I have been dreaming lately about renting a house.

But wait, you exclaim! Christy! You already are renting a house! (I am, it's true.) And it's lovely. And over the last three years you've made it your little haven. And as soon as the landscaper finishes redoing the yards it will be even better!

Well.

That hasn't stopped the dreams. Maybe it's inspired the dreams.

My dream rental house is in Bali, you see.

Oh!

But WHY BALI?

I have NO idea. Ask my dream programmer. Until recently I really had no desire to go to Indonesia. It was at the bottom of my list. But now...

It may still be at the bottom of my list.

BUT. If these dreams keep up, I may have to go and find that house from my dreams. The one with the carved four-poster teak bed with a pristine, white coverlet. An outdoor shower sits in a tropical garden. A perfectly placed deck perches on a cliff and I sit on it and drink mango juice and look out over the crashing ocean.

Today I registered my trip with the Department of State. I usually register my trips with the DOS when traveling internationally. It's probably not necessary, but just in case of some huge event I want the US Embassy in whatever country I'm visiting to know I'm there so they can keep an eye out for me.

Here's what you do:
Visit www.state.gov.
You can find all sorts of useful travel information about various countries. This is also where you can look to find any travel advisories that the US has issued. Travel advisories can affect your travel insurance. Some policies are void while traveling in countries that advisories have been issued against, so make sure you are covered and traveling safely.

At state.gov you can create a profile and follow their online wizard to create itineraries. Once you've filed itineraries with the DOS, you will be added to local embassy lists of travelers.

That's it. Easy.
And smart.

This morning I was thinking about the differences between the two tours I booked for April. The first, through Geckos was canceled. The second, through Intrepid is a day shorter with a slightly different itinerary. Something was bugging me about the Intrepid trip, so I pulled out the trip notes. Good thing I did!

With my first trip I would have crossed from Jordan into Egypt overland. It would have most likely been a fairly painless, simple process. See guard at border crossing. Pay money. Get visa. Done.

However, with the Intrepid tour, I'll be entering Egypt via Ferry at the port of Nuweiba. You wouldn't think this makes much of a difference, but apparently it does! Nuweiba is moderately difficult to enter Egypt through and it is STRONGLY recommended that tourists attain travel Visas prior to arrival.

Blast.

So I started researching visas. I figured that I would go ahead and get both a Jordanian and an Egyptian Visa ahead of time and just save any hassle. I've never been to the Middle East before and I'd like to avoid any possible problems ahead of time. After all, it is the Middle East. You've heard horror stories about dark prisons and torture. So have I. I want that visa and I want it now.

Well, the whole visa process was a bit confusing: Do I need to go through the US Department of State? Do I contact Egypt's consulate for it? HOW do I do this? (The answers: No, Yes and painfully!)

Turns out there are several ways to get visas for foreign travel. You can go through a service company to get them. They'll secure them quickly and efficiently, but it will cost you a pretty penny. ($50-$150 per visa) For me, given that I still have about a month before departure, I will try to get my visas from both the Jordanian and Egyptian consulates in the US, at my nearest branch (San Francisco). They'll each cost around $15 US.

Sounds easy enough, right?
Please.
I'm just getting started.

You can either apply in person at the respective consulate you want a visa from or mail your passport, form, fee (money order or cashier's check specifically) and a return envelope to them. I figure if I have to go to the trouble of getting a money order at the post office, I might as well just mail my passport and forms and save the trouble of trip(s) into San Francisco to the Consulates (Which are only open M-F, 10am to 2pm, closed from 12-12:30 for lunch, which means I'd have to take time off from work to go...)

So, because I have to mail the passport with my visa application, I can only mail my passport to one Consulate at a time. Because the Egyptian visa is the most important visa to secure, I'll start with that one. Then, time permitting, I'll either mail in my Jordanian application or take it in personally.

(This is a pain! But I'm betting the Pyramids will be well worth it. Seriously, why isn't traveling everywhere as easy as traveling to the UK/EU?)

So today on my lunch break I ventured over to the post office with my completed application, recent photograph stapled to the assigned spot on the page. Outer envelope addressed and ready to go. Needed to purchase the inner return envelope as I didn't have a smaller one to stuff inside the big one. Grabbed it at the post office, addressed it and proceeded to fill out millions of forms to send both envelopes Certified Mail. (After all, I'm MAILING my PASSPORT... Just the thought of that makes me hyperventilate a little bit. Do you know how much those things go for on the black market? Not that I do. Or that I know anything about the black market... But you know, you hear things.)

Check, check, check. I ticked off the things I needed to do for this somewhat complicated procedure. Wait, I really did need a check. Or more specifically, a money order (or a cashier's check, but I was at the post office, not the bank, so Money Order). So I said to the Postal Worker (who, by the way, was very confused by all of the multiple envelopes and steps to my procedure) "One Money Order, please!" And she said "Okay" and I handed her my credit card and she frowned and I wondered why she was frowning. "Cash, check or debit card only for Money Orders."

