the stories that I'm telling.

Tag: airbnb

  • Our home away from home in the Condesa Aurora Sunroom!

    Our home away from home in the Condesa Aurora Sunroom!

    Kevin was in charge of finding our Airbnb and I’m sure he looked at hundreds of listings to narrow down his options. Ever the skilled researcher, Kevin found us what I can honestly describe as the world’s best Airbnb host, Leonor.

    We had initially planned to reserve one of her full apartments, but we took too long to book and thus missed out. I was ready to find someone else, but Kevin insisted that Leonor was so amazing that it would be worthwhile to stay in a room within one of her apartments.

    He was absolutely correct. And bonus: the room that we booked did essentially feel like a private apartment, with private access to our own kitchen and bathroom.

    Because we stayed with Leonor we got free pick up at the airport which made for a delightfully stress-free start to our trip. Leonor also runs a cafe around the corner where we ate complimentary continental breakfast everyday.

    The cafe is called “Cafe Fiona”, named after her dog Fiona, who carries her own purse down to the cafe each morning and then spends her time greeting patrons.

    Overall, staying at Leonor’s place was wonderful. She was a great resource to access, whether checking in on us post-earthquake, letting us borrow hats to visit Teotihuacan, or offering us restaurant recommendations. The next time we visit Mexico City, I can guarantee that we’ll be staying at one of Leonor’s apartments. If you’re looking for a well-priced gem in La Condesa neighbourhood, I highly recommend the Condesa Aurora Sun Room!

     

    arriving in style
    outside our airbnb
    breakfast at Cafe Fiona
    good morning Fiona!
    Entering the apartment you find yourself in the living room
    Look right to see the hallway to our room!
    Our room was the cutest. A great bed, cut chairs, beautiful paint colours and art on the wall. Tons of room for storage too! Just off our room is our private kitchen and bathroom.
    And here’s the kitchen, with the modern bathroom just behind it!
  • Airbnb Experience: “Discover street food with a local”

    Airbnb Experience: “Discover street food with a local”

    When Kevin and I went to Amsterdam we kicked off our trip with a food tour, which was both a unique culinary experience and a great walking tour with a local guide. We were introduced to the food tour via Booking.com but since we didn’t use them for our trip this time around we decided to try a new source of fun: Airbnb “experiences”.

    We participated in 2 different experiences during our trip, and the first was called “discover street food with a local“. We did this on Tuesday, and it was one of the highlights of our trip!

    We started off in the morning outside of El Templo Mayor where we met our guide, Pili. She gave us a brief history of the temple and market square and church nearby. From there, we hopped on the subway and went to explore a local market. This particular market served as a distribution hub for fresh flowers, so it was quite beautiful.

    Near the market was a type of food court, and we went there to learn how to cook a traditional Mexican dish, huaraches. They’re typically quite large but since we were novices, we made smaller huaraches – a corn flower dough, with a bean paste in the middle. The technique was kind of like making a perogie: flatten a small ball of dough, add in the filling, then pull the tough tight around it and pinch it sealed. However, then you also flatten out the dough and fry it.

    Huaraches are served with a pile of toppings, and we also made those! Toppings included tomatillo salsa, cactus, and huitlacoche. This was pretty exciting because huitlacoche is a delicacy that originated in Aztec cuisine and is unlike anything we’d ever eat in Canada.

    The English term for huitlacoche is “corn smut”. Huitlacoche is a type of corn fungus, which is why it’s rarely found north of Mexico. As we expected, it’s delicious!

    After we ate our huaraches, Pili and our chef host, Evelyn, made us quesadillas as well. From there we need an energy boost, so Pili took us back to city centre to visit a market famed for its traditional coffee. I had a chocolate drink that was incredible and Kevin enjoyed an espresso.

    To wrap up the day we visited a stall that sells insects as cuisine! The other couple in our group (shout out to Landon and Jerusalem!) were brave enough to try, but I was too full/afraid.

    The whole “experience” lasted approximately 4 hours and was jam-packed with learning and fun. Pili was a great host and she showed us a great time. She was fun and friendly, very knowledgeable, and open to answering any questions we had. Spending the day with her was like hanging out with a friend, and I would absolutely recommend her tours to anyone.

    If you’re looking for a great half-day experience in Mexico City then I definitely recommend you take her tour!

    See below for the many photos of our adventure with Pili!

