nicer weather there with clear blue skies and sun. We played a bit of touch football on the beach (I am not sure if I remembered all the rules correctly) and then had a final lunch where Teo had a giagantic burger.

Overall, a great trip. The only question is when we should repeat it again.

The dynamics of our family is such that we have event collisions more frequently than one would like. In this case, Chika had a business trip in Japan and had a follow-on opportunity AND the boys were off for winter break. Usually, this would have been a straight forward ski trip week, but, among other factors, Teo was recovering from a badly sprained ankle.

While Chika’s plan were in the initial phase, I decided to check in with my college roommate Ranjeev based in Dubai whether he would be around during the first week in February. He offered to hold the dates, I booked some frequent flyer tickets (unfortunately from Frankfurt, but at least direct) and hotels on points, and then waited to see what happened. Finally, Chika got the green light for her project and operations began.

I had prepared 2 options: to drive directly to the airport on the day we flew, or to fly out the night before and stay in the airport hotel. As there was a lot of complexities involved in the trip, adding stress to day 1 wasn’t worth it. We were able to drive out on our own schedule (after a great dim sum lunch), visit our favorite Japanese cafe, Imori, in Frankfurt, and even fit in a workout in the hotel gym in the morning.

While I generally do not really like flying out of Frankfurt airport (it’s too big, long queues, etc.), it was a simple walk from the hotel to the terminal — experience couldn’t have been better. While we had some delay on our departure, our flight was in general very smooth. It did take us a while to get through immigration and get a taxi to our hotel, which when combined with our delay resulted in arriving at our hotel, the VOCO on the Palm, around 1am local time (10pm German time).

The next morning, I needed to manage my regular meetings while changing hotels. I opted for the late checkout which allowed time to do a little grocery shopping for breakfast, and was able to drop the kids off a the rooftop pool for a short visit before jumping onto calls. I was able to successfully checkout and get us into the taxi so I could take the next meeting before checking-in during regular Munich lunch hour.

Our main location for the visit was the Double Tree Hotel at Jumeirah Beach. It’s a short drive to my friend Ranjeev’s place, it had both a pool and beach access (so kids could do something besides video games while I was working), and with Diamond Hilton status we would get some nice perks. It turned out to be even better than expected — we got upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite with a kitchen (and a washing machine!), free breakfast for the 3 of us every morning, and a $200 credit (from my Hilton credit card).

What I realized from workcation perspective is that the 3 hour time zone difference was golden. That meant we had time to go to the pool, hit the gym, go for a walk, and of course have long leisurely brunches (with unlimited eggs benedict) at the buffet. And then at lunchtime (or 3pm Dubai time) I could reconnect with the kids at the pool or the beach. The weather could have been a bit warmer (was in low 20s), but we managed to get into the water every day.

On our first night, the boys wanted to go for sushi. Ranjeev came by and took us to his go-to spot. I couldn’t believe it when it came — the epic 84 piece collassal sushi boat. It was so much, they needed to bring a side tray to carry all the pieces over. The team did very well, with only a few that got away. The next 2 days were fairly basic, eating locally on the beach side (some Shake Shack of course, and then we tried the hotel restaurant).

Finally the big day came on Thursday. I had taken the Thursday and Friday off so we decided to plan a big excursion. Due to some technical difficulties (we weren’t sure if Teo was 40kg yet), we decided not to go to the Jebel Jais zipline experience (with top speeds of 160km per hour!!!). Instead we went to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, one of the most famous amusement parks in the world. Unfortunately, the fastest rollercoast and main attraction was closed that day. But we managed to spend over 6 hours there and enjoyed a great lunch break at PF Changs.

On the Friday, we decided to do some pool time and then head up to the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Mall. What I realized was that I needed to book tickets a few days in advance… But we did get to see the building at day and night, plus the great fountain show in the plaza in front. Ranjeev and I got to have a nice late dinner at a great seafood restaurant next door to our hotel and close out the solid week.

