Sunday, May 5, 2024

Some life updates… neurodiversity, retirement planning, summer plans, travel plans (x2):

The Trendy Diagnosis

My ~~suspected~~ ADHD brain actually let me follow through on a goal I’ve had for awhile now. I got evaluated and officially diagnosed, so I am now a confirmed ADHDer! I also worked with a nurse practitioner to figure out the right medication and dosage for me.

Can I tell you that Adderall is a game changer for me? To folks unfamiliar with the ADHD brain this is going to make me sound unwell, but Adderall makes the voices in my head go away. I no longer have a continuous narrative loop in my mind telling me everything I should be doing and that I’m a loser for not doing all of the things. I also sleep a lot less, which has been a bit of an emotional adjustment since I really loved excess sleep. I think I loved it because it was the only time I couldn’t hear my narrator. But now when my mind turns on at 6:00 or 7:00 am I’m learning to accept it and not fight it.

And being on Adderall reminds me of when I first got on Bupropion (aka Wellbutrin) for depression – it didn’t cure my disorder, but gave me the mental room I needed make the life changes necessary to squash my ever-imposing chronic depression, and eventually get off the medication. Not a quick solution at all – I started that medication in 2011 or 2012, and stopped it just last year. So far with the Adderall support I’m learning about time blindness, and managing ebbs and flows of energy, and creating routines, and learning how to work through an all-or-nothing mindset. Maybe someday I can do these things without the pharmaceutical support, but I’m not in a rush.

FIRE-ing

Thanks to Uncle Joe a bunch more months counted towards my student loan forgiveness and moved up that timeline.

And the accounts keep growing. It’s starting to feel real that we are going to be able to start that full-time travel thing in the next couple/few years. So we have followed through and hired a fee-only financial planning company to help us sort out some details and learn some nuts and bolts. Scott has been sending them our information and was told he might have the best spreadsheet they’ve ever seen. That made Scott’s year, I think. We have a big 4-hour session in a couple of weeks to see what advice they have.

Summer Side Hustle

I will be “working” for a few days at the start of summer break. It’s 5 days. It includes field trips, and a baseball game, and two meals at a couple of Seattle’s best restaurants. I get to hang out with international visitors. I’ll be getting a paycheck. This seems too good to be true.

Another Country

We have a trip to Japan booked for July. Even though we aren’t full-time travelers yet, we still prefer slow travels on our trips. So instead of following a typical recommendation for a two week itinerary to catch a train to a new overnight stay every 2-3 nights, we are spending 7 nights in Tokyo and 9 nights in Kyoto. Those two locations have a lifetime of things to see in and of themselves, plus there are lots of day trip options from each. We know we will love Japan and want to return, so why try to cram everything into one trip? We shall move slow and smell the tea. Except when we are driving these.

I Prefer to Call Them Boats, I Don’t Care What People Say

A stranger (maybe a cruise employee I can’t remember) actually verbally corrected me when I called the vessel we were on last summer a “boat”. Cruise people are so weird. They get offended when you don’t call it a “ship”. Get over yourselves. Plus, when you have a (copied) Midwest accent it’s way more fun to say “boat” than “ship”.

We have an Alaska cruise booked for a week in August. I’ve only been to Anchorage on a short work trip before. Scott has been on three cruises before, including one last year that he did without me. First of all, we are not codependent and know how to enjoy ourselves apart. Second, he had vacation time he had to use up and I couldn’t take time off at the beginning of the school year. Third, he brought me home souvenir stickers and scouted yarn shops for me. So, anyway, this year I am going on one with him. It’s a week, and we don’t have to fly anywhere to catch it. We can take the bus or even walk if we want. Scott is treating me by paying for an upgrade to a balcony cabin AND we are going to buy thermal suite passes. This will not be a repeat of my bad attitude on the cruise last summer.

Monday, July 24, 2023

This is the day we traveled home from Reykjavik, so here’s the post-mortem on this trip.

The Wins

Scott still wins as best travel partner I could ever hope for or dream of. I am so, so lucky to have him as my life partner.

Reykjavik is a lovely city. I’m really glad we had some time here before and after, with the bonus day due to the cruise itinerary change. I don’t think it’s a candidate for a long-term stay during retirement but when we come back for a road trip we will definitely budget in some time here again – maybe a week? We love a city stay where we don’t feel the need for a car.

