Hello! Today I am currently touring Italy!! We are going from Venice to Verona to Florence to Pisa to Rome. I’ll post all about it soon! Hope you are having a great day!
(Image from Google)
Month: September 2017
European Cruise: Day 2
Wow does it take a long time to get from Portland, Oregon to Venice, Italy! After more than 24 hours of traveling, we have arrived!!! We landed around 4:30pm Venice time.
1st order of business: find everyone and find our AirBnB rental.
It’s a cute little place with 2 bathrooms 3 bedrooms a little loft and a couch and just feet from the Vapparettos and so much more!
Then it was exploring time!
everywhere you look is beautiful
Saw all this in about 30 min hahahaha!!!!
But man when the tide comes in you can definitely tell that this place is sinking. Walking around after dark gave us wet socks and shoes.
And oh man the humidity!!!! I never thought of Venice being humid but it is!!!!
Now we are dead tired. Gonna get some food and crash for the night.
European Cruise: day 1
Traveling from PDX to LAX and LAX to Venice!
I can’t believe this day is here!!! It came soooo fast! That is how i know i’m an adult, things come quicker than i could have imagined instead of dragging out hahaha.
Wonderful Bf drove me to the airport this morning.
Starbucks needed before boarding our first flight to LAX
Double decker planes, who knew
Many hours to kill in between flights.
Now we are waiting for more in our party to join us then its on to Amsterdam with a slightly tight plane change then on to Venice! Talk to you soon!
Woo on the plan to Amsterdam!! We got the ‘extra room’ seats.
Business class has suites! What does 1st class look like lol. It’s upstairs! Fancy plane lol
Ahhhh we leave for Europe tomorrow!!!!
I am definitely going to have to take a sleep-aid to be able to get any sleep tonight.
With that statement lets talk about what to do the night before you travel:
Do not take a sleep aid an less than 9 hours before you need to get up. Better safe than sorry.
Double check your list and make sure you have everything. You don’t want to travel to Siberia and realize you forgot your mittens.
Set out what you are going to wear on your journey tomorrow. Check in for your travel arrangements if you can, that is one less thing you have to worry about tomorrow especially if you are running late.
Have snacks ready to take with you so you are not tempted by overpriced junk at the airport.
Double check your suitcase and any carry-ons to make sure everything is where it needs to be.
See you tomorrow for the beginning of another adventure of a lifetime!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My budget in conclusion
The dread pirate Roberts (or as we call it, the summer cold) has struck! Just days before I head out on my next adventure so I am spending most of my free time asleep.
Thursday
My only expenditure was re-upping my dogs wellness plan as well as her flea medication prescription oh and I got her some enzyme chew things because I am terrible about brushing her teeth. Total subtracted from checking: $62.44
Friday
Payday!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then it all goes away….Expenditures:
$66.00 on clothes
$10.29 at target for airplane friendly toiletries
$43.63 at REI on a new sports bra (my others are all 2-3+ years old) and energy gels to help me keep going on the long crazy days
$7.99 at Barnes and Noble……because I have a problem with books (but I had just donated 2 boxes worth of books to Good Will so buying one new book balances out right?)
All bills sent out taking down to less than $200 in my account again.
Saturday
$9.05 coffee and a breakfast sandwich
$15.00 transferred to my Starbucks card for all the airport coffee I’ll need during traveling.
$10.85 at panda express
I am too tired from being sick to color code it. But overall I don’t feel to bad about these 3 days. A few things could have definitely been cut though.
Monday Motivation**September 11, 2017
(Image from Google)
Working out last week was a total bust since basically the entire state of Oregon was (and still mostly is) on fire. It was literally raining ash and I was not going to work out in that. I haven’t had a gym membership for a few months so I could save money so I couldn’t go inside on a treadmill. Hopefully this week is going to be better and I can find my motivation again because it has been about 2.5 weeks since I got out there and ran.
How are your workouts going?
Grandparent’s day!!!
Shout out to my amazing grandmother!!!! Just like my amazing mom that I talked about on mother’s day my grandma is one for the books. She is the matriarch of our family in the true sense of the word, we all visit and gather around her. For someone who has been alive for 90 years she is surprisingly forward thinking, like my mother she does not judge people she only supports. It is no wonder that I have such an amazing mother when she was raised by such an amazing person.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a very warm, loving family and I think it is in most part to this wonderful woman who had a hand in raising us all, either directly or indirectly.
Remember that life is fleeting and you never know what tomorrow holds, tell the people you love how you feel, reach out to someone today and tell them that you love them.
1 week to Europe!!!
Holy Hanna I fly to Europe in a week!!! I don’t know how I am going to sleep this week!
Things you should be doing the week before you travel:
print out all confirmations; flights, trains, boats, activities, everything. Print a copy of your itinerary.
Start the basics of your packing (if you are going on a long trip and don’t want a million suit cases you will pack and repack to find the best way to fit everything in.
How are you getting to the airport, train station, bus station, boat etc? Are you taking a cab or Uber, or do you need to make arrangements with someone to take you AND pick you up? Nail down that information now.