Saturday was departure day which would usually be a waste. Except in Dubai, when our flight wasn’t leaving until Sunday at 1.35am. We packed up all our stuff, with the exception of a change of clothes, and hung out at the pool for the whole day. For late lunch, we did an excursion over to Bluewaters Island, a nice man-made island with lots of shops and restaurants. We had some nice (but expensive) Japanese tapas and bought a nice plane pillow for Teo.

Afterwards we headed over to Ranjeev’s house for some chess and to say hello to his wife Sukaina, who unfortunately been sick and couldn’t join for our events. Some last minute shopping needs (figs for Yukie and hot sauce for Chika) prompted the final excursion to the mall, with a stop at the food court for dinner.

As Ranjeev dropped us at the airport, it was a bit sad to leave this happy place. We will definitely come back. As Teo kept noting, people were super nice. They even allowed us to have one extra person into the lounge before flying back.

The next morning after the redeye, we met Chika at the airport hotel which was great to have a cat nap and freshen up. Unfortunately, due to a parade we couldn’t make it to Imori for breakfast, but we did manage to get some crepes at the train station before their departure back to Berlin (I was off to Munich).

Bottom-line: Dubai is clearly a great destination for the family, and we intend to be back more often.

See outside

Burj Khalifa

Unlike many of our travels, this was not prepared months in advance with lots of the the details filled in. It was more last minute, play as you go and we will figure it out when we get there. And the results were surprisingly delightful. Maybe it was the escape after a long busy a year or the lack of elevated expectations, but everything was smooth sailing and quite fun.

We started from Munich so we could fit in a few days of skiing over Xmas. The weather was great, the skiing was awesome, we enjoyed lunch at the hottest mountaintop restaurant in Kitzbuhel, and we had a great dinner paired with my new favorite champagne (which we will revist in the New Years part of the story). We did have one glitch on day 2: Teo’s boot has been a bit tight, so he wasn’t able to ski. But we did our best hack by finding a little lodge off the main gondola with two lovely ladies who watched over Teo while we managed to get in a few runs.

The next morning, we drove to the airport to catch out 9:20am plane (which eventually turned into and 11:20am plane). Luckily, we could relax in the lounge and start with the drinking festivities. After landing, our excellent Uber driver, Dad, whisked us home for a great steak dinner.

The next day we began our new routine of going to the gym every morning — the entire family. (Word has it that some of the other complex gym goers noted the quality of Chika’s stride on the treadmill).

Later, thanks to a fight over a shiny 50 cent piece while waiting in the immigration line, I had the idea to visit the Philadelphia Mint. While it was a little disappointing they only happened to be producing pennies that day, at least we could say there was at least one educational moment in the holiday. As a reward for such a great accomplishment, we treated ourselves for some nice dim sum on Rittenhouse Square at Dim Sum House by Jane G. Dinner (for those keeping track) was shrimp scampi.

Thursday we got to catch up with Michael and family, with an excellent repeat of the kobe burgers (upsized this time). Michael, Chika and I took a small outing to get my new glasses adjusted, explore a cool local food market hall, and pick up some bubbles for dinner. Friday was a beautiful day, so we decided to repeat our hike to Wissahickon park. That evening, Dad and Mom treated us to a lovely dinner at Non Solo Pasta (even though the food was slow and Teo fell asleep).

Friday, Chika and I escaped for date time in New York City. I would never have been able to predict such events, but the weekend evolved into the hunt for, first, the best whitefish salad and then later the best chopped liver/pastrami. But that is what is so lovely about NYC — always discovering new things. Another example was looking for some art supplies for my friend Patrick’s daughters which led us to the fabulously cool Montana Shop (a spray paint specialty store) and to the Ludlow Coffee Supply which had a great flat white (for under $5, which we found to be quite rare in NYC). Then we needed to pick up a very special champagne (Henri Giraud) for the new years which we found the Empire State of Wine had in stock.