Both of our Reykjavik hotels were good and the breakfast buffets made us smile. Unless I could get a similar rate at a hotel up by Laugavegur, I would stay at the Storm Hotel again for sure. And using travel hacking/Hilton AmEx points to get a free stay at the Hilton was a big win.

Another food tour FTW! Wake Up Reykjavik knocked this out of the park. Highly recommended to anyone that will listen. This is the post where I detail what we did.

In addition to the hotel breakfast buffets and the food tour we also had good food and beverage experiences around town. I’m looking at you, Einstok, Te & Kaffi, Icelandic Street Food, Bastard, and Bjor Gardurinn.

Walking to/from the cruise port worked out really well for us on this trip. Obviously it saved us some money but there is so much sitting on a cruise that the walks also just felt really good. This won’t be a realistic option in a lot of cases, but in this situation the city’s walking culture, the weather, and the hotel locations made it work well.

Renting a car in Akureyri was the right call. Super simple and convenient to the cruise port (the Avis/Budget office) and we had a fantastic day of freedom in the countryside! Godafoss was a highlight of this trip. And I learned that driving on Route 1 aka the Ring Road is super easy – well signed, well paved. Well, at least the section we did that day. Confidence for a future Ring Road trip boosted! Here’s the post about that day.

The ATV tour we did in Isafjordur has put ATV tours on our radar for future vacations. We had so much fun! This is the post where I detail what we did.

I saw icebergs for the first time ever thanks to Greenland. Epic. The first picture is horrible because it was a frantic “THIS IS MY FIRST ICEBERG EVER!!!” photo, but keep scrolling the rest are better.

Overall the weather on this trip was better than we could have hoped for, with loads of sunny days and pleasant walking weather. We had that rain on our Nanortalik port stop day, and high winds kept us out of Djupivogur. Climate change made us miss two stops in Greenland. But overall I think we just really lucked out since all of our days in Reykjavik were super pleasant for long meandering walks, and on the day of our ATV tour in Isafjordur the tour guide said it was the best weather he had seen all summer.

Airalo FTW! I’m going to do a post about this app for eSims eventually, but this was my first time trying it and it was fantastic. The coverage was inexpensive – I paid $4.50 (incl. $3 off for first time user with a referral code) for Iceland for 15 days/2 GB and $8.10 for Greenland for 7 days/1 GB. And if we were on the boat and sitting next to a window with view of land the coverage actually worked from the boat! My referral code is STACY6621 if you want to try it and get your own $3 off. But more details to follow in a future post…

The Lessons Learned

I learned a lot about how I can make cruising work better for me in the future. I anticipate we will be on a cruise ship at least once a year for the rest of our lives, so this knowledge is good to accumulate. There will always be a bit of a discomfort just because I’m so introverted, but I know I can figure out how to enjoy them since I do love me some down time.

Unless there’s some sort of extenuating circumstance, I doubt we will ever go on the Norwegian Star (or any other Dawn class ships) again. Looking back on it I think my main complaint was the minimal natural light anywhere inside the ship. The windows felt small. And the sea weather wasn’t good for any outside time. It just felt crowded and claustrophobic.

We should have spent the money on Thermal Suite passes. In the moment the extra $500 felt like a lot, but considering the lack of natural light in the ship, how crowded everywhere felt, and the extra sea days I think it would have helped a lot to have these lounge chairs available (not my photo).

Although I’m a knitter which is the best downtime hobby in the world (I’ll fight you), I need to have more downtime hobbies because cruising is a lot of downtime. Especially if you’re introverted and a bit snobby when it comes to typical onboard entertainment offerings. My ADHD is pretty bad so reading books is like impossible. I could use downtime to be better about keeping up on this blogging hobby. I could. But what else can I get into with minimal packing needs that could hold my attention? Maybe Scott and I should learn how to play cribbage and a couple of other card games.

Next time I will take a closer look at the cancellation policies of any tours/activities we book for cruise ports if they are booked with a local operator (i.e., not thru the cruise excursions). We completely just lucked out this time that the kayaking operator in Djupivogur refunded all of our money when that port was cancelled due to weather.

