The Story of Michael and Juliet

Hello Blissful Readers,

This is Juliet and Michael together for our inaugural joint post. We wanted to feature Juliet's photos today as an introduction to her art and to bring our current readers into the life of a traveling nurse a bit. The photo above is perhaps the most compelling photo that either of us has ever taken. We were on a woman-powered work boat rowed by two amazing Venetian women (one a valiant ex-pat) when we came upon this bridge. Michael felt obliged to capture the rowers and Juliet simply took what the universe gave her. Even simply looking at the image on the iPhone 4s after the shot we both knew something had just happened. This is what is brilliant about photography; akin to a hole in one and perhaps even more rare is that shot that simply transcends the moment, the camera, and the photographer. This was one of those shots for Juliet and we had to share it with you all today.

Juliet is a traveling nurse. This means she works under contracts at hospitals across America (she is licensed in 26 states). When Michael sold his business and stopped working for them in 2011 Juliet left her position in Houston to travel together with Michael and create this Blissful Adventure. Juliet is specialized in cardiology and works in a procedural area know as the Cath Lab. These positions are very difficult to fill in the USA and there is a strong demand for travelers to fill immediate and seasonal needs in Cath Labs throughout the land. Juliet has proven to be very adaptable and she has now taken 4 assignments here in Colorado.

Last summer Michael and Juliet put 90% of their possessions into storage in Houston, sold 1 of their cars, and embarked on a journey of the unknown. 1 year later, The Blissful Adventure is a new entity with over 1500 subscribers and growing. Juliet and Michael have taken over 25,000 images together in Colorado, Asia, and Italy. Now, the goal is to launch a book by next spring, and to change locations again in September.

As a contract nurse, housing, travel expenses, and living expenses are subsidized by the employing agency. This kind of freedom without the burden of rent or mortgages allows Juliet and Michael the ability to be nimble, travel for extended periods out of the country, and to focus on building an audience for this blog and future releases.

While this all makes great sense, Juliet's job is far from glamorous and the horrors of seeing human beings so close to the edge everyday is a constant reminder that this life cannot be permanent. Michael and Juliet are working diligently to pursue their dreams all the while knowing that the life of travelers, at least in the career sense, is finite. These photos are evidence that something more creative is on the horizon for Juliet, and it will be beautiful.

Michael believes in Juliet's talent and his passion and joy would be to see her creating as a career each day. Of course, he could not be more proud of the amazing care she shows humanity and how she tirelessly and diligently offers her time to the cause of restoring quality of life to so many people each day.

Juliet and Michael met on Yahoo.com on December 10, 2006. Their first date was December 11. They have spent 5 nights apart since December 11, 2006. For many that might be a bit too much of someone but for these two it has remained one Blissful Adventure.

Welcome to The Blissful Adventurer!

Welcome to the new website of The Blissful Adventurer. Juliet and I would like to personally thank you for taking the time to join is today. Today's post will provide a small tour of the site and of course a few photos from the big recent trip in Italy.

You will notice immediately the new HOME PAGE which is the culmination of our dreams to offer an elegant introduction to the site with photography, clean lines, and ease of access. I wanted this to represent the gallery walls for Juliet's and my work to shine through without distraction.

A new feature on this site is my Italy Trip Design page. Here you will have a little of my philosophy on Italy travel and a contact box to request info from me and how I might assist you in creating the Italian travel you have always hoped to experience.

One of the things Juliet and I wanted most with this site was a way to showcase our Image Galleries. We have worked so diligently on our photography in the past year and now we have a vehicle to showcase our work. This page will constantly evolve and Juliet will feature more and more prominently as our readership grows. Now we have the ability to print, frame, and offer our photos to readers and friends.

Of course the primary purpose the new website was to create a vehicle for the launch and sale of our Book. The Blissful Adventurers will be a series of photo essays depicting the last 6 years of love and travel for Juliet and me. This book will be hard bound and a true labor of love.

