Month in Review: September 2019

Ending the month with another round up post, and this month was a big one. So without further ado, here’s the month in review for September 2019! 

Travels

This month we went to…

• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Lund & Malmo, Sweden
• Salzburg, Austria
• Venice, Italy
• Tuscany, Italy
• Cinque Terre, Italy

I told you it was a big month!

Highlights

Obviously, my biggest highlight of September was our moms trip! We spent three weeks in Europe with our moms and it was so awesome to see them and explore more of Europe together. The best part was just seeing our moms again after more than three months away from home. And the cherry on top was all of the great adventures we got to have together.

Some of my favourite parts (which will be featured in upcoming blog posts) included:

• Having daily fika in Sweden with my mom and her friends. Any excuse for a midday pastry is all right by me!
• Sharing our new home in Prague with our moms and watching them fall in love with this awesome city.
• The incredible views over Salzburg, particularly from the Hohensalzburg Fortress.
• Wandering the quiet back streets of Venice.
• Living our best lives at our incredible villa in Tuscany, compelte with a postcard-perfect view!

Lowlights

While the moms trip was certainly the highlight, it was also really exhausting. It’s been a while since I’ve travelled for three weeks non-stop, moving every few nights, navigating new cities and trying to make four different people happy. I hit the pillow every night around 10 and was completely wiped. And with our busy days of sightseeing, it also meant I got a little behind on my freelance work (which I’m paying for now).

Other lowlights would have to be the crazy crowds in Venice. Boarding the water buses to Burano and Murano was suffocating. We also ran into some problems with our rental car. It took forever to pick it up and forever to return it – but luckily we had no problems on the road.

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!).

3 Weeks in Europe with Our Moms

19 Things No One Tells You About Being an Expat

3 Days in Stockholm – Your Perfect Itinerary

Expat Life: Finding the Balance

One Day in Amsterdam Itinerary

32 Photos that Will Convince You to Visit Schonbrunn Palace

How to Choose Where to Go on Your Next Trip

How to choose the best international health insurance

What I read this month

Below are the books I finished reading this month. If you want to check out my reading and reviews of these books, visit the Story Highlights on my personal Instagram @rianaautumn.

• The Dinner List by Rebecca Serle
• Life Will Be the Death of Me by Chelsea Handler
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

It was a quieter reading month for me. I thought I would do a ton of reading on all of our train and plane ride but I was usually too exhausted to get much done. And, of course, all of my good library holds had to come through when I had no energy to read!

Best reads/listens/watches

Reads: My favourite reads this month were The Dinner List and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – two fiction novels! I usually read a lot of non-fiction, so this was a pleasant surprise. The Dinner List I picked up on a whim but the writing was beautiful and the storytelling concept was very cool. Eleanor Oliphant has been on my library holds list forever so I was super excited to get my hands on it. It didn’t disappoint with great characters and a captivating story.

Listens: I didn’t have a ton of podcasting time this month either so pared it down to my basics: catching up on international Survivor recaps. I love them! I also enjoy the show True Crime Obsessed for a comedic and light take on true crime TV shows.

Watches: Again, with all our travelling, there wasn’t much time for TV. But we did manage to stay on top of Survivor Australia, which was amazing. Even though my favourite didn’t win, it was a phenomenal season. A running joke on our trip was that we needed to watch The Sound of Music since we went on TSOM tour in Salzburg and Colin has never seen the movie. But we never got around to it. Can you believe that movie is three hours long?

Best and worst meals

Best: My favourite meal of the month was the dinner we had at Osteria Alla Staffa in Venice. The whole thing was just so good, and that was after eating at some more mediocre places, so we really appreciated it. We started with delicious beef carpacio and proscuitto with cheese and finished with delicious semifrados and creme brulees. The entrees, mostly seafood based, were also to die for. Runner up: The best gelato at Dondoli in San Gimignano!

Worst: Probably our first dinner in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a big fan of the dry pork roast (think: burnt, thick bacon) or fish with tons of bones. The potatoes and sauce were good though!

Expat life

One thing I love is being able to host people and share our home! It was so fun to have our moms here and to show them our new life. And it was even nicer to know how much they loved our apartment and our new city.

One thing I hate is getting back into life and work mode after our big trip. It’s been difficult playing catch up on work and needing to spend so many hours in front of my laptop. But the trade off, being able to go on amazing trips, is definitely worth it!

Gratitude

This month, I’m most grateful for our moms who journeyed all the way from Vancouver to wander around Europe with us. One of the things that made our move to Prague a lot easier was knowing that we would have family coming out to visit. I’m so grateful to them for coming all this way and being totally on board with the trip we planned.

I’m also very grateful to the two awesome dog sitters we had who helped take care of Ellie while we were away!

Shout out to The Girl in Flat 26 for the idea to add a gratitude section to my monthly round up!

Coming up next

We’ve got quite a few trips coming up over the next few months and I could not be more excited for them. We’re starting off October by heading to Nuremberg for a few days, including a day trip to Munich for Oktoberfest. We’ll then be back in Prague for a couple of weeks, saying goodbye to some friends who are moving and celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving (fingers crossed I can find cranberry sauce!). And then at the end of the month, we’ll be travelling again. Plans aren’t solidified yet but I think we’ll be going to Bratislava and Budapest!

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What did you get up to this month?