Off to Iceland!

The day has finally arrived! We're loading up the car and getting ready to head off to the airport, bound for Reykjavik, Iceland. This is a place I have always wanted to visit, but never thought I could afford. Since Iceland's government went bankrupt a few months ago, the exchange rate has evened out considerably and made it more affordable. It is unfortunate for this beautiful, wild (or so I'm told!) island nation, but I have read that things have gotten a lot better there recently as far as employment goes. The summer tourist season helps matters too, I'm sure. This will be a very interesting trip: eighteen hours of daylight (made sure to pack a sleeping mask!), wild puffins, and a landscape that is really out-of-this-world! Literally! Years ago NASA used Iceland as a training ground for astronauts because of the country's "lunar-like" plains.
Anyway, I'm not sure how much I'll get to post while I'm there, but I will be sure to write all about it when I get back. Skal! ("Cheers", in Icelandic. I'm lucky everyone there speaks English, supposedly. I don't recognize a single Icelandic phrase!)

Long Island Weekend

There is nothing like a quick weekend trip to mix up the everyday routine! Sunday afternoon I got back from a little jaunt to Long Island, New York, where I grew up (after leaving Greensboro at 6:30 Saturday morning to catch an early flight out of Raleigh). It was great to see my group of childhood friends again - Kathleen is getting married, and we surprised her with a shower - and the weather held out, which was a surprise for all of us! Correction: it held out just long enough for us to take a beautiful ride through the Peconic Bay on Jeanne's new boat, and then the downpour came. That was fine with us all. We still got to see a gorgeous sunset and more swan families on the Peconic River and the bay than I ever remember being there.

My apologies for the fuzzy photo... I left the camera at home and relied on my phone to take pictures. During the day it's still great!

Trip-A-Month Sweepstakes

O Travelchannel.com, you keep my hopes so high! I entered just about every day last month to win a trip to the Azores (wouldn't that be amazing??!!) and now this month's prize is a Peruvian vacation (equally amazing!). I'm putting a widget on this blog that will remind me and anyone else who sees it to try their hand at winning... hey, you never know!! (And the questions they ask you are really very easy to answer after scanning http://www.travelchannel.com/.) Good luck!

Travel Channel Trip-A-Month Sweepstakes

Destination: Greensboro

With the economy in the state it's in, it is very difficult for many of us to justify an expensive vacation to a far-off place. Although it might not be an option for everyone, let me suggest a FABULOUS (and easy) place to visit for residents of the southeastern United States: Greensboro, North Carolina!

When I moved to Greensboro about four-and-a-half years ago for a career opportunity, I had the intention of staying for my two-year contract and moving on. After all, it was what I had done in the past two cities I had lived in: Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and Thomasville, Georgia (both beautiful places, but I am a metropolitan New York-born-and-raised girl who needed my daily dose of the big city). But let me tell you, Greensboro definitely had more in store for me.

I got here in the fall of 2004 and quickly fell in love with the 70-degree weather (with enough crisp fall days thrown in to make me feel like it really was autumn), the glorious changing of the verdant landscape to striking shades of red, gold, and burnt orange (people from all over the world come to North Carolina to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway and be awed by the fall colors), and the expansive, cloudless Carolina-blue skies. My first mild winter (and every mild winter I've spent here since) was a wonderful change from the bitterly cold winters in Wisconsin, and I was overjoyed to be able to call my grandfather in New York on Easter Sunday to tell him I was sitting poolside in 80-degree weather. He laughed, and told me that until he had spoken with me he was excited about their 50-degree day.

I mentioned my need for the big city, and although Greensboro is a city of just over 250,000 as opposed to the 8-million people in New York, downtown Greensboro has undergone quite a renaissance in the past several years and offers tons of fun things to do without being overwhelming. Dozens of trendy boutiques, laid-back taverns, hip nightclubs, and a wide variety of restaurants pepper the downtown area. Greensboro's single-A baseball team, the Grasshoppers (http://www.gsohoppers.com/), boast a state-of-the art new stadium within walking distance of Elm Street, the main drag. Live music, laughter, and the peaceful rushing sound of several fountains float through the air from Center City Park (http://www.centercitypark.org/), Greensboro's 1.9-acre central gathering place in - you guessed it - the center of the city. An upscale high-rise condominium building is currently being renovated (http://www.centerpointegreensboro.com/), adding to the newfound stylishness of downtown. Add those things, along with the new Elon Law School, two theaters, a Children's Museum, the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, and many other attractions, downtown Greensboro (and the city as a whole!) has it going on for both residents and visitors! Check it out online: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/.

The Fun Begins!

As I kick this blog off, I am not sitting on a white sugar-sand beach with a fruity frozen drink (complete with a mini umbrella) melting in my hand... or just getting in from an eye-opening stroll through a 3,000-year-old city (doesn't that always make you feel so small?)... or soaking in a hot tub high in the Alps after an exhausting (in a good way!) day of hitting the slopes. Nope, I'm in my freshly painted gray home office in Greensboro, North Carolina, with a Monet copy to my left and a wannabe Tiffany lamp to my right. I try to have culture in my life even when I can't leave home, but it's so much more fun to get out there and see it firsthand.
I remember the first time I saw the Coliseum in Rome. After walking through this huge, modern city for several blocks, we turned a corner and there it was... it took my breath away. This amazing structure that I'd seen in books, pictures, and movies for years was now right in front of me. I could touch it, walk through its labyrinthine grayish corridors (chips of once-vibrant paint still cling to the walls), stand in the middle of the sandy arena where men and animals once fought to the death, and later at night, see the glowing yellow eyes of hundreds of squatting stray cats peering out from the Coliseum's walls at me. It was a magical, mesmerizing place, as was all of Italy, and as is every new city and country I have the opportunity to visit.
I am most intrigued by foreign cultures, that is, any culture that is very different from my own and teaches me new things. But this blog won't only be dedicated to my travels to foreign countries. Like I said before, I am in no position financially to spend consecutive weeks globe-trotting without a job to sustain my travels. There are plenty of fantastic places to visit very close to my own home and I like to be attuned to all sorts of travel news (thanks Frommers.com, Fodors.com and Lonelyplanet.com!) so I think I'll always have plenty to post.
That being said, I want to list all of the countries I have been fortunate enough to travel to, and I will probably incorporate my experiences there into future posts:
Canada (Many, many visits! Can't count them all... beautiful country!)
Mexico (3/2001)
Italy (8/2001 and 6/2004)
Greece (8/2001)
Brazil (3/2002)
England (6/2004)
Spain (6/2004)
Portugal (6/2004)
France (6/2004)
Dominican Republic (4/2007)
Costa Rica (5/2008)
El Salvador (11/2008)
...And hopefully many more to come. There is a great big world out there and I want to see as much of it as possible.