With Juliet more involved and her work more influential we have edited our ABOUT page to bring her into the mix and give all of you a chance to link to her fantastic Pinterest page.

Finally, our updated CONTACT page has new email for Juliet, me, and for any media or info inquiries. We still want your comments but now you have the capacity to communicate with us directly if the occasion should arise.

Subscription - We encourage you all if you have not done so already to click the link below to join our subscriber list. All our blog posts, new galleries, book news, and insider info will deliver through our subscriber list. Please join us and thank you so much for taking the time to visit our new site.

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James Joyce is Watching Me

I passed by the Buffet da Pepi the night before as I was on a fascist watch along the grand piazzas of modern Trieste. What a pocket of freaks I thought as I stared at tall Italians who only 75 years before were average-sized Austrians.

I don't get this fucking place and at the same time what an amazing setting as the city bleeds upwards from the sea and two great lighthouses call to weary sailors to stop. I think that is where the buffet came from; sailors with big appetites and sickness of sea foods. These were men of work, not thinkers, not ponderers of the human condition but hungry motherfuckers and pigs were cheap and plentiful.

The next day I went straight to BdP around Noon (way too early to eat in Southern Italy) and the head server said to me in Italian. Did you pass by here last night looking in the window? Yes, I said. I see you, I look (he said in English). This ought to be interesting I thought as my cohorts and I were crammed into a space only large enough for 3 small people and we were 4.

Snout to tail or some such nonsense that the foodie likes to hail as another triumph is what the buffet in Trieste is all about, at least the pig parts and not the foodies. The locals rock in the door, hand over some euro change, and then get a small and dense little roll filled with all kinds of porky goodness. I wanted every little sandwich, all the little thimbles of wine, and to be able to rap the local funky dialect.

However, I was here for a day so it had to be the platter. Yes, a platter of pork from the hoofs to the hot dog, this was what it was about. The Italian call sauerkraut, Krauti. Now that is what I will always call it and also what I will call the locals of Trieste.

The platter arrived and it was stocked. I forgot to ask for the fucking horseradish they shave over the meat until I saw some Krauti being served the spicy root and and I looked down and the platter was near empty save for a few pork knuckles and unwieldy cubes of fat. Shame for the radish but the mustard was intense, the krauti creamy and better than any I had eaten before, the beer cold, and the service as fast as any in Italy. These seafarers knew how to rock land food better than most landlocked lords of libation. This was a German grandma's pork with an Italian flair and eastern European melancholy. It was lively, but there was a grim specter of flux over the room.

The potato salad was weak, the prosciutto di San Daniele exceptional. Both were extraneous and not part of the altar of savory and warm comforting sprawl on the table.

I crossed the canal, if you can call it that and made my way to the bridge to meet James Joyce. I stood next to him and thought my own mind almost as incomprehensible as his books. I knew that better men than me sat with James here and spoke Italian and I wondered if Joyce spoke it with a bit of brogue. I thought of Hemingway's description of Joyce and his family dining in Paris and only speaking in Italian, and now I consider the fantastic Irish couple I met in Sicily. What is it with Ireland and Italy? Why do I continue to believe they are both part of where I am going and have been?

I was flying away from Trieste that day and hated myself for it. Not because I needed more pork but because I was flying in general and that turns my stomach. Now, in Trieste, is good Peter B and he is running down his linguistic dreams amidst Fascist revolutionaries stirring the depths of their own stupidity but what can you expect when men are isolated by the sea, the mountains, and have plenty of pork?

Fascism should be much uglier and in the south of Italy it is. Here in the north it simply offers grand views and bad sculpture. Tourists seem old here and the people seem very young in the night and very sad in the day. It was grey and it should have been.

I really thought there could be a fight or two but that was reserved for a late night in Rome and somehow the wines of the Collio only a few kilometers from us seemed so Italian. While Trieste served wonderful coffee, and copious grappa it was far from the Italy I knew and I am sure Joyce was there with me. I always feel myself to be a portrait of an artist as a not quite so young man, but an artist to be certain. The fact is, I think Joyce liked sailors and their pork.

