Friday, October 16, 2009
Ljubljana - Slovenia Day 1
I already posted from Ljubljana while we were there (see that post here) so this post will be pretty short. We decided to start our vacation in the countries capital. It was a small but cute city, with the Old Town being the best part of it. We stayed right in the city center and enjoyed wandering around all of the side streets during the afternoon. There was a castle on top of the hill that overlooked the city, but I never made it up there (Brian did however, and said it was great!).
We had a fantastic dinner of thin crust pizza - our first of MANY that is (good things come from being Italy's neighbor) and enjoyed sitting in the town square watching a live soccer match on the screen that they had set up for the public. All in all a great start to the vacation!
Check out our pictures here
Saturday, October 10, 2009
technical difficulties
In addition to this being a very busy week (what's up new job??) I am having some technical difficulties updating the blog. It seems that we have reached our photo capacity and it wont let me upload anymore photos into picasaweb and/or the blog. So until I get that fixed the recaps will be put on hold. Sad, I know. But stick around - I hope to have it up and running soon!
Monday, October 05, 2009
Ireland with Danielle and Ed
The sun gods looked down upon us for those three days because we had some GREAT weather. A little cloudy and cool here and there, but it was mostly sunny fantastic weather. Brian and I took Danielle and Ed to a few of our favorite places - including spending the afternoon in Galway, having lunch at the Quays pub and spending some time in the near-by town of Clifton. We dragged them on a hike (as we needed to practice for climbing Mt Triglav the next week!). And though I think we were way more excited about it than they were, they were great sports about it.
On the third and last day in Ireland we decided to drive to the Cliffs of Moher. They are about an hour away from Shannon (where we were flying out of) and were so worth the side trip! The cliffs are absolutely amazing. It is stunning to see their size and the way the sea pounds away at the rocks to carve out these beautiful cliffs. All together the cliffs are some 8k long (I think...you might want to wiki that) and if you venture out far enough they take down the railings...and you can step as close to the edge as you dare. We weren't nearly that gutsy though, and stuck mostly to wide open spaces far from the edge. The weather was amazing, in fact the sun was so bright at times that we had a hard time taking pictures because the sun was washing them out. But hey, if that's all I have to complain about - Ill take it!
Here is the link for all of our Ireland pictures...enjoy!
A big THANK YOU goes out to Danielle and Ed for coming to visit us. We loved every minute of having you guys stay with us, and hope that you had a good time too!
Next up - we have 5 hours to unpack, repack, sleep and get our butts back to the airport for our Slovenia trip!
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Vacation Wrap Up
We had an AMAZING time in Ireland and in Slovenia and we have TONS of stories (and pictures - 1000 pictures to be exact!) to share with you. I'm going to try and post everything as quickly as I can because I am so excited to tell everyone about it, but there is a lot so it might take a while.
I have decided to post everything in sort of daily recaps - it makes it easier for me to recap each day, and easier for you to only too at 100 pics at a time, instead of all 1000 all at once! Ill be starting with recaps from Ireland, moving on to Slovenia and finally ending with Venice.
Until I can get the recaps and photos ready to post - here is a quick recap of everything we did on vacation (including a few New York and London related updates!) :
- Drove\flew in 4 countries in less than 14 hours (Ireland - England - Italy - Slovenia...our flight schedule was a bit nuts)
- Visited the Cliffs of Moher with some kids from Po-town (we love visitors!)
- Got a new job (a real job this time!!)
- Climbed a 10,000 ft mountain (and lived to tell about it)
- Bought a wedding dress (don't worry I didn't find it in Slovenia) and booked a wedding venue (finally!)
- Went from the highest peaks to the deepest caves in Slovenia (2 of them to be exact)
- Signed a lease on an apt that we had only seen in pictures on the internet (thankfully its amazing!)
- Marveled at waters so blue and clear we swore they were taken from the Caribbean and put into the Julian Alps (too bad it wasn't as warm!)
- Got lost in the streets and canals of Venice (on purpose, and with gelato in hand!)
- Realised that no matter how fun vacation is...it always feels great to come home (looking at all the laundry we have to do does not feel as great)
Monday, September 21, 2009
Bled - Day 1
We left Ljubljana fairly early this morning and made our way to Bled. We didn't realize how close it was and made it here in less than an hour. We spent the morning discussing our Triglav trip details with the tour company and finding a room for the next three nights. We are going to use Bled as a base for the Bled area and neighboring Lake Bohinj.
We rowed out to the little island in Lake Bled, which houses a small church and restaurant. The weather has been great - warm and sunny, though today was a bit hazy. We walked around the whole lake (6 km) and even trekked up to the castle that over looks this picturesque town. We are staying in a pension and have an apt to ourselves, which will make a great base over the next few days.
If the weather is nice tomorrow we are going to head over to Lake Bohinj and do a medium hike there. Wed will be a rest day since we need to prepare for our big hike! Pray for nice weather on Thurs and Fri!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Quick Hello - Slovenia Day 1
I was hoping to send a recap of our Ireland trip before we left for Slovenia, but we miss calculated how much time we had in between flights. Turns out our flight from Ireland didnt arrive in London until nearly 11pm on Saturday, and our flight to Slovenia left at 730am on Sunday. Factor in travel time between our flat and the airport both ways....you can do the math. That left us with a nap in between trips, and no time to share our Ireland vacation with you!