I learned that I don’t think I like geothermal hot springs because of the smell. I think I’m willing to try one more time at another location to make sure, though.

Next Time Cruising

I’m very glad that whenever we cruise next with NCL we will have Platinum status. This will get us priority embarkation (which should improve my mood that day) and priority tender boat boarding (never again with a 3 hour wait to get off the ship). We will also get a free bag of laundry and an extra specialty dining meal.

On all future cruises I will be looking more closely at the common areas that are available on the ship. And I need natural light! We’ve begun looking at doing an Alaska cruise next summer, and the NCL Bliss has this observation lounge that looks perfect.

Unless it’s a particularly scenic cruise (like Alaska maybe) I’ll be fine with booking a cheaper interior cabin again. Especially if I book a Thermal Suite pass like I plan to on all future cruises. Again, the NCL Bliss seems to have what I’m looking for…

Next Time in Iceland

We definitely want to go back and spend more time on land in Iceland. That will likely look like a Ring Road trip with a side quest up to the Westfjords. Previous to this trip I assumed we would want to do a campervan trip but now that I’ve experienced the cold and the wind even in a warm summer month, I’m thinking this will be more of a road trip with scattered hotel stays. Being able to get warm every night and have hot showers will increase my interest in all of the outdoor exploration – hiking, kayaking, etc. – that Iceland really deserves. This next Iceland trip will probably happen post-retirement so we don’t feel rushed, and when we can again stack up points and miles for flights and hotel stays.

Overall Rating… Great trip! I’m glad I memorialized it here for future reminiscing. Peace out from Keflavik airport on our way home.

Thursday, July 13, 2023

Since apparently we have more Hilton status than I realized, we joined about a hundred of our closest friends at the hotel breakfast buffet. But oh my goodness it was really good. I’m generally not a fan of buffets, to be honest they kind of creep me out. But if they are very well attended and the food is turned over frequently, then I can be down. And also since Reykjavik attracts a pretty geographically diverse tourist crowd, this buffet had the good stuff like cheeses and olives and grilled tomatoes and good bread.

During my early trip planning in looking at options from getting from our hotel to the cruise port, I had decided that we could just walk there, weather permitting. If we could save on the taxi fare then why not? Although the route was a little long for dragging rolling suitcases, it appeared to be flat on the map. And taking the city bus would only save us half the walking distance, but add the extra time and brain work.

Not only was the weather really nice, we had seen yesterday during our walk that Reykjavik has great sidewalks and walking paths. The walk was a nice start to our day, meandering through neighborhoods and even a park. Eventually we got the first close glimpse of our ship as we walked along the dock… I present to you the Norwegian Star.

Then we had the embarkation experience. And my mental health started taking a beating that would last through most of the day.

NOTE: The rest of this post is pretty whiny. I probably shouldn’t put this out into the world, but
I want to document both the greatness and sometimes disappointing nature of travel honestly.
The reader can simply scroll away if they want. You have been forewarned.
We had some great experiences after today, though!

Because we walked to the port, we didn’t approach like the busses and taxis. We kind of rounded a corner and landed right at the entry for the security/check-in line. So we just got in it. After we had progressed a bit through the line I started to realize many other people didn’t have their luggage and that we had missed wherever it is you can drop your bag for delivery to your stateroom later. That would later culminate in finding a place were we could drop our bags for safekeeping on board, but we were expected to come grab them later and bring them to our room ourselves. I know this sounds super princess-y, but that’s really how a cruise ship should operate.

I was honestly a bit surprised at the rudimentary nature of the port. This place gets a LOT of cruise ship traffic, yet it’s mostly a pop-up building. I’ve only been on a couple of other cruises (out of Venice and Rome) but they had big appointed buildings with bathrooms and sitting areas; Scott says the Seattle port is also well-appointed. This was very, very bare bones. And the gangways up to the ship were from the dock to I think Deck 4, which were steep, narrow, and had thick nonslip ridges in them that made walker and wheelchair accessibility impossible. I noticed a little lady with Parkinson’s really struggling to get onboard. I think it’s time to invest a bit more in your tourist infrastructure, Reykjavik?