While we have had many great Japanese meals, the evening’s dinner at Juku took the prize. Somewhat bittersweet was the fact that when we arrived we learned it was the restaurant’s last night of operation — EVER! But as they say, better late than never. It was truly sublime, unforgettable, and more. Maybe it’s time to make a time machine.

Chika went running in the morning — all the way to Absolut Bagel at 106 and Broadway. What a delight to wake up to fresh bagels and whitefish from my favorite. We then tried to head down to my friend Patrick’s to spend the New Years. But thanks to being in the middle of the city, the city started to close subway stations — including the 1st and 2nd closest to our hotel. We finally did make it, but happily discovered a small Japanese market along the way.

We enjoyed a really nice relaxed New Year’s Eve and overnight hosted by my friend Patrick with his family + another family from the kindergarden (who turns out to be moving to Berlin in the summer!). We enjoyed cocktails, great cheese, lots of wine, champange, grilled pork and more… After toasting in the New Years, Patrick and I pressed on into the night for some late night Bocce and beers (a first for a NYE activity). The next morning, Chika had gone running again bringing a plethora of goodies from the Lower East Side — whitefish, chopped liver, pastrami, corned beef, and even pickles! What a great morning. I also decided to cook the thin sliced waygu beef we had found at the Japanese store into the nouveau steak sandwich — butter grilled leftover baguette, waygu beef, apple/onion (from Patrick’s pork), topped with gruyere cheese. Still working on a name for it. Thankfully Chika accepted my request to drive us to Michael’s for a final family fest.

The final days we took it easy and relaxed without any big plans, which which was suprising given our short trip and yet part of what made it such a pleasant one. We even arrived 3 hours early at the airport (to enjoy our family lounge time) without any issues. I wish life was always this zen.

*Papa was the only one to make it 3x

It has been too long since we visited to Japan, so Herbstfeiren (fall break) was the clearest path. This was probably the simplest trip to Japan, as we basically stayed around Tokyo, but even so the calendar was full before we even started.

I had arrived a day earlier and got the opportunity to drop in on my colleagues in the Toyko Office. Once the crew arrived, it was time to celebrate the big day — Kai’s 13th birthday. Yes, we finally have a teenager running loose. But that didn’t stop him from spending the morning eating his favorite matcha ice cream and playing video games at the Pokemon center before going to his favorite restaurant where you get to catch what you eat. The following day, I got to go back to my favorite Gyoza restaurant and then explored the new Kabukicho tower.

Thursday the big adventure began: a visit to Hakone to enjoy a mini onsen trip. We opt-ed out of the car, and enjoyed a day of trains, funicular, and cable cars. It was a beautful fall day, and the adventure took control. After exploring, we checked into the hotel. It’s hard to put the experience into perspective for western customers, but the model is that you really don’t need to bring anything with you — not even clothes. You wear house kimonos in the hotel and in the rooms, all the ammenities like toothbrushes and razors are all in the room, and when you are chilling in the onsen you just arrive like the day you are born.

While it might seem suprising we chose the western dining option in Japan, when offered choice of lobster or waygu steak with the fois gras upgrade option it’s hard to say no. Adding the 4 course wine pairing on top was sublime. It was so good, we decided we might as well incorporate our 15 year wedding anniversary into the mix as it would be hard to top this.

It was so hard to go from such a epic trip to heading to the airport less than 24 hours later. So I guess it’s time to start planning the next trip.

When my brother informed us that he had bought a condo in the building where he had been sharing with his father-in-law, the wheels in my brain immediately started turning. BEACH TRIP. But while I love the beach, 3 weeks straight was maybe asking a bit too much. As it happens, while we were hanging with our good friends Ben and Tonya in Paris for a very special (and amazing) birthday extravaganza a second plot was hatched to do a family visit to their COVID escape bunker in Vermont (especially since our kids are similar ages). And thus the plan was hatched.

