harrison

Holiday skating in front of the Rijksmuseum near our home in Amsterdam

It’s Christmas 2013 and for the third year in a row we are in Switzerland with our Swiss family to celebrate the holidays—a wonderful new tradition for us. Unlike what you might expect of Switzerland, we are not having a white Christmas. The skies are blue, the sun is shining, the temperature is mild, and we have a great view of the snow-covered Alps so we can’t complain!

Christmas dinner at the Rössli: Isabel, Hallie, Sharene, Harrison, Sarah, Griff, Amelia, Phil

Through the magic of Facebook, Skype, email, and because we have had so many visitors, many of you already know what a fairy-tale year we have had in 2013. Our move to Amsterdam has been positive in every imaginable way; in fact, it’s been positive in ways we could not imagine. We are more in love with this city than we were in 2011 when we  lived here for four months. There is a vibrant energy in every neighborhood, every event, and every street, and to us, the Dutch people are the most welcoming, nicest people we have ever met. Our new home is a dream come true; our remodeling was not stressful in any way, we worked with fabulous people, and it was fun to create a home out of a house.

In front of our new home… truly our dream house!

Living Room at Christmas

Master Bedroom

Best of all, we had many visitors this past year and we thank each one for taking the time to come and see us. Unlike in Hawaii where we were busy working all the time, we are now able to spend time with our guests, so we gave lots of tours and had many bike rides and picnics, and we also had many dinner parties with our new Dutch friends. Plus this year, Sharene’s annual girl’s trip occurred in Amsterdam; the 18th year of traveling together!

When we don’t have company, we fill our days with studying Dutch, going to movies, and working on other projects big and small. Harrison has been doing a lot of web work recently on our hotel websites (MauiHotels.com and its sister sites) as well as our personal website www.klein.org. Many of our friends who received the email newsletters we sent out during our “year of being homeless” in 2011 asked if we could make them available in blog form, so Harrison has been hard at work converting each of the over 52 weekly emails into klein.org blog posts (this post was originally an email as well).

We had some amazing experiences traveling to Berlin and Hungary this year, as well as an “interesting” (you can read between the lines on that one) bike and barge trip to France. One highlight (of many) during 2013 was our housewarming party in September. We had over 65 people there and all but two were new Dutch friends; the other two were our dear friends Jeanne and Mike who were visiting from California. It was a great party, complete with a boogie woogie piano player on Harrison’s newly refurbished Baldwin baby grand.

Mike and Jeanne

With Xaviera and Friends

Jan and Pete

The second highlight was Sharene’s birthday—celebrated in the same apartment where she lived in the ’80s when she and Harrison were dating! Her best friend Cathy has been living there since then and hosted a fabulous girl’s party with six of her dearest friends and her sister Linda. It was a magical day.

Sharene's Birthday

Sharene and Linda

We are so grateful for the life we are living and our good health. We could have moved (almost) anywhere, and we think Amsterdam is the best place in the world for us. And we are very happy that so many of our friends think so too, because the best lesson we have learned is how important it is to spend time with those you care about. We like to think our friends and family would visit us wherever we are, but it helps that we’re here!

We want to extend a warm, heartfelt greeting to each and every one of you and hope that good health and little bit of your own magic will be part of your 2014.

Fijne Feestdagen! (Happy Holidays!)

Harrison & Sharene

The Herengracht (Gentlemen’s Canal) during a bike ride

Source: Twitter

Sharene and Harrison’s 2012 Christmas Letter from Amsterdam

Aloha and Hallo!

We did it — we have really moved to Amsterdam. More on that below, but we’re ending up 2012 the same way we started it, by spending the holidays in Switzerland with Sarah and her family. We claim her three beautiful daughters — Amelia, Isabel and Hallie — as our hanai (“adopted”) daughters but deserve no credit for the incredible young women they are. But claim away we do and we cherish every moment we can spend with them.

By the time we left Switzerland last January, we had pretty much decided to make the move from Hawaii to Amsterdam, and we spent much of the year preparing for that move. But we still had lots of places to go; in between our two visits to Switzerland in January and December of this year, we stayed in 29 different places, some for a night or two, some for a month or several.

