Tag: Drinks

Bergen

Place 16 – May 14 2022 to May 17 2022: Bergen – 17th May Celebrations!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Day 1

We had to get to the airport early in the morning but we didn’t mind as we were travelling to probably our favourite place, Bergen!

When we arrived, we met our great friends Espen & Marcus at the airport and they drove us to Espen’s apartment. We hung out with them at the apartment as well as meeting Espen’s girlfriend, Rikke, who is a wonderful person also!

Rikke made us some lunch, which was delicious, and we sat and had a conversation for a while.


We wanted to visit the city, as did our friends, so we all took the bus to the city and had a walk around.


Marcus’ dad owns a nightclub/bar in Bergen and he was working, whilst the FA Cup game was on, so we went to watch that with Espen (he’s a Liverpool fan) and we had some drinks and food.


We went back home and we watched Eurovision for the first time! We had a great time watching it actually, and it’s a big deal in Scandinavia. We had some homemade pizza whilst we watched that and then it was time to sleep.

Day 12:

We had some nice homemade breakfast lovingly made by Rikke & Espen.

We had a relaxed morning and watch the GB Vs Norway hockey game. We then got ourselves ready and headed into the city on the bus again.

We lazily walked around the city and tried to buy few things and look around some shops as well.

We went out in the afternoon/evening to watch Rikke in a cheerleading performance! It was super cool to see lots of different ages doing a similar thing but at different levels.

Day 13

We went out for brunch in city with our friends which was really nice! We had some good food and some amazing weather, so much so we were getting burnt from the sun.


We rented a car, so we went to pick that up. They told us there were no issues with it but it was quite scratched up, so we did a full walk around of that and then we set off! We drove to the city and parked up before going to get MANY cinnamon buns and coffee, as is the rule in Norway.

We went for a BBQ at Rikke’s parents’ place which was a really nice place, great food and they were really lovely people as well.


In the late evening, we went to meet another friend, Tony, for some drinks and a chat. The weather was so nice we were able to sit outside comfortably, too!

Day 14

This day was the national day for Norway and we were excited to celebrate!

We got all dressed up for breakfast, Curtis and Espen wore suits, Kim had a nice skirt on and Rikke had a Bunad on, the national outfit of Norway. The table looked all fancy and we had a really nice, big breakfast!

Espen & Rikke!


We took the (very busy) bus to the city to join the celebrations.


There was a parade and we were able to get a table outside to watch the parade and have some drinks! The weather was perfect again so we caught some sun, as well.


After the parade, we went out to Rilke’s aunt’s house for some food and chatting! Everyone was Norwegian so it was a good time to practice some as well. We tried some Rømmegrøt, which is basically ‘sour cream porridge’. When adding a lot of cinnamon sugar, it’s pretty good actually.

We went back to the apartment to get changed into comfortable clothes and relax after a long busy, but fun, day!


We ate homemade cheesecake and strawberries whilst we relaxed and we were all super tired.


Marcus and his girlfriend, Stine, arrived and we got to meet her for the first time. We all sat and chatted and had a really fun time. This was when Curtis finally got the confidence to chat in Norwegian and surprised everyone with how much he has improved, too!

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United Kingdom

Place 92 – May 3 2022 to May 9 2022: United Kingdom 🇬🇧 – A Visit Home (Part 1)

Kim & Curtis Hale

Day 1 – Andover, UK

We came back to visit family in the UK!

It’s been 5 years or so since we’ve been in the UK so we thought it was time to visit the family and friends in our home land.

We arrived around 11:00, got picked up from the airport by Kim’s dad and then we went back to Kim’s parents’ place to stay.

We showered and went right out to get our first food item that we’ve been wanting to get for a while…A baguette!

There’s a baguette shop in our hometown (Andover) that sells terrific baguettes, so we walked down to get that and have some lunch.

We relaxed for a bit but stopping ourselves from sleeping after the long travel.

We went to see Curtis’ mum and then we both went with her to meet Curtis’ siblings from school and surprise them! They were surprised, as expected, and they both cried!

After picking up the kids from school, we stayed at Curtis’ family’s house for a bit and hung out with them until we got picked up by Kim’s sister, Abbie, and driven back to Kim’s parents’ for some Chinese food!

That was the end of the first day, which was mostly just getting acquainted with the timezone again and eating food.

Day 2 – Andover, UK

We finally got to take the dog out for a walk with Kim’s family. It was nice to see the doggo again too and be able to take a walk around places we used to walk around a lot.

We needed to go to the bank to get some boring admin stuff sorted but it was good to get that done. We had to visit 2 banks in total but we did it all in a day!

