Category Archives: Adventures

Belize city sign

Belize City & Caye Caulker

A very fun trip to Belize City & Caye Caulker. We had a lot of fun exploring both locations, each very unique.

Day 1 – Belize Zoo & Ruins by Horse

The owner of our hotel in Belize City arranged for a taxi to drive us around for the day. We went to the Belize Zoo & rented a couple horses to get to Xunantunich ruins. My butt hurt for 3 days after riding for 4+ hours.

"Belize City & Caye Caulker" has 166 images

Corsica France

Caline was invited to speak at a conference in Corsica, so we jumped at the opportunity to explore the island. Corsica is one of the most beautiful & adventure centric locations we have ever been to. Hopefully we’ll be able to get back there someday to explore more of the island and see the wild donkeys roaming the roads.

Day One

We arrived mid-morning and took a bus from the airport into Bastia. After dropping our bags off, we walked around the city a bit. For dinner, we stopped into a grocery store for fruit, cheese & beer and enjoyed it on our hotel’s roof deck.

"Corsica France" has 253 images

Costa Rica Skydiving – Party on the Playa

Went down to Tambor Beach with Tsunami Skydivers again. This time, with 100% more Caline! Go look at last year’s photos when you’re done with these.

Was great seeing old friends and making new ones. Many adventures were had; Caline’s first tandem, scuba diving, horseback riding, climbing waterfalls and an unforgettable cruise.

Saturday: Travel to Costa Rica

We left the house around 4am, flights took us from Pittsburgh to Baltimore and then San Jose. We were able to get both round trip flights for roughly $100! I booked my flight on points and Caline’s via Companion Pass. We only had to pay taxes & fees, hooray.

"Costa Rica Skydiving – Party on the Playa" has 300 images

11 Days in Lebanon

Caline and I traveled to Lebanon for her cousin (on her Mom’s side) Agop’s wedding. We spent our time exploring the country, worrying about crazy drivers, learning about Lebanon and trying all sorts of delicious food. If you have an opportunity (and a tour guide/translator), you should definitely go to Lebanon, you will not be disappointed.

All of these photos were shot using a GoPro in timelapse mode. We took over 2,500 images and narrowed it down to the best for this writeup. A lot of the night pictures are blurry, sorry, GoPros don’t include a flash.

Thursday & Friday: Travel to Lebanon

We left Pittsburgh at 3pm on the 17th and arrived at the Abadjian’s home (labeled as Unknown Road on my phone) around 8pm on the 18th. Travel was mostly uneventful, except for my suitcase not arriving with me in Lebanon. We didn’t take any photos while traveling, the only time I regretted that was in the Paris airport with a large group on their pilgrimage to Mecca dressed in all white. Marc (Caline’s cousin) and Oy (Marc’s wife) met up with us in the Paris airport for our flight into Beirut.

Once we were in Lebanon, we went out for a late dinner at a restaurant called Downtown and quickly learned that Lebanon has crazy driving, Zareh (Caline’s father) knows someone everywhere and Lebanon has pizza & sushi at almost all restaurants. Not going to complain about those last two!

Driving in Lebanon; lanes don’t matter, streets aren’t labeled, passing on blind corners is the norm and people are constantly cutting each other off; it’s almost a free for all. Luckily, we had Agop & Zareh to handle the driving for us. Without them we would have definitely gotten lost and potentially in multiple accidents. Lebanese license plates use different background colors to tell them apart; white is a normal car, light green is a rental car, yellow is for diplomats and red is for cars that are for hire like taxis & buses. I thought that was a really neat system to segment transportation usage.

Saturday: Kitten, Sightseeing & Music Hall

On the way out to grab breakfast, we met the kitten that lives in the parking lot. He’s a very dirty grey & white cat that loves people. Caline and I both took to him quickly. Caline named him Tux based on his colors & the upcoming wedding. We brought him treats almost everyday of our visit, cheese & fish mostly, which he loved just as much as getting petted.

"11 Days in Lebanon" has 250 images