On January 3rd we flew from Zurich to Boston, picked up our car (which had been stored by a friend), and drove back to the West Coast via the southern route — down the East Coast to Florida, all the way across the continent to Los Angeles, and north from there, visiting more family and friends along the way. Harrison went on to Seattle, while Sharene spent time with her sister Linda in California.

By March we were back in Hawaii, a few weeks in Honolulu then several months in Hilo. We spent those months downsizing our two lifetimes of accumulated personal possessions by about 50%. When we finished we were down to one 10 x 15-foot storage unit, the amount that would fit into a single shipping container and that we hoped would fit into a much smaller space in Amsterdam than we have been used to in the U.S. It was a tough and humbling exercise as we realized that things with so much meaning to us had little value to anyone else (although we were able to send some heirloom furniture to one of Harrison’s relatives). But as painful as it was, we got ourselves organized for our move halfway around the world.

Sharene & Harrison at Coconut Island in Hilo

We celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary while we were in Hilo. We took this photo at the same spot where Harrison asked Sharene to marry him in 1989, long before we had any idea we would move to this part of Hawaii. It was a very special celebration knowing it might be the last time we were here.

We managed to play a little while we were in Hawaii. We saw lots of old friends and spent some time in Honolulu, Kauai, and Maui. One of the best times was when Amelia traveled all the way from Switzerland to spend 10 days with us; it was wonderful to have her to ourselves for so long.

Sharene’s family reunion

We also made two trips back to California, one for the beautiful wedding of the daughter of one of our best friends and one for a reunion of Sharene’s family. Spending time with close friends and family meant so much to us since our move to another continent was just around the corner. Sharene’s brother came out from Kansas City for the reunion on a picture perfect day at Linda’s gorgeous home.

Our New Life and Home in Amsterdam

We boarded our one-way flight to Amsterdam the last day of September and began our new adventure of living abroad! For those of you interested in the legal aspects of moving to another country, we are able to make our new home in the Netherlands thanks to the Dutch American Friendship Treaty.

Nicolaas Maesstraat 69

Sharene getting the keys

Our lives in boxes bound for Amsterdam

In early December Harrison flew back to Hilo to organize our move; the container is now on its way here via Seoul, Korea, and with any luck will reach the port of Rotterdam sometime in February. In the meantime we have a little (but not much) work to do on the new house.

We will have a guest room and a private bath (almost unheard of here) for our guests so just as we have always done, we extend a sincere invitation to visit us! It will never be as warm as Hawaii (and as you can see from the photo at the top, it does snow and get cold enough here in the winter for the canals to freeze over) but spring through fall is nice and during the summer it stays light until 10PM!

We continue to remind ourselves how fortunate we are to be healthy and living such full and amazing lives. We do our best to keep in touch with our friends and family and are so grateful for the hospitality that has been extended to us over the years. We love hearing from each of you (even if it’s just during the holidays) and we hope a visit to Amsterdam will be in your future so we can continue the fun! In the meantime, we wish everyone a wonderful holiday season and a new year full of good health and interesting adventures!

Totdat we elkaar weer ontmoeten (until we meet again!)

Harrison and Sharene

Tonight we leave Hawaii and head off on the next chapter of our lives in Amsterdam.

Reminiscing at Hale Kakahi earlier this year

A quick recap: we sold our beloved Hale Kakahi in early 2010 and then sold our business, Hawaii Holiday Vacation Rentals, later that year. By the end of January 2011 we had packed our belongings into two storage units near Hilo and embarked on a magical trip over the next 13 months. It was a mix of living in a few places (Seattle, Boston, Amsterdam) and traveling and sightseeing. We were exploring and also trying to decide where we wanted to live next. But also, by design, we planned the itineraries so we could see lots of old friends and family along the way. After spending seven months in the US and six months in Europe, it turned out to be one of the best years of our lives and, in the end, life-changing.

When we left Hawaii in February 2011, we thought Seattle would be the choice for the next phase of our lives, and indeed the three months we lived there was wonderful. But after we spent four months being seduced by enchanting Amsterdam, that city and the friends we made there won our hearts and we never wanted to leave! We did leave it, however, in November 2011; we had to because our visa was running out, but we also wanted to get some distance in order to figure out if this was true love or merely a summer fling. We spent another six weeks exploring other parts of Europe, including a lot of time with our adopted family in Switzerland. It was great to be so close to them after being far away for so long; living closer to them is certainly another advantage of our Amsterdam decision.