There was a bunch of stuff that we had left in the UK that we really needed to sort out. There was a large pile at each of our parents’ houses so we each had a bunch of stuff to sort. We spent a lot of this day sorting Kim’s items and deciding what to keep (which wasn’t much!).

We had some leftover Chinese for dinner and watched a movie.

Day 3 – Andover, UK

It was time for another dog walk! We took the dog out for another nice long walk and had some decent weather too.

We then went out for brunch with Curtis’ parents at a ‘new’ garden centre, which was really tasty and nice to hang out with them.

Before heading out, we stopped in at our first UK shop on our trip so we had a great time walking around there finding all the great snacks and seeing how cheap everything is!

We had to get ourselves a UK SIM card for whilst we’re visiting which we can also use in other countries, so we went into the town to buy one of those.

Curtis then went back to his family home and cleared out his items that he left 5 years ago and mostly just got rid of everything!

In the evening, there was a really lovely family BBQ at Curtis’ family’s house with a lot of his family as well as Kim’s family so it was a really great gathering with great weather.

Day 4 – Andover, UK

We went out for breakfast with Kim’s family down at a local pub and then went out to Basingstoke for some shopping and wandering around! We used to love going there for shopping and a few other things so it was good to see what was there and Kim was able to take a look at a few shoe shops, too, to see if she could find something she needed.

Once the evening came, we met with a bunch of friends and had some drinks and pizza! We hadn’t seen most of them for many, many years so it was a lot of catching up, chatting and having a really good time!

We found it easier to stay in Basingstoke, so we booked in to a Premier Inn, which is one of our favourite chain hotel brands in the UK so we wanted to stay there too!

Day 5 – Andover, UK

We had breakfast out at the pub again on this morning and then we went over to visit Kim’s sister at her house and see the house for the first time which was amazing to see!

We then had a really nice picnic in the garden as it was Kim’s mum’s birthday! This one was of our more relaxed days which was really nice to have.

Day 6 – Andover, UK

This was a day of meeting with our friends!

Kim met with 2 friends separately, Ashleigh & Eloise, and she had a bunch of really great conversations with them!

Whilst Kim did that, Curtis met with Shane, who was his best man at his wedding. He had lunch with him, and some drinks which was great to catch up. There was a lot to talk about.

We went out to Curtis’ auntie’s house to see her and her family and it was very, very nice to see them.

Dinner was at Curtis’ family’s house which was really nice to get some time with them and Curtis got some home cooking from mum!

Day 7 – London, UK

We took the train to London in the morning which was exciting! We love taking the train and it was super easy from where we used to live.

We did some walking around/shopping, as you do in London, before we went to meet Kim’s cousin, Bethany, in Camden!

Kim used to love going to Camden so we went there to go to the food market with her cousin, who is super lovely and we had a great time chatting and wandering around with her.

Once we finished up with Bethany, we took a train to a place we’d never been to before called Kingston. We met with a friend who lives there and had some dinner with her as well as a nice walk along the river.

We had to take a couple of trains to get back to Andover but we were close to the final train so we had to get a move on and do that! It took a while but we were able to get back home for some sleep after a really busy but amazing day!

We were away for a long time, so this is just part one, but it’s been a while since there were any blogs, but enjoy!

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Sep 25 to Sep 26 2021: Vancouver, BC – Walking Alpacas!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Saturday 25 September 2021

On Saturday, Curtis was up at a good time to go and get a haircut. He had a really great barber, actually! She was new at the shop but she was very nice and did a great job. Curtis’ll definately be going back to her for his next cut.

Right after that, Curtis walked back home and met Kim, before we walked for about 30 minutes to get to a park for a BBQ with Curtis’ hockey team which the team organised!

Not too many people turned up, but it was nice to have a bit of down time in the blistering sun, eat some food and have some drinks.

We headed back home and Kim went out to get a few items at some stores and Curtis watched the first Leafs pre season game!

Sunday 26 September 2021

On Sunday morning, we were up early and got ourselves some croissants for breakfast.

We left the apartment into the lovely rain and drove for about an hour up to Langley to a farm!

Kim had booked an alpaca walking experience for us both as Curtis’ favourite animal is the alpaca.

We got there and were handed an alpaca right away. We were able to walk them for a bit and then we got to a field where we met many more alpacas and got to feed them whilst we learned all about them.

We got to see the pigs, chickens & rabbits followed by some cows that came to say hello!

We headed back home after we were there for a while and once we got back we were pretty hungry, so we went out for an impromptu late lunch!

We went to Water St Cafe, which is down in Gastown.

We may have got far too much food, though on the plus side, we had dinner for the next night!

We got some mixed breads along with a cheese caprise, which was very delicious. The bread was really good too.

We finished that and for some reason, we order a meal each. Kim got a carbonara and Curtis got meatball pasta.

