Family Time and Getting This Trip Started
To summarize for those who have not been part of this journey with us, Nick and I decided to give up our super pricey apartment in California and quit our happy, secure, well-paying jobs with benefits to travel. The purpose of this travel is to learn as much as possible, gain inspiration, and get out of our comfort zones with the ultimate goal of creating a business plan that we can start when we get back.
We, by no means, feel we are doing anything special. This isn't a self serving "we gave up our corporate job to see the world!" travel blog. This is about us knowing that as long as we had steady paychecks, supportive families and tremendous friendships, we would keep happily doing what we were doing. Being a 37 year old female, I'm feeling the pressures of starting a family and we both know that our lives will be much different once that amazing and exciting responsibility is upon us. While we know we will "settle" down in the near future, we wanted to make sure sure we checked a few responsibility free boxes together.
Our first order of business after leaving Palo Alto, was visiting our families. Nick's mom and step-dad live on the Big Island of Hawaii. Lucky them! We had an amazing visit getting the insiders view of the island. Outside of the great company, we were able to see Volcanoes National Park, Akaka Falls and Waipio Valley. We also ate our weight in Loco Moco and Shave Ice. One of the coolest things we saw were the family pigs and 2 feral kittens that live on their property which came out at dusk , along with a native Hawaiian owl!
With lots of memories and a full belly, I left Hawaii and headed to Redondo Beach to hang out with Livia and her two way cool daughters, Naomi and Fiona. I was grateful she carved out some time for the two of us to hang out at the Korean Spa. After learning the secret of jumping from the cool pool to the hot pool from a nice old lady who had clearly been doing this for awhile, we hung out in the Jade Room, the Salt room and the Clay room. All of these different rooms has some sort of healing power and we left feeling relaxed and refreshed. Lucky for me, I was able to have some bonding time with girls, watching Fiona's first gymnastics class (which she aced right away!), eating ice cream and walking the beach in Hermosa and learning all about Minecraft from Naomi. After a night of getting my butt kicked at Yahtzee by Livs, I had a quick hello with Paul in the airport the next morning, and I was off to Rhode Island to meet Nick and visit my family.
The first visitors were my sister and her three sons Max, Sam and Lucas. We hung out at my parents house, catching up, drinking Del's Lemonade and fighting off the jet lag as long as possible. After a relaxing day, the rest of the week was action packed. Auntie Kathy was visiting from Florida, so we were lucky to have time with her. Since Nick had never been to the east coast in the summer, we made sure to hang out in Narragansett and eat lots of chowder, clam cakes and quahogs. The Patriots were hosting the Saints at Gillette for pre-season football, so we headed up to Foxboro with Dad to watch. Before heading to NYC, we went to buck a shuck at Two Ten Oyster House in Narragansett and had drinks at the Ocean House in Watch Hill with my Auntie Kim and Uncle Bob where we saw Conan O'Brien having dinner with his wife. The night was complete with a stroll on the beach to stalk Taylor Swift's house.
Nick had never been to New York and the cheapest flight to Europe left from JFK. It was a win win! We took the train from Providence to Penn Station first thing in the morning and spent the day walking Central Park and visiting the Museum of Natural History to try and avoid the oppressive heat and humidity. We had an amazing dinner of tapas in Chelsea at a place called El Quinto Pinto. The next morning I went for a run through Central Park and Nick and I headed down to Greenwich Village to eat lunch at the Spotted Pig. We walked the High Line and then headed over to the Empire State Building to check out the view. We couldn't leave NYC without eating street food, so we headed up 5th Ave and to Halal Guys for some gyro and rice on the sidewalk. Our final day, we took the subway to Battery Park and waved hello to the Statue of Liberty from the shoreline. After reflection at the World Trade Center Memorial, we headed over to Wall Street to see the iconic New York Stock Exchange, Federal Hall and the Charging Bull. We made sure to stop at Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes before grabbing the subway to JFK to catch our red eye to Milan.
Phew! A lot has transpired in 2 weeks! We are grateful we were able to see everyone that matters most to us. With a farewell tour in California to hang out with our friends close by and a country wide tour of the US to see our family members. I promise the rest of these blog posts will be shorter as they will be more frequent!
Since our goal for this trip is to learn new things and write a business plan, we will cap off each blog with a final thought.
FINAL THOUGHT: Our support system of family and friends gave us the courage to leave the "safe" life we had built in California. While Nick and I feel like crazy people to give up what we had, we know no real change comes from stagnation. We are so grateful all that provided the encouragement we needed to go at it alone both with this trip and our own business.
BUSINESS PLAN PROGRESS: Brainstorming and a very basic outline
