Shopping Day

Yesterday was shopping day. I realized when I arrived to California that a girl can’t survive with only 6 tops a whole month in California. Especially if that month includes a 4 day trip to Las Vegas/Grand Canyon.

Yesterday morning I had also realized that I had totally missed my budget in Costa Rica, since I forgot to include all the activities. That was quite a lot of money. I had no once else to blame but myself. Anyhow - even if my budget was limited I wanted to go shopping.

The problem is that the shopping in California is too good. My sister and I went to Macy´s (like Åhlens in Sweden) just to check out a few things and we ended up in a Calvin Klein sale. Before I knew it I had bought:

• 3 new tops
• 1 dress
• 1 pair of pants

We decided to have a coffee break before I checked out the bikinis (my bikini got destroyed in Costa Rica, so I needed a new one). I almost fainted when I got to the bathing suit/bikini department – there were sooooo much to choose from.  Before I knew I had my arms filled with different things I liked. Unfortunately I liked tem so much so I bought a lot of it:

• 1 bikini
• 1 bathing suite
• 2 tops, where one was from Michael Kors

I only needed one more thing; a pair of shoes and I had already decided that I wanted something like Converse and within minutes I had bought a pair of shoes also. Suddenly I was totally newly equipped. 

So what is wrong with me?? Why am I shopping so much when I had realized that I was out of money?? Well – for most of the time I’m careful with my money, but send me into a sale with clothes that I like and I can’t stop myself.  But I had to say that I’m extremely happy with all the things that I bought. I can’t even remember the last time where I felt so happy with the clothes that I bought. All day today I have had a smile on my face since I’m wearing one of the new tops. To feel pretty is worth a lot, even for a Tom-boy like me. 

Today we flew to Las Vegas. So I’m writing this laying on my bed in our hotel room on the 26^th floor at the Rio hotel - looking down on busy Las Vegas. I have to say that it feels like I have arrived to a parallel world here. Already at the airport it was clear that this was Vegas, since there where slot machines everywhere. When we arrived at the hotel we even got lost among all the machines and games before we could find our way to our room. It is almost sickening to see how people play games everywhere.

We, on the other hand, are just taking it easy before we go and see the “Penn and Teller” show tonight. Tomorrow will check out “the Strip” and on Friday we are flying helicopter to Grand Canyon. It will be busy days and of a totally different character than I had in Costa Rica. But that was sort of the whole point of my trip: to experience totally different things.

Observations during flights

Yesterday I flew the whole day. I left the hotel at 8.20 in the morning and arrived to my sister’s house at 23. Add then a couple of hours of time difference an you get the picture. Luckily I had only around 25 min delay on the last flight (all others were on time) and got my luggage in the end. I was actually expecting to get some problems with it. I even packed for the risk to lose my luggage.

To travel during the day is in a lot of ways just a waste of time. You end up watching endless amounts of movies and/or TV shows. I couldn’t find any good movies yesterday, so I ended up seeing multiple episodes of House, Law and Order, CSI…. You name it.

But I amused myself by doing some observations:

·         The Continental staff from Costa Rica to Houston really needs to go on some service training. They just through the food at you, spoke fast and low so it was impossible to hear what they said and had a bored attitude. Again – Lufthansa is so much better.

·         Houston Airport was a pleasant surprise after all my struggles at Newark. In Houston I went through Immigration, Customs, and Security check plus walked to the lounge near my gate within 20 minutes. In Newark it took my more than one hour to pass immigration.

·         The Continental lounges in USA are far behind Lufthansa lounges. They served coffee (of course not coffee to the European standard), tea and water plus fruit and some cookies. Lufthansa offers food and drinks, where the food is enough to replace a meal and the drinks include everything from soda to sparkling wine and whisky. In the Continental lounge there was a bar, but you needed to pay.

·         I was served a cheese burger in Business Class. I don’t think any European airline would do that. It was a good burger, but I don’t think it works with burgers on a plane. People tend to need more space while eating that. ;-)

·         On one of the flights I had a good looking young man sitting next to me. He was drinking a lot of white wine while reading “Guns & Ammo”. For some reason I found that to be a funny combo.

Now I will need to do some shopping. Tomorrow I'm off to Las Vegas!!!

My final day in Costa Rica

The round trip in Costa Rica ended yesterday, but I had one more day before I’m flying to California. I decided to use it as much as possible and booked a trip to a nearby volcano. 

I need to explain something before I go on. I need to explain what it means to travel with Intrepid. Intrepid trips are like back packing on your own, but you get help to arrange transport (often public) and accommodation (simpler hotels, hostels or camping). People travelling with Intrepid are mostly travel freaks that want to really experience the countries that they visit and want to avoid luxury hotels and tourist traps. My group the last 10 days has been like that. We have enjoyed living in simpler hotels (still very good, but not luxurious) and we all agree on what it means to be a responsible traveller.

Today, on the volcano tour, I met a totally different type of travellers. There were a couple of things that got to me:

·         One woman was looking for bull fights. This is forbidden by law, but she still wanted to see one. I think that is just WRONG!!!

·         One woman wanted to try the meat from some sort of big Ginny pig. The meat is supposed to be delicious, but you are forbidden to hunt this animal. Still she wanted to find out where she could eat it. Again  - so WRONG!!!!

This type of traveller really gets to me. L So that took some fun out of the day.

The volcano trip was also very touristic. For example we went to a Zoo (which is a typical tourist trap). I like to see the animals in their real surrounding. Animals in cages make me feel sad. The only good thing with this is that I could make some nice photos of birds, frogs and butterflies that can be hard to do out in the jungle. But even when I’m looking at these pictures it feels like I’m cheating.

The guide was also quite boring. It is a difference between a guide that likes “his/hers subject” or one that just states what is said on the official information. This guide was just stating the obvious and couldn’t add anything extra about what we saw and experienced. He was just rabbling facts someone taught him. The amazing thing with him was that he always said everything in 2 languages: Spanish and English. It sounded funny when he almost spoke the 2 languages at the same time, but it is worth my admiration.

BUT – I got to see an active volcano and that made up for the rest of the day. So all in all it was quite ok. I would have preferred a volcano trip without the zoo, more engaged guide and with a different kind of travellers. You can’t win them all and I had a fantastic trip before this.

Now I’m off to California. It is going to be an interesting flight. I’m flying from San José, Costa Rica to first Houston, then Phoenix and finally to San Francisco. The first 2 legs I’m flying with Continental Airlines and the last one with United Airlines. It is a flight that has increased chances for some problems, either with luggage or delays. But I’m might be lucky and since I’m staying with my sister I will be fine.

Summary of Costa Rica

It feels funny - it is already the last night on our trip and at the same time it feels like we have been travelling together for such a long time.

Costa Rica was my nature and animal stop on my trip around the world and BOY did Costa Rica deliver up to my expectations.  It has been a fantastic trip. I love this country, so beautiful and full of adventure.

I also got 2 bonuses on my Costa Rica stop:

1.       My trust in Intrepid (my travel agency) has been reinstalled. After my round trip in Malaysia with Intrepid I really started to wonder if I should travel with them again. But Allan, our dear tour leader here in Costa Rica, turned out to be one of the best tour leaders I have ever had. It surprised me since he is also the youngest.  He has done everything right: guided us in Costa Rica’s cities and nature, prepared us for what to expect, given us good recommendations on what to do and always been around to help us in every way.

2.       I travelled with the perfect group: only 5 people, all girls and all travel freaks. This means that we all had the same kind of expectations and it was easy to get along.

For those of you that have read all my blogs - you might wonder why I can be so happy with a trip where it has rained so much (it has rained every day and quite a lot every time). The thing is; I didn’t travel to Costa Rica to experience beaches and sun. Nature + animals don’t require sunshine.

As always on the end of trip it feels a bit sad. I seldom return to a country and I seldom meet the people I have travelled with again, with a few exceptions. So you know it is good bye – a good bye from something great. I hope I will have a reason to come back and that I will meet these people again, somehow, sometime.

A Big Thanks from me to Allan, Margie, Merryn, Mari and Taja. You made the trip great!

A summary of 3 days

Oups…3 days without any blogg. That wasn’t the plan. But first I had a day where not too many things happened (transport day - but we saw some crocodiles on the way) and then I had days where too many things happened. It is hard to have a balance. ;-)

Anyhow – we have reached Manuel Antonio on the west coast. It is a very, very cute village where the main attraction is the national park. On the day of arrival it rained A LOT, so we ended up just sitting in a coffee place looking at the beach and the pouring rain. But to cheer us up we decided to use the happy hour in a bar close to the hotel: 2 for the price of 1. The drinks were quite good, but since we were supposed to hike in the park the next morning we ended up going home early. You have to prioritize on a trip like this and partying is not on the top of the list for neither one of us in the group. I’m so happy that we think alike in the group. We haven’t disagreed on anything so far.

The hike the next morning was exactly as full with animals as they had told us in advance. Even if the park is small you see a lot. The animal we saw the most of was the sloth (sengångare in Swedish), but we also saw monkeys, spiders, lizards, crabs, birds, frogs and turtles. No snake this time. J It was a fantastic little hike. When we finished the hike with the guide we decided to go on a little hike on our own. We didn’t see so many animals (it is hard to spot them – this why you pay the guide) but we saw some fantastic views. I also went on a 1,5 hour hike on my own. It is always a bit exciting to walk in the jungle on your own. You hear all this noises and you can never be sure what is causing them.

Yesterday night we went dancing. I got the privilege to dance with our young and very cute tour leader. Oh boy, he could dance. I was out of practice and not totally sober so I got lost quite many times, but Allen always managed to get me back on track again. I wish more men could dance like that. It is such a treat to dance with someone who is good at it.

This morning we went for a sailing trip. The idea was to spot dolphins and to do some snorkeling. We didn’t spot any dolphins, the snorkeling was terrible since the rain has made the sea muddy and finally there were a lot of waves so half of the boat got seasick. Luckily I was not one of them. Ah well – most of our activities have been fine so if one was not perfect, who am I to say anything.

Now I’m enjoying my final cup of coffee before we will head back to San José. I haven’t decided if I will do a final activity there or just enjoy some free time and shopping.

A day off adventure

I had a day off adventures. J I needed that. Adventure is exhausting, even if I enjoy every minute.

Today we started early in the morning with a short hike in the “Cloud forest”. It was really nice and beautiful but nothing really exciting happened. We looked mostly at plants, insects and birds. I took a couple of OK shots of birds that you can see below. Oh, I forgot - we saw another snake. :-)

After lunch we just sat in the sun outside a coffee place and talked about all or nothing for a couple of hours. Then it was time for massage. Yeah – I know – AGAIN!!! But what can I say – I like to pamper myself. I mean; no one else is so I need to do it. ;-) The massage was quite good, but not nearly as good as the other day. But somehow I enjoyed it a lot since I could hear the rain pouring down outside, knowing that for once I was not out in the rain getting soaking wet. You have to enjoy the little things in life. ;-)

The evening started with a visit to the frog farm where we could see around 25 different frogs/toads out of the 180 that exist in Costa Rica. Who knew that frogs are so cute?? And that they can have so many different colors. Unfortunately you can’t take picture with a flash there and it was too dark without. I did however like the “Blue jeans” frog the most and I have a picture of that from the day when we floated down the river. I just forgot about it. You can see that below.

By the way the frog is poisonous.

We ended the day with a dinner in a tree house. The view and the restaurant were cool but the service and the food was not the best. Why is it always like that? Is like wine – the cooler bottle the worse content.

Tomorrow we will continue our trip around Costa Rica, so tonight I’m packing – again. I love travelling - I just get so totaly bored with all the packing and unpacking. Oh well - tomorrow is another day in paradise.

Another rainy day in paradise

Costa Rica is starting to be two things for me: animals and rain. Today we had another fantastic day with plenty of animals and today we got soaking wet again – third day in a row. But I can’t complain - we are in rainy season.

We started the day with a bus, boat, bus ride from La Fortuna to Monte Verde. It was an interesting ride, since it took place on one of the worst roads I ever travelled. Luckily we had an ok minibus and arrived safely without any problems.

As soon as we arrived to Monte Verde we started to book the activities for the day. Two of us decided to do Costa Rica’s number one tourist attraction – the Zip line and the other two decided to go for horseback riding. (One person lay sick at the hotel.) Guess what I chose??? Well, when I’m given the choice of Zip-lining (which is high up in the air and I have a fear of heights) and horseback riding (I love horses) the choice was not that difficult. No chance in h… I’m paying a lot of money to be scared to death, when I can do something I actually enjoy. So I spent 2 hours on a horse and got soaking wet – AGAIN!!! But I enjoyed every minute of it.

After that we decided to go for night walk in a National Park to see some animals. We had fantastic luck. We saw sloth (very cute fury animal high up in trees), raccoon (another very cute fury animal high up in tress) and finally we say an armadillo. It is very unusual that you get to see all three animals in one night, especially the last one (armadillo). We felt so lucky. Unfortunately it is impossible to take pictures of these animals, mainly because they are so high up in the trees and it is dark. The armadillo appeared in pouring rain and that time I had put my camera away.

But we also saw plenty of insects and a tarantula and these you can see in the pictures below. They were easier to catch with the camera. Tomorrow morning we are going for another animal hike. Let’s see how that turns out. But I’m guessing it will rain. J

Observations of Costa Rica

Costa Rica has as all other countries its characteristics. These are the ones that I have noticed so far (please observe that this is my personal point of view)

·         On the radio they are mostly playing music from the 80’s and the 90’s. I really like that, since that was my party days.

·         Costa Rican’s are very friendly and speak better English than the other Latin American countries that I have visited.

·         They love sauces with cream. Almost everything that you order on the menu (that is not local food) is made with a creamy sauce. Today I had Spaghetti Marinara with cream sauce.

A Day Full of Animals

One of the reasons that I travelled to Costa Rica was that I wanted to see a lot of animals. Today was a good day! Below you can see some of the ones I saw. But the day was also full of adventure:

We started the morning with a “Safari boat tour”. This turned out to be a White Water Rafting Tour without the White Water. In other words: we went down a river sitting in an inflatable rubber boat. The first thing we saw was a sloth. J A fury little thing in a tree. According to Allan the sloths can grow moss in their fur (I don’t know why). We continued the morning with green lizards, caiman (small type of crocodile), monkeys, lots of birds….

At one time during the tour we got stuck in some drift wood and we got really stuck. We were pushing and paddling all that we could, but we still got back to the same point. Finally our “driver” Elmer jumped into the water and pulled us to a different place. The problem with this maneuver was that he nearly dropped us in the end. That would have been a lot bigger adventure – if we would have continued down streams without him. J Now it went just fine. The boat tour was amazing. It is something so peaceful about floating down a river.

In the afternoon we decided to do the Hanging bridges tour. First I didn’t want to participate, since I have seen more hanging bridges than I need, but after a discussion with Allan I realized that this tour was not focusing on the bridges but on the animals, so I decided to come along. The tour started very well. We saw lots of animals: monkeys, snakes, birds, cool insects… where you can see some below.

But then it started to rain – the same kind of rain we had the day before. The sky just opened. At this point I was happy that I used my already wet hiking boots again instead of my dry jogging shoes. It is enough with one pair of soaking wet shoes. For us it felt like we established a new tradition – the afternoon shower in the nature with all our clothes on.

When we came back I decided to go for a massage. Boy – that was a massage from heaven. I don’t think I ever met such a good masseuse. I felt great! All the stiff shoulders from carrying my 19 kg back pack were gone.

How the weather treats you

Today was another adventure, but of a different kind than the flight to Costa Rica.

We started this morning by driving to La Fortuna, a small city located around 3-4 hours’ drive from San Jose to the north. On the way we stopped and had lunch at Allen’s (our tour leader’s) house. We got to meet his mother, grandmother and sister. The lunch was prepared by his father. It is quite unusual that the men cooks in Costa Rica, but Allen’s father had done a really good job. It was so nice to have lunch at someone’s house instead of in a restaurant.

We reached the hotel around 13.30, but we had to wait for our rooms until 14.30. Since our plan was to do the Arenal Volcano hike, I got a bit stressed. As a hiker I don’t like to go out too late, since it will get dark and it is just stupid to hike in the dark. But Allen said it would be ok and since he has done the hike several hundred times, we trusted him.

At 15.30 we finally started our hike. Only 5 min after it started to rain. No too much in the beginning, but after a few minutes more it was pouring down - as it only can do in a rain forest. I was using a rain poncho, but after a while I discovered that the zipper in the front was leaking. Hmmm… not good! I don’t mind getting wet, but I had my new camera with me and I started to feel that the camera cover got wetter by the minute. Allen asked if we wanted to turn and for once I actually felt it was a good idea to give up. My new camera was not worth the price of my stubborn head. We turned and as soon as we did we noticed that we no longer walked on a trail but in a waterfall. It was REALLY pouring down. At this point I felt how my hiking boots were filled with water and every step made that special noise that only water filled shoes can do.

After a while we reached the start of the trail again and at that exact point it stopped raining. But by now we were so soaking wet we just wanted to leave. We called our taxi driver and went down to the village again.

Just before the village the Hot Springs is located. We had already before decided to stop there on our way back. Allen decided not to join us and dropped the 3 of us off (our Australian friends didn’t participate in the hike). It was really nice to step down in the hot pools and we used the possibility to enjoy a beer while sitting there. When we started to think about the return we realized that none of us knew what was the name of the hotel and we wasn’t even sure where it was located. What to do?? We asked for a taxi and when it arrived the driver asked if it was OK to drop us of at the church and since we didn’t know where we stayed we said why not. Luckily we could figure out the way as soon as we got down to the village. It would have been hard to ask for the way, when we didn’t know what to ask for.

After a late dinner I could hardly stand on my feet but decided to at least write the day’s event. So here we. Now a good night’s sleep and then another adventure.

The Group in Costa Rica

In Costa Rica I’m travelling with a group consisting of 6 people in total, including me.

·         Mari, 38, teacher from Finland

·         Taja, 35, teacher from Finland

·         Merryn, 50+, health care administrator from Australia

·         Margret, 50+, psychologist from Australia

·         Allen, 22, our tour leader

They are all very, very nice people. The girls in the group are like me; travel maniacs and have been all over the world. So there is a lot of talk about our trips, things we have done and food we have “discovered”.

Allen is a very cute and very experienced guide/tour leader, especially considering his age. He has a university degree in tourism and knows a lot about the Costa Rican nature.  I like that he can talk about the history of Costa Rica as much as he can spot animals. He is as attached to his iPhone as I am to mine. Tonight we spend an hour just talking about different apps. J

To travel in groups that you don’t know is always a gamble but this time I feel really lucky. So far we have only had fun and agreed how we would like to handle things. Maybe it will change later in the week. At the moment I’m fully enjoying everyone’s company.

No wireless in Costa Rica??

For some reason I can´t find any wireless places in San José, Costa Rica. Maybe I´m just blind, but I don´t see them anywhere . It gets a bit complicated since I´m writing my blogs on my own computer and have to use a USB to move the text to this computer.

Anyhow - I have arrived safely to Costa Rica and I have met my fellow travellers, 4 lovely girls. Today we will meet our guide and have a tour of the city and tomorrow we will travel to Arenal.

To be honest - I spent most of the day yesterday sleeping. I was just too tired from the trip and the issues I went through and maybe it was also some downwinding from the office. So far my experience of Costa Rica has been: lots of sleep, good food and good wine. But now I feel GREAT!!!!

One of the other girls is also writing a blog, so she is sitting in the both next to me writing hers. Kind of funny.

Somehow I will try to put posts here even in the land of no wireless. We will keep in touch! :-)

Newark airport and Continental

I don’t get it: people always say that Lufthansa staff is rude. I find Lufthansa to be both kind and efficient, always willing to help a little extra. Continental is a totally different story. Yesterday when I wanted to get a boarding pass (to speed things up this morning) they had a rude attitude and this morning when I checked in my bag it was even worse. And that was not all that I wasn’t too happy about.

First of all, the signs in Newark terminal C where Continental is located are just bad. It is hard to find the correct place to check in (there are a lot of check-in desk, but to avoid the line I wanted to use business check-in).

Second of all: you get different answers on the same question depending on who you are asking: one told me check-in on the 2^nd floor and another one told me to check-in on the bottom floor.

Third: they don’t have any baggage drop???!!! So even if you have you boarding pass you need to stand in the check-in line again.

Fourth: they use “soft check-in”, which means that even if you stand in line to get help you are supposed to check-in on your own on a machine. The machine was new to me and I didn’t fully understand how to hold the ticket when the machine should read it (keep in mind it was 5.30 in the morning) and immediately the lady behind the desk got irritated with me. I informed her that I had never used the machine and didn’t fully understand how to hold the ticket. She softened a little bit, but still had an aura of irritation around her. Yesterday night I had a similar experience when I wasn’t allowed to use the machine because it was 1 hour too early to use it. They seem to think that everyone knows everything about Continental and their procedures.

Bottom line: my experience of Newark airport and Continental was not the best.  I have a few more flights with them. I hope that they will give a different impression on other airports and on the plane.

Stuck in Newark

The adventure has started. First thing that happened was that my flight from Frankfurt to Newark was delayed. In Newark I was supposed to change flight to get to Costa Rica.

The delay was not that big, around 40 minutes, but that was enough for the very slow Newark airport. I ended up standing in the immigration line for nearly one hour and when I finally came through my flight had already left. I asked the staff if there was any chance of going faster through immigration, but NO I had to stay in line with all the other hundreds of people. It took me some time to find my luggage and get to the Lufthansa Service Center. Finally there I was prepared for the worst message. My biggest fear was that they couldn’t find me any flights in the next 2 days, because then I would miss my Costa Rica tour. Luckily I got a flight tomorrow morning at 7.25 (very early morning for me, need to be at airport at 5.25). It pays off to be an experienced Project Manager and plan with some slack. J Now I will still arrive in time to start my Costa Rica tour.

I had to call my travel agency and let them know that I was delayed, since I had both an airport pick-up and a hotel room waiting for me. My problem was that the phone number that I got was not including country and local code. Luckily my dear friend Maria used to live in Costa Rica. I knew it was late in Sweden, but I sent her a text and asked how to call Costa Rica. She was awake and gave the info I needed. Thanks Maria! You saved me there! I called my contact José and of course he didn’t speak any English. It becomes a bit funny to talk on the phone in English with someone that doesn’t understand you. In the end I think he understood what I meant and I also sent the information on a text and got the answer “OK, perfect”, so I’m hoping he will be waiting for me tomorrow.

This is the thing – when you travel alone you have to be prepared for everything. Also it helps to have good friends that can help you out. Luckily I have that. J  Thanks!

Business Class passenger - I don't think so.....

I love Germany. It is one of Europe’s most misunderstood countries. Germany for me is beautiful old buildings, nice scenery with all the big rivers, cozy cities, great beer and very nice people. Every time I come to Germany I get a big smile on my face. I feel at home.

Frankfurt was in a good mood. I had a wonderful time. I strolled the streets and along the river, drank a beer and sekt in the sun, ate great food and enjoyed the views. ;-) My friend came and kept me company for a few hours. As always he brought me a present. That is thing: he always brings me well thought through presents and I always forget to bring him anything. He is a really good friend. J

Now it is time to tell you about my ticket. My trip around the world is bought with Lufthansa (my favorite airline) miles. Lufthansa has a funny system when it comes to using the miles for rewards: One trip from Europe to Asia is 60 000 miles. One upgrade from Economy class to Business class for the same distance is 60 000 miles. BUT, to buy a ticket to fly around the world is 180 000 miles and if you want to do the same trip in Business class it is 280 000 miles. I had more than 300 000 miles, since I have been travelling a lot the last years, so I decided to use my miles to buy a trip around the world in Business Class. (I still have to pay airport taxes for a total of SEK 6500). So now I’m on the way around the world in Business Class.

But I don’t look like a Business Class passenger in my hiking boots, hiking pants and back pack. The taxi driver passed the Business Class check-in, since he was so sure that I was flying Economy so he didn’t even ask. I ended up walking several hundred meters extra with all my luggage. When I wanted to check-in the guy that makes the first control came up to me even before I had approached the check-in and told me “this is for Business class only”.  So I had to reply “Yes, I know – that’s why I’m here” with a smile. ;-) I think it is funny how people so easily judge you on the look. What is stranger is that I still meet people that think that I’m stupid because I’m a woman, with blond hair and big tits. Luckily that is at least becoming rarer. But to sum it up: I’m now I’m travelling the world looking like a poor stupid lonely woman. I don’t think that too many people that know me would describe me like that. J

Finally on my way

I’m finally on my way!! I booked this trip in October 2010, so it has been on my mind for 8 months. So it feels almost strange to have started it. Well – I haven’t started it for real. My first stop is Frankfurt. Tomorrow I will fly from Frankfurt to Costa Rica. I needed to fly one day earlier to Frankfurt to make sure that I would make the flight tomorrow. Since the flight from Sweden to Frankfurt is booked separately they would not rebook me if I was delayed. So better safe than sorry – I’m flying one day earlier to Frankfurt.

Hopefully I will a nice time in Frankfurt. The plan is that I will spend the evening with my German friend. At least he will try to visit me at the hotel in Frankfurt, but it all comes down to if he can leave the office in reasonable time.

It feels good to be ready with the packing. I have packed and repacked and repacked…. so many times the last months. I really needed to come down in weight. And still – I’m travelling with 19 kg. The winter hiking clothes and the hiking equipment weighs a lot and takes also almost half the space in my back pack. This means that my normal wear is kept to a minimum. Girls – I have only 6 changes with me, for 2.5 months!!!!!! I will do A LOT of laundry. J

Now I will start the real blog. J The blog about what I experience on my trip. I hope you will find it interesting.

16,1 kg

Today I packed almost everything into my back pack. There are only a few things on the side that I haven’t decided how to handle yet. The back pack weighed 16,1 kg, so it probably will weigh around 18 kg when everything is packed. That is actually too much. I would have preferred 15 kg or less, but it is hard when I need to bring winter clothes – they all weigh quite a lot. And that is still only a fraction of all the winter clothes that I need for the hike on New Zeeland. The rest of the clothes I will buy in California. They have great things for 40% less cost than in Sweden.

It was funny to look at all my clothes for the next months. The pile wasn’t especially big and it still consists of fitness and hiking clothes as well as day/evening wear. I will do a lot of laundry during the trip, but that is the price to pay when to travel light.

Btw – I have really tried hard to limit the amount of shoes. I ended up with 4 pairs. :-)

My hand luggage consists almost of only technical things:

·         System camera

·         Underwater camera

·         Computer

·         IPhone

·         Chargers and cables

I think I might have a slightly bigger interest for technical things than the average 47 year old “girl”. What can I say - I’m still a kid that likes toys. ;-)

Now I just need to finish up my assignment and give a PMI presentation on Monday. Then I can focus on my trip and nothing else.

6 days left to lift off……

Sailing break and failed travel preparations

I took a break from the travel preparations and went sailing. :-) Some of you might know that it is one of my interests even if I haven’t had the possibility to really develop it. I have attended 3 sailing courses and I have also a boat driving license. All these courses took place in the end of the nineties and like any other thing you learn – if you don’t practice you forget about it. But I have tried to take every possibility to go sailing through the years. Unfortunately there were not that many possibilities.

My dear friend Helene has a very nice sailing boat. It is a 32 feet Arcona and is really nice to sail. Helene invited me to sail the long weekend and even if I should have done more travel preparations I really couldn’t miss the opportunity to go sailing with her boat. The small worry here is that even if it is Helen’s boat and she has sailed A LOT she has always sailed with more experienced people. Now she would go sailing with me – a rookie. Hmm…..

The sailing trip turned out to be quite exciting with some minor issues. Luckily my friend Kaj could assist us from a distance. Thanks Kaj for once again being the hero! :-)

Besides the issues that we run into, we had a fantastic weekend on the boat. The sun was shining and we had quite a lot of wind. In the evenings we prepared great dinners and ate them on the boat in the sun. It is a very special feeling and food tastes so much better on a boat.

Now I’m back in the preparation mode and I have to admit that I have failed miserably – I have bought new clothes. I started this preparation with the intention not to buy any new clothes since, I wanted to buy new clothes on the trip and through away the old clothes that I would bring along. That will not be the case. :-)The thing is: I realized that tights was better to bring than jeans, since they weigh less and take less space, so I ended up buying 5!!! new pairs. Of course I can’t take all of them with me, but I will bring 3 pairs. The tights required new tops, since I wanted them to be longer, so I ended up buying 3 new tops. OK – I admit it – I fell for the shopping urge yet again.

Anyhow – now I’m back in the sorting mode. I have far too many things that I want to bring - even if I have decided to buy a lot of things in California and send them to New Zeeland for the long hiking tour. That is life of a traveller – always having issues with your luggage.

The plan for Grand Canyon - how hard can it get?

Isn’t it funny? I have planned a tour around the world with stops at 5 different places and plenty of activities, but to decide what to do in Grand Canyon was hard, and that is only a day tour. After hours in front of the computer I still couldn’t decide what the best thing to do was. We had several options:

To get to Grand Canyon from Las Vegas:

·         Bus

·         Plane

·         Helicopter

·         Hummer

To do in Grand Canyon:

·         Hiking

·         Biking

·         Horseback riding

·         Helicopter

·         Plane

·         White water rafting

·         Just walk around in the tourist trap

Neither my sister nor I wanted to spend 10 hours in a bus or car to get to Grand Canyon. That means that we want to go by plane or helicopter.

It is also in the middle of the summer when we are planning to be there. In other words it will be between 40-50 degrees Celsius. So physical activities like hiking, biking and horseback riding are out of the question. (I’m quite used to hike in the heat, but when it is more than 40 degrees – I really can’t enjoy it.) White water rafting I have done once on Borneo. It was sort of fun, but I got scared when two people fell of and got stuck under the boat. I really don’t feel the need to do it again. That leaves us with a flight in helicopter or plane around Grand Canyon on the to do list.

So after some discussions we decided to go for the helicopter ride the whole way: as a ride to Grand Canyon from Las Vegas and then as the activity - land next to the river and enjoy some champagne. Check out the tour here: http://www.grandcanyontourcompany.com/heloairgd.htm It is going to be a BLAST!!!!