22 Days until Paris {Oui Oui}

I'm in love with the water color paintings by Carol Gillott of ParisBreakfast. Her pieces are just amazing! It seems so real doesn't it?

This just amplifies my excitement to get to Paris ASAP and eat my heart out! I'm going to have to walk miles and miles each day to make up for all the food I'll be trying.. I fell in love with Paris the first time I was there two years ago and it will be the first place I'll be re-visiting again. It's not something we do because I've always figured that there's so much of this world I haven't seen yet but I think visiting a second time will allow me to appreciate Paris even better than before.

Oui Oui

I'm starting off 2009 nicely with a trip to Paris. Ah, the city of lights. It's been two years since I've been there back when the hubs proposed. We will be back in March travelling with a good friend and his wife. Here are the preliminary plans: frolick in Paris for 3 days then head out to a few one day trips outside of Paris. We hope to visit the Palace of Versailles, Palace of Fountainbleau and Castle of Chantilly. We've had talks of visiting Mont Saint Michel which is beautiful and would be awesome to go to but it's a bit far. Not sure if we can make that happen.

Paris is really beautiful. I'm not a history buff so I'm not good with remembering names and places. In fact if my husband wasn't so knowledgable of so many facts & trivia, I'd be quite lost.. What I love most about Paris is how it made me feel. I love how old the city is. I loved the feeling of walking on cobblestones and discovering cozy little shops. I loved walking along the Seine and soaking in the Parisian life. We got lost a few times just walking around and we were just fine. Of course, I loved the sweets: eclairs, crepes, macarons and washing it down with cafe creme is the best!

The travel bug in me keeps growing. I just can't help it. In an economy like this, I really ought to be saving my money but hey, you have only one life to live, right? I leave this post with a few quotes that ring very true for me taken from travelbliss (how appropriate!).

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” - Saint Augustine

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” - Paul Theroux

“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.” - Glenn Clark

“I see my path but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” - Rosalia de Castro

“Like al great travellers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen.” - Benjamin Disraeli

Why do you travel?

Paris photos of my last trip here, London/Paris 2006

I'm currently searching for restaurant recs, good & affordable, anyone?

Escape from the city

The hubs and I packed our bags and took our dog to the Catskills for a long weekend. It was a bit chilly and wet but oh so rustic and beautiful.

My hubs is becoming quite a photographer. This is my favorite shot, yup of my wet Merrills. Haha.

We hiked for 6 hours! At one point, I thought I wasn't going to make it, but we trudged along through 2 hours of mist, climbing over loose rocks and the rustling of a bear! Visit my flickr for more photos of our outdoor adventure.

Day Trip to Governor's Island

More photos on flickr: Governor's Island Set

Governor's Island is now open! Mike told me about this several weeks ago and we've been wanting to check it out. It was pretty neat to take the free 5 minute ferry ride over. We went on Saturday afternoon, after a lovely but pricey brunch at Sarabeth's to celebrate a friends birthday. Despite the downpour, we decided to take our chances and headed on over. I didn't really know what to expect but it turned out much better than I thought. We had so much fun, yet we were still in the city. Governor's Island is still a work in progress but they plan on implementing many eco-friendly solutions such as, free Bike Rental*on Fridays! Unfortunately, we were there on a Saturday so we paid, but it was totally worth it.

I'm not a history buff, but there's something about visiting historical places that moves me. I may not know anything about where I am or what I'm looking at; but being here and seeing for myself what's existed for decades before I was even born is quite amazing.

*Bike Rentals are only free for the first half an hour as advertised on the website.

Journal & Scrapbook your next vacation

Whenever I travel, I take tons of photos. I’m sure you do too. Most people keep the photos in an album, in a box or leave it on the computer for future reference. What ends up happening though is that the photos get lost within the million other photos that are taken.

The next time you go on a trip, do yourself a favor, and get a small notebook or journal. Remember to grab a pen too and take some time to jot down your thoughts during the journey. It doesn’t have to be a huge essay and you don’t need to add in all the historical details (that’s what the internet is for) but what is most important is that you jot down how you felt upon discovering a new destination; be it the grand beauty of the ancient ruins of a Mayan civilization, eating through Tokyo or immersing yourself in the world’s largest living organism, the Great Barrier Reef. (I have experienced all three) Although a photo is worth a thousand words; pairing a photo with a small description, especially of your own thoughts is priceless.

Aside from journaling, another great tip is to keep your eyes open for free mementos. Scout out free magazines that include all the different excursions you’ve done. Those with photos are even better. Keep those airline tickets, train tickets, brochures or any ephemera you may obtain along the way. Here’s another tip: At the end of the day, when you get back to your hotel, take those brochures, tickets and receipts and separate what you want to keep and what you don’t need. If you can get a pair of scissors it would make the task much easier. If not, just fold along the parts you want to keep and carefully tear it. Give yourself room for error; you can always clean it up with scissors when you get home. Put everything in an envelope or if it’s small how about storing it in one of my altered tins (decorative and practical) so this way you don’t end up going home with a pound of garbage and nothing will get lost.

I wish I could tell you that I have journaled and scrapbooked every vacation I’ve been on. Sadly, I have not. However, I do have one that I can share with you. Here are a few layouts of my trip to Australia.


On the bottom left, I created a "post card" and added a real Aussie stamp.

Magazine clippings and a business card from an Italian restaurant that we dined in.

Airline tickets.
And last, a bit of journaling to make it truly ours.

Aruba: One Happy Island

I went to Aruba this month with my one and only sister. Today is her 25th birthday so I thought it'd only be fitting to write a post about our first trip together. We spent 4 days in lovely Aruba; known for it's Divi Trees, never-ending white sandy beaches and the people are geniunely nice. It's quite fitting that Aruba is otherwise known as "One Happy Island."

On to the photos:

It's been confirmed, we are sisters yet we don't look alike.

Aruba is seriously windy nonstop. When we first got there, it wasn't so bad. See my sister's expression?
And the after..
Anyway, moving on.. We stayed at the Westin.
Nice pools but we were drawn to the beach. As my gift to my sister, I treated her to the spa. No photos but we had our massages outside in a cabana. Massage was only okay by my standards, but the ambiance made up for it.

At sunset..


We didn't hang around the beach the whole time we were there. We did some sightseeing on a Jeep Tour.

Visited the Ostrich Farm

I sat on one..
Held an unfertilized Ostrich egg..
We also stopped by the Butterfly Museum.
Do you ever see those butterfly displays that are quite expensive? Well, you should only buy the displays that have butteflies that are partially broken and not exactly perfect; because the perfect ones are the butterflies that were killed for the sake of profit! I'm not sure if this is entirely true but I've always been wary about buying these type of displays even though it is very pretty.

I ate a ton of fish and seafood but my best meal was at a small, casual spot called, Jamaican Me Krazy. The fresh made Fruit Punch & Jerk Chicken was amazing and afforable too! My sister enjoyed her Jerk Pork very much as well.

Breakast on the boardwalk.

Almost every meal we had was eaten outdoors.

Aruban beer: Balashi
Oh, and we witnessed 3 weddings during our stay. I've read about destination weddings but to see it in person really makes me think how great it is. I'm already convincing my sister to have a destination wedding when it's her turn to get married.

Happy 25th Sis... see you tonight!