Blast.
I have all of those things, you know. But being that I was on my lunch break and didn't want to travel around with my garhugic purse I only grabbed one credit card before setting off for the bank.
So I paid for my envelopes, postage and certified mail fees and retracted my passport-laden package from the postal worker, took it with me and went back to work to get my debit card.

Being that I am me and easily distracted, I sat down at my desk and began working again. A few hours later I looked at my desk and spied the still-unmailed envelope, grabbed it and hoofed it the four blocks back to the post office.

This time I got my Money order. Stuffed it in the envelope. Made sure my passport was in the envelope and got the whole shenanigan mailed. So there.

I'm only hyperventilating a little bit.

Can I have my passport back please?

Gorgeous weather (or gorgeous mud) means I head for the hills and we've had gorgeous weather here in the Bay Area of late.

Exhibit A:


Yesterday evening I went to Old Borges ranch in Walnut Creek, which borders Mt. Diablo state park and Sugarloaf Open Space. I found three ponds and a lot of cows. Specifically, I found a group of young bulls, about 15 or so, blocking my hiking path. So what did I do? What any cattle-rancher's grand-daughter would do: I told them to move and kept walking. Well. They didn't really listen to me. What did you expect? They're cows. But I did keep walking. Right on past them. Inches away from being trampled to death! And they just looked at me in that big-eyed, wet-nosed, belligerent cow sort of way.

Hmm.

I know.

I could totally be a cowgirl.

Can't you just picture it now? (Don't answer that)


...
Anyway. The highlight of the evening came when I stopped into the restroom at the historical ranch and found this gem:

Friends frequently ask me to help them pick out the "Perfect" cruise.

I usually try to walk them through a series of somewhat daunting decisions: Where do you want to go? When do you want to go? Which cruise line suits you best? Etc.

So.
In order to help you pick the best possible cruise for you, I'm writing an article about it.

What do you most want to know about cruising?

Stay tuned!

:)

Hi my name is Christy and I'm a MacHead.

I've been thinking lately about writing while traveling. When I shift into full-time traveling I anticipate needing a normal laptop for power and storage space. But in the meanwhile for my shorter trips (like the one I've got coming up in a little over FOUR weeks!) I've been thinking about something a bit more portable. Like a netbook. Or maybe better, an iPad. I say maybe, because while I am completely in like with the idea of the iPad, I'm not sold on it's execution. Or rather, I'm not sold that it's the right solution for what I want.

It looks to be the perfect size for travel.

But.
But...
But I'm not convinced it's going to be a good travel companion. Speaking in terms of ease of word processing and photo processing. It's not going to have a normal operating system. It'll be more like a hyped-up iPhone.

So no Photoshop. No Word. (I'm willing to give Pages a spin, but I need to be able to use my documents on various computers and I don't have Pages on any other computer, nor will I be getting it...)

*Eh hem.*

See what I mean? This iPad business just may not really be the best for me. Sad, isn't it? It just bums me out.

Now, for writing on my upcoming trip. Does this mean I'll be thumbing it on my iPhone? I seriously hope not.

Sigh.

I guess for now we'll just have to sit on this issue until April 3rd, when I have a hot date with my local Apple store and will get some hands-on time with an iPad.

What type of computer would you travel with?

Let's face it, when most people think of California images of sunshine and beaches and hippies pop into their heads. Come on, you know that's what you picture too. So do I, even though I know better.

Sure, summers are the stuff that dreams are made of, but for the rest of the year we're stuck in the blah zone. You know the one. It's too cold to go to the beach and too warm for winter. It's drizzly and rainy and just all around blah. Hot tubs or fireplaces would be comforting, but I don't have either.

I know, I know, we could have Minnesotan winters. But I think California winters are the worst. Here's why: The expectation is what gets you! Minnesotans expect harsh winters. They anticipate loads of snow and cold. But here, even Californians expect to be warm in California. And there's no trusting the weatherman out here. (When I moved out of California I was shocked that there actually were places where the weatherman was RIGHT about the weather!) So we NEVER know what to expect. California winters are psychologically taxing. And that's depressing and exhausting.

I'll stop moaning now.
I have good reason to stop moaning now.
Today is gorgeous. Sunny and 70 degrees. And that means summer is coming soon. Summer is my favorite!!

Besides that, I've happened on a possibility. There are a few places that I'm a bit wishy-washy to travel to. India is one of them. It's not that I don't want to go to India. But I don't exactly feel a keen need to go either. So. I had decided that I'd go one day under the right circumstances.

Who knew circumstance would throw chance at my doorstep this fast? Kind of wierd how that works.

Nothing is set. But. I may be going in December. For a wedding celebration.

How cool is that?