Unfortunately, Chika had business to attend to in Japan so we were forced to ride solo. Our first challenge was how to get both kids into the lounge in Berlin before our flight. Fortunately, Teo’s charms allowed him to avoid the usual limit and we enjoyed a brief oasis before takeoff (including breakfast ice creams for Kai and Teo, and a nice glass of sparking wine for me). The flight was smooth and uneventful with the only glitch being ZERO security officers at immigration when we landed. We settled in, taking care of some last minute logistics (e.g. bathing suits for Teo) and playing a bit of tennis before some shrimp scampi for dinner.

The next day we were off to the beach and all the required foods which must accompany beach life, starting with steaks and hoagies from Dino’s and homemade meatballs and spagetti dinner from mom before Michael and his crew needed to head back.

Monday we were able to catch up after ages with our ex-Chicago, current Las Vegas enclave of Wolfson’s. Nothing really changed, except we just have some additional youngsters appended on since the old days.

Tuesday started our private time, and with this we launched into our fishing exploration. While the surf fishing didn’t deliver any results, dad’s proposal to hit the inlet at Longport eventually resulted in multiple catches. Sadly, all were below the limit to keep them, but still a good achievement. We experimented with our menu bringing lots of fun additions to the mix (also using Pop-pop’s new electric grill purchse): meatball subs, hot dogs, corn dogs, grilled ham & cheese on rye, snow crab, flank steaks, rib-eye steaks, barley soup, sushi, and more.

In general we were able to make it to the beach everyday, and we used the one exception to see Oppenheimer in IMAX at the Tropicana. By Friday, families were making their way down, so we shifted into a small airbnb by the bay for the overlap (which happened to be conveniently located a few short blocks for the local bars, which Michael and I took advantage of on Friday evening.) Saturday, the beach congregation began, followed by our inhouse lobster extravaganza (13 of those bad boys), followed by a mega cousins drinking session, concluding the next morning with a boxing class with Melanie where I almost passed out from dehydration (lesson learned, at least hopefully). This was followed by a great bagel brunch (shoutout to Mike for hooking me up with my whitefish salad) with yet even more cousins to celebrate Riley’s birthday.

Sunday night was our highly anticipated birthday celebration for mom and dad at Chef Vola’s which did not disappoint. The restaurant has been in operation for over 100 years, was around the corner from my Pop-pop’s butcher shop, and served probably the best veal parm on the planet (butterflied veal chop, breaded and fried, smothered in rich marinara and drowned in mozarella). Even the salad was a hit.

Monday, we made our pilgramage to Ocean City with our extended cousin crew. Within an hour we needed to abort due to massive storm system which had pulled in (except for Jeff who would not leave before getting his Kohr Brothers custard). Tuesday, we made it to the the great cheesesteak altar of the White House. While rumors had circulated that it had declined in quality, our team ran through our rigorous testing process and are happily able to confirm that it is still the GOAT when it comes to cheese steaks. Michael also gave strong reviews for the regular sub noting that the meat volume was above expectation.

Afterwards, we settled back into our routines, adding chill time at the pool (which was much less stressful than Teo roaming out way beyond his pay grade in the not-always-so-kind Atlantic Ocean). Thursday, we got to spend a great day with Uncle Lenny and Aunt Rose which kicked-off with a highly competitive round of mini-golf. Suprisingly, Dad did not take the prize leaving the window open for…. ME. Any comments regarding my role as score keeper will be ignored. We enjoyed a great shrimp scampi dinner prepared by mom with many new and old stories of childhood adventures down the shore.

