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Fun with Aetna?
2007-08-29 00:12:00
So I check my snail mail yesterday when I returned home and find a check from Aetna for $653.20 ! While in Prague earlier this summer I hurt my ankle and went to the doc to make sure I hadn’t done more damage because it swelled up quite badly. Exam and x-rays came to a total ...
More About: Travel , Medical

Australia 2007: Home
2007-08-27 20:57:00
…13 hours after I left Tam’s to catch the Flyaways bus from Van Nuys, I got home. Yep, flights via O’Hare are still a bit messy. But I had a wonderful time and I’m home. I tried to upload photos but Gallery is a bit corrupted at the moment so it’s going to have to ...
More About: Australia , Home

Three Wedding Snaps!
2007-08-20 09:04:00
 There will be more once I’m home, but here are three quick ones.   Yep, my hair has gotten just a *little* long! The stylist actually used a curling iron on all of it. What patience! It looked nice, but I still can’t wait to cut it.    Hair all done, but still in normal clothes. $15 fleeces from ...
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Cari, re-mapped / A very different kind of trip?
2007-08-15 15:19:00
I realised after seeing it on another blog that I hadn’t updated my countries since June. Have remedied that: create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands I also came to realise just how odd that sounds. New countries since June. Adding New Zealand is a bit of a technicality but no worse than Singapore ...
More About: Reading , Book , Trip , Crossing , Diff

So I?m here?.
2007-08-12 14:30:00
Melbourne. Arrived Friday AM via Auckland and my jetlag prevention tactic (stay awake  all day from NYC - LA and then sleep LA - Melbourne) worked fairly well. Slept most of the way to Auckland and dozed Auckland - Melbourne. Meant that I was awake from ~3AM Melbourne time but I stayed awake the whole day, ...

LAX
2007-08-09 03:44:00
so I calculated that it would be some 33 hours between when my flight was scheduled to depart from White Plains (HPN) this morning and arrival in Melbourne. It’s 9:32 EDT so I’m ~12.5 hours into it. Delayed out of HPN this morning (weather and residual delays) but I made my connection in O’Hare with ...

Packing, the least fun part of travelling?
2007-08-07 02:41:00
Started today as a means of taking a break from the second paper. I realized I was missing 1) a pair of gray dress pants that I wanted to wear for the hen’s night 2) a peasant blouse and 3) my jeans. Looked around my room and in the basement, no dice. Then I see ...
More About: Australia , Travelling , Part , Packing , Pack

One Paper Down
2007-08-02 03:56:00
so at 11:34 AM today, I e-mailed the final paper for Sports Tourism. It was a fun paper but I was glad to be done with it. I ended up writing the paper on The Socio-Cultural and Economic Impacts of Sports Tourism with a special focus on Prague’s chances of hosting a future Olympiad. This wasn’t ...
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NY Times on the New Seven Wonders
2007-07-23 03:25:00
Follow up on my previous post on the new seven wonders (linked because I haven’t been able to get the related posts widget to work) Newest Wonders   of the World Prompt More Than Wonder from today’s New York Times is an interesting article. ?We believe there is a risk that these sites will become tourist attractions like ...
More About: Seven Wonders

Common Regrets/Myths/
2007-07-20 21:00:00
There’s a guest post on Budget Globetrotting about the “5 Common Regrets of First Time Travelers” by the author of the blog Go Budget Travel and it really made me think… His list of regrets is: 1.Traveling too quickly 2. Trying to do too much 3. Spending too much time in internet cafés and hanging around the hostel 4. ...
More About: Tourism , Myths , Myth

8 Essential Web Sites?
2007-07-18 19:54:00
So Fodor’s has posted 8 Essential Web Sites For Travel ers… Your Psychic Friend: Their Vote: Farecast My Vote: None. I don’t worry too much about the changes in fares. While travelling, this could easily add up to time lost when you could be doing far more interesting things. I’ve found that the changes are not worth getting worked ...
More About: Reference , Web site

Wild Releases: Australia
2007-07-16 02:06:00
….books, not animals. We’re not talking zoo breaks here. Just before leaving Australia at the end of 2005 I decided to track the books I’d wild released. I was curious to know how many there were, and how many, if any, had been caught. The result was rather messy, a huge file, and one I rarely ...
More About: Book , Wild , Lease , Ease

Travel Guidebooks?
2007-07-14 00:12:00
inspired by the backpackers.com post Choosing a Travel Guid e for Europe… I’ve been a Lonely Planet girl since “Japan Round I” but it has its faults. Granted I didn’t expect them to accept my additions (OK, maybe I did, I was naive - but now I know better and I understand their process for updating their ...