As is typical, our room wasn’t expected to be ready until 15:00. After we dropped our bags we started to explore the ship. I knew from research that this is an older, “smaller” ship originally built in 2001 that had been refurbished in 2021. I have laughed in the past at people online saying they were skipping an itinerary because the ship offered was “too small”. Are you kidding me? How can a ship that carries 2,300 passengers and more than 1,000 crew members ever be considered small?

Well, I have become one of these people now. I was so overwhelmed by people as we walked around the ship. Claustrophobia-induced anxiety set in. The walkways felt so narrow. Poor Scott just had to follow me around while I muttered things like, “I need to find a quiet space”. I am so blessed with a patient partner! I seriously don’t know how he does it.

We went and found the spa area, and checked out the space known as the Thermal Suite (video is 7 years old, from before the refurbish, but the layout is the same). I believe anyone that purchases a spa service can access this area before the treatment, but you can also pay $250 for an unlimited pass for the duration of the cruise. The Suite has a heated pool, hot tub, sauna, and loungers that overlook floor to ceiling windows of the back of the ship. Most importantly they limit passes to something like only 60 people, and there are no kids. A quiet haven. Did we buy passes? Were we willing to add a last minute $250 pp for this? Nope, too frugal. Honestly kind of a big mistake, considering how much ship time we ended up having on this cruise (spoiler alert). Next time, this is a non-negotiable I think.

I think all-in-all we had around 3 hours of time on the ship before our room was ready. Again, poor Scott had to deal with this face the whole time.

This was my first time in an inside cabin (meaning no windows whatsoever). We booked it to be frugal, and submitted a $300 bid to upgrade to a balcony which failed. The cruise was 100% booked so no go on the upgrade. I didn’t take any pics but this is a good tour video if you’re curious. The room was pitch black for sleeping which was fantastic in a 24-hour daylight situation. I was super happy with the shower size, too. The only thing I missed about not having a balcony was the chance for a comfortable sitting space in privacy, but I think it was typically too cold to enjoy balcony sitting anyway. And of course our cabin steward did a great job of tidying it up every day. Usually we use the Do Not Disturb sign liberally on hotel rooms, but on the one day we left it like that on the cruise it seemed to cause some staff anxiety.

This was my least favorite day on our trip, but hey – we made it onboard and were on our way! And look how cute my mans is.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

I have never done anything like this before.

I mean, I’ve dyed my hair before, but never like… this. I’ve been thinking about it for a few years off and on but never felt like I was in the right place to rock this before. I definitely didn’t want to do it while I was in geriatric healthcare, because that’s enough of a difficult job without adding this to the interactions. And then I got the school job this last year and didn’t want this to be the initial impression with everyone in that new professional realm. But now… fuck it. This is fun.

This might be yet another sign that my lifelong chronic depression has healed (for the most part).

Saturday, July 1, 2023

HELLO SUMMER BREAK!!! (Well, kind of…)

I just finished my first (school) year working as an occupational therapist in a public school system. And now I get my summer break. Except I still have paperwork to do. Because I procrastinate. I might have ADHD. It’s on my summer to-do list to get evaluated for that. But I probably have ADHD so we’ll see if that actually happens.

It’s a running joke (but not funny) that if I want to be sure to never get something done I should write it down on a to do list. The more effective approach is for me to berate myself over days, weeks, months, years and then eventually I’ll hate myself enough that I finally do it. Super healthy.

We have two international trips planned for the summer – one two-weeker and another one-weeker – but aside from that my time is unstructured. I have some goals in mind to tackle, and maybe returning to blogging will be the thing that helps me finish the summer with my head held high.

In no particular order here are a few items on my mind as possible successes for this summer (no particular order):

Institute a daily exercise routine – start with stretching and then alternate with a cardio activity.
Institute a daily blogging routine.
Build the daily “long” dog walk from 30 to 60 minutes.
Spend time outside of the apartment with a friend 1x/week.
Get caught up on my medical appointments/checklist – blood draw, mammo, colon cancer screen (yay my MD says I can skip the colonoscopy for now!!!), dermatology, and ADHD assessment.

OK before I get overwhelmed and just go take a nap I’ll stop with that list. But my head is screaming with a list of all of the things that I *should* do and I’m already starting to hate myself for not listing that I’ll finish the bathroom painting that I started 4 years ago.