Nomadic-ERE Year 5 - Wanderlust Prevails

[classical_Liberal]

@J+G
Semi-ERE bat-signal for AE's journal! He needs your expertise to help him quit his FT job.

[2Birds1Stone]

Musings

It looks like we will soon be actual refugees here in Portugal, as Poland's airspace has not been opened to international commercial flights, and there is no concrete date for the resumption. We have no desire to head back to metro NYC area, and the other ways of traveling into Poland pose some risk (IE trying to fly to Ukraine and cross by foot). The fact that we have to stamp out of the EU and enter directly from a non-EU country (whether by land or air) definitely complicates things, otherwise it would be a fairly straightforward trip due-east from here by bus/train/etc.

That leaves us with the possibility of extending our stay here. As an EU passport holder I can apply for temporary residency, and once I have that my spouse can apply for the same. That limits us to staying within the country, at least until it's safe to fly back to the USA or once there are flights available to Poland via UK, Turkey, etc. It's a PITA to go through the paperwork, and also find new accommodation (we have to vacate out APT on June 7th anyway, as someone else has booked it after that).

Another point of angst has been a letter my wife received stating that her former employers insurance company is appealing the workers comp boards decision on her injury last fall. They are trying to claim that the injury is not clearly the result of her accident, and likely trying to screw her over and refusing to pay their share. Incredibly frustrating because we are out of the country, and she's super stressed about possibly losing (even though she did absolutely nothing wrong, and tore her shoulder at work). We have an online hearing the first week of June, so this is something on the back of our minds, daily.

Otherwise things have been going fairly well here. We took a short 3 day road trip down to the Algarve and back up along the coast to Lisbon. Exploring some completely empty beaches, sleepy resort (ghost)towns, and enjoying a change of scenery. One of the flats we stayed in had a bathroom scale, so I was able to weigh myself for the first time in over two months. 90-91 kg, so it looks like I've lost about 5 lbs since we left the states. It feels like most of it was muscle (while simultaneously gaining some spare tire), due to the lack of resistance training here.....I am confident that once I'm able to lift weight again, it will come back fairly quickly, but for now I've started doing pull-ups and push-ups in addition to biking.

Restaurants have opened up, with primarily outdoor seating. We had our first meal out in 2.5 months on Tuesday night. Open air kitchen/seating type place along the Tagus river. Went with a couple we met through my cycling. American expat with a Portuguese wife. Nice people, and enjoyed a nearly 5 hour meal with plenty of drinks......the bill came to less than $80 for the 4 of us when it was all said and done. Next week we will explore the Lisbon Oceanarium (aquarium), as it's opened with reduced capacity, and my wife is a marine biology geek.

Portugal is at ~1250 fatalities related to Covid, mostly elderly/care homes, and in the north region. Things have been opening here since the beginning of the month, and life is starting to feel almost completely normal (sans masks and hand sanitizing everywhere). We are seeing tons of people out and about, after 8 weeks of eerily quiet existence. No tourists here though, which makes for an interesting experience.

I learned a valuable investing lesson, which cost $14k in realized losses within my HSA account. I had held 5% of my portfolio in a REIT (EPR) which got hit particularly hard due to Covid. They invest in experiential real estate (theaters, Top Golf, Dave & Busters, resorts, etc) properties, with a concentration in movie theaters. After the shares dropped ~70%, they announced an end to their relatively high dividend, and no guidance on strategy. Theaters won't re-open for a while, and even if they did, movies aren't being filmed right now, with many studious pushing off this summers blockbuster lineup or going direct to consumer model. After much internal anguish I decided to move the funds to cash and avoid further loss. Otherwise, my portfolio is down less than 10% from it's high-water mark. Combined with TTM spending dropping another significant chunk this month, WR% is still trending down month to month. June is looking to be fairly expensive if we stay in Portugal, have to take multiple flights to enter Poland, or end up having to go back to the USA.

[take2]

Excellent stuff! Is your new American friend also retired? Curious as to how they’ve set up their lives.