Finally, it was time to move into the “turf” portion of the trip. Since I had a free hotel night expiring, we decided to splurge for an overnight in NYC at the Conrad Downtown. We decided to mix-up our standard dim-sum venue, and test out Golden Unicorn which I had seen in a number of friends social feeds. While I had eaten there back in the 1990’s, the new incarnation is sublime. Everything was great, including the service. My only regret was that I had only one stomach to fill… After dropping the car, we did some downtown exploring for Pokemon cards while the rain chased us about. Finally we were able to get into our room after 3pm. After a full day, we didn’t do a big night on the town and saved up for a big birthday breakfast for our friend Anri in the morning. While the boys dined on room service, I did get a chance to visit my B-school buddy Stirling and his wife Leah at their sweet new pad and pickup some peanut butter for Chika at Whole Foods. After breakfast, we went up to Absolute Bagels which is my personal favorite and I wanted to bring a bunch to Ben who loves bagels. I wish I could have bought stock back in the day, because now the line is outside the door and we waited over 45 minutes to get our stash. It was worth it, but will plan to go earlier in the future.

After a bit of a drive, we arrived at Chateau Mezrich, a great house nestled in mutiple acres in “Quechee” Vermont. After settling in, we stopped at a local gem of a spot, the White Cottage Snack Bar for some tasty surf and turf bites, ice cream, and adventurous stone skipping on the river. And to top that all off, we played a few games of doubles with Kai vs. Asher & Ben without being horribly destroyed (I am thinking there may be some value in resurrecting my tennis game from my teen years). At least Ben and I were able to score an initial victory over Asher and Kai claiming the prize of a full video day ban.

The following day, we drove out to Storyland, the northern Disney as some may call it. It was a great day with nice weather, so even our random Google maps routings were not so bad. Asher and Teo competed for who could eat the most junk food in one day, but the adults called it off before it got too out of control. We decided to whip up some meatballs and spagetti for dinner, and somehow ended up making about 5 pounds of meatballs. The following day we starting settling in to Vermont life, joining Ben and the pugs (Bagel & Cream Cheese) to the dog park, doing excursions into Woodstock and its nearby farms, attempting to mini golf (rained out, but we did enjoy some great pizza), and having front row seats to an epic women’s tennis tournament in Dartmouth (sadly Tonya’s team lost, but we think they illegally substituted some players so will need to see.) We wrapped up the week with a bourbon tasting, a grand finale fajita party, a tennis rematch which switched to ping pong rematch due to bad weather and ended up in an overtime tiebreaker (well played Kai), and a full on Exploding Kittens battle (where both Arya and Kai won rounds).

At this point it was getting hard to leave (the boys both were ready to turn around for the pugs), but we needed to get back to Berlin with tennis camp starting the day after we landed. Thank’s to Tonya’s great lunches we were able to avoid the roadside restarea schloch. We made a last pitstop overnight at grandma and pop-pop’s house for some excellent grilled burgers, morning workout/swim, and last minute shopping. To complete the royale flush, we managed to sneak both Kai and Teo into the airport lounge again and went to town (I even skipped the airplane dinner).

It was such an amazing trip seeing so many great friends and family we already thinking how to make it happen again. Thanks to all who showed us such great hospitality. Come get some in return in Germany when you can.

Sometimes the journey planned the least turns out to be one of the best (I recently heard this somewhere else, but will repurpose for this post). It was Easter holiday season again, and as usual we had two important birthdays to celebrate — Teo and Chika. Our first thought was to go to Japan, but tickets were hard to find and it could have been a bit risky if at the last minute Chika needed to take care of things for work.

Then in early February I started hunting around where we could go — flights had just gotten quite expensive after the pandemic, and Easter flights were even worse. With some dormant BA miles, I starting to see some options for Madrid opening up. And then Chika sent me this picture with the caption “Dream Trip”:

Now we had a mission! With some more due diligence we started to sort out our travel. It was easier to fly from Munich directly to Bilbao rather than connecting in Madrid — plus with both of us having status for Lufthansa we could finally bring both boys into the lounge. I started booking some hotels at the start and the end of the trip, plus flights from San Sebastian with a layover in Madrid on the way home, and then paused for a while.