We left Europe in early January 2012 and made our way back to Hawaii over the next couple of months, landing back in Hilo last March. Our job since then has been to downsize, organize, sell, give away, donate, or otherwise dispose of most of our possessions in preparation for the move. Harrison also digitized all of his music, movies, and audio archives — no easy feat since he had thousands of recordings. Believe us, moving to a foreign country is not for wimps and certainly not for people who cannot let go of “stuff.” It took us five months but we are now down to only one storage unit, enough to fit into a single 20-foot shipping container and maybe even into a typical Amsterdam apartment! It was a long process, much of it painful — seeing how little a lifetime of things that mean so much to you are worth on the open market — but we were able to keep some beautiful family items in Harrison’s family by sending them to relatives on the mainland.

With Amelia at Volcanoes National Park

Even though it took us five months, we did have some fun. In between packing and organizing, we saw lots of our friends. Amelia, our hanai daughter from Switzerland, spent 10 days with us in Hilo. We made visits to California, Maui and Kauai, and we have spent the last month here in Honolulu where we still have a condo. Is it any wonder we’re sending this out? No one ever knows what time zone we’re in!

We know there will be some challenges ahead of us. We need to get our immigration papers approved (for those of you who are interested, we are immigrating to the Netherlands under provisions of the Dutch American Friendship Treaty). We’ll be looking for a home to buy in an expensive city where the euro is not in our favor. We’re getting there just as the weather is getting bad and days are getting short. And we need to learn Dutch! We might be crazy — it would have been so much easier to move to Seattle or stay in Hawaii. But we look at this move a little like we looked at the move to Hale Kakahi over a decade ago. We can do this and we want to do this, and if we don’t do this we will look back five years from now and say, “Why didn’t we move to Amsterdam when we had the chance?”

When we moved from California to Hawaii, it seemed like a dream come true. We invited everyone to come and visit, and come they did. The first year we were at Hale Kakahi we had 32 sets of houseguests! We’re making the same offer for Amsterdam, and in just our first two weeks we’ll be seeing two friends from California, so here we go! The offer is sincere; our first apartment will be temporary and the second bedroom has just a sofabed, but if you can handle that, come on over. But if you expect your own bathroom… HAH! Get over it; this is Europe!

So for the last time in quite a long while, we will say ALOHA and A HUI HOU (until we meet again),

Sharene and Harrison

The End of Our Year

One year ago today we boarded a Hawaiian Airlines flight (after being delayed for six hours by mechanical problems) and landed in Seattle where we battled colds and flu for the next month. Thanks to our dear friends Jim and Donna who let us stay in their gorgeous condo with views of Puget Sound, we were able to recuperate in style. That rough start was not an omen of things to come, though… the next 11 months were perfect in every way.

Over the last year, we

• traveled to 8 countries
• and 37 states
• slept in 62 different beds
• visited 157 old friends and family (or they visited us!)
• made 28 new friends
• drove 10,473 miles (our trusty Honda Element, above, has been great!)
• flew 16,532 miles
• and traveled on 18 European trains (so much more pleasant than flying!)

It’s Been A Magical Year…

We saw wonderful musical events, theaters, museums, art galleries, and more churches than we can count. We had fabulous dinner parties. Along the way we laughed, ate, walked, rode bikes, and learned a lot about the world and about ourselves. The best parts were the times we spent with people: family and old and new friends on two continents. Never in our dreams did we expect to have such extraordinary experiences each week, and it has been an honor and privilege for us to share them with each of you. The generosity extended to us throughout our year has been humbling.

This last week was a true highlight as we came full circle back to our former Northern California home, driving US 101 from LA to the Bay Area.

We visited Mike and Jeanne in Scotts Valley. We spent a few days in Sunnyvale with Fritz’s family and some of his best friends. We had a reunion with colleagues from our former companies and it was great to see everyone happy and doing so well.