The cost to eat out delicious food is what I long for the most. We cook at home 95%+ of the time here in London, due both to cost and a general disdain for the available cuisine. Hard to get excited to pay £25+/person for mediocre food when I can make better food for a fraction of that.

However, I absolutely love going out to “tascas” in Portugal where you can get delicious meals for c. €6-10/person, and the occasional nice restaurant for c. €20 (in the north at least, cheaper than the capital). Things like bacalhau can actually be cheaper in restaurants vs. buying in grocery stores!

The aquarium is great - love the otters there. Best of luck with your wife’s claim, and your shelter in place plans.

[classical_Liberal]

F'en workmans comp! It seems like they fight most claims. Sorry you guys have to deal with that.

Another option is to do the US leg of your travel now, and go back to the international thing in 2021 or whenever. I'm road tripping now in the Midwest, most of the outdoorsy stuff is open and not busy. I think it'll continue to open more as the summer progresses, but remain below normal levels of people. There's more the to US than NYC

[2Birds1Stone]

@anesde, he's in the process of retiring. Having two shipping containers moved from the states to Portugal with belongings, including a car and motorcycle. They're also in the process of planning an unconventional home build outside of Lisbon, currently in the architecture/planning phase. We got together for a nice bike ride again yesterday. Traffic (both car/foot) has increase significantly in the past week.

The food we had was fantastic. I believe we ordered pate, goat cheese, cured ham, olives, pickled veggies, two orders of bread, a pitcher of sangria, 5 large beers, 4 small beers, 4 entrees, and the bill was 71 Euro before tip....view was fantastic, and most importantly we didn't feel rushed like in an American restaurant.

PS - waiting for the continuation of your own story in your journal.......*nudge nudge*

@c_L, yea it really sucks and is stressing (especially her) out. Not something that is easy to deal with when you're halfway across the globe. When you factor in the Dr. visits, MRI, two 8 week rounds of PT, etc, it's a LOT of money they are trying to stick her with paying. Hopefully the WC board is there to protect the honest employees who got hurt on the job. It's just fucked up that the burden of proof ends up with us and we have to deal with this on top of having the whole WC medical/legal headaches to get her treatment. She's still not nearly 100% with the shoulder, can't swim, lift weights, and even when she went back to work on light duty before we left, had to break often from what she was doing due to to pain from the repetitive motions which are essential to her function.

I would absolutely consider that plan of postponing international, if it weren't for the fact that this might be my last chance to spend significant time with 95 y/o grandfather and 90 y/o grandmother. They are the main reason I am trying to get there ASAP. Time is not on their side, plus I haven't seen the rest of my family/friends there since last summer, and we are fairly close.

More Musings....

On a slightly different tangent, I've been doing a TON of introspection and thinking regarding what I want to spend my next few years doing/building. Realizing that the list I provided last week was very much filled with "activities" and certain skills that could be useful, but ultimately unfulfilling on their own. Having a bunch of cool hobbies/things to learn is great because it means I won't (likely) be bored regardless of where we end up or what mode of lifestyle we choose, but on a deeper level I am starting to get the feeling that in the next few months I would like to find a bigger cause or "project" to dedicate some time and energy into. So far this trip has made a few things clearer, one being that I am a social creature, despite wavering between extroversion and introversion, I feed off of the energy of others, and also energize and inspire those around me. Another, is that no matter how much I love spending time with my wife, I need a broader range of social interaction regularly. I enjoy intellectual/philosophical debate on a broad range of topics, and need more mental stimulation and challenge than the internet/my marriage can provide alone. I also realized that over the past 12-15 years, I've always been my happiest when I'm working towards something, for the journey is the reward. Whether it was losing 100+ lbs and working on going from obese couch potato to becoming competitive in amateur drug free bodybuilding, reaching a competitive powerlifting total, going from being unable to swim to finishing a 70.3 mile Ironman, to reaching a relatively successful level of income/career capital, and ultimately the biggest goal of the past decade, financial independence. It was the enjoyment of the process of getting there, that always outweighed the feelings afterward. I've learned to really enjoy the moment and the process of relatively simple things, and combined with a bit of delayed gratification and patience, realize how those can compound to something remarkable.