When Chika’s friends from her ski club also planned to be in San Sebastian, I decided to lock down proper accommodations in the city center. After reading lots of Airbnb reviews about how noisy apartments were in the old town, I ended up finding a listing which looked quite dreamy — a penthouse with views of the ocean just a block from the old town. You can see a teaser here:

And then we put the trip to the side for a while to deal with all the regular storm of activities which happen before holidays arrive (including a proposal which Chika had to submit on the second day of the holiday.)

Finally, the time had come. Chika and the boys took the train down to meet me in Munich. Sadly was delayed for hours, but finally we were all together. The next day, I took the boys so Chika could get her proposal out of the way. Thanks to our friend Konstantin, we had a great day of jump house, Vietnamese food, and Japanese grocery shopping.

The next morning, we travelled to the airport to catch our flight to Bilbao. Easy travels with a nice breakfast in the lounge and just some minor departure delays. When we landed in Spain, the weather was slightly overcast and that was the only day we didn’t have full sunshine. With a taxi ride to our hotel downtown, we had officially begun the Spanish tour. We stayed at the Radisson Collection Hotel, which was excellent. Beautiful rooms, amazing rooftop, and the favorite breakfast of the trip.

Then the eating and drinking started. Walking from the hotel, we headed to Plaza Nueva a 19th century square not inhabited by an amazing collection of pintxos (small plates/taps) restaurants. It was heaven. Seafood, tacos, cheeses, jambalaya… a gigantic orgy of foods, with amazing wines. Within a few hours we had consumed too much food and wine for the middle of the afternoon and headed back to the hotel for a nap. If it weren’t for Kai, I probably wouldn’t have gone out at all, but we ended up at a small japanese sushi/poke restaurant for a late night bite followed by a hunt for a open shop to buy beer (which was unsuccessful).

The next day we enjoyed our breakfast, and the boys and I went exploring around town while Chika finished her proposal. We then met up to check out the funicular cable car to check the views to the city. Wandering back, we went into a second round of pintxos hunting culminating at Ledesma where we had amazing fresh monkfish.

The next morning we slowly packed and organized and walked across to the station to grab our rental car. After waiting for the attendant to return, we picked up our Audi Q2 (I thought why not check out the competition) and with some helpful explanation from the staff learned how to expand the trunk so our luggage could fit. We stopped in Haro, very famous for its many wineries in the area, and had a fantastic lunch with salads (hard to come by apparently) and had one of the best wines of the trip (at much better pricing than shown here).

Then came one of the highlights of the trip — a stay at the Hotel Marqués de Riscal. This hotel designed by Frank Ghery sits in the middle of the Marqués de Riscal winery. We had a lovely time enjoy the giant room, the spa, the winery tours, and the restaurant. And a magical place to celebrate Teo’s big 10th birthday.

Our next stop was a winery/wine museum created by the family of the Vivanco brands. The scale and design was amazing, followed by a multi course lunch (with unlimited wine).

We took a simple approach for our bridge night, staying in Logrono (our more ambitious idea of driving up to France was dampened by all the protests due to increase in retirement age). A very nice city with a small old town very pleasant for walking.

After morning workout and breakfast, it was time to head into the grand finale of the trip – San Sebastian. The drive was pleasant through all the vinyards and finally arriving through a mountain pass we saw the beauty of the sea. We found our way to our hotel, dropped our rental car, and then started again the eating progression. The density of pintxos joints in the old town is inconceivable — the mind wants 1000x more than could possibly fit in the stomach. But we managed.

The boys wanted to hit the beach, so I brought them while Chika went to explore the mountain top cable car views. I couldn’t believe that in April with sub 20 temperatures the boys would go in. Surprisingly I couldn’t get them out.

The next day we had another highlight momement: Chika’s birthday lunch at Arzak. What an amazing experience of food an service — the staff was amazing. We will never forget it.