Bill and Mary, who lived across from us when we lived in San Mateo, treated us to a special lunch at the Stanford Faculty Club; being back on campus reminded us of how impressive Stanford is and how fortunate Harrison was to attend business school there.

A visit to San Francisco to see Kate and Cathy is always on the agenda when visiting the Bay Area, and since Cathy lives in Sharene’s old apartment, it is a real homecoming! Harrison spent some time with Kevin at his Tiburon home that overlooks all three bridges in San Francisco Bay.

So many people to photograph in just our last week!

Mike and Jeanne

Remembering Fritz

At Rainbow Pizza

At Rainbow Pizza

With Mary and Bill

Kate and Cathy

Kevin with Bear

Ralph, Linda, and Cody

Since we don’t have a “real” home (yet), the perfect way for us to officially end our “year of being homeless” was to come to the closest “home” we have: Sharene’s sister and her husband’s beautiful place in Stockton. We haven’t seen them in 14 months so it was a wonderful homecoming last night.

This Is Our Last Weekly Update

So what happens now?

From Stockton, we’ll make our way back to Seattle for a couple of weeks. We have some organizing to do of stuff we stored there last April. Then on March 1 we fly to Honolulu for 10 days to check up on our rental condos there and take care of some other business.

After that we finally head back to the Big Island after what will be an absence of 13-1/2 months. We have rented a condo right on Hilo Bay where we will spend the next few months deciding how to transition to our next life adventure. For those of you who have been following our newsletters closely, it will come as NO surprise that our first choice for a place to spend most of our time is Amsterdam. We’re not 100% positive we can make that happen, but we’re sure going to try! And as soon as we figure it out, we’ll let you know.

So this is it! We’ve had a once-in-a-lifetime experience this past year, and the fact that we could share it each Sunday with people who mean so much to us has made it even more special. These updates started out going to a few friends, and by the end we had a couple hundred people reading them.

We have tried to thank everyone along the way who played a role in our extraordinary year. We do want to say a special mahalo to Jim and Karen in Hawaii, the Kimes in Washington, Sarah and her family in Switzerland, and Frank in Amsterdam. Without these very special people, our year would have been much harder; with their help and friendship, it was amazing.

Thanks for sharing this year with us, and from our heart to yours,

Aloha, mahalo, and a hui hou!!!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 52 of 52!

There is nothing like this place on Earth!

San Miguel Mission in Santa Fe, the oldest church in the U.S.

After traveling through a 50-60 mph dust storm getting out of West Texas (called a haboob, no kidding!) and passing through some of the ugliest towns we’ve ever seen (sorry, Muleshoe), we landed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, under sunny blue skies. We had high expectations for this city in the high desert and were happy to finally see it, but sadly most everything we wanted to see was closed for one reason or another the day we were there, and the city itself wasn’t nearly as picturesque as we had hoped.

But that was OK; we went to the movies instead and saw The Artist and The Descendants. We recommend both if you haven’t seen them. The Descendants was particularly fun for us because it was such a realistic depiction of life in Hawaii — the good and the bad. We knew most of the places shown in the film and all of the wonderful Hawaiian music, and we felt like we knew the people!

Then we went on to the Grand Canyon: it is awe-inspiring, dignified, eminent, excellent, fab, first-rate, glorious, grandiose, illustrious, imposing, magnificent, majestic, marvelous, monumental, noble, opulent, outstanding, regal, smashing, splendid, stately, striking, superb, unreal, OMG… what else can we say?

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

This was Sharene’s first time to the Canyon and Harrison had not seen it for many years. It completely lived up to the hype and we had the good fortune to see it on a picture-perfect day. Visiting in off-season meant there were few visitors and snow all around, which added to the contrast with the desert colors of the canyon.

The Grand Canyon should be on everyone’s “Bucket List” — truly one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. And what a fitting end as we come to the close of our adventurous year!

From the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona, we drove south through Flagstaff, which, unlike Santa Fe, was a beautiful town that exceeded our expectations. We headed to Phoenix, where we stopped to visit old friends, and then on our way to Los Angeles we made a surprise stop to see another old friend. Collectively, we have known all these people for (yikes) over 100 years!!!

