Wow! Three weeks from next Tuesday I will be off to Newfoundland with Ivy. Car rentals by now are IMPOSSIBLE to get, but I rented a car a long time ago, so we will be all set. Because there are so few cars there, it will cost us over $850 for two weeks. I forget how many miles or km we get, but at least we will have a way to see the spectacular countryside! We will be staying at Robin's (Ivy's daughter) house in Heart's Delight in the Avalon Region most of the time. Robin and her husband Jerry will arrive shortly before I leave,and then we'll head to a near-by B&B. From what I hear and read, there will be plenty to see and do!
The next part of my journey will start on August 4th, two days after I return from NFLD. I'm planning on having my suitcase for that trip all packed before I leave for NFLD to simplify things. We have signed up for two half day walking tours in Rome of the Vatican and the Ancient Rome sites like the Colisseum, etc. We will also take a 13 hour tour of Pompeii, Positano, and the Amalfi Coast in an eight person van to see these popular sites without the hassle of driving in the Italian countryside!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Now it is 7 weeks to go........
A friend asked me, "What are you going to do when you get there?" And I know that lots of people wonder what I'll do because I will be travelling solo most of the time....
"I'll go to the grocery store and check out my new digs and who knows what else I might do to get oriented!" I replied. Or maybe I'll go to the beach or meet my new neighbors or_________! Well, I will let you know! I will be doing the kinds of things that you usually do when you first go on vacation-unpack, explore, etc. Once I am settled in, I will be reading guidebooks and planning my daily excursions. And now that I have learned about couch surfing, I will see if there are any folks I might meet up with!
About my "friends" at Ryanair....It turns out that while the confirmation codes are seven digits, I only needed to use the first six digits to access my flights on their websites. So while I was getting very frustrated, because I had paid for these flights and couldn't pull them up, I finally figured it out!
Perhaps I mentioned that I had signed up for Spanish and Italian at the Newton Adult Ed. I dropped out of "Italian for Travellers", because all the teacher did was go over Italian menus and tell the class of 4(then 3) about how to get from the Rome Airport into the city. Spanish has been more productive, and, in fact, I'm going to take soem private lessons from the teacher Soledad Phelan, since we don't get to the past or future tenses.
Seven weeks from today I'll be off to St. John's, or as Peter(and thousand of others) call it, "down home"! There are a few details still to be pulled together, but they will all come together! I've just finalized my reental cars. AutoEurope based in Portland, ME, seems to have the best prices and matches AAA, AARP, etc. prices.
Ciao!
"I'll go to the grocery store and check out my new digs and who knows what else I might do to get oriented!" I replied. Or maybe I'll go to the beach or meet my new neighbors or_________! Well, I will let you know! I will be doing the kinds of things that you usually do when you first go on vacation-unpack, explore, etc. Once I am settled in, I will be reading guidebooks and planning my daily excursions. And now that I have learned about couch surfing, I will see if there are any folks I might meet up with!
About my "friends" at Ryanair....It turns out that while the confirmation codes are seven digits, I only needed to use the first six digits to access my flights on their websites. So while I was getting very frustrated, because I had paid for these flights and couldn't pull them up, I finally figured it out!
Perhaps I mentioned that I had signed up for Spanish and Italian at the Newton Adult Ed. I dropped out of "Italian for Travellers", because all the teacher did was go over Italian menus and tell the class of 4(then 3) about how to get from the Rome Airport into the city. Spanish has been more productive, and, in fact, I'm going to take soem private lessons from the teacher Soledad Phelan, since we don't get to the past or future tenses.
Seven weeks from today I'll be off to St. John's, or as Peter(and thousand of others) call it, "down home"! There are a few details still to be pulled together, but they will all come together! I've just finalized my reental cars. AutoEurope based in Portland, ME, seems to have the best prices and matches AAA, AARP, etc. prices.
Ciao!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Update on Sardinia
Well, luckily my worries were for naught....I received an email shortly after my post earlier this morning from Luisella...."Don’t worry, we haven’t changed idea, we are coming to Boston in September. We were busy in the last days and we are getting ready going to London the next week. When you are in Rome, watch out for your wallet and your money, there are thieves and you are without money without realizing it!! It’s happened to my husband two months ago!! Pay attention especially where there are a lot of people."
