New York can be daunting. You come over that hill in the cab from JFK and see the city sprawled out in front of you and can't help but feel a little intimidated. Here are my basic essential tips for navigating the city. Take a cab from Laguardia. JFK and Newark both have train stations within the airport linking you directly to the city. Take either one towards Penn Station (tho don't get off at Newark Penn Station if...
This week, I'm going back to New York for work and to play with all my favorite Yankees. As a result of my inevitable lack of productivity, I'm pre-posting this week all of my Best-Of posts about New York. Tuesday through Saturday, look for a pleathora of Big Apple themed awesomeness. There will be some great "Top X" lists on things to do in New York City, for those who have never been, for those who have been LOTS of times...
Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 10:00AM | 6 Comments
It's been over a year since I last stepped foot in New York. I'm landed here because my mom lives here now, so I have a free place to stay. Enough of a reason for me to stop anywhere. But I was excited to give New York another shot. See, people are always under this impression that you're either a West Coast gal, or an East Coast gal. There's no in between, there is no...
Tuesday, December 28, 2010 at 10:10AM | 5 Comments
Being back in NY has been amazing. From the day I stepped off the train at my mom s new apartment in Chelsea, I knew it wouldn t take me long to get adjusted here. Grocery store, check. Post office, check. Resident Irish bar, check check. Nope. This place feels just like home. And surprisingly, it s chalked full of just as many friends as I have pretty much anywhere else...
If you thought I wasn’t lucky enough to get two bluebird days in one ski session, you were wrong – although the second evening of snow was merely a trace, it was still a gorgeous sunny day and I count it.
I took a day off between ski days to relax and allow myself to recover from the first full day back on the slopes since last season. Fortunately, I didn’t need the rest too much as I was surprisingly, not that sore. I slept in late while Dan worked and then he accompanied me on a quick drive into Invermere. The trip was originally intended to catch some photos of some gorgeous scenery I had passed on the way into town the night before, but after getting all the way down the mountain, I realized that I forgot the SD card for my camera… awesome.
So we decided to just chill out a bit. We walked out on Lake Lillian where they had a cute skating rink banked off with snow (although the rink was not skatable as it was mostly covered in snow). After that we drove down to the main lake in Invermere (Lake Windermere) and then drove ON the lake. I was quite a bit nervous at first but Dan coached me through it and we drove out as far as another small 2 wheel drive car. We walked around skated a bit farther out and then the novelty wore off and we drove right back off. What was really cool about this lake was that there is actually a legitimate road that drives right across the middle and where we were parked (on the water) there was an ice hockey rink, a fishing hole, a bonfire pit and an ice garden set up by the park association. There was also a cross country skiing track setup around the perimeter. Really cool.
After we left the lake, we picked up some items at the grocery store for our contribution to Alana’s going away pot luck later in the evening, picked up a hitchhiker (aka one of Dan’s friends) and drove back up to Pano.
Alana is one of Dan’s friends who actually stayed with my parent’s when they did the cross-country drive from Pano to North Carolina and I had heard wonderful things about her. She is moving back home and so some friends put together a little pot luck going away party. Dan and I decided that our contribution needed to be nothing other than… queso. I actually found Velveeta at the supermarket and ghetto rigged up some ro-tel. It was a huge hit and I thought, a very clever contribution to the evening :)
The night ended relatively early after a really nice house party and we all prepared ourselves for a long day of skiing ahead.
We woke up around 9:30 and got dressed quickly to be on the mountain at 10. Dan, Emma, another friend, Harper, and I all met up to ski down some runs before meeting up with Nick and Alister at the base at noon. It was a really fun crowd and we had a great time. The snow was still pretty great and we hiked a bit further down Taynton Bowl to the very end, a run called Whitetail, which was a bit steeper than B1st but immensely shorter. I got some excellent skiing advice from Nick, who coaches on the mountain, and I started to feel a lot more comfortable with the double blacks (just in time for another year long skiing hiatus). We skied all day but never really tired and were greeted at home with another amazing hot meal prepared by one of Dan’s roomie’s, Amy. Tonight, a chicken curry, which was warm and delicious and exactly what I needed.
We took a quick dip in the hot tub before heading to watch Alister play in a broomball game played up on the frozen over tennis courts. The game was hilarious; it’s basically a more formalized version of the street hockey we used to play with a soccer ball back home. Short broom sticks with a flat end and a soccer ball kicked and swatted back and forth between tipsy employees slipping all over the place on the fresh ice. So much fun.