With Marty and Sherry

With Lori and Randy

Laurie and Joe

Marty has been Harrison’s friend since he met him at KING Radio in Seattle way back in 1974. Marty (whose KING friends will remember him as Joe Kelly) has the Voice of God, one of the greatest radio voices we’ve ever heard, as well as a larger-than-life personality. He has had a long career since then in Chicago, Milwaukee, and now Phoenix, doing voice work and producing music for radio stations. Take a listen to this recent Joe Kelly demo.

Sharene, Randy, and Lori go back to Sharene’s Bank of America days in the ’80s, but most of their memories are of trips they took together, many nights out on the town in San Francisco, and countless cribbage games and laughs along the way.

Another of Harrison’s KING radio friends from the ’70s is Laurie (known affectionately back then as Cheeks). Laurie and her very athletic husband, Joe, have started spending their winters away from Seattle in the warmer Southern California climate. Laurie is loving their gorgeous new sun-drenched home and Joe just finished a 75-mile bike ride that morning… wearing slightly different clothing than the bicyclists in Amsterdam!

Our drive to LA ended at Beverly Hills 90212, just down the road from the famous 90210 zip code. Our dear friends (and former clients of Hawaii Holiday) Linda and Steve have an exquisite 1930s home within walking distance of famous Beverly Hills sites including Rodeo Drive. In fact, we did walk to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Chinese New Year with a group of their long-time friends; it was so nice of them to include us in that fascinating group.

We’re in LA during one of the most beautiful times of year: clear skies, citrus trees bursting with fruit, flowers blooming; it’s the best of Southern California. And being with people we adore just makes it even more special, not to mention that they have a big teddy bear of a dog named Stockton to complete the picture.

Our route this past week: Lubbock – Santa Fe – Grand Canyon – Phoenix – Beverly Hills

We had another amazing week! We have begun our last official week of “homelessness”; we left Hawaii on February 4, 2011, so this coming Saturday will mark the end of a full year away. We have another very busy, people-filled week coming up so we hope you’ll stick with us for just a little longer.

A hui hou!!!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 51 of 52

Sharon and Tom

Panhandle Sunset

Ben and Caroline

Who knew part of Florida was in the Central Time Zone? When we showed up an hour early at Sharon and Tom’s home near Destin, a popular resort area on the Florida panhandle, we learned that, indeed, the western end of Florida is not on Eastern Time! But they welcomed us anyway into their beautiful waterfront home, complete with lighted dock and boat. Sharon ran Sharene’s company, Bed & Breakfast International, in the 1990s, and she went to work for Sharene at WorldRes after that. She and Tom then relocated to Hawaii and have recently moved to Florida where they are both in the real estate business with Keller Williams. Check out Next Stop Paradise for some great investment opportunities with true white sand beaches. As we learned on our beach walks, Hawaii might boast of beaches, but none of them have sand this gorgeous and not nearly this shade of white.

Interestingly enough, we had two connections in this same fairly obscure area. Harrison and Caroline went to the University of Minnesota elementary and high schools together from the third grade on and have kept in touch all these years. She and her partner Ben just moved from frigid Minneapolis to Navarre, Florida, just a few miles from Sharon and Tom. This is the first January Caroline has ever spent not shoveling snow. Instead, she and Ben are hitting that white sand beach!

Art Out Of Destruction

Leaving Florida on our way to New Orleans, we drove through the southern tip of our next state, Alabama, but found nothing exciting to report. (Our apologies to John Dirgo of Hawaii Holiday who is from Alabama…) But passing through Biloxi, Mississippi, we traveled right along the gulf and saw both interesting and sad remnants of Hurricane Katrina.

On the left side of the road was the Gulf of Mexico and gorgeous beaches, with no sign of oil remaining from the Deepwater Horizon spill. In the median strip were beautiful carved wood statues of birds, fish, and other objects. After seeing so many, we realized these pieces of art were carved out of tree trunks left standing after the hurricane ripped them apart. For a quick slide show, see Biloxi’s Katrina Sculptures.

The right side of the street had a few glorious old mansions as well as some obviously new construction, interspersed with many empty lots in between. Even now, you can see foundations or an odd fireplace on lots where, before Katrina, stately southern homes stood with views of the gulf.

