Month in Review: March 2020
Welp, I didn’t think March would be the last one of these I would do! But now that we’ve left Prague, I think I’ll stop with my monthly recaps since there won’t be as much travel to report on. But don’t worry – I have an exciting new monthly series coming soon – and lots of past trips to still blog about!
Without further ado, here’s the month in review for March 2020! And in case you missed last month’s, here is Feb 2020 in review.
Travels
This month we went to…
- Salzburg, Austria
- Lake Bohinj, Slovenia
- Lake Bled, Slovenia
- Ljubljana, Slovenia
- Zagreb, Croatia
- Paris, France
- Vancouver, Canada
Highlights
Slovenia has been on my bucket list for a long time and I’m so glad I got to cross it off before we left Prague! Visiting Lake Bohinj and Lake Bled was amazing. We had incredible weather and no crowds. It totally lived up to the Instagram photos I’ve been staring at for months. Ljubljana was also a great surprise – a super cute city I’m hoping we get to visit again!
While the whole journey home was pretty rough, I guess it counts as a highlight that we did make it home. Our flights were empty enough that we always had the middle seat free, which is a huge bonus when travelling with a dog in cabin. And hearing the stories of people stranded all over the world, I’m very relieved we made it back to Canada.
Lowlights
Well, the biggest lowlight would definitely be cutting our year in Prague short. It was a very tough decision, and you can read all about it in our journey home blog post. While I think it was the right decision for us, it was still a tough one and I’m very disappointed we couldn’t finish out our year.
Other lowlights include needing to cut our Croatia trip short, missing out on seeing friends and family in Europe, and all the money we had to spend to get home!
Posts from this month
Here’s what was published on Teaspoon of Adventure this month. If you missed any of my posts, click below to read them (and add your email to the subscribe box on the right or at the end of the page so you don’t miss anymore!).
Barcelona Budget: Where to Save & Where to Splurge
Coronavirus in Prague: Our Experience & What You Can Do
Leaving Prague (Almost Three Months Early)
What I read this month
Below are the books I completed reading this month. If you want to check out my reading and reviews on these books, visit the Story Highlights on my personal Instagram @rianaautumn.
- How to be a Family by Dan Kois
- Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
- Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
- Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered by Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark
Best reads/listens/watches
Reads: I thought I would have finished more books this month, considering we had a few plane rides and lots of time at home in quarantine. But, to be honest, I’ve been feeling pretty anxious and distracted these days. I hope I settle into more reading soon! Of the books I did read, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” was probably my favourite. The characters were so interesting and the format of the book, written mostly in letters, was very fun to read. I recommend it!
Listens: Colin and I listened to some episodes of the podcast You’re Wrong About during our Slovenia road trip. And we loved it! Very informative, yet hilarious, podcast about a variety of topics like stranger danger, serial killers, gangs, halloween candy, etc. We loved learning about all the things we were wrong about.
Watches: I finally watched Booksmart on the plane ride home and it was amazing! The acting, the writing, the characters – it was all so good and pretty believable too. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend you watch it if you haven’t yet! I also fell into the inevitable adventure that is Love Is Blind. It’s trash and I loved every minute.
Best and worst meals
Best: We had an amazing meal at Bled Castle in honour of Colin’s birthday. Bled Cream Cake is as good as I’ve heard it would be! But the best meal of the month would have to be the poke bowl my mom had arranged for us to have as soon as our flight landed back in Vancouver. I have missed poke bowls so much!
Worst: Sadly, on Colin’s actual birthday, we picked up cake slices from a bakery in Ljubljana but all of the cakes were disappointing. Another disappointing meal would be the dinner we had at the airport hotel in Prague. All of the restaurants in Prague were closed so we were limited to about three very expensive options from room service. Overpriced and mediocre.
Expat life
One thing I love is that we got to do it! Now that it’s over, I’m just so grateful we had the time that we did in Prague and really made the most of it. There is more I wish we had done, but I think, overall, we really did a lot with our expat year abroad. It was such an amazing opportunity for us and I’m so glad we sought it out and decided to go for it.