From there we packed up my car and drove back up to the T Bar for “Jam Night” which was basically an open mic night with a full band setup. In theory, it would have been really cool, but apparently, the main guy who runs it was not there this night, so it was a bit disorganized. Dan brought his drum set, and we had some songs lined up to sing and play (Harper plays a bit of electric guitar, with Dan on drums and me singing) but the highlight of the evening ended up being when we plugged Dan’s iPod into the overhead speakers and he accompanied a little Soulja Boy and Lady Gaga with his drumming magnificence. Definitely a fun night.
I left the bar around 12:30 to begin my drive to Calgary. The drive was really pretty boring. The conditions were great, clear skies, not too much snow left on the roads. The only issue was really fog, which wasn’t terrible, but just patchy in parts. The only thing that really happened was at about 2:30 when I hit a patch of fog and then suddenly saw a VERY large silhouette inside it. I slammed on my brakes and came to a halt about 10 yards from a gigantic female moose. She looked at me and then took off up the mountain to my left, but needless to say, I was a bit more careful looking for wildlife for the rest of the drive.
I got to Calgary about 4:30 and parked outside a Comfort Inn to pick up wifi and check on the carry on allowances at the airport. Unfortunately, the websites for both Continental and the Calgary airport were not exactly accurate. I’m going to type up a separate post detailing exactly what went down, and will provide a link here when I finish that up. Summary story, I ended up having to throw away a bunch of stuff in my laptop bag because I couldn’t take it on to the plane with me. I almost missed my flight out of Calgary, as a result, but didn’t, thankfully. I flew from Calgary to Houston, had a quick layover and then flew to Orlando (yes… opposite of the direction I wanted to go) and then to Los Angeles, finally. The amazing Lauren Rudy picked me up from the airport and we headed straight to Sharkeez in Manhattan Beach for some dinner and a couple beers. I had originally planned on staying up all night tonight to get on Japan time a little early, but I think that since I didn’t sleep last night and only for about 5 hours today, that I’m probably already screwed up enough to avoid jet lag completely. So I am off to bed. Tomorrow, I head to Okinawa. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself. This is going to be a big step for me in terms of culture shock. But I’m ready. Asia, here I come!
Despite how much I have been posting blogs in the past couple of weeks, I really haven't been creating much new content since the new year (backlog is a bitch, huh?). But I'm all caught up and ready to go. And go, I am certainly doing.
I'm spending this week making final preparations for my extended trip that begins this Friday. I'm sort of going crazy as my to-do list is still a mile long, but I supposed that's what happens when you leave the country for almost a year.
So here is my tentative schedule as it stands. I'd love to meet up with anyone who happens to be traveling near me at any given time.
1/15-1/18: Skiing in Panorama, Canada with Dan, Emma and the Pano crew 1/19: In LA for one night (staying with Miss Lauren Rudy in Manhattan if anyone wants to meet up for drinks in Hermosa?) 1/20-1/24: Okinawa with my cousins Mandy, Alan and Katie 1/25-1/26: Tokyo 1/27-3/10: Galway, Ireland 3/10-3/12: Glasgow (tentative) 3/12-3/13: Belfast (tentative) 3/13-3/18: Roadtrip Dublin, Cork and Galway, St. Patty's in Galway 3/19-3/21: Germany 3/22-3/24: Barcelona 3/24-3/26: Portugal 3/27-8/31: Southern Spain - will be living in San Ambrosio between Barbate and Jerez de la Frontera
I've already planned meetups with several people and will be spending St. Patrick's day with a small group, so please e-mail me if you're interested in coming on any or part of this excursion.
Also, if you happen to be an equestrian type, I'll be helping out at a riding holiday while I'm in Spain called Los Alamos and would love to have anyone and everyone come ride with me!
Look for lots of updates starting this weekend as well as a new design for my blog and website coming in February. I'm going to start up a new blog for travel tips, budget travel, solo travel and woman's travel here in February so look for a list of articles to come with that one!
Can't wait to get started! Can't wait for all of you to be there as I journey!
I am back in Oklahoma finally, after an amazing roadtrip and a great staff meeting in Los Angeles. Sam put me up in Long Beach and (even though she was deathly ill) was the best host I could have asked for. I got to meet the infamous Tiffanie and spent time with all the old regulars. Patrick, Mike, Jen, Anthony, Marissa, Liz, even Larry (*cough*) were super excited to hang out and we had a great time doing the usual (aka drinking beer, watching football and playing rockband - best life ever).