The upside to booking any holiday well in advance is that you have the world at your fingertips. (That is also the downside, you know... where in the heck do you pick to go??) It also means that you have the convenience of time before actually leaving to think about the trip. Where will you stay? What will you do when you get there?

For my upcoming trip I have the luxury of time to research the places I'll be going and find the best things to do, so when I arrive I can do what feels best on a given day.

For some activities though, you need to make reservations well in advance, as annoying as it may be. There are a thousand-million little reasons why: Maybe your activity only runs on certain days. Maybe the tour will be completely booked by the time you arrived at your destination. And so on, and so forth...

I am not a person who takes kindly to missing out on an activity I sorely want to do because I didn't book it in time. Especially with trips I've been slowly planning for a year. (That's right, I started forming ideas for this trip while on my last trip in Rome... it's the best time really, when you're out and about and hearing of fabulous places to visit from other travelers)

My advice to you, if you have time on your side, is to research your activities/destination thoroughly. I start with tripadvisor.com and then eventually (a couple of months later) end up just googling the destination name + activities.

Today I made a breakthrough with my Malta activities. I knew that I wanted to visit Malta's smaller islands: Gozo and Comino. I also wanted to take a day and visit the ancient city of Valletta. And I knew that those things were about all I'd have time to do while on this trip. (Bummer!) A couple of weeks ago I started researching ferry routes to get to the smaller islands. I'm cool with taking a ferry. But I knew it may not be the best way to see those islands. I would have had to take a local bus to the ferry port and the whole thing could have become very time consuming (which, if I had two to three weeks solely on Malta wouldn't have been a bad thing). So. Not knowing what was available as far as boat excursions I finally happened upon this gem:


If you hadn't guessed it by now, I'm a bit of a boat junkie. "A bit" might
be an understatement. I love day expeditions on small boats that hug coastlines and offer snorkeling. So fun!
So I booked it today. If I had waited until I arrived on island (May 4th), I would have toured Valletta on May 5th and tried for the cruise May 6th. Well, the tour doesn't run on May 6th. They only operate Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays until June.

Oh my gosh I can't wait to be on vacation.

Yesterday I pretty much poured concrete all over the little life tangent I've taken and turned it into a bone fide life-path. Ummm...

It all started with my sister popping out that kid last week. You know, the cutest nephew in the world. That one. Combine the running around from work to Nephew's house, runnings errands for, hanging out with and holding of said nephew with what I did today and you can start calling me a soccer mom. Except I don't actually have any kids of my own.

Yesterday. Are you ready for it?

Are you sure?

Sigh.

I went to Disney on Ice.

Just tie an apron on me and call me Mom. (Please don't. Really. I'm not ready for that.)

I need some serious de-kidifying time. Soon. Now. ARGH!

Disney on Ice. Well. It was certainly big and shiny and very Disney. For those of you who are Disney fanatics, you would have loved it. I am not a Disney fanatic. I am not even much of a Disney fan at all these days. Does that make me a cynic? I dunno.

I though it was pretty for the first ten minutes and then I looked around me and saw the waving fields of screaming children and was kind of horrified. Every little girl had on her Disney princess dress. Every little boy had a flashing plastic sword. It was colorful, shiny, money dump. As in "Thank you for coming to our show, please insert $20 for a plastic hat. $10 for a churro and just go ahead and give us the rest of your paycheck for anything else your kid might want while you're here."



Ummmmm... No more Disney for me for a very long time, I think.

Time to go to Egypt and ride a camel. (46 days!)

So.
I've already broken my rule. Aren't you disappointed in me?
You know. The one I just made. About not buying anymore furniture. Yah. That one.

My bamboo-wood dish drainboard decided to up and fall apart just a couple of days after I made the rule (of course!). I do need to dry dishes for the next two years (or less). And so does my roommate. So out of common courtesy and thinking of my roommate's comfort (ay yay yay) I went to Target and bought a new drainboard. $18 dollars later... Yah. $18 for some plastic and wire. It's a racket I tell ya.

On my way out of the housewares section I just happened to walk down the bakeware aisle.

(That was my first mistake)

And low and behold what should jump off the shelf and into my cart? Custard cups. That's right. A four pack. Cute little glass custard cups with lids for convenient fridge storage. Only $6. (They were my consolation prize for having to spend $18 on a dish rack!)

I needed them to make molten chocolate cakes on Friday!! Because who doesn't want a molten chocolate cake on Friday? Come on!!

Also I'm currently having a secret love affair with sugar-free jello pudding, which comes in Cheesecake flavor but you have to make it from a box and you have to store it in (you guessed it) custard cups! (In case you didn't know, I'm currently on a strict sugar-on-Fridays-only regimen, so... sugar free Jello, woo-hoo! Come on, get excited with me.)

I've further justified the purchase by deciding to take the custard cups with me in my backpack when I begin roaming the earth... Eh. No. Just kidding.

Besides, do housewares really count as furniture? Home furnishing, yes. Furniture... debatable.