I don't feel like I *have* to do anything productive, and I'm trying to be mindful of being vs. doing. But I also recognize that I am not the type of person to just sit around filling my days with leisure for months/years on end. So while this Covid-19 debacle gives me some time to recenter myself, and focus on my health, family, and immediate relationships, I'm starting to think about how/where I can scratch the itch for some of those others things I mentioned.

For anyone still reading, this is more of a personal list of things I currently feel like I'm lacking which I enjoyed, yet were largely related to my career, and would like to document as my mental state changes in the coming months;

-feeling challenged, intellectually/mentally
-mentoring/being mentored
-learning something useful that could be applied to a broad range of situations (over the past 5 years these included public speaking/presenting, writing, and negotiating), I helped charter a Toastmasters club at my company, and went through a 9 month leadership development program.
-being regularly surrounded by smart and driven people, with a common goal
-creating something impactful from the ground up. In my line of work this was typically targeted sales assets/business cases which I used to win. Required a significant amount of research on things ranging from industry/company/customer/competitive landscape

Here are a things I need to remind myself that I sorely disliked;

-having a rigid schedule that required me to be in the office
-having to travel on business, often with little notice
-meetings that served no direct purpose to my interests at work
-daily blocking and tackling (sending follow up emails, doing one-off tasks)
-reporting on what I was doing, often within CRM or other applications used to track employee productivity
-office politics and corporate dishonesty
-many other "pilots" that management tried to implement, which required various ways to waste time in order to appease the higher ups
-the expectation that if I wasn't with a client or in a meeting, I was always available for work related communication/action
-having to think about work, outside of work

The last point is the biggest issue I had. Despite my best efforts, while I was in the full swing of things, I would think about work constantly. It would tend to enter my brainspace on weekends, during bike rides, when I laid in bed upon waking up, and even whilst on vacation. Maybe a passion project wouldn't feel bad, but when it was something I was doing purely for money, it was a miserable realization to have. Even my own time wasn't my own.

Therefor I don't think paid employment is the answer. Nor do I really want to start a business that will consume me and my thoughts 24/7.

[classical_Liberal]

Therefor I don't think paid employment is the answer. Nor do I really want to start a business that will consume me and my thoughts 24/7.

Yeah tough spot huh

Basically I have boiled this problem down to breath vs depth and/or freedom vs dedicated purpose. The more one gets involved in a purpose, the more it consumes all of your time and mental space. This can be a really good thing if you are able to personally manage it. Like, not get overwhelmed or obsessed, and do which parts you want, when you want. Unfortunately, the resources required for most things today requires more than one person can provide. This is where the idea of productive employment comes into play. Get a job, or create a job in which you can join or create some type of purpose. The problem is all the bullshit that accompanies it either way. Once you've quit drinking corporate kool-aid it makes it so much harder to gain some sense of purpose from a job created by others. Creating one on your own means you have to deal with all the parts of the process, even the ones you really don't like, plus limited resources.

Sometimes I wonder if this need to feel purposeful and productive isn't just another part of how we have been turned to corporatized worker bees. It only seems natural to us because this is how we've been socialized and behavoralized, like pavlovian dogs. Hence, something the we should be trying to eliminate from our lives.

I'm still hanging my hat on this idea of being vs doing all the time. Probably because this is one solution I haven't really given much time to so far. Whipping out that need to feel productive and purposeful all the time, and letting life's purposes come to me via serendipity/ergodicity. The idea of planting my flag and seeing what happens vs constantly seeking out the next thing to do.

[classical_Liberal]

The problem I have that I don't see you guys mentioned, is that I hate to work in fixed hours.

This is what I meant by working on what you want, when you want. Flow, for me at least, is very much dependant on when i want to do certain activities and limit them to those timeframes.

Actually I'm about to take on a side job that I'll manage like that.

I'm curious, did you seek out this side job, or did it come to you?

