So little time so much to do!

On my morning run I allowed my mind to drift to more pleasant thoughts (to take my mind off the heat and fact that I was out of breathe on the first quarter of a mile (lol). I started thinking about how fast 17 days can come and go and what I wanted to accomplish or see while in London. One of my travel rituals involves visiting the local Kingdom Hall to meet my brothers and sisters. This usually tends to be the fastest way to meet the locals while getting to do other things like getting to the best local restaurants, or sites. I have started mapping out my zip codes and putting together a list of things I would like to see such as..... Buckingham Palace, some famous British Museums, and Big Ben. I would love to hear from you if you have any ideas on what you would do if you were in London!

The Journey is Up 2 Me

What does it take to be considered a great traveler? Travel is an escape from reality right? You pay, pack, and journey into another world where people who eat, stay, and live everyday already. Arriving into their world seems so interesting to ponder over. It never ceases to amaze me how similar or how different people can be once you enter their world even across bodies of water. This is the primary component of being a great traveler... the ability of leaving your world and entering someone’s else’s without a trace . Of course to journey one must leave their chaotic state of being only to enter the temporary sanctuary of peace we call vacation. This is a time without cell phones, needy kids, scheduled agenda's and time off of work! All for what? Besides returning to triple the emails and the blinking red light on my phone, it is to gain an experience or new memories that you can take with you on your days to come. It is a visited place that is forever in your mind for those hectic days that you can escape too. I find that I often leave my memories at my vacation site never to revisit them in times of need and it is only when I am dusting the photo album or when I am looking for the next cute face book profile pic that I run across some distant pictures from a random trip I took. I want to be better at mentally putting my vacations to better use or better yet to have some memories at my disposal vs. memories that have already been disposed. I want to learn while on vacation even if it’s about who I am while not on vacation sort of like a reflection period. Who is to say I can't come back sharper, or refined?

Stop and smell the roses

On every trip whether short or long, it has always had some life changing moment for me. As I contemplate ways I want this trip to change me, I can't help but think about many opportunities that could also pass me by due to the fast pace hustle and bustle of the city, the cars passing, the horns honking, the lights changing and so on and so on. I want to find a way to slow down, to take it all in. I feel it will be my obligation to share many of my experiences with my family, and Jason since I wont see him all the time. Yes he will have his own experiences to share but no doubt since he will be in school he will have a different mindset. I want to stress to myself that sitting outside at a bus stop, or as I wait in line to eat can have a aha element just the same as wandering through a museum. It is my norm to be thinking about the next thing, and how I can be accomplishing something while I am doing that thing and I can see if I think along this path I might miss the main thing. Perhaps I will work on my brain, and the thinking that it must do, so that I am able to change my thoughts or the path of my thoughts with the minor goal of
s-l-o-w-i-n-g d-o-w-n.

Travelers tools

I am on a new quest to find as many travelers tools that I can find. Frommers seems to be a great site and we have purchased the book from Frommers for London since it is so detailed. As I explore I think about all the streams of information and try to figure out necessity over "stuff" and find that there are three main pieces of info I can get from Frommers. Information on the city, advice on what to do, and last but not least when is the best time to do all this stuff. I am finding that airline companies even have travel tools for different countries which makes sense I guess, but perhaps there is one tool that you have found that you could share that would be more helpful over any of these tools or sites. The Internet seems to be helpful but at this point I feel like info is buried somewhere like a needle in a haystack or there is information overload which ultimately leaves me back to the starting point of where it all began. Again if you know any tools that might be able to help me find things to do while in Europe please send them over this way!

Tea Time

Jason and I have entertained the idea of becoming tea drinkers especially since we are going to London and Paris. I say this because in my mind it seems like the drink of choice in Europe is tea, and when we get there we want to at least be able to enjoy this drink along with the experience that comes with it. Our quest began in a tea store in chandler mall when purchasing a tea set for my brother. While in San Francisco (actually in China town) we did a tea tasting and had the lovely experience of learning about many different types of teas along with the many wonderful benefits that come from drinking tea. After all besides water, tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world. Among the various varieties we found that tea is used for reasons ranging from weight loss all the way to medicinal. Heck I just thought this stuff taste good. Here in the the US it seemed to me that ice tea was more popular well sweetened with some sort of artificial flavor. Ultimately after my tea tasting I learned that drinking tea this was is the exact opposite of what drinking tea is all about. All and all I look forward to learning what the tea experience is like in another country.