New Orleans may have been crushed by Katrina, but after spending two nights right in the heart of the French Quarter, we can tell you at least that part of town is pretty much fully recovered and as wild and crazy as ever! Music blasts from club after club, and although we were there during a very quiet time of year, there were still lots of people out enjoying the Big Easy.

Blues legend B. B. King happened to be in town our first night and we lucked into two seats that had just been released that morning. At age 86, his voice is still strong, his guitar, Lucille, still sounds as sweet as ever, and the touring schedule with his band would tire both of us out! He proved to us that The Thrill Is NOT Gone yet!

The highlight of the following day was a three-hour bus tour of New Orleans led by a knowledgeable, talented, and hilarious guide who sounded straight out of the Bayou. John gave a comprehensive introduction to the history, areas, and fascinating architecture of New Orleans and the devastating aftermath of Katrina. While some sections of the city, including many of the beautiful homes in the Garden District, were not badly flooded and appear much as they always have, the Ninth Ward, which we all saw in the Katrina news reports, is still struggling although almost seven years have passed. We saw several new housing developments, such as Musicians’ Village targeted to the many musicians who make New Orleans home and Make It Right, spearheaded by Brad Pitt, that features a number of interesting energy-efficient designs from a competition. But there are vast areas of empty lots, as well as many abandoned but still standing homes, such as the one pictured above that stands next to a rebuilt home. Many former residents have clearly moved elsewhere, and the long-term future of this area is very uncertain.

Garden District Home

Ninth Ward Home

We left NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) and took the LONG trek to the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. We weren’t on horses but our butts felt like it! We only know a few people in Texas, but two sets of friends not only live near one another, but also both work with dogs! How odd is that? So Sharene was in doggie heaven visiting these old (or should we say “long-time”) friends of Harrison’s.

Margaret and Teri with Friends

Catherine with Friends

Margaret was a broadcast engineer Harrison recruited in the early 1980s, and after a 30-year career in broadcasting, she left to start her own business in portrait photography of dogs and their owners. She turned out to be just as talented a photographer and businessperson as she was an engineer and has won a number of awards to prove it. We saw lots of works from her impressive collection; check out some of her wonderful photos at Bryant Dog Photography.

We had a great lunch of Texas-style barbeque with Margaret and her partner Teri, and then off we went to visit Catherine, a friend of Harrison’s from his Seattle days. Catherine is the General Manager of a high-end doggie hotel called Woodland Park Pet Resort where some of the pet “rooms” even come with TVs (no kidding)! Catherine has three English Labs herself, and after spending some time with her, we can see why she is in the perfect job!

We’re on our way to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and since it was too far to drive in a day we decided to stop in Lubbock, Texas, for the night and visit the Buddy Holly Center. Lubbock-raised Holly was one of the pioneers of rock ’n’ roll who died much too young in the infamous plane crash of February 1959. Although his career was short, he and his group, the Crickets, had a major influence on the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hollies, Bob Dylan, and other future rock stars. West Texas is the home of many influential American musicians including Bob Wills, Leadbelly, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings and others, but Holly definitely put Lubbock on the map!

We leave the south behind and, as our Texas friends would say, “We’re fixin’ to head west for a spell.” But on our way out, we were happy to see this bumper sticker proving there is at least one Democrat (besides the ones we know personally!) living in the Lone Star State.

Oh, just to give you a head’s up, this weekly update is Week 51 of 52, but we won’t really be finished next week. We began our “year of being homeless” on February 4, 2011, and we sent our first weekly update shortly after we arrived. That first update was at the beginning of Week 1, so by the end of Week 52 we will be on the 53rd update. (Got that?) So our year of weekly updates will go to 53, possibly 54 weeks. We’re coming around the bend as fast as we can, but we’re not there yet!

A hui hou and Yee Haw!
Sharene and Harrison

Week 50 of 52

Our route from Virginia to Georgia

Our route back to the West Coast isn’t exactly the most direct, but it gives us new territory and people to visit and it’s a lot warmer than the northern U.S. this time of year. We headed south from the Washington, D.C. area this week and have been immersed in American history at several colonial sites and further south in coastal Georgia.

