I went to Madrid with a big group for a friend's 30th birthday and we had such a great time. It was a gorgeous, sunny early Spring weekend and although it wasn't a terribly cultural weekend in terms of museums and sightseeing (I've done most of that in Madrid before) it was very cultural in a stay out until 7 a.m. dancing with the locals kind of way. [View Full Entry]

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For my friend Hannah's birthday (it's on St. Patrick's Day) we went to Dublin for a weekend of Guinness and sightseeing. Despite the fact that Hannah lives just a Eurostar ride away in Brussels, Belgium, I don't get to see her that often so it was really fun to meet up for a weekend in Dublin and just hang out. I hadn't been to Dublin in many years (since I went to Ireland with my Grandpa Joyce in 1993 or 1994 I think...) and Hannah wanted to make a pilgrimage for St. Patty's Day so off we went. We had a [View Full Entry]

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I arrived in London on October 1, 2006 and immediately began my new job. Work has been demanding and finding free time to flat-hunt and move, make contact with old and new friends, and generally settle in, was a challenge. After three months here I am nicely settled and very comfortable in my new neighborhood in north-central London and am having a wonderful time. I've had a lot of visitors come through town, including my family for a week at Christmas, and showing them around, seeing shows, and playing tourist has been really fun. I also found time this fall for [View Full Entry]

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Our final stop on this grand adventure is a little tropical island off the southern coast of Thailand - Ko Samui. We're staying in the Samui Yacht Club - no sign of a yacht but they do have nice individual cabins just steps from the beach, a pool and a pretty good bar/restaurant where we've been taking all of our meals. Both the ocean water and the pool are pretty warm but still refreshing when the sun is beating down. This has been a really nice, relaxing end to all the travels. We mostly just read, sunbathe, eat, and sleep all [View Full Entry]

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Hanoi is a bustling capital city - population 4 million - and we're staying in the charming Old Quarter which is a tangle of winding streets, whizzing motorbikes, shops and restaurants. Not many places have air conditioning (thankfully our hotel room does) so when it's too hot to be inside (i.e. all the time) people spill out of the shops and homes onto the sidewalks where they eat, play cards, and sell their wares. People also park their bikes on every sidewalk so you end up spending a lot of time walking through the streets trying not get flattened by the [View Full Entry]

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You only turn 27 once, so what better way to mark the occasion than to take a 6 hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh? It wasn't actually that bad, just a little smelly and crowded. We left around 7am and made it to PP in time to find a guest house, look around the town a little and secure a tuk tuk driver for the rest of our time here. He's actually a friend of our driver in Siem Reap so he was waiting for us at the bus stop when we got here - such a relief [View Full Entry]

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We took a short flight on August 27th from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We originally thought we'd take a bus across the Thai border but we found a cheap flight and this way we had most of Sunday in Bangkok instead of spending it all on the road. We flew Bangkok Air ("Asia's boutique airline") and even though the flight was just an hour they managed to bring around hot towels, beer, and a quick dinner. What service! We're staying at an Irish Pub and Guesthouse in Siem Reap called Molly Malone's which is very cute and comfortable except for [View Full Entry]

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Bangkok (population 6 million) is big, hot, humid, crowded and fast paced. Let me start by saying the Thai food is awesome (except maybe for the fried chicken knuckles, that was a tactical error). We have been eating our way through this city and loving every minute of it (a huge Thai lunch for two = less than $10). Second, after roughing it a little in the backpacker hostels of NZ and Australia we are living in high style here. Our hotel (the beautiful Pathumwan Princess) costs just a little more than our hostel in Sydney did and it is 4 [View Full Entry]

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We continued our tour of the rainforests of the south pacific by visiting the tropical variety north of Cairns. We drove up to Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge for a quick swim, cruised the Daintree River looking for wildlife and ended up at Cape Tribulation where the rainforest comes right down the side of a mountain and meets the Great Barrier Reef in the sea below with just a thin strip of sand separating the two. We saw lots of exciting wildlife on the river. A beautifully colored kingfisher (Mom and Aunt Allison would have loved it), tons of crocs, some [View Full Entry]

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We spent the last 3 days and 2 nights sailing around the Whitsunday Islands on an 80 foot racing yacht. (Thanks Chris Adams for suggesting this outing!) Needless to say, an awesome experience. There were 19 passengers and only 3 crew (a skipper and 2 deck hands) so we got to help out quite a bit with hoisting the sails, using the grinders and even steering the boat (I steered for about an hour one afternoon and my arms were so sore afterwards - hard work!). The Whitsundays are so named because it was during Whitsunday week (also known as Pentecost) [View Full Entry]

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