Fair weather accoutrements...

How do you prepare for climate you are not use to? Do you buy the heaviest jacket in Macy's or treat it like an Arizona summer with flip flops and a Wheaties t shirt? In our current element Arizona weather ranges from 95 degrees (OK this is at night) to 111. My clothes with the exception of when I go to work consist of a short piece of tatterred cloth and some sort of hair tie to keep my hair off of my neck. I am sure you can imagine our concern when picking out clothes to wear in another country where the summer weather ranges from the low 50's to the mid 60's. To help us with this problem we decided to spend a quick weekend in San Fransisco which has similar weather currently to London. Among other ideas to prepare I have to say this is by far the funnest. We are immersed in fashion while getting a strong sense of what people wear in cooler weather. I wasn't really sure what I would find with weather like this in the summer because people could be wearing large jackets and boots or they could be wearing shorts with a sweatshirt. Here in SF we found both ranges but along the way we found our style. It helps to have a stylish hubby who can guide you. Learning what true fashion is (which is definitely an exploration I am on) involves much more. I am finding it involves being you with a tailored or a refined classy edge. All and all our homework is done and now we can go on and have some fun in this wonderful little town.

Accomodations

During the duration of our stay in London we plan on visiting 3 places. London, Paris & Amsterdam. I am not really sure how we came up with Paris and Amsterdam but that is what we decided. We have heard of how wonderful and beautiful Paris is and I have two friends who gave Amsterdam very high recommendations so we can just go with that. Jason's accommodations are pretty simple since he will be in a dorm at Oxford, but my accommodations seemed at the onset to be complicated. There is of course the option for our timeshare (well until we found out that July in London is high time and all the timeshares were taken. Jim (the RCI representative) assured me he would do all he could to call me if something came available but after a week I stopped holding my breathe. The next idea was a hotel of which was super expensive. In London the cheapest hotel was $89 dollars a day and that was in a not so safe neighborhood so that was out. The last option that we found most advantageous was staying in a dorm room too. We found many dorms that were willing to offer ASU alumni rooms at a very modest rate ($28-$32) dollars a day. All in all I was able to book my 2 week stay for under $500 dollars which works perfect for me. Its a room with a bed and desk and all I need. So there you have it. We are booked for the better part of our trip. Now we have to figure out is where we will stay while in Paris and Amsterdam. Any suggestions???

Ticket Search

Buying our tickets started out real tricky. Being the savvy shopper than I am, it was my ultimate goal to save as much as I could just for bragging rights. I love travel so this is what I do best, and I am in sales so how hard could it be to negotiate a little airfare? Since it doesn't exactly work that way I had to move on to plan b. Standby. I paid $430 for my ticket to London using Open Skies and I will be using the carrier US Airways. I am thinking that I have very good chances to get on the flight and so what if I get bumped, tripped, scrapped up on the way... I saved over 1,000 on this ticket. My hubby's Jason barely got his ticket for $1200 and that felt like we were at an auction bidding. We went through many different screens, carriers back and forth and ultimately we got it down to the $1200 whew... its over we are booked. He is going on Delta and I am flying on US Airway... For me it all means 10 flights a day heading to Philadelphia from Phoenix only to leave on one large flight to LHR (London Heathrow) at 9:55pm at night. Jason will ultimately travel with out stress or worry since he paid not to worry.

How it came about that we decided to go to London.

It started about 3 months ago when Jason (my husband)was meeting with his ASU counselor. During the meeting he found out that in order to graduate that he must travel abroad. Many options were given but the two that we actually considered were Australia and London. After much deliberating we settled on London. He will be gone roughly a month and I will follow him for about 2 weeks. The funny thing is we don't plan on spending much time together. He will be studying at Oxford University while I spend my days in Paris and London roaming, shopping, and learning. I plan on meeting up with my local kingdom hall and hopefully engaging in the ministry which seems to be the best way to know someone locally. I thought since I will have much time on my hands I will get to write about my experience. I am new to writing, and certainly never have written any sort of blog so let the reader beware.


Graciously,

Flora