[classical_Liberal]

@bigato
Feel free to correct me if you feel my interpretation of your answer is wrong. This seems to me, a case of you planting your flag (ie joining polygot group, moving back home) and opportunities coming to you which are agreeable to your current state of being. Maybe it's because I come from salaryman mindset, but this seems fundamentally different than seeking out the next thing simply because of a need to be productive. The former is you being you, following opportunities that arise out of other life choices and are agreeable to current situation which make you feel productive. The latter is changing your current state of being/life situation to find ways of feeling productive.

[classical_Liberal]

@bigato
Thanks for the answer!

Yes, I think we salaryman folks who are newer to ERE freedom have a hard time switching modes. We are so used to being giving productive tasks and schedules to follow (even from ourselves), then building our life around them, that we forget we should first build our life, then let our productive tasks evolve from it.

I don't know if there is a magic formula here, but I have a strong suspicion that significant time away from salaryman employment is a strong first step. It feels unnatural at first. Just doing what we feel, when we feel, so we assume something is missing. However, I think the missing component is really the misery we've associated with productivity in the past, maybe not the purpose/productivity itself. I think purpose will occur naturally given enough time. I believe that was a mistake I made in my last period off. Once I settled into a good flow of daily life, I assumed it was time to go back to work. Maybe I was past the point of being "leisured-out" and just reaching the point of a good life balance. Instead of building my purpose around that new life, I re-rearranged it to go back to being productive as I had known it before.

So, my point to @2B1S is that maybe now you are reaching the point of burn-out being gone and you are beginning to "leisure-out". The time to build life begins now, don't make the mistake that life should be built around productivity, rather build the productivity/purpose around your new life.

[take2]

@c_L is like a sage. That resonated with me quite deeply, as well as recent passages from AE’s journal.

@2B1S - the last couple of weeks left me with no energy at all to keep it going but I have time this weekend and aim to catch up to present day. Thanks for the nudge.

[2Birds1Stone]

@everyone who commented since my last post, I have a lot of thoughts and updates to share, but first let me get the boring financial stuff out of the way.

[2Birds1Stone]

@c_L, I like that way of looking at it! Right now I'm in no rush to do anything productive. I don't need the money in the short term, and I am still quite enjoying the novelty of not having to work, after so many years in FT labor.

@bigato, that's a great arrangement, one I think you can evolve and improve on after you're done with FT work yourself. Between your property, family/friends in the new area, and some creative PT work on your own schedule, it sounds like you will be able to have your cake and eat it too.

Serendipity all around my friends!

@anesde, I'm really enjoying your story so far. It's a shame we could not meet in Portugal this spring, but I'm sure our paths will cross in the future.

Travel Update

The legalities of getting to and staying in Poland have been figured out. It took a LOT of work (calls, emails, more calls) to various government agencies and embassies, but we have solid answers in writing.

We did have to get an original marriage license issued by mail from our town hall back in NY, then have it translated to Polish by a sworn translator and notarized. This is to prove my wife is actually my wife, since Poland's borders are still closed to foreign nationals.

We are currently in a holding pattern. Our current apartment is paid for until June 7th, but Poland has not resumed international flights just yet. Under the current rules and travel options we would have to fly Lisbon -> Frankfurt, wait 9 hours for a daily bus into Poland, spend 19.5+ hours traveling by bus to home city, then subject ourselves to a mandatory 14 day quarantine (indoors, with daily police surveillance), after which we are free. Once free my wife can apply for a temporary residence permit which is good for 5 years. Once she has this permit, time in Poland no longer counts against future visits to other Schengen countries, meaning after 90 days in Poland, we would once again be free to travel around the rest of Europe, back to the states, or to SE Asia as we originally planned.

If we wait an extra week in Portugal, Poland may re-open borders and international flights, maybe even lifting the mandatory 14 day quarantine requirement. This would be ideal. We haven't booked anything yet in hopes of some more concrete information on this topic to come to light.

Today is day 82 of our trip, and our cost per day has dropped to ~$61/day all in. If this were sustainable, that's a mere $22.3k/yr!

Been enjoying our time here very much lately. We will miss it, and definitely return in the future.