The next morning, we were meeting Chika’s friends for breakfast with their young son, which kicked off another day of eating (and more beach). When it was finally time to leave, it was almost painful to exit this paradise.

Our last stop was a layover day in Madrid. As we had super early flights, I had booked an airport hotel. My Diamond status pushed me to stay at the Hilton. It’s a great hotel and our rooms were massive. Plus the happy hour was a fun way to wind down after our tour of the Mercado de San Miguel (think of a food court of epic foods and drinks) and the Prado Museum.

We had so much fun, it’s hard to believe this was our first family tour to Spain. But it definitely won’t be our last.

The 2022-2023 winter break fell prey to the perfect storm. With Christmas Eve and New Years Eve’s falling on Saturdays (and after all the missed days from COVID) Berlin decided school would start on the 2nd of January. So rather than 2 weeks, we had barely more than one week for vacation.

But never daunted, Chika made the call to go big. Instead of our usual Austrian ski trips, we were heading to Chamonix, France. I mean now that Kai is studying French it’s an educational investment, right? To maximize our stay, I met Chika and the boys in Strasbourg on Thursday evening. After a long day the boys were tired, so we left them with snacks while Chika and I had a chance for a nice dinner alone. The next morning we headed down to Colmar, an area well know for its vineyards as well a nice Christmas Market. As we were driving, and Chika was a bit under the weather, we only made it for one tasting at Vins NICOLLET Gérard & Fils, which was impressive enough for us to pick up 4 bottles. I think if we didn’t have all the ski gear we would have probably bought some cases.

After we drove through Switzerland and realized we wouldn’t make it in time for dinner to Chamonix so we took a break at the reststop. I admire Swiss for many things, but they do reststops very well. Pleasant and clean, with a proper restaurant with something not out of the fryer. Worth checking out if you are on the road.

Finally, we arrived in Chamonix. Some small adventures navigating how to get the keys from the keybox and then into the underground car park (it was almost like an escape room). But once we settled, we found ourselves in a cozy little flat. Given the convenience of the indoor parking and proximity to town, we definitely would stay there again (but need to find a unit with a washing machine).

By the way, it had been pouring rain all the drive into the mountains. We started to prepare for the worst and started enjoying the most important off mountain activity — eating. Saturday mornings they have a local market in the town which was just lovely. We had an amazing time — fresh cheese and eggs, fresh mushrooms and salads, olives, fresh breads, and even an rotisserie chicken. And of course we couldn’t avoid the patisserie — to not eat Mont Blanc at Mont Blanc would have been a failure.

For the Christmas Eve, we ordered sushi from the local restaurant, supplemented with many goodies like fois gras. As we shared photos, I had many comments jealous in the order of “you are so lucky to have sushi for Christmas dinner.” What can I say, food is my religion and I married a Japanese.

So with the fear of barren slopes, we decided to ski the Sunday in Cormayuer on the Italian side. After a small scare with police officers at the entrance to the tunnel (only 5 minute delay, just some avalanche maintenance work), we were off. It was a gorgeous day and perfect for skiing. Conditions were much better than I had expected, and we enjoyed a pleasant 1st day of skiing as a family.

For Christmas dinner, I had booked a fondue restaurant to meet with our friend Yee Wuen and her son Alexander (unfortunately Chika was still recovering so skipped this one). Or at least I thought I did. They didn’t seem to have my reservation. But after some patience, we got a table and not only enjoyed fondue but a fiery grill with hot coals to cook our meat and melt our raclette. I was in heaven.

The next days were filled with fun on the slopes, lots of good food and drink, and good times with friends. I would say the highlight was on the last day Chika and I managed to fit a day date in with raclette on the mountain and champagne and oysters at O’GARDE MANGER. Needless to say, I am still working off all these calories into February.

While I enjoy skiing in Austria, something is to be said for the French culture as it applies to skiing. It’s something to be enjoyed in all dimensions. A good reason to return.