Sicily - First "Impressions" (Ryanair Vaffanculo!)

Ryanair fucked us deep in the culo on our flight from Trieste. I had mistakenly printed 2 boarding passes for Juliet and none for me so when we reached the check-in gate nearly 2 hours before our departure the lady told me it would be a 60 euro charge to print my boarding pass.

Of course I told her that was not going to work and I convinced an auto rental company to let me use their computer to print a boarding pass, but when I logged onto my account Ryainair had locked me out of the system disallowing any boarding passes to be printed within 4 hours of any scheduled flight.

Ryanair is easily the most despicable company in Europe and among the leaders in that regard worldwide. With Italian VAT added to my 60 euro charge I was out over $90 for a simple error in printing and with 0 recourse but to pay or miss 9 glorious days in Sicily. I will bring these assholes down and rest assured they will lose more than 100-fold the money they cost me by my little bitch campaign I will begin very soon.

I am afraid I had to vent this to you all and forgive the brutal tone in my language but the CEO of Ryanair should go a few rounds with me on a field of honor somewhere near Trapani airport in Sicily.  The loser has to take one in the crapper from a mule we know named Ciccio. I would beat that motherfucker like my Fred Flintstone punching bag I had when I was 6. That extortionist pig should have a star on the walk of shame along with his Gordon Gekko "greed is good" loving cup. I'll fight you Michael O'Leary and beat you like your "fookin da" did when you were 7 and asked for an extra serving of ice cream.

OK, I am done.

As angry as I was, landing in Sicily and driving from Trapani to our wonderful beach house in Porto Palo was sheer magic. Just take a look at the color in these images. In a matter of minutes I was once again calm and overjoyed by what I was witnessing.

Have a look at our 1st "impressions" of Sicily

Italy Thoughts - A Hipstamatic Journey

I woke up with Hemingway on my mind today and a future so uncertain I knew I needed to write. Is this going to be everyday? The world is changing and the groups want to do what I do and perhaps they are better at telling the world. I wanted to simply walk and take a coffee thinking about lunch and what surprises were in the little shops along the way.

So alive each step and going so diligently towards something I do not know is my nature. The path of waking, plugging, and filling a known entity with subtle joy is so daunting to me. I want to know what is behind the strange window and not how many eggs I have in the fridge.

I make the days sound so romantic and so full of careless walks and while there are these moments; to get where I am and have been, exhausts too much of me. I drive myself crazier than I drive myself to joy.

I lubricate every part of my brain and sometimes the road gets too slick and the turns so hairy I wonder if I will make the other bank. At the same time I come home again only to find each time I know the place much less than before I left.

I returned here even seeking that lost part of me and found only frustration at the things I love in disharmonious meetings. The light was so blue for the day and only again the morning I left.

I feel like I am narrating the Terrence Malick film of my life. I want the score to be Morricone and the direction to be my own. You see, that is what it is; the direction.

Maybe I am part north, part south. Perhaps I am a bit east and some west. I know my legs want to go but not simply for the sake of going and that even in the spring the light can be false.

I sat in a little enoteca here and ate salumi with cheese and a local white wine watered down by its own inferior grapes. I was rushed from the door by the servers wanting cigarettes, lunch, and to jerk themselves off before they went back to work. I would probably want me to leave too.

It was 20 years ago I set foot on this floor and I almost cried from something inexplicable when I saw the facade. My fleeting memories and poorly constructed philosophies pale to even a simple bit of flooring someone with superior skill laid to view before a single person ever claimed to be "American"

I should have just stayed longer in Rome and found a few parks to sit and a few berries to pop and soldiers' statues to ponder and lenses to change. I tell myself I want to spend quiet in Italy but I lie.20 years later I am still pondering the reasons I first came and what I will do again. Rome is hard and hard to grasp. Yet, it is so joyous to behold and the simple pleasure of simply making it somewhere on a hot day by a prescribed time is a joy like few I know.