Thinking Travel

I’ve been focusing my energies on CulturallyTeaching.com, the blog I co-run about education and culture around the world. Check it out! Thanks.

Even though Aaron and I were zipping through the Costa Rican rainforest this time last year, this year is going pretty well.

• We’re finishing a 3-day weekend.
• Aaron made me breakfast on Sunday morning.
• We’ve been getting our money’s worth with Netflix.
• Snow is in the forecast for tomorrow.
• Obama!!!

How thankful I am that tonight is Bush’s last night as President! Woo hoo! Like a lot of people, this is the first time I’m actually excited about and going to watch the presidential inauguration. And I’m hopeful, excited, and optimistic. And actually proud to be U.S. American. Who would have thought?

photo by Michael Rhodes

photo by Dee Q8

Let’s see, in 2008 I…

• traveled to Costa Rica, Turkey, Venezuela, Jamaica, and Spain.
• traveled with Aaron twice (Costa Rica & Spain) and Shannon once (Turkey).
• developed and delivered several new intercultural workshops and a plenary to fantastic audiences.
• visited all of my families this year over the Christmas holiday.
• reconnected with old friends on Facebook.
• stopped lurking so much online, actually reached out to some people, started Twittering.
• went to SIIC and IDI training.
• celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary with Aaron.
• worked on our house.
• coached Otto into being a lap cat.
• saw the Cure and REM in concert.
• started CulturallyTeaching.com, a blog project exploring culture and education around the world.

I could go on. But you get the idea. Sure, there were some really sucky things that happened in 2008. But mostly, it was a really great year.

Now, onward to 2009. Even better things are ahead.

photo by ashengrove

Aaron and I are playing Scrabble, which means I have time to blog. Aaron’s going to win because I suck at Scrabble. I’m too impatient to come up with high scoring words. Once in a while I get lucky with “quip” or “zoo” in a triple word score corner, but mostly it’s “cutie” and “mead” and “gig” (three words from the present game). Update: I just scored 53 points with “pox”, so maybe I’m not as bad as I thought? (Ehhh, no. I think the Scrabble gods just got tired watching me suffer.)

We’ve been busy during our days off. We’ve nearly cleaned the entire house, muffins and pumpkin bread are in the freezer in individual-sized portions, the turkey has been cut up and stuffed in freezer bags, and I have turkey stock simmering on the stove for tomorrow’s turkey veggie soup. Aaron blew all of the leaves off the roof, planted more bulbs, and started on our new mailbox. The days have flown by, we’ve been so busy.

I started uploading our Spain photos to Flickr, if you’d like to take a look.

photo by cesarastudillo

Usually I’m not this happy that it’s Sunday. Usually I’m wondering where the weekend went and looking forward to the next weekend. It’s not that I don’t enjoy my job. It’s that I’ve got so many projects going on that I can’t focus on each of them as much as I’d like. And that makes me unhappy when Sunday afternoon rolls around.

But today I’m happy. Because I only have to go to work Monday and Tuesday and then I have five whole days off to focus on my projects. Yeah!

Aaron and I have been busy getting ready for Thanksgiving week. We bought all of our groceries for Thursday’s dinner and we started cleaning the house so we can de-flea it and Otto. Aaron used his new leaf blower (yes, we broke down and bought one) and blew the leaf carpet up to the road and is now planting bulbs. I’m so glad Aaron enjoys, or is at least willing, to do yard work.

I’ve been switching out my clothes closet and getting rid of as much as I possibly can. I still have clothes from the year I graduated from college (1995)! What’s up with that? And, of course, I’ve been working on culturallyteaching.com

But I’ve got even bigger plans for my five days off. To keep me accountable, here’s my very manageable  to-do list:

1. Blog. Write posts and get the word out.
2. Bake. Muffins, breakfast bread, pie, and cupcakes.
3. Bathroom. Scrub the bathtub, ’cause oh my does it need it.

There are several other things I need to do around the house, and several other fun projects I’d like to work on (like uploading my Spain photos to Flickr and finishing my Spain blog posts), but the three items above are my top priority.

We’ll see how I do…

Photo by hummyhummy

I’ve been back from my Costa Rica/Spain/South Carolina travel-o-rama for two weeks now and am finally getting organized at work, at home, and in the blogosphere.

As I type, my Spain photos are being uploaded to my computer so I can organize and upload them to Flickr. I’m also writing several blog posts about our experiences in Spain. Stay tuned.

Photo by Alessandro Pucci

I’m also working working working on my new blog adventure CulturallyTeaching! I’m so excited to finally launch the site. I’ve harbored the blog concept for several years and am finally getting my act together to get it going. Monday is launch day!