Since I was robbed in Paris in 2005, I'm optimistic that the thieves will find other prey than me, but I'll be doubly careful after her reminder.
Since I was robbed in Paris in 2005, I'm optimistic that the thieves will find other prey than me, but I'll be doubly careful after her reminder.
Countdown to July 20th
Okay, two months from today I'll be leaving for Newfoundland! Things continue to fall into place and some not so much....
I realized yesterday that it has been sometime since I've heard from Luisella, who is my contact for Sardinia! She had emailed me in early April saying they'd be coming September 1-23, and I went ahead and booked flights, etc. (Remember how cheap I said they were?) Yesterday afternoon I emailed her to see if she is still coming....It is now approximately 2:20 in Italy with no word....So I have emailed some other people on Sardinia with a preliminary inquiry about swapping with them, in case plan #1 doesn't pan out....Meanwhile, I keep telling myself that swaps are all about mutual trust...maybe she forgot to tell me they have bought their tickets or she's had a personal crisis or whatever? So where I will be September 1-23 is up in the air right now....
Off to the pool to put this all aside!:))
I realized yesterday that it has been sometime since I've heard from Luisella, who is my contact for Sardinia! She had emailed me in early April saying they'd be coming September 1-23, and I went ahead and booked flights, etc. (Remember how cheap I said they were?) Yesterday afternoon I emailed her to see if she is still coming....It is now approximately 2:20 in Italy with no word....So I have emailed some other people on Sardinia with a preliminary inquiry about swapping with them, in case plan #1 doesn't pan out....Meanwhile, I keep telling myself that swaps are all about mutual trust...maybe she forgot to tell me they have bought their tickets or she's had a personal crisis or whatever? So where I will be September 1-23 is up in the air right now....
Off to the pool to put this all aside!:))
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Ten Weeks from Next Tuesday (May 18, 2010)
I will be leaving for Newfoundland!!! I will meet up with Ivy in Toronto, and then we will fly into St. John's, Newfoundland!
And the miscellaneous details are falling into place...a rental car here(just booked the one I'll need for Spain; the Hertz price was about $300 less than AutoEurope), the odd hotel there (for those interim nights between swaps), checking out train schedules, etc. Where to stay in Italy from August 28-September 1st, when I leave for Sardinia? What tough decisions!!! WHAT FUN!!!
[And this is not to mention that I do need to think about my next trip, only in terms of scheduling, since I will only be home three months before I head off so as not to miss the New Zealand summer! So I have sent off some emails and made some calls to the Round the World websites to explore that! It is a bit premature to book those flights, since they all have some sort of time limits before you can book, and I don't know when I'll be coming home next spring yet!]
I've booked some more flights with RyanAir for the fall, although their system IS NOT too user-friendly. For example, after I had booked a flight from Alicante, Spain, to Venice, I got an error message saying there had been a problem with my reservation. I rebooked a flight, and went on about my business....Several days later I realized that I had not gotten a confirmation email. (I will HAVE to print out my own boarding pass or have to pay something like 40euro!) And I could not find my reservation in their system, so I booked another flight....(Heaven forbid I not catch up with Jane and Joan in Venice!)Hopefully RyanAir will credit me for one of these flights!:))
RyanAir is based in Dublin, so I am not too keen to call them! However, I did fax them a letter and am awaiting their response. Today their website said that they are about 25 days behind due to the problems caused by the Icelandic volcano....
And the miscellaneous details are falling into place...a rental car here(just booked the one I'll need for Spain; the Hertz price was about $300 less than AutoEurope), the odd hotel there (for those interim nights between swaps), checking out train schedules, etc. Where to stay in Italy from August 28-September 1st, when I leave for Sardinia? What tough decisions!!! WHAT FUN!!!
[And this is not to mention that I do need to think about my next trip, only in terms of scheduling, since I will only be home three months before I head off so as not to miss the New Zealand summer! So I have sent off some emails and made some calls to the Round the World websites to explore that! It is a bit premature to book those flights, since they all have some sort of time limits before you can book, and I don't know when I'll be coming home next spring yet!]