[2Birds1Stone]

Musings

A year goes by quickly, yet so much can change. It's hard to believe that I've been essentially ERE'd, for just over 12 months at this point. The focus of this journal for quite some time was the preparation to jump off into the deep end of the ERE pool, the associated money earning/saving, and logistics of it all. I'm really thankful for this community and the ability to journal it all here, as it's very beneficial to go back and see the change in thought process, mentality, and attitude over the past few years.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself, just to make sure I'm not dreaming. The tone of my posts from 3-4 years ago, seems dreamy and wishful. It still blows my mind that I doubted my own abilities and courage. When work/life got hard, it seemed as though the light at the end of the tunnel was so far away, or that once I got closer, the light would turn out to be a train. In hindsight, that light was the entrance to the cave.

Life is different now. There's a weightlessness that comes with having agency. It's still a struggle sometimes, to remind oneself that the shackles of wage slavery are gone. Striving to savor the moment, and appreciate the time and place for what it is. Life has thrown me/us many curve-balls in recent months, yet we're blessed to take them in stride thanks to past choices.

I'm not sure what the future will bring, only that the world is quickly changing, and sadly it doesn't look like it's for the better. I don't want to get all sentimental/philosophical, but I truly want to strive to be the change I wish to see in the world. As we end our chapter here in Portugal and head to the homeland, my goals will be focused around gratitude, kindness, and designing a balanced life that will be a solid foundation for whatever I decide to build in the coming months and years.

We've finalized our travel plans, and while there are still things that are completely out of our control, we should get to our destination in Poland by next week. We're going to try to get permission to quarantine at the orchard, which is proving a bit difficult because the property doesn't have a legal address. If we're able to figure it out, it will be a 14 day detox from technology, artificial stimulus, and a real opportunity to introspect and get in tune with the land.

An interesting post I came across when trying to figure out where my head was at a year ago...

Bigger Picture Stuff

I long for my homeland......which is very strange. It comes and goes, but for the last decade and a half, I've had this strong urge to permanently relocate to the EU, more specifically Poland, where my whole family is from. Even though I was born in the USA, I've always identified more as a Pole than an American......spending the past few days reading the detailed history of Poland has brought these thoughts front and center. It's quite an amazing history, and a miracle that we even exist on the map today!

The dilemma with that move would be quite large, though not insurmountable. My future spouse does not speak polish (yet). She would have a very hard time finding work, friends, and culturally may feel like an outsider. Heck, I would face many of those issues as well, though I speak the language extremely fluently, and can read with middle school proficiency, with my writing being pretty bad (spelling is hard, but I'm sure I could learn). The country right now, is going through some political turmoil, with a very conservative government, which has given the church way too much power. Taxation is high, wages are low, and overall quality of life is lower than the rest of Europe. Despite all of this, a ton of natural beauty, very low cost, and tons of family and friends make it appealing........I guess time will tell. Being able to split our time between countries and continents freely is something I can't take for granted.

Cheers, y'all.

[ertyu]

As someone who is also third culture (was born in Eastern Europe but left early enough), looking forward to how Poland works out for you guys. Keeping fingers crossed, and will be following your journey. Have you guys decided on where you will locate yet?

[wolf]

That really sounds great 2b1s! I'm a long-term follower of your journal, and will be so in the future. Looking forward to read about your different kind of lifestyle in Poland, in contrast to working in US and traveling in Portugal. How does all of that change/influence your web-of-goals?

[2Birds1Stone]

@bigato, thanks. I'll try to share more personal thoughts and feelings in the future. The numbers are boring at this point....

@ertyu, thanks for reading along. Do you mean which city? Or specific location for the quarantine? If the former, yes my entire family (sans parents and brother) live in one mid-sized Polish city in the Southeast. If the later, we are going to attempt to stay at my grandfathers orchard, in an unfinished house/structure that's better suited for "glamping" than normal living. There were issues with water and the gas connection, but that's being taken care of this week. The biggest issue we have is that we have to provide an address where we will be doing our mandatory 14 day quarantine, while we are doing our border crossing. The border guards provide this info to the local authorities who do the surveillance to ensure you are complying with all of the necessary laws. This plot of land and structure do not have a typical legal address, so we may be forced to stay the first 14 days in my parents empty flat in the center of the city. Not ideal being stuck inside a small apartment on the 7th floor, but we will make due.