E2's staff meeting was in Seal Beach on Thursday and Friday and was relatively uneventful. We had a good (Long) meeting at the hotel and a gorgeous dinner and gift exchange at McKenna's on the Bay in Alamitos. For once, Jeff and I actually held it together and I made it up and chipper in time for the 8:00 EMIS meeting on Friday (miracle!).
Unfortunately, I started to feel sick about half way through the staff meeting. I've been fighting this one off for a couple weeks knowing that there was no way I could get sick in the car. So I decided to fly back to Tulsa early and let the mom take care of me. I hate to miss the LB Christmas Parade :( but I'll just have to go back again for it next year!
Tulsa is... well... Tulsa. I haven't told anyone I'm home, which has been nice since I really need to get some sleep and get caught up on all things life before I head out of the country forever. Update in a few weeks once I have my next trip figured out!
I can’t believe it. But we actually got up at 2 AM – which was great because we got to take our time on the drive and not freak out about getting me to the airport on time.
We head out of Amish town in Wisconsin (which was creepily dark without electricity) and drove straight West. The ride was uneventful. Dan and I played music and talked and Emma slept in the backseat. Somewhere in Southern Minnesota we ran into this giant field of flashing red lights. Literally a thousand lights that all blinked on and off at the EXACT same time. It was so creepy. After some stellar iPhone research, we learned that it’s a giant windfarm and those are the flashing lights at the top of the turbine. I tried to capture it in a photo, but with no luck. It was way too dark to see anything clearly.
We turned South at I-35 (yes… the wrong direction) and drove about 20 miles out of the way to hit the Iowa border. Ok, I know this is sort of cheating, but technically, I did touch Iowan soil, so I have been to the state. I pledge to go back at some point in my life and actually see some of the state, but for now, that’s all you’re going to get. Since we had to wake Emma up for the Iowa sign, we kept her up to catch the Minnesota sign once we turned back North. Minnesota has a really great sign on northbound I-35. We decided to sit on the wall for this one, and after I set the camera up and hit the automatic timer, I ran for the sign, jumped up on the wall, hit the back of the sign and fell straight on my face on the ground. Luckily, my camera clicked right as I hit the ground and Dan and Emma are cracking up (thanks guys). Second shot was the one and I made it without incident.
From here, Dan wanted to snooze a bit, so I took over the wheel (*shudder*) without much drama. I stalled the damn thing once, but then we were fine. I drove us up through Minnesota, around St. Paul and Minneapolis and West towards North Dakota. Fargo is right on the other side of the border and unfortunately, we couldn’t find a sign for North Dakota (my LAST state!!) so I was quite disappointed. We found some stupid buffalo painted in rainbow that had a plaque that said North Dakota, but I thought that was stupid and was in too much of a bad mood to play nice with the state. Ruined my whole trip.
Ok not that bad. Fargo was actually quite nice, except there is absolutely nothing there. We were trying to look for a generic place to eat lunch, a Chili’s, TGI Fridays, Hooters, anything. We couldn’t find anything. We drove around town for a solid 30 minutes before finally stumbling upon a cute little sandwich chain called Cousin’s. At this point we were desperate, but luckily, the food was actually pretty good.
From here, Emma and Dan drove me the short hop up to the Fargo airport and we said our sad goodbyes. Thanks again for everything you guys, especially for helping me finish all my state s :)
The airport was actually pretty impressive inside. The check-in/security process was very quick and straightforward. The wait was quick and the plane boarded quickly. We were out of there in no time. I slept the whole flight except when I was eating snacks (gotta love Allegiant Air’s snack packs). I hopped on the train to Long Beach and got to Sam’s at about 8 PM. Of course, the girl is cooking up some trouble, and has some sort of get together planned tonight as a welcome home. Something about beer pong and chicken queso dip? Not sure but it sounds amazing, so I am going to go participate. Update soon and a wrap up for the trip! What a great one it was.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10:00AM | 
New York can be daunting. You come over that hill in the cab from JFK and see the city sprawled out in front of you and can't help but feel a little intimidated. Here are my basic essential tips for navigating the city. Take a cab from Laguardia. JFK and Newark both have train stations within the airport linking you directly to the city. Take either one towards Penn Station (tho don't get off at Newark Penn Station if...
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