     

    When the Spanish colonizers came to Mexico City they had locals build their churches. And often locals worked their own traditional arts (like the snakes on this cross) into the final product
    subway map!
    Arriving at our destination
    Exploring the flower market!
    huitlacoche before cooking
    there’s Pili, teaching us about peppers!
    mole paste!
    Huaraches Ramoncita – our lunch spot!
    huitlacoche before we’ve cooked it!
    cactus, chopped by Kevin.
    look at us go!
    salsa at the beginning
    there are our huaraches!
    and the finished product!
    And here’s Evelyn cooking the huitlacoche for us
    the finished product!
    and a quesadilla for good measure!
    for dessert, a Mamey – tastes like the product of an avocado and a sweet potato!
    coffee in the market!
    my chocolate drink
    pit stop to eat bugs!
  • Day 1 in Madrid: Naps & Vermouth & Tapas, Oh My!

    Day 1 in Madrid: Naps & Vermouth & Tapas, Oh My!

    On Sunday night we left Toronto, and arrived in Madrid on Monday morning. Unfortunately, we managed to sleep just two hours on the flight, so we were exhausted. We checked into our AirBnB and then proceeded to nap for the next few hours.

    Zoya and her partner, Shrip, worked late while we were visiting, so dinner was often late in the evening. This worked out perfectly because it gave us extra time to explore the city, which is precisely what we did upon waking up from our nap.

    When we arrive somewhere new, we like to hit the pavement ASAP, and get a sense of the city’s layout and walkability. We stayed in a really cool neighbourhood (according to Zoya) called Ibiza, just east of Buen Retiro Park. Also called El Retiro, this incredible park can be described as Madrid’s version of Central Park in New York City.

    According to Wikipedia…

    The park belonged to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th century, when it became a public park. The Buen Retiro Park is a large and popular 1.4 km2 (350 acres) park at the edge of the city centre, very close to the Puerta de Alcalá and not far from the Prado Museum. A magnificent park, filled with beautiful sculpture and monuments, galleries, a peaceful lake and host to a variety of events, it is one of Madrid’s premier attractions. The park is entirely surrounded by the present-day city … For children there are multiple playground areas as well as ponds throughout the park with ducks you can feed.[8] The inside of the Palacio de Cristal has been modified to include the edition of a stone slide in the interior.[10] The major paths and walkways are used by families, runners, bikers and rollerbladers.

    We kicked off our city exploration with a walk through the park. Eventually we stepped out into a neighbourhood west of the park, near the Museo Del Prado. We walked the streets, saw many shops and interesting sites, and then met up with Zoya.

    Zoya took us back to the street we were staying on. Two of their favourite tapas restaurants were located just steps away from our AirBnB apartment. A quick note on tapas, since I’ll be writing about it a lot, coutersy of Wikipedia…

    A tapa (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈtapa]), in Spanish cuisine, is an appetizer, or snack. It may be cold (such as mixed olives and cheese) or hot (such as chopitos, which are battered, fried baby squid). In select bars in Spain, tapas have evolved into an entire, sophisticated cuisine. In Spain, patrons of tapas can order many different tapas and combine them to make a full meal. In some Central American countries, such snacks are known as bocas. In Mexico, similar dishes are called botanas. According to The Joy of Cooking, the original tapas were thin slices of bread or meat which sherry drinkers in Andalusian taverns used to cover their glasses between sips. This was a practical measure meant to prevent fruit flies from hovering over the sweet sherry (see below for more explanations). The meat used to cover the sherry was normally ham or chorizo, which are both very salty and activate thirst. Because of this, bartenders and restaurant owners created a variety of snacks to serve with sherry, thus increasing their alcohol sales.[1] The tapas eventually became as important as the sherry.

    Needless to say, tapas is a big thing in Spain, and we ate quite a lot of it while we were there.

    On Monday, after a delightful reunion with Zoya, we started our night at a placed called La Castela. They serve vermouth on tap, which was both interesting and excellent. We drank a lot of vermouth in both Madrid and Cordoba because it’s a common, and often homemade, beverage.

    For tapas, we had a variety of “pincho” or “pintxo” dishes … aka small things that you eat with a giant toothpick. We had a beef cheeks, and some really intense/amazing cheeses. Once Shrip met up with us, we had one more round and headed out to another tapas place.

