Easily Inspired: travel

Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts

A bachelorette trip to Madison, WI

Friday, June 3, 2011

Last weekend I ditched poor Kevin the first weekend we had our house on the market and went on a trip for one of my best friend's bachelorette parties to Madison, WI. I was off site-seeing, shopping, and eating awesome food in Madison, and he was at home cleaning. Worst part was that nobody showed up for the open house on Sunday except for a few neighbors. But, I'm trying to be optimistic for this weekend. It's the Downtown Living Tour and we had a real estate agent contact us and said they saw our listing, and wanted to include it in the condos they were taking interested buyers. Fingers crossed that we see some more action this weekend!

During my 5 hours of driving to the bachelorette party I tried out the audio book strategy I used on my last road trip, and it worked again. I'm officially hooked on audio books. This time I listened to the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

I've always heard that this book was a classic, but I've never read it. Something about the title has always put me off... I don't want to trick anyone into being friends with me. But since my wonderful professor Dr. Fransecky and some members of my book club recommended it, I decided to check it out. The premise of the book is simple. Nobody wants to listen to you talk about yourself forever. Don't embarrass people. Be nice. Such common sense stuff, but it's funny how often we forget it.

After five hours of driving, I was almost to Emily's house when I got off the interstate. Apparently the speed limit changed from 55 to 25 very suddenly, and before I knew it I was approaching a cop. He turned his lights on. Shit. I had been going 50 mph in a 25 mph. Worse yet, when he asked for my proof of insurance, I couldn't find anything that wasn't expired. Awesome.

Instead of my usual approach, I tried the book's approach (it was fresh in my mind after 5 hours of listening). Be personal with the other person. Admit you're wrong. Don't try to argue. Instead of tickets, he gave me two warnings. My new strategy had worked. I excitedly told Kevin all about this when he got home. His response: "That's no fancy strategy, they're called boobs." Gotta love my husband.

Thanks Mallory, Jordan, and Emily for an awesome weekend! Can't wait for the wedding!

It's official!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

WE'RE GOING TO AFRICA! Ahhhhh!

After several days of mulling it over... and scheming... and planning... and budgeting. It's decided! We're going to leave for Africa on November 16th for a ten day trip. I still can't believe we're doing it. It's so expensive, and it's so far away, and it's so freaking beautiful and awesome that it hasn't sunk in that we're really doing it.

If we can survive the long flight to Africa... (Omaha to Denver; Denver to Washington; Washington to Johannesburg; and then Johannesburg to Capetown), we'll be spending five days in a hotel/ apartment in Capetown called the More Quarters. We'll be in the more "authentic" area of Capetown. And since Kevin and I love pretending we're locals, this is right up or alley. We're still figuring out all the things we want to do in Capetown. From what we've read so far there are a ton of cool things to do... penguins, wine tours, hiking, swimming with great white sharks... it'll be hard to decide. Then after 5 nights we'll fly North to spend three nights at private game lodge, the Lions Sands River Lodge. THE SAME PLACE THEY STAYED ON THE BACHELOR. I seriously don't mean to yell, but we're so flipping excited!

Here is a typical day at the Lions Sands River Lodge:

5:30 am: Wake up for morning safari.
7:45 am: Coffee & tea in the bush.
9:00 am: Hearty breakfast.
11:00 am: Relax. Nap?
12:00 pm: Lunch outdoors on the wooden viewing deck.
12:30 pm: Rest & Relaxation: Massage at the spa or relax at the pool.
4:00 pm: Tea time before evening safari.
5:30 pm: Sipping cocktails in the bush, safari, and watching the sun set.
8:00 pm: Dinner and bonfire under the African stars.

We decided to push the trip back to November in order to save more money and take less vacation days by going over the Thanksgiving holiday. This will be a crazy expensive trip for us, but we decided to sacrifice spontaneous weekend getaways, clothes purchases, expensive nights out, etc. over the next few months to go on this trip of a lifetime.

Africa, here we come.

We're going to... AFRICA!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Yesterday I was bound and determined for Kevin and I to pick out where we wanted to go on vacation this year. We are both working on our MBA's so there are only two months when we're not in school: May and June. Well, it's already almost May and we hadn't decided on a continent, let along a country, city, or time to travel, so we decided we had better get on the ball, and fast.

My goal yesterday was for us to pick when, where, and how, and then book our flights. Ok, ok, ok... I admit this was a little aggressive. And we didn't end up meeting our goal. BUT, God willing we have decided where we are going to go...

AFRICA!!!!

Specifically we've decided to travel to South Africa, and if everything goes as planned we'll be traveling there in mid-May (flight prices rise significantly in June). May is only a couple weeks away!!! Ahhh!!!

We want to spend about half our time in Capetown, South Africa, and half our time on a game resort near Johannesburg where we'll do safaris. Here are some beautiful pictures of Capetown and South African safaris that inspired us...