In October I went to San Jose, Costa Rica to give two intercultural workshops at the Tri-Association conference for international schools (the session participants were awesome, BTW).

Tuesday, October 14

While I was there, I visited a public elementary school in rural Cartago with a colleague from our Costa Rica office. I love visiting schools in other countries and was honored to have the opportunity to spend the morning with a class of kindergarten kids and their teacher.

Here are some photos from my visit:

The front of the school

Me with teachers in the library

Handing out pumpkins to color after talking and reading a book about Halloween

For more school photos visit my Flickr!

Photo by africankelly

Well, we’re back. We’re home. We’re sitting on the couch watching TV (election results!) while surfing on our laptops. It hasn’t even been a week and we’re back to doing the same old thing.

This is what we were doing last Tuesday in Madrid:

• drinking cafe con leche at a local bar
• buying an umbrella at El Corte Ingles to protect us from the all-day downpour
• eating pastries filled with chocolate in a bakery at the Puerta del Sol
• touring the fancy rooms and the way-cool armory at the Palace
• eating the menu del dia at a cozy restaurant near the Plaza Mayor
• riding a city bus to the outskirts of Madrid just to look around
• watching a Scottish bagpipe group march through Puerta del Sol (they were raising money)
• eating late-night tapas while wishing we could stay in Madrid

There’s just no comparison. Last Tuesday was way more fun than today.

We had an awsome time in Spain and my trip to Costa Rica was also fabulous. I’ve got a lot to write about so I’m going to try to write several short posts over the next few weeks. Stay tuned…

photo by Adactio

By the time you read this I’ll be in Madrid. Hopefully enjoying a nice cafe con leche and a tortilla.

I’m trying out a new journaling technique on this trip. Two, actually.

The first one is a postcard journal. I’m going to buy postcards and make my journaling notes on them. When I get back home I’ll bind them together.

The second one is a photo journal of all of the food I eat and the cafe con leche I drink. I’m going to take a photo of everything I eat on this trip.

I’ll show you the finished products when I’m get home. Until then, I’m going to enjoy Madrid and Granada!

photo by I'll Never Grow Up

I’m back in the U.S. for exactly one night. I just flew in from Costa Rica and will soon meet Aaron and fly to Madrid.

Funny, I was freaked out about flying to Costa Rica during the rainiest month of the rainy season. But the weather was perfect flying in and out of the San Jose airport. It was in ATL that we had rainy, windy conditions. Nevertheless, we landed on time.

Then my ATL airport adventure began.

Even though ATL was my final destination, I still had to go through airport security.

Then I got on the airport shuttle and made my way to another terminal so I could find some dinner to take to my hotel. After walking all over terminal A, I found something. (This was a good thing since my hotel is who knows where and there’s absolutely nothing near us and they only serve breakfast here.)

Then I walked all over terminal A and T and the baggage claim looking for the hotel shuttles. Once I was hot and sweaty and the plastic bag carrying my dinner had cut off all circulation to my right hand, I finally figured out that at ATL, “Shared Rides” means “Hotel Shuttle.” And that you have to exit the terminal through a hard-to-see side exit.

So then I follow the other confused passengers, many who are only carrying small carry-on bags and one of those free bags of toiletries they give you when they cancel your flight and you have to spend the night without your luggage. We walk across the street, down the sidewalk, turn right, walk down another sidewalk and finally find the hotel shuttle pick-up area.

It was chaos. There are more shuttles than parking spaces, so each shuttle parks when there’s an open spot. The driver jumps out of the van, yells “Hiiiiiiiilton Hoooooootel!” and then drives away.

I look for the Courtyard by Marriot shuttle. After about 10 minutes I find a Marriot Shuttle. Yeah! Oh. No yeah. As I board the shuttle I’m told that they don’t go to my Marriot. Oookay…

Then, about 5 minutes later, I find a Courtyard shuttle. Great! Oh. Not great. This one only goes to the Courtyard by Marriot South. I’m in North. Then the driver tells me that I have to take the Renaissance Hotel Shuttle. Oookay…yeah, that makes sense.

The funny thing is that the Renaissance shuttle was the first one I saw. But it didn’t occur to me to get on that once since I was going to the Courtyard.

Anyway, finally, after something like 25 minutes I get on a shuttle and am driven 7 minutes to my hotel by a really friendly driver. This guy said hello to everyone, helped an older woman on and off the shuttle, and even went a little out of the way to take a guy to the Fed-Ex airport. He was awesome.

I’m now at the hotel, finishing some work and getting ready to GO ON VACATION! Woo hoo!