Kris Chat
Kris Joined: May 11th 2005
Logged in: February 15th 2008
Logged in: February 15th 2008
Every year is the annual 'girl's trip', and I've been fortunate enough to travel with my fellow single girlfriends on excursions to Maui, Grand Cayman, St. Thomas and St. John, and Barbados.
I also enjoy weekend travel getaways right here in the States. Included, at least a couple times a year, are trips involving wine-tasting within my home state of California, from the southern coastal region up to the Napa and Sonoma Valley regions.
Cheers!
Kris
Travel Blog Posts
PV Boardwalk
This year's Annual Girl's Trip to Puerto Vallarta was fantastic! We stayed at Velas Vallarta, an all-inclusive resort. ... read more
Austin Mural
I've lived in Austin now for eight months! Since I've been acting like a tourist in my own city, thought I might share a few of my 'Best of Austin' pics. ... read more
Bryant Park
Monday morning I woke up, after sleeping in past my intended wake up time, quite sore from the miles we walked the previous day, but refused to let that hinder me from walking the same amount or more for the second day in a row. My Swiss friends were off to work and so I was solo today. I arrived at the same central bus station as the day before and felt I had good bearings right away. I headed the opposite direction from my walking tour the day before, planning a walk in the general direction of MOMA, which was my final destination. The first sight of the day was Bryant Park with its lunch time ice skaters enjoying some outdoor exercise; there was a mix of people enjoying the opportunity, including those dressed in ... read more
View of Manhattan
I was traveling to New Jersey for work, so I decided to take a couple of extra days to tour Manhattan while so close by. Conveniently my hotel in Secaucus was near a bus route that was a 30 minute ride into Manhattan’s Port Authority bus station. While waiting for the bus Sunday mid-morning I met up with three Swiss men there on a marketing business trip, which were staying at my same hotel in N.J. and also took an extra ‘free’ day to tour Manhattan. They had no specific plan however for seeing the city, and since I had some ideas and a loose plan, we decided to hang out together for the day. It was great to have some fun and interesting traveling companions and made the evening much more enjoyable! The day was ... read more
Henderson Hyatt Resort
Ready for our second 'summer adventure', Linda and I headed for Henderson and Las Vegas for another long weekend of fun. Since it was a holiday weekend we decided to get a jump on things and so came in late Thursday night. We checked into the Boulder Station hotel, since we knew we'd just be sleeping there. The next morning we headed out to Henderson, where we stayed the next three nights at the beautiful Hyatt resort. It was pretty much a party weekend, in which we stayed out late every night, slept in, and then did some moderate sightseeing during the day. Friday night was dancing at Gilley's in the Frontier, Saturday night we went to New York, New York to see the late showing of 'Zumanity' (a very entertaining show) and then hung out ... read more
Chicago Skyline
The 'summer season' starts out with Linda and me taking a trip to Chicago, one of our new favorite cities! Our hotel was the Hyatt, conveniently located on the Miracle Mile. We flew in Friday, checked into our hotel, and then headed to Rush Street for drinks and dinner at Le Colonial. The food there was delicious! Afterwards we wandered down Rush Street trying to decide which of the many bars to visit, and decided upon Syn, where we immediately made several new friends. The drinks were flowing, the vibe upbeat and fun, and the dance music 70s and 80s. It was a good choice. The next day we walked along the Miracle Mile, taking in the sights along the way, did some shopping and had lunch at Watertower Place. Then we hopped on a trolley ... read more
Gibraltar Ape
Our last day of fun! Today we tour Gibraltar. Upon arrival we were met by mini-tour buses to take us on our 90-minute tour of ‘the Rock’, which wound it’s way up near to the top, discussing a lot of the Rock’s political and military history, with the following stops: - Europa Point, the view point of the straits of Gibraltar and Morocco (but we couldn’t see anything as it was so over cast) - St. Michael’s Cave - The Apes Den St. Michael’s Cave has a good sampling of stalactites and stalagmites, but probably the most interesting thing is the cave is the fallen stalagmite because you can see the interior, which looks much like the inside of a tree trunk. There’s also a theatre inside the cave, interesting because we had seen a Spanish ... read more
Rondo
Today we tour Rondo, a much larger Andalusian white-washed village than Casares, but with more sights to explore. Here we oooh’d and aaah’d the not to be missed view of the El Tajo (the gorge) and its 18th century gorge spanning bridge, the Puente Nuevo, which connects the older Moorish part of town with the more modern section. We also viewed the oldest bullring in Spain, built in 1784, still used for bullfights today. The place was packed solid with tour groups when we arrived, and so our tour seemed somewhat hectic, but then we had some free time to explore on our own, find lunch, and do some shopping. It was here that I purchased my second, heavy and breakable object, another plate (Peggy dared me). After our decent headed back towards our resort, there ... read more
Casares Village
Today we tour the quaint lovely village of Casares (it’s probably immediately apparent how much I enjoyed this tour). The ride up to it is about 40 minutes up through the Sierra Bermeja reserve, which is gorgeous countryside, and with skies full of eagles and other birds. The bus takes up a long windy road, and as we approach our destination we turn around a bend and there is a breath-taking view of the white-washed Andalusian unspoiled village of Casares, definitely a ‘Kodak moment.’ The town has windy, narrow, cobblestoned streets, that lead up from the main square near the cathedral. After our group is assembled in the main square we are told to go exploring at our own pace, so Angie and I immediately head up to the top to enjoy the wonderful views overlooking ... read more
Kris with snake charmer
We tackle our Tangiers today, via the Coast Africa tour. We talked our new five girlfriends into joining us for the tour, so on this day we are eight. Although still quite hot outside I wisely opted to wear jeans instead of my usual leg-baring shorts, knowing we are going to a country populated mostly by Muslims. This is the longest we will journey in a day trip, as it took us about 3 hours by bus to get to the border crossing, then an hour by high-speed ferry to get to the Moroccan ferry port. The Tangiers experience was overall a bit cheesy, but then we knew it would be. You want to ride a camel and have your picture taken with the snake charmer, clap along with the Moroccan dance troupe, and are fascinated ... read more