Our first stop was Charlottesville, Virginia, to see our friend Ronna and visit Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello (photo above). Sharene and Ronna worked together in the gold rush days of the dot-com world and even though neither “struck gold” there, they had a lot of fun. Ronna’s home is a 10-minute drive from Monticello so off we went to take a tour. One of the greatest fathers of our country, Jefferson was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He was also a true Renaissance man, credited with saying, “There isn’t a single blade of grass I’m not interested in.” His home, which is now a historic landmark estate, is filled with books, art, historical artifacts, and many amenities that were state-of-the-art in the 1700s. He is still referred to here as “Mr. Jefferson.”

From Charlottesville we headed to Williamsburg, site of the settlement that was the capital of colonial Virginia for much of the 18th century, where Dave and Dorothy welcomed us to their beautiful home. Dave and Harrison worked together at KING Radio in Seattle in the 1970s. If Ronna and Sharene thought they had fun at the dot-com, it was nothing compared to working at a rock ’n’ roll radio station in the 70s! Dave will be retiring at the end of this year after a long career with IBM, and Dorothy is working hard but not having as much fun as she would like at a small software company.

Dave took us on tours of Williamsburg as well as nearby Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States. It was fascinating to see the humble beginnings of our country, especially since we have seen so much of Europe’s history this past year. The biggest surprise was seeing how small the ships were that brought these first immigrants across the Atlantic, a reminder of how comfortable our lives have become.

With Tom and Ronna

Jamestown Ships

With Dave and Dorothy

After a long drive from Williamsburg, we landed in Savannah, Georgia, on the steps of the gorgeous home of Harrison’s cousin, Beth, and her husband, Bob. It’s true what they say about southern hospitality; we were given our own suite upstairs overlooking the golf course and personal tours of historic (and charming) Savannah and the surrounding areas, including Tybee Island.

A favorite book set in Savannah (so popular, people around here just call it “The Book”) is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Published in 1994, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for 216 weeks! Clint Eastwood made a movie of it in 1997 and shot much of the production in the Mercer-Williams House where the story took place. So our hosts took us to the house and rented the movie for us to watch!

Savannah is a beautiful city with 23 squares (small parks with statues and fountains) and amazing architecture in the historic district. We toured the Green-Meldrim House where General Sherman based himself after taking Savannah in 1864 during the Civil War. Sherman must also have been charmed by this gentle southern city since he was kind enough not to burn it down when he left, unlike Atlanta and others in the South.

Beth and Bob live on Skidaway Island surrounded by lagoons, wildlife, and yes, even alligators! We did see lots of birds and deer during our stay, but no scaly critters and that was just fine. Once again the weather gods were good to us with blue skies every day.

Beth and Harrison

Mercer-Williams House

Beth and Bob

Savannah’s Beach on Tybee Island — it’s not Hawaii, but it’s beautiful all the same

From Savannah we drive south to the Florida panhandle, where we turn right and start heading west across the country.

We’re on the countdown now… we hope you’ve enjoyed our weekly updates but, if not, you only have a few more editions left, and so do we!

A hui hou and as they say here, see y’all later!

Sharene and Harrison

Week 49 of 52

Our Final Road Trip Begins!

If we had a home, you could call this the home stretch! On Wednesday morning we said fond farewells to our Swiss family and boarded a flight in Zurich bound for the U.S. When we arrived at Logan Airport in Boston Wednesday afternoon, our Honda Element was waiting for us courtesy of a friend of a friend who stored it for the past six months… thanks, Kate and Deborah!

So the Road Trip begins, the last phase of our “year of being homeless”! We came to the East Coast last spring via the northern route; we will spend our next few weeks making our way back to the West Coast via the southern route, visiting more family and friends along the way. One great lesson from this past year is that travel is much more rewarding when you can connect with family and friends old and new.

Fred, Mark, Brenda, Tessa, and their senior cat

After a good night’s rest and a day of exercise and errands, we gave the Element its first road test with a drive to North Andover, Mass, to see our friends Fred and Brenda. Long-term readers may remember that Fred and Brenda visited us at our Boston apartment last June, and Brenda, who is Dutch by birth, also visited us a few weeks later at our first Amsterdam apartment when she came to visit her family. This time, we were entertained in their charming 150-year-old home by Fred and Brenda along with two of their three children and their 20-year-old cat! Of course, we mostly talked about how we love Amsterdam and hoped we could all spend lots of time together there when they retire.