    Down the street was Taberna Laredo, one of Shrip’s favourite tapas restaurants. Again we had some really delicious dishes, including a beef tartare. We were a bit too tired to be taking many photos of dinner, but I do remember it all being top notch.

    See below for the many photos Kevin took on day one!

    Checking out retiro park
    the lake in Retiro Park!
    Cool trees in Retiro Park!
    Stepping outside of the park
    Madrid City Hall
    This is one of our favourite discoveries. Carrhart has a luxury retail brand in Spain!!!
    OMG most hilarious restaurant (no we did not go in)
    Madrid City Hall!
    wine from the end of the night!
    And of course one more bottle!
  • Exploring Lisbon with my little brother

    Exploring Lisbon with my little brother

    Having already spent some time in Lisbon, Kevin and I were fully prepared to show Tyler all the best sites and scenes.

    Obviously, this included copious amounts of eating and walking.

    Tyler arrived in Lisbon in the morning, and despite getting minimal sleep, he kept going with us all day. The next day, we were once again up bright and early, and we set off on all kinds of adventures. Rather than go into wild detail about every darn thing that we did, here’s a list of the places we saw and adventures we got into:

    • Exploring the streets and vistas of Lisbon: You’ll note that there are tons of pictures of us just walking around and looking at things. A worthwhile adventure, but not an easy one. Lisbon is a city built on 7 hills, which makes for great views and great exercise. Fortunately the city is small enough that you can cover most of it’s beautiful neighbourhoods on foot, and that’s just what we did.
    • Lunch at Sea Me: Tyler’s food game started off strong at this popular sea food restaurant in Lisbon. We had tuna steak, seaweed salad, fresh fish, tiger prawns, and of course, green wine.
    • Drinking Sangria at a kiosk just outside of the Convento do Carmo: This is Kevin’s favourite square in Lisbon. It’s quieter than most (though not that day, due to construction), tucked away just in front of the famous ruins of the Convento do Carmo. The convent, built in the 1400s, was mostly destroyed during the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. The ruins of the gothic church were left standing as a type of memorial.
    • Drinks & Pool at Pavilhao Chines: Kevin and I went to this wacky place for the first time a few weeks prior, and we decided to return with Tyler. He and Kevin played a game of pool in the back room, on what must been the worst pool table in existence. When even Kevin can’t make a shot, you know it’s more than just the player’s fault.
    • The most horrible dinner we’ve ever had, at a “fancy” burger place called Guilty. I won’t even go into details. But suffice to say that Kevin and I were quite disappointed.
    • Coffee! Cafe!: People make jokes about there being a Tim Hortons or Starbucks on every corner in Canada, but in Lisbon, you’re hard pressed to walk 5 minutes in any direction without passing some type of cafe. Every park has kiosks that serve espressos (and beer!), and every block has a small cafe that serves snacks, coffee (espressos), and beer. So throughout this entire trip, we drank insane amounts of espresso. Walked 5 blocks? Time for a cafe break.
    • Evening drinks at Pensao Amor: This is one of our favourite places in Lisbon. It’s a former brothel, now decorated as a vintage burlesque bar. It’s a great setting, always lively, with good music and drinks.
    • Lunch at the Nun’s Canteen: This was probably the most interesting place that we ate while in Lisbon. Looking for a unique lunch spot, I came across this Guardian UK article about best lunch spots in Lisbon. It mentioned a canteen/cafeteria run by nuns where one can grab a cheap lunch with a great view. I marked the spot on the map, and the 3 of us set off on an adventure. 5 minutes in a cab, and we were in Lisbon’s Chiado neighbourhood. We went up a set of stairs to a house in an alleyway. The door was open, and we headed up the third floor. Once there, we found exactly what we’d been promised. A well-priced traditional Portuguese lunch, which we enjoyed on their back patio, overlooking the Tagus River and the Chiado neighbourhood below us. It’s a spot frequented by locals on lunch hour, but we did our best not to stand out as tourists in this authentically Lisbon experience.
    • Belem: Next, we headed to Lisbon’s Belem neighbourhood, where we enjoyed the following: Pasteis de Natas (which were apparently invented at the Pasteis de Belem cafe, and certainly they make the tastiest version); The Church at the Monastery of Jeronimos; Padrao dos Descombrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries); and the Torre de Belem, an ancient fortification.
    • Dinner (and later, drinks) with our friend Soledad: We went to Mercado da Ribeira, which is basically a high-end food court, featuring small outposts of all the top restaurants in the city.

