Vietnam: Hanoi & Halong Bay ~ * ~ DAY 1 ~ * ~ Landing in Hanoi, we hopped on the $2 shuttle van, supposedly heading to the Vietnam Airlines headquarters near the Old Quarter. The highway from the airport to the city cut through miles of fields and was lined with gigantic billboards, all promoting high end and high tech products, from luxury cars to digital cameras. Upon reaching the congested Old Quarter, the driver picked up a local who graciously offered to take us directly to our hotels. We proceeded on a complicated, twisting route through all 36 streets o [View Full Entry]

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Vancouver ~ * ~ DAY 1 ~ * ~ I took an early Quickshuttle bus ride from Seattle to Vancouver, on which I slept the whole way. It was two hours from Seattle to the border and one hour from the border to Vancouver airport. Crossing the border from the US to Canada was an interesting ordeal, as I got questioned by the customs official to the extreme, especially for my declared 2 day trip! Official: Why are you going to Canada? (To visit a friend.) how do you know this friend? (From high school.) Did she go to high school [View Full Entry]

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Seattle ~ * ~ DAY 1 ~ * ~ Arriving on my early morning flight from New York (caught the 4am bus through Harlem), I landed to a sunny day in Seattle. My friend David met me at the airport and we headed toward the university district, north of the airport. We took a stroll around University of Washington, which had a beautiful library and a great view of Mount Rainier (since it was a sunny, clear day). From the university, several buses went downtown. Pike Place Pike Place is one of the must see stops in Seattle. It is similar [View Full Entry]

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Our next stop: Austin, the "Live Music Capital of the World." After two hours on the highway, we rolled into the Austin Greyhound station and took a bus toward our hostel. The local bus took us on a mini city tour through the University of Texas (saw the huge stadium under renovation) and down Congress Avenue. We were staying at the Hostelling International hostel on South Lakeshore Blvd, right next to the lake! The hostel had a large bright living room with couches and tables, a well-equipped kitchen, a full bookshelf of resources and stories, and free internet! The wom [View Full Entry]

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Getting there Our flight from Baltimore to Atlanta was delayed due to thunderstorms and hail around Atlanta, so after 4 hours of sitting on the runway with no real knowledge of what the situation was...we finally took off and landed in ATL, 10 minutes after the last flight to New Orleans had left. We found ourselves having to sleep overnight in one of the world's busiest airports. We tried to find a quiet section near our gate, and dozed off to sleep with the sounds of CNN and vacuuming in the background. The air conditioning was freezing, and it was so [View Full Entry]

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