“Rookie Mistakes�
2007-07-11 03:32:00
I’m having fun reading the list of typical rookie mistakes on Bootsnall. It’s an interesting read because it’s a non-accusatory ‘we’ve all done it’ type list. Some favourites: 1. Overplanning. Train from here, flight from here, 3 days here, 2 days there, this hostel, blah blah blah. It never works out like you think it should so give yourself a rough plan, a few must sees and then make the rest up.. I thought I’d learned my lesson, but it’s something I still end up doing. I do it less but once I’d arrived in Prague I was somewhat concerned about having roped myself into definite travel from Prague-Munich-Zurich-Geneva via nonrefundable and overpriced RailEurope Tickets. In the end, the photos were worth every bit of the price and most of the rest of the trip was last minute, but I think we’re all still subject to overplanning. I think part of why Australia Round 2 was successful, I had very few set plans. As for rookie mis...
More About: Rook , Stakes , Mista , Rookie

so now we know the new seven wonders…
2007-07-09 22:12:00
…and I must admit I agree with this backpackers.com post: do we really care? I think the results are interesting but not particularly surprising. I’ve been to one (Rome) , and while I have an interest in the others, this designation isn’t going to make me any more or less likely to visit.  I’m not sure I could rank the others in terms of where I’m more likely to go than others… I voted for Kiyomizdera in Kyoto because it’s one of my favourite places in Japan, if not the world, but I’m not surprised it didn’t win. Of course I completely forgot about the announcement: I spent 7/7/7 at Yankee Stadium. I do think UNESCO’s comments are interesting: but they make their own rankings and designations as well. Of course theirs are more valid in their own eyes but really, any list is subjective. I think Hawass’ comments are sad: “This contest will not detract from the value of the pyramids, which is the only real wonde...
More About: Seven Wonders

So this was some local travelling…
2007-07-03 00:18:00
as in ~ two and a half hours by car Mom and I went to the King Tut Exhibit in Philadelphia. I went to the outskirts of Philly to visit a friend a few years back but hadn’t been to the city since I was about 8. The exhibit was at the Franklin Institute and I still had fun puttering around there even though it’s more geared toward children. The coolest thing about the drive down there and back? We saw a car with a Guam license plate! On every family vacation Jordan and I would keep track of the license plates. Mom and I think the record was 49 states (we never saw one of the Dakotas) but Guam trumps all. I can’t imagine transporting a car to the US, especially the east coast of the US, from Guam. So that was my squee moment. I’m also on a newly (re)acquired book kick. I’ve gotten back into BookCrossing, which I first joined in January 2005 when I was in Brisbane. I loved BC not just for giving me a way to unlighten the load while travelling, but it was...
More About: Local , Some , Loca

Europe 2007: It’s a Wrap…
2007-06-28 17:06:00
Officially became a ‘wrap’ this morning when my backpack arrived. Glad that it arrived in one piece, it didn’t have any exciting adventures. Just seemed to want a longer layover at LHR since it arrived at JFK on BA 113 on Tuesday. I still think what happened was it made it to London on the earlier flight from Geneva and then they couldn’t find it when they went to load the luggage for BA115 on Monday. When I think about the trip as a whole, I get Rainbow Tour in my head: Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour It’s been an incredible success We weren’t quite sure, we had a few doubts That’s a change. When I think about travel it’s usually Truckin’ i.e. “… Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.” but I don’t think this trip was quite long enough for that designation. I wasn’t sure what to think about the two classes initially. I wasn’t sure how intense they were going to b...
More About: Europe , Wrap , Rope

Switzerland
2007-06-27 21:51:00
or perhaps better known as: Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Switzerland in a day! Last minute packing done, I decided it would be far more sensible to take a taxi rather than bring two bags on a tram/subway combo. See, I’m sensible at times! The train left Prague at 9:15. Unfortunately, it was a Czech Railways train which meant sardines. Luckily, my 5 compartment-mates left at Pilzen and I was joined by two wonderful travelers who were returning to Munich to catch a flight back to the US. We performed the usual ritual of sharing food and stories and they had some phenomenal travel stories: house boats in the Kashmir, Jerusalem, Bali… I was sad to see them leave because they were fun to talk to. I didn’t spend the Euros exactly as planned (ended up spending 5 Euros on the train for a sandwich and Coke Light) but happily finished them up at Munich Hauptbahnhof on a salami baguette and a white chocolate chocolate chip cookie at Starbucks. Yep, finally gave in ...
More About: Witz