Wow, Frank and Ann are SO tall!     Just kidding!!!

We left Massachusetts and drove to Westchester County, north of New York City, to spend the night with our friends Ann and Frank (not to be confused with ANNE FRANK…). Ann is one of the three women Sharene travels with each year and one of her closest friends. It was great to see Ann in her own house, something Sharene rarely got to do when we lived over 5000 miles away in Hawaii.

Admiring Mort’s art with Mort and Lois

From Westchester we took the Saw Mill and Henry Hudson Parkways into Upper Manhattan and crossed the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey on a record warm day with sunny blue skies. Yes, we picked the RIGHT year to travel! We were invited to lunch by a friend of Harrison’s late mother, Agatha. Lois worked for Agatha at the St. Paul (Minnesota) Public Library in the 1960s and they became lasting friends. Harrison hadn’t seen Lois in over 40 years so it was a nice reunion. Turns out her husband Mort is an talented artist! Mort grew up near the Atlantic City Boardwalk and many of his paintings depict scenes of that area; we loved seeing his work.

Rick and Satu

No, these two are not models, but Sharene’s nephew Rick and his wife Satu, who is from Finland. Rick is a pilot for Jet Blue and they live with their two children just west of Washington, D.C., in Virginia, our last stop for this week. We arrived on this unusually warm Saturday evening and were promptly invited for a glass of wine by their outdoor fireplace. Imagine sitting outside in front of a fireplace under clear skies and a full moon in January on the East Coast!

Life is good and our first few days back have been clear sailing and a wonderful start to our month on American roads. We’re still getting used to the U.S. again after six months in Europe, but right now it feels just fine.

Hope everyone’s first week of 2012 has been a good start as well!

For Week 49, a hui hou!

Sharene and Harrison

Week 48 of 52

Today is January 1, 2012.

Gelukkig Nieuwjaar (Dutch) Šastný Nový Rok (Czech) Heureuse nouvelle année (French) Glückliches neues Jahr (German) Buon anno (Italian) and Guete Rutsch (which in Swiss German translates to “have a good slide”); they are all meant to convey good wishes for 2012 and are in the languages of the places we visited in 2011.

Our Swiss friends and family have treated us to so many wonderful times during the holidays: dinners out, a Christmas concert where our dear friend Janice played viola, an amazing walk near Maxine and Maya’s home in the shadows of the snow-covered Alps (pictured on top), and more than one dinner party at Sarah’s beautiful home. Once again, we realize how fortunate we are because of the people in our lives; it’s what has made this past year truly magical.

Janice and Nico

With Walter

Patrick, Chantal and Sarah

Maxine and Maya

New Year's Lunch

We both know what an extraordinary 2011 we had as we round the corner to 2012 and the last month of our year away. For today, January 1, 2012, we send this old Irish toast to all our friends near and far:

In the New Year, may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship, but never in want.

Wishing each and every one of you a magical 2012!

A hui hou and hau‘oli makahiki hou! (Hawaiian!)

Sharene and Harrison

Week 47 of 52

After leaving the sunny coast of Italy, we hopped on our last Eurailpass train in Florence and headed north over the fantastic snow-covered Alps to Zurich, where Sarah welcomed us home. Here we are with our hanai (adopted) Swiss family before sitting down to our Christmas Day brunch. To Harrison’s left are Hallie, Amelia, Sarah, Sharene, Isabel, and Amelia’s husband, Phil.

You could call this the “BEFORE” photo: before we opened up presents and got a lot more silly and comfortable. Below, a couple of “AFTER” brunch photos!

Stocking Stuffers

Hallie and Phil

We have been celebrating the holidays since we left Amsterdam at the end of November. The photos below show just a few of the incredible light displays we saw as we traveled through Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Venice, Rome, and Tuscany. Europe really knows how to show off its cities, big and small, during the holidays with sparkling lights and Christmas markets everywhere.

We sincerely hope your holidays have had bright lights with friends and family wherever you are celebrating these special days.

A hui hou and Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Frohe Weihnachten, Veselé Vánoce,

Sharene and Harrison