We had very little of our meals as it was a little too much for us! But we did have a few drinks which were delicious.

We walked back home in the rain and when we got home we did some relaxing for the remainder of the evening.

All in all, a fun, busy weekend!

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 991: Vancouver, BC – Beach, Drinks & Snacks!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a company wide meeting at 09:00 which unveiled some very interesting news!

After that, Curtis had a team meeting and then he talked a colleague through how to do something.

Curtis then had some tickets to do, followed by a meeting to help someone with something. The afternoon was mostly tickets and then he also did a bit of security work.

Curtis got some of his Norwegian homework done in the early evening, until Kim got home.

Kim’s Day

Kim had another busy and productive day! She woke up and got ready. Then she had breakfast and started whiteboarding with her managers. They managed to get into some really great topics and iron so much out.

In the early afternoon they left the hotel, popped things in the car and headed over to a nearby cafe to finish the day. Kim was able to get a few things done while everyone else was on a call and then they continued the discussions. Later on Kim did a mini presentation and tour of some research she had been doing and was really happy to know she was on the right track and getting stuff done!

Evening

We walked down to the beach and met a couple of Kim’s colleagues who were down there. We sat and chatted for a little bit but then needed to head to the hotel Kim was at last night to meet another colleague and friend of Kim’s there as they had some drink tokens for the bar! Curtis finally got to meet her after speaking with her a few times on Zoom but never in person.

We had a drink and a snack and had some really good chats. Overall, a pretty fun evening!

We stopped at our favourite Vietnamese place to get a banh mi for dinner.

We got home and watched a bit of TV together and headed to be fairly early, for us.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 979: Vancouver, BC – Planned For A Half Day…But No!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis slept a little bit this morning which was really nice. He woke up with quite a bit of pain but that subsided once he took some pills.

Curtis played games all day whilst Kim worked.

We were going to hang out for half of the day, but unfortunately Kim had to work and have meetings all day.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a super busy and interesting day! She started with a mini team meeting with her managers to discuss plans for the next couple of weeks. They all then joined a meeting to start discussions about some really important and interesting things.

Kim then hosted a meeting, while setting up a laptop, to brainstorm how a team will work and build up. They then went into a meeting about the responsibilities within the team. Kim continued to set up the laptop and take stock of incoming laptops.

After the meetings Kim then also set up meetings for the new starter finished their laptop and sent it out. She also managed to get through other pop up admin while waiting for the laptop to update. She the. Had to call Lenovo to ask for support, so she did that while getting ready.

Once Kim was at the restaurant she said hello and had a wonderful couple of hours in two places for a couple of drinks with old colleagues.

Evening

When Kim finished with working, she went to meet some friends downtown at a bar/restaurant. Curtis drove her down and she had a really good time! Some people left shortly after she got there as they needed to head out, but some people stayed and Kim really enjoyed that.

Kim got home and we watched some TV and relaxed for the evening and then headed to bed.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 972: Vancouver, BC – Still No Pain & Blood Taken!

Kim & Curtis Hale

We woke up around 08:50 and Kim had a meeting and then Curtis woke up and led in bed relaxing for a whole. He still had no pain from his surgery, which is great! He took his pills during the night, which likely helped.

Kim went out to get her blood taken for something and whilst she did that, Curtis got out of bed.

Once Kim got back, she brought us coffee and then we hung out for a bit.

Kim did some more work, had an interview to conduct and a couple of meetings.

When it became the evening, Kim went to meet some work colleagues for pizza and drinks and had a really nice time! Just relaxing, chatting and pizza (which is the best bit, of course!).

Curtis stayed home and had some soup for dinner and played some games.

Kim got back home and we watched some TV before heading to bed.

It’s time for vaccine number 2 tomorrow at 12:45, which is exciting!

This Time This Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 958: Vancouver, BC – Work Beach ‘Party’!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis continued doing project work for most of today again, around tickets and one meeting with his team.

A pretty productive day really, which he finished off by doing some Norwegian homework.

Curtis just played games whilst Kim was out in the evening.

Kim’s Day

Today Kim had a beach day at work! To get started for the day Kim did a coffee run and went to her colleagues home to her picked up by their teammate. They all then drove over to the beach and stopped by a shop to pick up some ice.

Once the three of them arrived at the beach they picked a great spot just behind a washed up log to set up the tent and be ready for people to arrive. They had a little while before people arrived and just hung out in the sun and enjoyed doing nothing.

Throughout the day various people came and went, bringing games, families and dogs. It was so wonderful to meet so many people in person for the first time. It was an effortlessly fun day with lots of laughing and fun!

Evening

Once Kim got home, we ordered some southern BBQ food and had a relaxing evening, which was needed after the amount of food we ate!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 923: Vancouver, BC – Very Little Side Effects!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Side Effects

We both woke up and felt pretty alright post vaccine.