Home…
2007-06-26 19:03:00
Unfortunately my luggage isn’t… BA still has no idea where it is, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be lost. There’s nothing that exciting in it. The line was huge at JFK but the staff really tried to keep a sense of humour on a hot, sticky night. Kudos to them. Switzerland was amazing and there will be photos later. The scenery is just phenomenal. ETA: I updated my Flight Memory: still only halfway to the moon (since Aug 2001) but I’m getting there. The balance of this summer’s flights (HPN-ORD-LAX-AKL-MEL-ADL-BNE-LAX-ORD-HPN) will help

Currencies Gone Wild
2007-06-22 21:43:00
In the course of my packing, I decided to clean out my wallet because it’s nearing the point of weighing more than my carry on. Apart from the usual litter of receipts, I have the following: 8.20 Euros. Somewhat deliberate as I changed the notes when I returned to Prague in a futile attempt not to have to withdraw any more cKs while here. I figured the ~8 would be enough to get a sandwich and drink at Munich Hauptbahnhof. While I’m at it, Euros. I always hear how hard US coins are because neither the dime nor quarter are marked with monetary value and the nickel is bigger than the dime. Uh… the 50 cent piece is bigger than the one Euro coin, so they’re insane too 2.40 pounds sterling. Well I do have a layover at LHR, but that’s going to be as useful as $US. May see if someone else is going to have a more useful layover, though I don’t think they do. $3.40 (US) leftover from what I had in my wallet and change made when changing currency at the ...
More About: Wild , Currencies

Kutna Hora: Bones
2007-06-21 22:56:00
So that photo woud be at the foot of the stairs looking back towards the main door. And yes, human bones form the decoration of Kutna Hora ’s Ossuary. I wasn’t happy with most of the photos, hence there not being any posts to the Gallery, but I thought these were pretty cool. I knew Kutna Hora had a ‘bone church’ but this was not at all what I expected. Also a huge number of primary school kids: cannot see that going over well at home “You’re traumatizing my kid!” Kutna Hora itself was a quiet day. We did the ossuary and then the Church of St. Barbara with its flying buttresses. It was odd: you can take pics at the Ossuary (for a fee) but they’re forbidden at St. Barbara. I didn’t even take any from outside because the camera is completely posessed and I didn’t feel like fussing with it. After the second church, Jana walked us into the town and we were free to explore. The Alchemy Museum was cool, but it was hot so I happil...
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Berlin: Thoughts on a United/Divided City
2007-06-19 17:23:00
It’s scary, but I think I agree with George W. on something. Apparently on a 2002 visit to Berl in he said the following: “The history of our time is written in the life of Berlin.” Somewhat frightening that I don’t think I could have said it better myself. Today in class we had a discussion on what we’d done for the weekend and a discussion popped up on the relevance of The Wall and whether it will matter or not in 200 years. This class is actually an interesting group in that we range in age from 19-37. We have very different perspectives on world history, and two of the younger ones had no real memory of the Wall. I feel strongly that it will matter because the value in a united Europe via the EU (whether we’re talking about those currently in the Schengen area, the 27 current members or how the EU continues to evolve doesn’t matter) is lost if one doesn’t know/remember the fact that less than 20 years ago, freedom to travel was seve...
More About: Thoughts , United , City

Berlin: Walking Through History
2007-06-18 17:01:00
  156 photos taken, 19 posted. This weekend’s trip to Berl in is one that’s going to stick with me for some time to come. I really felt like I was walking through history, albeit a mostly unknown history. Friday night I was up in our lounge where I found a copy of an old edition of Time Out Berlin. I took it with me and although I didn’t read much of it - I’d gone to bed at 2 AM and the insides of my eyelids were pretty - it was an interesting overview of the city and its history. As I explained to Ute when we met up, the German history that’s taught in US schools consists of 20th century “Germany is evil”, so I had very little idea of what else Berlin and Germany was about. But backtracking a bit… Train left Praha Hlavni Nadrazi at 8:15. First thoughts: yes! Deutsche Bahn train! Although Ute has explained to be that there can be lesser quality Deutsche Bahn trains, as a whole they’re a better quality than those operated b...
More About: History , Walking , Walk