So here we are in Ljubljana, Slovenia. We flew into Venice and picked up our rental car. Brian had a fun time switching from driving a manual car in Ireland on the wrong side of the road, to driving a manual car in Italy/Slovenia on the right side of the road. And you can imagine how well I did trying to figure out the round-abouts in both countries. Oy vei. But we made it here in one piece, and we think the car survived as well.
We had a fantastic time with Danielle and Ed last week when they were staying with us. We had amazing weather in Ireland as well - all three days ended up being sunny! They (and we) lucked out big time! I even think it was warmer there in September then it was when we were there in July! One new place that we went on this trip to Ireland was the Cliffs of Mohar.
They. Are. Amazing.
I cannot wait to share the pictures with you guys! Unfortunately that will have to wait for a couple of weeks.
We leave Ljubljana tomorrow morning and make our way towards Bled and Lake Bohinj. Our two day hike up Mt Triglav is on Thursday and Friday. I hope to have regular updates for you guys on this trip! Hope you had a great weekend!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Pause
We had a great time at Scott and Annes wedding in Newport, RI. It was my first time to Newport and I loved it! We had a great hotel on the beach, did the cliff walk, saw The Breakers and many of the other mansions there, had some fantastic lobster and enjoyed a beautiful and super fun wedding.
Then I flew up to Syracuse for a few days. It was my first time home in a year, and man it felt good to be back! I saw tons of my family, caught up with old friends and went shopping for a wedding dress! I could have used a few more days upstate but I'm glad I was able to have at least a little time up there at all.
Then it was back to NYC and later CT for Maura and Liams wedding. It was so awesome being reunited with my S3 Marist girls (and Frank and Ed), and we had a blast partying it up CT style. The wedding was amazing - Maura looked so beautiful (I'm running out of adjectives to use in this post!) and was glowing from head to toe. The reception was super fun, the wedding toasts were some of the best I have ever heard, and we danced the night away.
It all ended too quickly - and much of it was a blur...thank god I had my camera :)
Now I'm back in London (with a couple of guests!). Its time to unpack and re-pack, because in two days we are off again! We are spending a few days in Ireland with our friends Danielle and Ed, and then we are off to Slovenia for two weeks! Its going to be super busy and a bit frenzied, but I'm sure it will be a great time. Keep an eye out for updates!
Thursday, September 03, 2009
And we're off!
We leave today for New York and couldn't be more excited! Brian will be in town just for the weekend, but I will be home for a full week.Our schedule is jam-packed, as usual, but its all fun stuff! We will be doing a little wedding research ourselves, along with attending two of our friends wedding, hanging out in NYC/LI, and I get to go home to Skaneateles for the first time in a year!
This trip starts off our hectic September of traveling - but don't worry, I've got an extra large cup of coffee in front of me to help me prepare!
Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone - I hope you had a great summer!
Monday, August 31, 2009
What I Did on My Bank Holiday by Tracy Miller
Fast forward to today. Finally time to go zorbing!
The directions seemed easy enough...take a train 35 mins outside of London, take a quick right out of the train station and walk for 10 mins...begin zorbing!
In reality, it was a bit...weirder...
They neglected to tell us that the "10 min walk" was actually up a really steep hill, in the middle of the forest, with no sidewalks...
And then we had to follow a dirt path, through the woods, in the middle of a paintball park...
And then we came upon a tent where we were greeted by a young girl with release forms for us to sign. I have to say, it didn't look that official, and it looked a wee bit sketchy. There were two other guys there at the same time as us, and we were able to watch them do a Hydro-run (where they throw water inside the zorb before you enter it) while we got ready (read: took off our shoes).
And then, our time had come...I'm not going to lie I started to feel VERY claustrophobic when I got inside the hamster ball...the inner space was much smaller than I had thought. I stepped back out of the zorb to collect myself and dove back in to get this thing over with. Literally, I had to dive in face first. Very elegantly I might add...
Once we were strapped in - we had feet and body harnesses - we were ready to go. A few deep breathes, a worried look to Brian and we were off!! And man did I scream my head off. An kept my eyes shut for 95% of it. And was completely mashed up the side of the ball while we were rolling/bouncing down the track. And then - it was over! All that for a measly 25 seconds of fun.
Brian and I looked at each other and just laughed. What a bizarre experience! We made our way back up the hill and prepared ourselves for our second trip down. I have to say, it went much smoother. We had a different hamster ball which was more comfortable and roomier inside - and I even managed to keep my screams to a minimum and my eyes open for 80% of it!! Victory!
Our zorbing package only included two trips down the hill, but we were perfectly ok with that. We watched a couple other people that had arrived after us and made our way through the sketchy woods back to the country road to head back to the train station.
The jury is still out on how we felt about zorbing...are we glad we did it? Sure, yes ok. Would we do it again? Hmm, I don't think so. Perhaps we had a spare one in our backyard, but I don't think its something we would travel outside of London to do again. But hey - variety is the spice of life...right?
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Bank Holiday
What are we going to be doing on our extra day off?
A little thing called Zorbing.
Beyond excited.
Here's hoping I dont break a bone.
Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!
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