    After all that adventuring, we headed home to get some sleep before starting our roadtrip in the morning! Lots of photos below, with descriptions to properly explain all the things we saw. Check ’em out:

    view of Lisbon from above – we took the famous streetcar from one end of the city to the other. This was the final view!
    siblings at the top of the city
    getting fancy with panoramic views
    at the gates to Lisbon, right at the waterfront. Not behaving
    And then, behaving. Kevin made us take a nice one for our parents.
    at a central cable car junction, on our way to lunch
    lunch appetizers at Sea Me!
    At the top of another Lisbon hill
    Tyler capturing the beauty of Lisbon 😉
    the view of the street from our AirBnB
    get to the gym, Tyler! (PS: my wardrobe change took place when we took Tyler back to the AirBnB and I unpackaged the Lululemon clothes I made him pick up in Canada for me)
    just another beautiful Lisbon streeet
    sibings and hills and streetcar tracks.
    Tyler really couldn’t get enough of the beautiful streets (I was the same when I first came to Europe)
    Praying pre-Sangria outside the Convento do Carmo
    world’s sketchiest pool table. May very well have been 50+ years old, sans maintenance
    Enjoying a cafe kiosk, 30 steps from our apartment
    Just another gorgeous building we spotted on the way to lunch
    view from the Nun’s canteen!
    inside at the canteen
    the welcoming door
    Info about lunch, for those interested
    with a cable car in the background. Same style that we took a ride on the day before
    siblings in Lisbon
    just a random beautiful street, no big deal
    seriously! a random sidewalk!
    siblings taking in the squares of Lisbon
    Kevin really put his photo skills to work on this trip. Always wanting to capture good shots for the family!
    Enjoying the view at the shores of the Tagus river. At least one of us is paying attention to the view.
    our cab to Belem was a shark! Also was driven by a woman who MADE us put on our seatbelts.
    Tyler getting artistic at Pasteis de Belem
    our Pasteis de Nata
    where/how they’re made
    SO many pasteis de nata!
    Outside of the Monastery of Jeronimos
    this building is bananas
    Inside the church – gotta keep quiet!
    Upstairs at the church. Couldn’t figure out how to get there and also couldn’t deal with not talking, so we left.
    A massive fountain in Belem. First time seeing it active!
    Tyler in front of the 25 of April Bridge. Just like his trip to San Francisco a few weeks prior!
    The massive Monument to the Discoveries. Built to commemorate Portuguese exploration.
    It. is. so. big.
    We went to the top of the Monument and caught a pretty stellar view.
    That’s the Torre de Belem in the distance
    It’s too damn hot and sunny up here!
    view of the Monastery of Jeronimos
    Overhead view of the rose compass, donated to Portugal by South Africa. The map in the centre shows all the places that Portuguese explorers went.
    oh hey coolio!
    There was an exhibit in the basement of the monument, where we saw some cool posters
    Was feeling the heat, but Kevin solved that with water and gelato.
    siblings at the Torre de Belem
    Nice bag!
    #selfie at the torre de belem
    and again
    wtf?
    having dessert with Soledad!
    look at these kids!
    having fun?
  • Back to the beginning: a few days in Lisbon

    Back to the beginning: a few days in Lisbon

    Back in December, when Kevin and I were in Canada for Christmas, we planned out a trip that would involve a couple of weeks in Lisbon followed by travels through Spain, all the way to Paris, where we’d then fly back to Cambodia.

    We booked plane tickets to Lisbon, Portugal for January 4th.

    Back in November, I’d been planning a January trip to Vietnam with two of my lady friends, Julie & Komal. Due to the complications of life and travel visas, that hadn’t worked out. However, Julie planned to be in Lisbon for 2 days along with Kevin and I.

    When Kevin was hit in the mouth with a hockey stick on January 2nd, I was admittedly freaking out. Not only had we booked tickets to Lisbon, but my friend had booked a trip to meet us there. Needless to say, we didn’t miss our flight. I hopped Kevin up on pain killers and got him on the plane to Lisbon. His godfather met us there, and showed us to an incredibly wonderful few days in one of my favourite cities that I’ve been to yet.

