TravelStream™ news feed for member dctravelbug on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/dctravelbug en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 03 May 2009 19:37:22 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/14/1241217660/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/14/1241217660/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/14/1241217660/tpod.html Sun, 03 May 2009 19:37:22 -0400 Monthly Sojourns to Puerto Rico

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san juan, Puerto Rico

Friday afternoon happy hour is taken to a whole new level at La Placita in Condado. The clientele is mostly local, as women in stilettos drink $1.25 Medalla's in the central square. If you are lucky, an old Puerto Rican guy will be dancing along with the pulsing salsa music in the streets, or you will catch sight of a local politician drinking it up at el Popular. After you have had a few of the Medalla's, you will definitely need to partake of the empanadas. Stick with the chicken sin queso from the lady with the little cart and you won't be disappointed. The ones from the larger stall across the street are a lot greasier and not as good.

If you decide to get in touch with nature at El Yunque, be prepared for a crowd on par with New Years Eve in New York City. The Jardin Botanica in Rio Piedras is a little more off the beaten track and has a lovely collection of flora. Or head up to Lago Dos Bocas to take in the the tranquil scenery. You can try to take the free ferry, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't run on any type of schedule. So instead, you can always take the Rancho Marina boat that will take you to their restaurant about a 15 minute ride from the main pier. Rancho Marina offers a quiet spot to look out over the water, watch the pelicans dive-bombing for fish, and listen to the wind rustle through the bamboo. We were lucky enough to have the patio to ourselves, so we could enjoy the mofongo with skirt steak rancho style in peace. We ordered a pitcher of the sangria, but it was a little too sweet for my taste.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1226873220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1226873220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1226873220/tpod.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 17:22:08 -0500 Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey in a Week

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Istanbul, Turkey

How much can one person see in Istanbul, one of the largest cities in the world, in 2 days? Lots, I'd say.

I had booked my flight to Istanbul while a little bored in Meteora. What could be the antithesis of a sleepy Greek village than an enormous city? I got a great fair for a one way ticket from Skopje to Istanbul, so I did it. It meant that I had one less day in Skopje, but my sister didn't see that as a problem. Upon arrival in Istanbul, I mistakenly took the bus instead of the train into town. It took me forever to find my hotel for the first night, as the streets were windy, non-continuous, and generally difficult to follow. I finally made it, threw down my bag, and head off to catch the nearby sights - the Blue Mosque. There were throngs of people, who appeared to be swallowed up by the immense interior. I then followed the swarms of people across the street to the Hagia Sophia, an even larger mosque.

I then navigated my way (slowly and inefficiently) towards the Grand Bazaar. I wasn't really in the mood to buy anything, so I just window shopped through all of the vendors of carpets, jewelry, and tons of other trinkets. I continued on to the Spice Bazaar, which was infinitely smaller and right on the harbor. On the way back, I found myself pretty lost, and back near the Grand Bazaar, which was quickly closing up shop. I started to feel the first concerns about traveling in Turkey on deserted streets alone, but I tried to stem the impending panick and instead decided to find the largest street on my map that could get me back to my hotel. After looping back to the Spice Bazaar, I managed to find my way back to the more popular tourist sites, but I was a little shaken. I was used to reading maps and navigating new cities, but Istanbul was proving to be more of a challenge than I had thought.

For dinner, I stuck close to home by the Blue Mosque. Nothing special, but I had a friendly waiter. Since I don't really like wandering foreign cities by myself at night, I head back to the hotel to plan the rest of my trip.

On my second day in Istanbul, I transferred to the far nicer (and more expensive) accomodations at the Orient Express. I had managed to book my trip at the highest season in Istanbul when all the hotels were booked. After checking in, I found my room wasn't ready. I waited for a bit, and then got impatient and decided to go to the harbor to get my ferry ticket. Upon my return, the room still wasn't ready. So I left my bags and made my way to the ship that would take me up the Bosphorous River close to where it meets the Black Sea.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209259320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209259320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209259320/tpod.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:54:33 -0500 Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey in a Week

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Meteora, Thessaly, Greece

Meteora ought to be interesting to a former geologist. Don't get me wrong, the protrusions of rock shooting up from the plains are an interesting and unusual sight. And the monasteries tucked into the side of the sheer cliffs are testaments to human ingenuity and perseverance (not to mention bravery!) But 3 days in this little town was about 2 days longer than necessary. While it was nice that by the second day the shopkeeper and the restaurant people would wave to me when I walked down the street, I've always been more of a city person than a small town kind of girl.