I've booked some more flights with RyanAir for the fall, although their system IS NOT too user-friendly. For example, after I had booked a flight from Alicante, Spain, to Venice, I got an error message saying there had been a problem with my reservation. I rebooked a flight, and went on about my business....Several days later I realized that I had not gotten a confirmation email. (I will HAVE to print out my own boarding pass or have to pay something like 40euro!) And I could not find my reservation in their system, so I booked another flight....(Heaven forbid I not catch up with Jane and Joan in Venice!)Hopefully RyanAir will credit me for one of these flights!:))
RyanAir is based in Dublin, so I am not too keen to call them! However, I did fax them a letter and am awaiting their response. Today their website said that they are about 25 days behind due to the problems caused by the Icelandic volcano....
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Driving in Sardinia and Spain=GPS Dilemma
Well, since I will be renting a car in both Sardinia and Spain, I did decide to get a portable GPS. Whether to buy a Garmin or a Tomtom? I had posed the question to the LonelyPlanet website with 2 answers(with one "vote" for each), when I headed off to Best Buy to check them out. Marcus, the helpful Best Buy clerk, me swayed me towards the Garmin. Oh, and, it was on sale ($139 vs. regularly $179)!
That was the easy part. THEN I had to get European maps, and Marcus suggested that I buy them on-line. (In retrospect, I'm not sure why he did, but I opted for that. He actually led me to think they did not stock them.)So I brought the GPS home, plugged it into my car, and was pleased with the way it worked, although Marcus had shown it to me.
Ah, that getting the European maps was that easy! Today I went on-line (now armed with a Garmin 10% off coupon from registering the GPS system), and bought the maps. I had three choices-download to my computer, a DVD, which would take 2-3 weeks to ship, and _________?_. I decided-or I thought it would make the most sense-to have these maps on my laptop, but it turned out that it needed SO MUCH SPACE (1907MB vs. 525MB on my laptop) that it could not be downloaded onto my computer. Having it on my laptop would make it better for travelling, in case I wanted to plan routes, etc. I canonly load it onto one computer, so loading it onto the desktop wouldn't work. So BACK TO MARCUS AND BEST BUY, as I was told that a special cable to download data would work. Well, several hours later, I am no closer to the European maps, but I do have more than two months to get them, and I will. Oh, yes, when I was trying to download the maps, somehow the language changed to Spanish! I FINALLY managed to get the device back to English at least. So hopefully I will get some SOLUTION from the Garmin customer service tomorrow. They are very responsive via email; it was a thirty minute wait on the phone!:((
That was the easy part. THEN I had to get European maps, and Marcus suggested that I buy them on-line. (In retrospect, I'm not sure why he did, but I opted for that. He actually led me to think they did not stock them.)So I brought the GPS home, plugged it into my car, and was pleased with the way it worked, although Marcus had shown it to me.
Ah, that getting the European maps was that easy! Today I went on-line (now armed with a Garmin 10% off coupon from registering the GPS system), and bought the maps. I had three choices-download to my computer, a DVD, which would take 2-3 weeks to ship, and _________?_. I decided-or I thought it would make the most sense-to have these maps on my laptop, but it turned out that it needed SO MUCH SPACE (1907MB vs. 525MB on my laptop) that it could not be downloaded onto my computer. Having it on my laptop would make it better for travelling, in case I wanted to plan routes, etc. I canonly load it onto one computer, so loading it onto the desktop wouldn't work. So BACK TO MARCUS AND BEST BUY, as I was told that a special cable to download data would work. Well, several hours later, I am no closer to the European maps, but I do have more than two months to get them, and I will. Oh, yes, when I was trying to download the maps, somehow the language changed to Spanish! I FINALLY managed to get the device back to English at least. So hopefully I will get some SOLUTION from the Garmin customer service tomorrow. They are very responsive via email; it was a thirty minute wait on the phone!:((
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Oops!
Well, I'm having problems editing my posts, so sorry for any typos....I also wanted to add this link....(This blog site indicates that it is linking with sites I put in, but they do not show up. Not too user-friendly....) TESTING...I can't see it here, so this way I know it will be here. http://www.hotelgalleria.it/ is one of the places I have emailed. Nothing fancy...but then I'd always rather eat and drink my travel funds than sleep....However, since we DID learn from last year's escapade with our hotel in Nice, I will be checking with www.tripadvisor.com for reviews on any hotels I may stay in!
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