Also make copies of all important documents, passport, ID, insurance cards etc. Also leave a copy of each of these with someone who is not traveling with you, generally your emergency contact.
Take a deep breath and enjoy this exciting anticipation!
The budget continues
Tuesday
Starting checking balance: $168.67
Balance on credit card
1: 3 payments from being paid off!!!
2: $200 over limit
3: at limit
-5.00 from checking for trimet to get to work
+100 from check
-24.84 from checking for dog food and human food (necessity)
-66.00 on clothing purchase (impulse but I had been looking for a few more comfortable pieces to take to Europe so)
-19.95 for weight watchers (I need to take some serious consideration on this because I am not using it as faithfully as I should and if I don’t get back on the band wagon this month then I need to get rid of it because I am wasting money)
ending checking balance: $152.88
Balance on credit card
1: Same
2: same
3: same
Wednesday
Starting checking balance: $152.88
Balance on credit card
1: 3 payments from being paid off!!!
2: $200 over limit
3: at limit
-5.00 from checking for trimet to get to work (necessity)
-7.00 from checking for taco bell (impulse, I could not eat the same meal for the 5th time this week)
Starting checking balance: $140.88
Balance on credit card
1: Same
2: Same
3: Same
These were almost really good days. I like looking at my spending like this because it really forces me to think about what I have been spending and why and where I can make improvements.
Peru
We left off with the vaccines in Heredia. The next morning Laura and I boarded a plane to Lima, Peru where we met our guide and the other people we were hooking up with from the Ecuador volunteer/adventure tour group. We got to Lima, Peru pretty late so we were all taken by coach bus to a hostel for the night. It was a basic nice hostel. Some of the people, well most decided to head out to eat but I was tired and decided to get a jump on sleep, we were getting up to board a plane to Cusco, Peru in just a few short hours.
We were up early the next morning to catch our flight. We got to Cusco and checked into our hostel and dropped our stuff off. We walked around Cusco and got to have a traditional dinner with a dance show from some locals, that was nice. One thing I distinctly remember about that first night is freezing while I slept! We had just come from warm Costa Rica then we crossed the equator into winter!
And we were off, in the AM the next day we boarded a bus to take us out of the city, since we had a limited amount of time they drove us part of the way up the first day and let us off the bus around lunch time where the cook (yes we had a cook) made us soup I think. After lunch we started our trek up the mountain.
Let me take a little break here and say that before I ever left home for Costa Rica I had been working out and eating well but I had not been a big hiker.
Nothing could have prepared me for hiking at that altitude (not true I am sure something could have but I certainly hadn’t done any prep work for hiking up a literal mountain). The entire way that first day I though, oh crap what have I gotten myself into. We just kept climbing up. I think we hiked 9 miles that day then camped under a glacier. Yes a GLACIER! I thought last night was cold, oh just you wait, I slept in my hiking shoes. I also got altitude sickness meaning I drank a little broth that night but that was it. My tent mate Laura had some Peruvian version of fruit loops so I had a few handfuls of those but I got up in the middle of the night and threw everything up. Oh boy, this is going to be rough.
We hiked in between those mountains
The summit night 1
The next day dawned early and was still super cold. I still felt terrible and today was our longest day. And we headed up the dreaded switchbacks. Probably one of the hardest days of my life. I refused to get on a horse or let my guide carry my pack, I was going to conquer this dang mountain! And when I did make it to the top it was one of the best feelings ever! We summited the highest point amd made out way down to the otherside.
No lie i teared up coming back down. We got back down to level ground by lunch time on day. But i also got sicker and sicker. I still wasn’t eating or drinking much amd expelling so much energy. I slept at lunch and woke up with a terrible headache. My guide finally convinced me to ride a horse the last 2 hours to our camp for the night. I had made the summit so i caved. He brought me a gatorade which helped sooo much.
Day 3 i was back on my feet and at the front of the pack because it was fairly flat hahaha. I bought a gatorade anywhere i saw one and some candy bars. On day 3 we were descending into the cloud forest so it was warming up as well.
Overall i don’t look all that great but you must remember at this point i am ij my 6th week of traveling with no normal access to a shower and i was recovering from altitude sickness and dehydration. But it was a great day to feel strong and well again. The night of the 3rd day of hiking we reached Aguas Calientes, the closest town to Machu Picchu. We double bunked in a hostel and slept hard!!!! Oh and i had a pizza for dinner hahahaha!!!!
The next day we were all bussed up to Machu Picchu where we had a guided tour then we were on our own and just had to be at the hostel ready to go at 9pm.
I think we were delirious at this point
Llama!!!!
The clouds in the morning were amazing!!!
And for the iconic shot
We left on a bus at 9pm to take a train to another bus to another train to another bus to a hostel for about 3 hours where i repacked my stuff, showered and got about 1 hour sleep. Then it was another bus to the Cusco airport to the Lima airport to Guadalajara to LAX. I was so happy to be home. And this trip will forever be in my heart.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about my trip! Soon to come is my adventure in Europe!!!!!
Trailing the blonde 