@wolf, nice to hear from you my friend! I'll be crossing through Germany (spending about 9 hours in Frankfurt on Sunday). Poland will be very different from Portugal. Here we were only planning on staying for ~2 weeks, but Covid had other plans for us. Poland feels like home, it will be more family oriented life, with an emphasis on helping/spending time with my aging grandparents, as well as strengthening relationships with cousins, friends, and the community.

Web of goals will surely shift a bit, but not much. The biggest change will be attempting to bring my grandfathers orchard to its former glory. Learning how to garden/grow our own food, and applying permaculture principles in the process. We will continue a minimalist/low impact lifestyle, and focus on activities that provide us with abundant exercise, improve health, improve the environment, and help with other human needs (to socialize, actualization, etc). I want to get involved in the local cycling/MTB community there, as I did back in the USA. I would also like to help others who are trying to break the mold of modern consumer life but haven't been exposed to the ideas of minimalism/FI/etc in that part of the world. Here in Portugal I actually introduced someone to ERE, and they are consuming the blog and already implementing changes! Quite profound.

I really want to put down some roots there, and ideally continue nurturing the ones I have in the USA. Not sure as to how this will look like logistically, but for the time being, we have plenty to keep our hands full!

Musings

Today we spend half the day at the Lisbon aquarium. While a bit pricey, it was very enjoyable and we learned a lot about their conservation and education efforts. Practically had the place to ourselves. I found a print shop that was able to print our marriage license out in color, so hopefully with a notarized translation it's enough for the Polish border guards to let us pass without too much grief.

We also purchased Vodafone simcards for both phones, as we will need an EU number for Polish authorities to contact us on during quarantine. Tested everything out and it works. We will be swapping to cheaper Polish plans after these run out. I shopped around for cell providers in Poland and an unlimited talk/text + 15gb of high speed internet is only $8/month!

Side fact: We've gone with 0 cell phone service here in Portugal for nearly two months. Only using our phones when on Wifi. This was primarily to reduce screen time and "be in the moment" more, but the cost savings were an added bonus.

The cost of getting from Lisbon to hometown Poland, ended up being quite expensive due to limited options and continued ban on international flights to Poland. $500 for the two of us, so spending will be significantly up in June.

Yesterday I sold the bike I had been using here. TCO was $90 for 2.5 months. Well worth it IMHO. I biked ~500km and we walked 1300km since March 12th =D

I'm trying to decide on a bike solution for when quarantine is over, and open to suggestions, as I know we have many avid cyclists here.

I'm torn between a MTB and a gravel/cross bike. I would REALLY like to be able to do some MTB in Poland, as it's something I enjoy immensely back in the USA, but in reality a big chunk of my riding will be urban. The city we will be living in doesn't have the smoothest pavement, and quite a bit of cobblestone and unfinished roads. Part of me wants to invest a good chunk of $$ into a higher end bike, but I am also thinking about going really cheap as to have something I can lock up in public when going shopping or visiting family/friends in the urban parts of the city. Maybe I get one higher end bike for exercise/touring/MTB and a second "beater" that can serve for grocery runs and visiting family/friends (city is like 12km max from one end to the other.) That doesn't sound like a renaissance man solution though -_-

[take2]

Congrats and as always you’re a big inspiration. We decided to head to Portugal and stay there until working from home is lifted (likely September). I think we just missed each other as I left March 1st! In retrospect we should have just stayed there.

Lots of thoughts on my part about shifting towards a more ERE lifestyle and following you (and c_L amongst others) has helped shape my views. Like you my fiancé doesn’t speak the native language so that’s in the back of my mind but I’m hoping to make the most of the quarantine to try out a “lite” version of what might be.

[jacob]

Chicago roads are full of pot holes and basically not fit for flimsy wheels. I think that's at least part of the reason why MTBs are so popular here even for street riding. I'd get a MTB and put slicks or semi-slicks on it. Put a butterfly (they should be easier to find in Europe) handlebar on it if you want more positions for going straight or into the wind. Butterfly bars are usually sized for MTB components.

