Blogs from Seattle, Washington, United States, North America - page 84

Hello Hello! Only two days into this and I am having quite the adventure. Every hostel in Seattle is booked up untill Sunday, so I had to take a ferry ride to one of the nearby islands...Vashon Island, and what a beauty it is! Some of the tallest pine trees I have ever seen, blackberries growing wild everywhere along the road. There is such a peaceful quiet here. Mt. Rainier stands proud miles away, but still looks like a giant from Puget Sound. I camped out last night in the island hostel's yard because it is a lot cheaper, and hung out with my French actor friend Erwann, an Australian named Stuart, and Yulan from Taiwan. The pool table was chipped, scratched and very used, but we played almost all night, while Erwann sang to me ... read more

My plane leaves at 4am September 29th. I however will be leaving to my sister's house at 11:30pm on the 28th and from there we will go to pick up my Mom and head off to the Airport. What an excruciatingly long day. My day began at 6am. I woke up to feed my 2 dogs and 1 cat. After they were fed the dogs and I went on a morning walk at our local park. It is a beautiful serene park that follows the stillaguamish river. We have managed to see deer here on at least 5 different occassions and a coyote once. It has also become pretty popular with joggers as of late but in the very early morning it is quite desolate. After the walk I went home and grabbed my cat and ... read more

Sunscreen for the beaches of Thailand? check Winter gloves for the mountains of Switzerland? check Bathing suit for snorkeling in the BVI? check Warm coat for winter in Tokyo? check This is an exerpt from our packing list. Sounds a little random and a little nuts but when I tell you we are going around the world it begins to make sense. We created an opportunity to travel out of a challenging situation at work and will be on the road for the next several months on sabbatical. We bought our tickets through the oneworld alliance - 20 "segments" over 4 continents total with 4 segments permitted in each continent. Pros: still cheaper than buying individual tickets; access to airline lounges due to my Platinum status; changes to dates/times for free after the first intercontinental hop. ... read more

These photos are from our "Thailand trip planning" barbecues - very little planning actually was accomplished, but we sure had fun!... read more

I figured I'd get this journal started even though my real travel won't start for 6 months. To some extent or another, I've been planning this trip months already, maybe parts of it for a year. All the random google searches on Eastern Europe would create itineraries in my head and the more I read, the bigger the map became. At first it was just "I really need to see Prague. Everyone says it's gorgeous." And then I would see something about Budapest, and wow doesn't that look beautiful? If I do those two places, Krakow makes a nice little triangle of cities, doesn't it? Then I start reading about Romania, well southeast of my current obsessive google subjects. But the more and more I look into Romania, I become so enthralled I consider scrapping the ... read more