*Source*

Yesterday, when Kevin and I sat down to talk about it I started asking him all sorts of questions about where he wanted to go. Kevin's first question was, "How much do we have in savings? Can we afford this?" Rose and Dick, you have raised a very conservative boy. Good work. :)

After talking about the money situation, we both agreed that we both felt comfortable using a portion of our savings for this trip. We then started brainstorming about where we wanted to go. The first place Kevin mentioned was Spain. I told him how our cousin Julia also recommended that yesterday. But instead of jumping into specific cities or countries we wanted to see, we decided it might be best to take a step back and talk about what continents we wanted to see. Here were our lists, starting with the places we most wanted to see first:

Kevin: Amanda:

Africa Africa

Europe South America

Asia Asia

South America Australia

Australia Europe

Antarctica Antarctica

North America North America

I was surprised that Africa was on the top of Kevin's list. It was on the top of my list too.... things are never this easy.

But I have to admit something slightly embarassing that may have given us a case of "Africa-on-the brain". One of my guilty pleasures is the TV show The Bachelor, and this season I even roped Kevin into watching. This year they spent a good deal of time in South Africa... and it looked freaking amazing...

South African Airways put together a tour based on many of the things they did on the bachelor... stays in Capetown, wine tastings, elephant rides, shark dives, and a safaris. You even stay in the same amazing private game lodge, the Lion Sands River Lodge, that they stayed on during The Bachelor. Here is a link to all the tour details... click here!

These tours are limited to six couples and we are planning this last minute, so we may not be able to get on that exact tour, but there are many other similar tours. All the tours are expensive, but are great deals compared to what it would cost to book each of the pieces individually, plus they handle all the transportation, including flights. They all look like trips of a lifetime. The offices in South Africa are closed for the weekend, but we should get the rest of the details this Tuesday and hopefully should be able to finalize everything then.

So I guess this will give us a few extra nights to "sleep on it" and count our pennies. So what do you guys think? Has anyone been to Africa or South Africa? Know anyone that has? Anyone willing to admit their addiction to The Bachelor? Thanks again for everyone's advice yesterday. Stacie and Danny - you were right about Capetown!

We're booking a flight today

Friday, April 22, 2011

I have the entire day off work for Good Friday and I am determined for Kevin and I to pick out our next big adventure and to book the flight today. Almost a year ago we were exploring Italy on our honeymoon ....Venice, Bologna, Regello, Florence, Sienna, and Pisa. It was the most incredible trip. Both of us loved to travel before, but since our honeymoon we've been completely hooked. We have been saving our pennies ever since for our next big trip.

We know we want to go to an amazing part of the world that neither of us has seen before. Somewhere with amazing culture, food, and things to see. The only problem is that this describes hundreds of places all over the world and the sheer number of choices has paralyzed us. Well that changes today! Kevin and I are jumping in head first and are going to pick a place and book our plane tickets.

Any final words of advice? Continents, countries, or cities you'd recommend? Please let me know asap!

And I know some of you have already seen our honeymoon pictures on facebook, but I couldn't help dusting these off one more time for a little inspiration.

Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz... San-Fran-CISCO

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sunday, March 27th, was our last full day in San Francisco, and after two very full days of sight seeing we decided it was time to sleep in and relax a bit. Kevin and his dad walked over to the corner store and bought stuff to make for breakfast. Eggs, potatoes, bagels and fruit. Rose and I lounged around in our pj's while the boys made breakfast. It was nice to have some home-cooked food after eating out for over a week.

Here's a picture. Forgive the piece of egg on the strawberry. I was going to photoshop it out, and then I thought, who cares? Life isn't perfect, and neither should the pictures.

We got on the bus a little after 12:30 and headed for the Fisherman's Wharf.

Fisherman's Wharf was a total tourist trap. It was sort of like an amusement park... without amusement rides... BUT, I did really enjoy checking out the sea lions that live on Pier 39. I guess sea lions started showing up in the late eighties and have been hanging out on the wharf ever since. They make the funniest sounds and look so weird when they try to move around on the docks. Since this trip Kevin has taken to calling me a sea lion. For example, he'll say things like "wake up sea lion, time to go to work," or "hurry up sea lion" or "you smell like a sea lion"

Pier 39 from Amanda Kohler on Vimeo.

After Pier 39 we had a late lunch on the bay then went to Pier 33 to depart for the Alcatraz night tour. As soon as we got on the boat to take us to Alcatraz it got pretty foggy and started misting. Looks pretty creepy, huh? I thought the Alcatraz tour was interesting, and worth doing, but if I'm honest I think I may have actually enjoyed the sea lions more. :)

The next day we headed back for Omaha. At the airport, Kevin managed to squeeze in some iPad time while I squeezed in one last glass of wine before our vacation came to an end.