    Many photos are attached, because we were able to cram lots of fun into a few short days. One of the most important things to note is how much we were able to do while also being completed relaxed. Julie was coming off a serious bout of food poisoning, and Kevin was obviously also in quite a bit of pain. However, Lisbon is such a welcoming and easy-to-access, non-touristy, relaxed place that were able to really make the most of our time there.

    Rather than crash at a hotel, we rented an AirBnB through a group called Travel & Tales. The fine gentlemen who run Travel & Tales, Pedro & Duarte, rent out a series of apartments in the chic Lisbon neighbourhood of Principe Real.

    One of the most bizarre things about Lisbon is how similar (also better than) it is to San Francisco. Hills are one such similarity, and when Kevin’s godfather drove us up into Principe Real, and then parked on one of the steepest hills imaginable, I knew we were in for an authentically Lisbon experience. Pedro helped us check in and hooked us up with some free SIM cards for our phones, and we were off on an adventure. Oh, and the apartment we were renting? Absolutely beautiful. Historical. Interesting. Clean. Well-located. I cannot say enough good things. It really represented the best of what Lisbon has to offer.

    Relative to other European capital cities, Lisbon is geographically small and rather inexpensive. And yet, as the capital city of the once-massive Portuguese empire, it’s jam-packed with history, old-world beauty, and remnants of the colonial wealth that created it.

    The city has many interesting neighbourhoods, and an hour or two of walking can really take you through a great cross-section of the best of Lisbon. We walked everywhere and saw a lot. It also helps that the hills of Lisbon mean you’re never far from an incredible, heightened view of the city. From old plazas with fountains and monuments galore, to the city’s oceanfront, where colonial ships once presented their wealth to kingdom, to ruins, and one of the first elevators in Europe, we walked and saw it all.

    Kevin took a couple of much-needed naps, as well as an afternoon trip to a private hospital to see if his lip was actually recovering, so Julie and I also had a couple of long exploratory jaunts. On one occasion we hopped in a cab to the Belem neighbourhood. There, we sat by waterfront along the Tagus river and enjoyed some lovely January sunshine. We also saw the Jeronimos Monastery, and the “Monument to the Discoveries”. We also caught a glimpse of the Ponte de 25 April (April 25th Bridge), which is essentially Lisbon’s version of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. It’s 27th largest suspension bridge in the world. I highly suggest you click on all those links and read what Wikipedia has to say about all these sights. So many interesting things to learn! On another jaunt, we decided to start walking and just see where we ended up. Turns out that we ended up at a lookout point behind a neighbourhood that had enticed us with a long yet lovely staircase. It was the perfect spot to watch the sunset, though regrettably I didn’t have my camera. That type of magical experience is exactly what makes Lisbon so enchanting.

    With all that walking, we obviously needed to eat, and Lisbon had us covered there as well. Because Lisbon is so old, almost every building is special in some way, which makes dining that much more interesting. We opted for a couple of low-key local places for lunch, and tried some fancier dining at night. Portuguese food is simple yet delicious, and I think that would describe our Lisbon culinary experience as well.

    If you can’t already tell, I’m a big fan of Lisbon. More than that, I’m a big fan of spending time with the people who I care about. I’ll let you see more of what we did by perusing the photos below. What really made this trip special was getting to explore a beautiful city with Kevin and my dear friend Julie. If you’ve never considered visiting Lisbon, I suggest that you add it to your to-do list, but more than that, I hope that you make the time to have interesting experiences with the people who you love.

    streetcar sighting!
    Ponte 25 de Abril
    enjoying a traditional Portuguese lunch!
    and later, having an espresso with a freshly made pastel de nata!
    walking the streets of Lisbon
    one of the many beautiful pracas (squares/plazas) that we explored.
    we were lucky to be there in time to enjoy all the Christmas decorations
    and fountains, of course
    from the pathway to the first elevator in Europe, you can see Carmo Convent, which was destroyed in the Great Lisbon earthquake in 1755.
    to our left, the entrance to the elevator. Behind us, stairs to the top of the elevator.
    the view from the top
    outside our ‘apartment’.
    walking to the bars in the Chiado neighbourhood we came upon a Heather-sized door!
    some traditional Portuguese decor in our temporary Lisbon home
    enjoying dinner in Faz Gosto, which is located in part of a former convent
    Poor Kevin, eating clam soup with straw 😦
    the decor in Pensao Amour, our bar of choice.
    early morning at a market in Lisbon