One thing I hate is that expat life is over. It was pretty brutal packing everything up and leaving behind our whole life in Prague with less than 24 hours’ notice. Pushing suitcases down the road and paying to check them in definitely made me regret packing so much!
One thing I’m learning is to say goodbye to our expat life. I’m still working on finding that closure, since the end was so abrupt, and processing how I feel now that we’re back home. It’s a work in progress! I know we’ll go back to visit but we will likely never live in Prague again.
Gratitude
This month, I’m most grateful for all of the support and love we had during our journey home. Our journey from Croatia to Prague and then Prague to Vancouver was all very last minute, very hectic and very expensive. I documented it on my personal Instagram, as well as here on the blog, and the outpouring of love was just so touching. Friends I haven’t spoken to in years were reaching out to wish us well or offer to help. And our family really supported us beyond what we could expect – giving us free housing, stocking our fridge and sending us money for expenses. We knew we would be warmly welcomed home but we are so grateful for this next level amount of love we felt.
Coming up next
If you had asked me three weeks ago, I would have said April would involve a visit from Colin’s cousin in Spain, a trip to Poland, a visit from Colin’s mom and then a trip to the UK with more family. Sadly, all of that has been cancelled.
So far, April will see us finishing out our mandated 14-day self isolation, and then just continuing with it as we maintain our social distancing. And it will also see us moving into some new digs in Vancouver’s West End. I’m looking forward to being in a space long enough to unpack our suitcases and settle in a bit. And Colin is really looking forward to getting back to work!
What did you get up to this month? Hopefully you are safe and healthy!
Always love reading these Month in Review posts, but sorry it’s the last one. Now I get to see you guys face to face ❤
Thanks, Moo! Much better to catch up from just two metres away 🙂
March certainly has been a rollercoaster. I’m glad you all got back safe though and still managed to have an amazing time at the beginning of the month B x
Thank you so much!
Wow! It looks like you definitely had an incredible March! Glad you were able to travel so much, hopefully we can all get back to traveling soon as well!
Not sure that I would call the whole month incredible, but certainly the travelling we got to do before we had to return home on such short notice. Hope you’re well and your month went well!
My first thought was wow! Look at all that luggage! It is such a shame so many of your plans have been cancelled, but I love that you are stepping up to the challenge and looking for new old things to write about, as well as sharing tips and experiences about places you have already visited.
Stay safe and healthy!
Haha to be fair, that is all the luggage we took for one year of living in Prague – just two suitcases each I think is pretty good! Thanks for the kind words and hope you’re well too.
Really sorry that you had to cut your year short but you have all those memories to get you through! Plus self-isolation is perfect planning time! I still haven’t watched Booksmart yet so hopefully I’ll see it in the future! Great review post!
Thanks so much, Daisy! Hope you enjoy Booksmart when you get to it!
It sounds like you had quite an adventurous month – mostly good with a mix of some not so good but overall it looks like it was fun. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much!
Well, you did a whole lot more in a month than I did in the last year. Too bad your trip was cut short, but hey, you’re home now. 🙂
We’d been doing lots while we lived in Europe but definitely a slower pace of life these days!
Oh wow! You’ve been to so many places last month! Though it is a bummer that you had to go back home. It is better to be safe than sorry. Love the different reads that you had! It is a bummer that you had the best and worst meals during Colin’s birthday. At least there was a great cream cake! It is good to always have some gratitude. This makes you appreciate things more. Hope April will be an exciting month!
Thanks so much for reading, Nancy! Hope your April is great too!
It’s great you managed to get in all that travelling before the lockdown happened! Xx
Thanks! Yes, we were very lucky!
Sounds like you guys have been to a lot of amazing places. Prague is definitely on my bucket list. My top 2 dream trips are London and France.
Yes, we were very lucky to do so much travelling! Hope you make it to London and France once it’s safe to do so.