The Month Of Amsterdam: November 2024 Recap

Here I am recapping the second to last month of 2024 while my brain is still in 2023. I really need to get on top of this temporal confusion, but in the meantime let’s see what I got up to in November 😉 .

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I Joined The Health Insurance Marketplace

It finally happened. Now that I’m pulling money from my investments, my ‘income’ according to the tax man surpassed the level where I need to choose a healthcare plan from the marketplace instead of defaulting to Washington State Medicaid that I basically never used. Continue reading “I Joined The Health Insurance Marketplace”

Medical Tourism: Dental Cleaning And Cavity Fillings In Bologna, Italy

I knew that getting things done in Italy could be a bureaucratic nightmare from living there previously, but I didn’t expect getting a dental appointment to be one of those things 🙂 .

Up to this point, I’ve had my teeth cleaned in several countries and Italy is the first one where getting an appointment took so much effort that I almost gave up.

So today I have a saga for you, but it does have a happy ending. I hope this helps if anyone else is trying to get dental care in Italy as a tourist. So let’s get into it.

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Review: IcelandAir – Boston, MA to Reykjavík, Iceland

So I got tricked into going to Iceland 🙂 …I’m totally kidding. As I mentioned in my recent monthly recap, I kept hearing about Iceland because of IcelandAir’s marketing push showing how they will add a free stopover in their gorgeous country to any flight. Continue reading “Review: IcelandAir – Boston, MA to Reykjavík, Iceland”

The Month Of Switzerland & Italy: October 2024 Recap

Time keeps rolling by at a breakneck speed and I continue to be shocked at how fast it flies by. I guess that means I’m having a lot of fun 😉 .  So let’s see what I got up to in October!
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Review: Blue Car Rental – Iceland’s Best Rental Car Company?

So I kept hearing about the beauty of Iceland (I guess their marketing push with IcelandAir worked 😉 ) . As a result, I put it on my list to visit at some point. However, after four years of retirement and being a nomad that moves around the world every month, my list of places to visit has been growing instead of shrinking.

I wasn’t sure when I would be able to fit Iceland into my plans, but then I was planning a trip to Europe and had a eureka moment after looking at flights. IcelandAir flights fit all my criteria and let me add a stopover of up to 7 days in Iceland to each flight for no extra money. Nice 🙂 . So I was sold and my trip to Iceland was solidified as a precursor to my mainland Europe adventures. Continue reading “Review: Blue Car Rental – Iceland’s Best Rental Car Company?”

Here’s What Retirees Do All Day! (I Recorded What I Did Every Hour For 4 Years Of Retirement)

I’m back at it 🙂 . Years ago I mentioned that I accidentally recorded everything I did in 1 hour increments for my whole first year of retirement. Originally this was because I was curious to see what I got up to with unlimited time, and later I found it so useful that I just kept doing it. Continue reading “Here’s What Retirees Do All Day! (I Recorded What I Did Every Hour For 4 Years Of Retirement)”

“Is It Worth It?” The Blue Lagoon: Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Spring

Iceland is known as the land of ice and fire because it has both some of the largest glaciers in Europe and some of the world’s most active volcanoes. Part of having so much geothermal activity from the latter means there’s an abundance of natural hot springs around the country. And The Blue Lagoon is one of those hot springs.

I’d say that it’s Iceland’s most famous since I had heard of it many times before ever visiting the country. It was the only geothermal pool I knew the name of before even arriving. So when my Partner and I were planning this trip with my Mom, we decided to check it out.

My Mom had visited The Blue Lagoon about a decade before during her first trip to Iceland and I was cautiously curious because it appeared that the only reason I had heard of The Blue Lagoon was because they are very good at marketing, which does not always (or even usually in my experience) mean that it’s worth it to visit. Continue reading ““Is It Worth It?” The Blue Lagoon: Iceland’s Most Famous Hot Spring”