Curtis’ muscles felt a little weird and walking felt like he was floating for the first couple of hours of the day, but after that he was all good. Kim has no side effects and Curtis’ arm actually stopped hurting by the evening which is excellent! Pretty lucky on our part.

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had some tickets to do in the morning but had no meetings until around 11:00.

At 11:00, Curtis had his meeting with someone to help them with an issue they had and it was a quick call.

He was then able to complete some more tickets before lunch.

After lunch, Curtis had a team meeting that actually overran as they were all having a good chat about random things! That took him to the end of the day.

Curtis actually got a new headset for his Xbox in the mail, so he set that up and played some games whilst Kim was on a work call.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a slightly slower morning today, she got ready at her own pace and made sure she was feeling okay from the vaccination. She felt fine and went right into a meeting to go over planning and next steps for a few things.

She then joined a few check in meetings before having a discussion about hiring. For the early afternoon Kim ordered the remaining gift cards.

Before the trivia night Kim had another quick planning session and then she joined a call to help set up the event.

For the afternoon Kim joined in the trivia games! There were quizzes, tongue twisters and then everyone jumped into a game of skribbl. It was so much fun and Kim especially enjoyed it as she helped with the set up before but was able to just join in and enjoy the event. After a few people stayed to play more games and just hang out and chat. It was so great!

Evening

It was double takeaway week, as Friday has to be a takeaway day and yesterday we had pizza as a celebration to getting our first vaccine.

We ordered some McDonald’s and ate that whilst watching some TV. We had some drinks earlier in the evening and were feeling those, so the food was a big help!

We relaxed for the evening and neither of us could believe it was already the weekend!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 893: Vancouver, BC – Back To Evening Walks

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had an orientation planned for 09:00 but the person didn’t know about it so didn’t show up until 09:20.

Curtis got that orientation completed and then had a team meeting, followed by a meeting to discuss a new project and get that project started.

After that meeting was done, Curtis wrote out the project which led perfectly to lunch time.

After lunch, Curtis had a meeting with Microsoft to scope out a software rollout project with them and that has been scheduled in for next week!

Once that meeting was done, there was another one right after with his team to just talk about random things.

The remainder afternoon was then filled with tickets and he had to help someone urgently get something working that seemed that it should have no issues. He was actually able to figure it out with some help from a colleague, but it was a strange one for sure.

Kim’s Day

Today is Kim’s most busy day of the week. For the rest of the week Kim will be resting more. To start her day Kim joined an interview and then the quick chat after. She then joined a recruitment call to discuss an upcoming role.

After a little break Kim had another interview and review after. She then joined a colleague in a review of the candidate pipeline before she joined a meeting to discuss a couple of interviews that took place with the exec team for the day. She then went to join the pipeline review again, but then another interview finished so she reviewed that one with two other people and made a plan on next steps for a few candidates and roles.

Evening

We had leftover salad from yesterday for dinner and then we took out our recycling.

After the recycling was dealt with, we went out for a nice evening walk again.

We stopped off at the liquor store to get some drinks, seen as we were out, but really it was a nice walk in some lovely evening weather.

We got back home and relaxed, watching some TV and decompressing for the day.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 485: Vancouver, BC – Celebrations

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Today was the final day of the virtual retreat. There were meetings from 08:30 and there were a wide range of topics, including work things but also some non work topics, such as information on Bitcoin which was very interesting.

In the late afternoon, there were 2 more meetings. The first was a social gathering for anyone in the Vancouver office. This was a virtual holiday party. There were awards handed out as well as some quizzes and games!

Right after that, Curtis had a similar thing with his team for about 1.5 hours which was really fun and nice to hang out with them.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a lazy work day today, she started by sending an email to a candidate and drawing up their new starter paperwork. Then she called the candidate to set up a meeting for the afternoon between them and someone in the company so they can have an informal chat. To finish the morning Kim set up the accounts and then sent over the offer paperwork!

In the afternoon Kim organised some things for an event in the new year. She started by making a quick version of the invite and purring together some of the information people will need.

For the rest of the afternoon Kim did lots of little admin things that she had been meaning to do for a while. She started a vendor list, made a few reports, started a new job description, did some research and organised a few meetings for in the new year and next week.

Evening

We decided on Korean for dinner so we ordered some Korean chicken.

We played some SuperHot until it arrived and then watched Megamind whilst we ate.

After that, we watched the final episode of The Queen’s Gambit and then we watched the first episode of Season 2 of Hjem Til Jul a Norwegian Netflix show about Christmas, which we have been waiting for!

We watched some YouTube and other TV, as well as played some games for the remainder of the evening.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale