October 24, 2007
1. Living la college lifestyle: I spent from 8am Friday until 4 pm Monday en route or in lovely New York. I came in UNDER budget!!
2. We stayed at a friend’s apartment. He has a little tiny loft which never sees the light of day furnished with a lamp, a fan, a little nightstand looking thing, and a full size mattress. Lodgings: free. Exercise up and down 4 flights of stairs to the apt: free. Exercise up and down the loft’s ladder-stairs: free. Finding out that my big manly friend is scared of mice, seeing him run around in high-tops to avoid stepping on an inch-long mouse: absolutely priceless. You just can’t get that entertainment in any high-class hotel.
3. Dogs. There were dogs everywhere. I have a particular fondness for this fella ….
4. Moma. Target sponsors free admission from 4pm-8pm on Friday nights. Definitely a plus.
5. Central Park. Outdoor ice skating rink, piles of boulders to climb, long meandering paths bordered by green lawns and trees; I just can’t get over the feeling of actually being in nature right in the middle of the city.
6. Food. Lunch at Moonstruck Cafe…..
7. Food. New York Pizza ….
8. Food. Cheese balls and arepas ….
9. Food. Rice to Riches rice pudding ….
10. Food. Grilled corn from Cafe Habana ….
11. Food. Green Bo Restaurant in Chinatown ….
Yep. ALL about the food. Oh, of course, there’s a dessert shop within five minutes’ walking distance, open until midnight and a comic shop open until 1 am every night five minutes in the other direction. Bonus!
The trip was FANtastic. We ate, walked, ate, walked, and ate. Rinse and repeat. We discovered the 3:40 am last call, and the fun of walking past a gazillion bars until we found one our motley crew was happy with.
Sunday was a dedicated (Eating and) Shopping Day. Best friend shopped out of Friend E’s closet and netted about 20 items including a pair of shoes and a really cute bag for FREE. It didn’t make a visible dent in E’s closet, either. And then they took me shopping which was much less fun, but ultimately successful. I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post, though.
*sigh* I love New York.
July 31, 2007
My friends offered me a free tip to Maui. Both my airfare and lodgings would have been paid for, if I could take off August 7th-14th. In fact, since I was still going to be on a business trip, the offer was even adjusted so that I could come a day later. Um, this year. What is that, a week from now?? Even if I weren’t still on a business trip, and even if I weren’t such a planny-planner who has to have things set months in advance, the catch is that the invitation was issued so that I would help take care of their 18-month-old boy. In other words, a glorified babysitter, or an au pair.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t give up this opportunity due to any misplaced sense of pride – no way! It’s just that I spent a full weekend babysitting the little guy, and he’s darling, but whoooo! 25 pounds, 4 hours a day and my arms felt like I’d been benchpressing the entire time. *lament* If it weren’t for my physical limitations/medical problems, this could have been my golden ticket to the lovely beaches of Maui. MAUI!
Instead I ceded the offer to my other friend. Have fun, kid. Have fun.
July 12, 2007
*sigh* I’m holding my breath that BoyDucky has a pristine CD with all our photos from Vietnam because it turns out that my CD is damaged and half the photos aren’t downloadable. It’s probably time to buy a flashdrive or external harddrive to save everything because while I don’t value too many electronic files, my photos are irreplaceable.
April 10, 2007
Zachary’s post about dropping off his wife at the airport two minutes too late to board reminded me of something.
I did sort of the same thing on my return from the Vietnam trip, except I arrived at the airport later than I should have, and missed the cutoff to check baggage while waiting in line to check said baggage. That sucked. And they wouldn’t send my baggage after me, on the next flight out either. Me and the baggage, or no go, they said. *sigh*
United wanted $100 (!!) to change my flight so that my bags could go with me, and since that was twice the fee I’d paid for the ticket in the first place, I seriously considered leaving the bags behind with BoyDucky.
Luckily, it turned out that since I was flying an award ticket, they were able to change my flight to the following morning without a fee. They may never say so officially, that I could find anyway, but award tickets are much more flexible when you’re at the airport and run into problems than a regular paid flight.
*Yes, this is the same trip wherein I had problems on the train, the outgoing flight just to get to SFO to catch the international flight, etc. etc. etc. Rather fitting, don’t you think?
April 7, 2007
I often ask BoyDucky to name three things for me. Three things he’d consider the most important “fun” items he’d spend on. Three things he’d like to do before he grows up. Three things we should definitely do for our wedding. Three reasons why we shouldn’t elope and skip the wedding nonsense.
His counter-proposal? Three trips before we have kids. We’re … well, I’m young 😉 and we both want to travel. And we like to travel together. Since we’re long distance, we spend more time travelling to each other than with each other, so we definitely want to discover new places together when we finally live in the same city. Trips within trips are fine and all (aka: the Vietnam trip: I had to travel to meet him, and then after we returned to the States, I had to travel back home again) but an actual trip in all its planning, budgeting and fussing glory is what we want.
We’d like to do three trips after we’re married but before we have kids, to see friends, to explore, to eat.
Where would you go?
I’ve got grandiose dreams in mind, none of which are affordable, I think:
1. Europe. Like naming an entire continent’s not cheating?
2. East Coast. I’ve got my 25K American Airlines miles ready and waiting, how ’bout you?
3. Someplace totally exotic. Er, was I supposed to wait for our honeymoon for this one? Does the honeymoon count? Should it count? And Comic-Con doesn’t count.