[AxelHeyst]

Yes, unless for you "MTB" = "downhill/freeride", I feel like it shouldn't be too difficult to split the difference and be reasonably happy with performance across domains, with the right mods (seat, bars, tires, and proper setup to make it hard to steal).

I currently own a ~$4k DH/FR mtb, and a really light rigid mtb I picked up for $300. On anything other than rock gardens and lift-access, the $300 bike is a superior joy to ride. I'm going to sell the DH bike.

[2Birds1Stone]

Thank you for the tips, folks.

I will probably get the beater first, and then figure it out. Bike inventory has dried up here, both used and new in the entry/mid price range. Lots of people trying to avoid public transit and exercise with gyms closed. Prices much higher on what is available, but I'm not in any particular rush.

Jacob, that does sound like a good comprimise. Definitely want something that will not feel like my fatbike on the roads. Knobby tires + 4.8" wide tires + 5 psi makes for a good workout going nowhere fast.

The bike I had in lisbon was ok for the city. Riding upwind at anything more than 10 mph took a lot of work though, and it wasn't particularly capable offroad.

@axel, definitely won't be doing DH/AM stuff, but I am used to riding black/double black xc singletrack which has some gnarly features and 2-4' drops pretty regularly. I do that on a fully rigid Specialized Fatboy with no issues. A solid rigid or lighter front susp MTB might be great with the bar upgrade and some paniers/rack for utility and touring work.

Travel Update/Musings

I won't go into an excruciating amount of detail becuase I'm typing this on my cell phone (which I hate), but at least it's being typed on day 3 of my 14-day quarantine, from the orchard.

After an enjoyable last couple of days, we departed Lisbon at 3 AM on Sunday morning. Flight to Franfurt was without a hitch, and we meandered around the city with our bags in tow waiting for the evening bus. It was a cool city, that I would like to revisit under more relaxed circumstances. We boarded our bus at 8 PM and off we went. Barely any sleep before getting to the German/Polish border a little after 3 AM, we were boarded by the Border Police, who verified our documents and took our information to give to the local police and SanEpid health authorities, to monitor us doing the two week quarantine. The marriage license scan and notarized translation was sufficient for the guards. After this crossed I dozed off a few times for 5-10 minutes but never got any real sleep. We spent another 12 hours on the bus and finally got to our destination in the late afternoon. From there it was a scramble to get keys to the apartment and orchard from a family friend, provision at a supermarket, call SanEpid and register our quarantine, and call a taxi to take us from the apartment to the orchard. As luck would have it, it was sunny when we walked to the supermarket but by the time we were paying, a storm from hell rolled in, with 120 km/h+ winds, sheets of rain, and hail. The walk to the apartment was only about 1 km, but we got home completely soaked, backpacks, food, and all. Getting dry and ready was stressful, as was loading everything into the cab. Once we got to the orchard the rain stopped but the grass is tall and everything was muddy and wet. We unpacked our food, and did our best to clean a bit. It hasn't been used since mid fall. So the unfinished basement type ground floor was musky, wet, and smelled of mold. Upstairs was drier but still smelled of stale air. We passed the fuck out anyway, after some grocery store pierogies and beer. It was supposed to rain/storm daily for two weeks, but we still chose this over the apartment. Lucked out that it only rained for two hours last night, and it's been sunny since this morning. The second night we made a fire, and cooked chicken and potatos on a cast iron grill over the fire, last nights rain was at dinner time, so we cooked up a bolognese sauce from scratch. Today it's sunny and we will once again cook over fire. Could be worse places to be stuck for two weeks. We picked strawberries and Rainier cherries today. There are tomatoes growing in the hot house. Plenty of firewood and food to eat. The farmer neighbor stopped by to say hello across the fence yesterday. I know him since I was 4 years old, the neighbor who owns an orchard on the other side of ours also was there on first day. His father and mu grandfather bought the land originally, and had it divided into 4 plots. The only guy surviving is my grandfather, and the other two are abandoned.

More to come when I have a computer.