April 2012
8 posts
11 tags
Paris, day five
This was a trip of sleeping only on buses and seldom in beds, and we woke up super early in the morning, got pastries at the bakery across the street and headed over to the Eiffel Tower. It was so, so, so cold and I was terribly unprepared. Thanks, Billie Holiday - April in Paris had me totally not ready for rainy, cold weather. We froze under the Eiffel tower for probably an hour before finally...
8 tags
Paris, day four
Laura and I woke up at a stupidly early hour and headed to the airport to catch our ScaryDiscountAir flight to Paris, where my attempt to nap was thwarted by a middle seat and flight attendants selling everything from lottery tickets to perfume, caught the bus to Paris, and the metro to our hostel – all of which was miserable with a giant bag. There’s a reason people backpack through Europe and...
12 tags
Madrid, day three - part two
When I returned to Madrid, I met Laura at her apartment and we headed over to Templo De Debod - an Egyptian temple smack dab in the middle of Madrid. Spain helped save the temple in the 60s, and later Egypt decided Spain should have it as a gift. So here it is, in a park in Madrid, making us all feel bad about the gift certificate we gave our friend when we could have given them a temple. Sunset...
10 tags
Tilting at Windmills, Spain day three part 1
“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”
“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake...
14 tags
Madrid, day two
Day two in Spain was supposed to be the day I traveled to Consuegra and Toledo in the same day, though I decided I didn’t see everything I wanted to see in Madrid, I was so in love madly, passionately in love with the city, and I’d lost my bus ticket. Do you remember all the (over) planning I did? It all was a lost cause when I left my precious folder with all my precious documents on the plane....
12 tags
Madrid, day one
After a not-so-pleasant overnight flight where no amount of ambien could quell the anxiety from the serious turbulence, I landed in Madrid at 8:30 in the morning. With my giant bag that I thought wasn’t that heavy until I had to tote it all over Madrid, I caught a train to Atocha knowing they had locker storage until I could meet up with my friends that evening.
Even though it was just the train...
7 tags
Things have been all quiet on the blog-front lately, thanks mostly to my most favorite and grand adventure to date. The last Weird Stuff Wednesdays became Bronchitis Wednesday, Broken Computer Wednesday, and Traveling in Europe Wednesdays. But now that I’m back from my wonderful adventure, expect more regular posts!
My trip across the ocean was supposed to start like this – a flight from...
7 tags
6 Travel Tips for Over-planners
Us over-planners are a special breed. Before a trip, we spend weeks creating custom Google maps, studying the public transit maps, plugging each museum admission fee into your per diem budget spreadsheet, creating a five column spreadsheet packing list, and debating the practicality of generating QR codes to make a database of your laundry.
At just a hair under the two week mark before I leave for...