My favorite part of Meteora was the fried calamari...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209675120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209675120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1209675120/tpod.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:54:14 -0500 Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey in a Week

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Skopje, Macedonia

We hit some ancient ruins on our way to Skopjie.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/13/1226602440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/13/1226602440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/13/1226602440/tpod.html Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:18:38 -0500 Relaxing in Jamaica

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Falmouth, Jamaica

We were looking for a warm, relaxing winter get-away for my birthday, and Jamaica fit the bill. I got a fabulous deal on Cheaptickets.com for airfare and accommodations at an all inclusive resort on the North Coast. The Starfish Trelawney isn't in one of the famous (and crowded) locations like MoBay, Ocho Rios, or Negril, but I think this fact turned out to be the reason I really liked Jamaica. We were tucked away on the northern coast, with a 3 mile white sand beach. The only other hotel in the area is the FDR Pebbles, but it was closed for renovations. So it felt like we had the whole area to ourselves, especially when we lounged around on t he man-made private island.

The Starfish is about 2 miles west of Falmouth, and the only thing really walking distance is the bamboo village where locals peddle their goods. The locals aren't allowed to harass the guests on the beach, which was a definite perk and the one aspect of Jamaica we had beend dreading.

The uncrowded beach has beautiful white sand, and it was nice and soft walking out into the water. We talked to a bunch of guests who had stayed at a number of other resorts across the island, and liked Trelawney Starfish best. After our visit, I can see why.

The rooms weren't luxurious, but clean, and a great value for the money. The food was average, but at least there were a few good things at most meals (e.g., omelet station at breakfast, jerk chicken, sandwich and pasta stations at lunch.) Dinner at the Casablanca had a great atmosphere with wonderful white tux service, complete with a player piano. The food was better than the buffet...not superb, but not bad.

For the most part, the service at the Starfish was great, and the entertainment staff made it a fun and enjoyable place to be. The evening entertainment was a little hit or miss, but it was probably because the resort wasn't full, so it was hard to get critical mass at the evening dance party at the on site club (Bubbles). The concert by A.J. Brown on Wednesday night was probably the highlight - he has a great voice and the house band provided good back up. The piano bar on Tuesday night and the circus show on Friday night were also pretty good. The beach party on Tuesday night and Karaoke night on Thursday left a little to be desired, however.

We wanted to primarily relax on our 4 night vacation, but we also wanted to "get off the reservation" and see a little more of Jamaica. There was no public transportation that we could find, and we couldn't get ahold or bicycles anywhere, either. So we ended up hiring a taxi driver, Robert, to take us around. We were able to bargain on prices with him, since we walked to the end of the resort and found him outside the gate. On Wednesday night, we took a boat ride and evening swim on the Luminous Lagoon, where the water glows when you agitate it because of the dinoflagellite in the water. Our guide told us it had something to do with the warm water and the mix of fresh water from the Martha Brae river and the salty ocean water.

On Thursday, we took a relaxing bamboo rafting on the Martha Brae river, where our guide Sewell pointed out the local flora and fauna. He was also pretty talented, and used a single knife to carve interesting patterns out of the local plants.

We also did a self-guided walking tour of the decaying Georgian town of Falmouth. You could tell that the buildings were once nice, but they hadn't been maintained over the last 150 years and were in various states of preservation. Although it felt like a third world country with goats wandering the streets and sipping water from the toppled gravestones in the church cemetery, it didn't feel the least bit unsafe, which was a pleasant surprise.

Most of the time we spent enjoying the many amenities at the hotel, such as waterslides, sailing, lounging on the hammocks, climbing the rock wall, sea kayaking, and, of course, swimming. My favorite activity, though, were the morning trapeze lessons, where Gregory and the rest of the circus crew taught us to swing by our knees, flip, and do the splits.

Would I go back to Jamaica? Surprisingly, yes!

]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1221013560/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1221013560/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/11/1221013560/tpod.html Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:00:52 -0400 Greece, Macedonia, and Turkey in a Week

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Thessaloniki, Macedonia Region, Greece

Despite my sister's advice to take a cab, I opted to try the local bus system at the Thess airport. I didn't know exactly where our hotel was and all I had was the little area map from their website. But quite a few people on the bus tried to be helpful, even though they didn't really speak English. Surprisingly, I made it to the hotel without getting lost, and ran into Cindy, Paul, and dad on the steps of the hotel!

After a quick shower, I joined my family next door for a drink before dinner. We wandered over to a cute pedestrian only area for dinner, where I had the best grilled octopus ever. The fried calamari, grilled fish, greek salad, and other appetizers were also good. All in all, I collapsed after my 3 leg flight to Greece full and happy.

The next morning, we had a nice walk through the turkish market and then stopped for a still -warm chocolate croissant at a cafe on Miropoleus and Agias Sofias. we continued walking along the water to the picturesque white tower, then through the historic sites of the arch and palace of Galerius (dating back to 300 AD), the Rotunda, and the monestary tucked into the old city walls. The coolest thing about the convent was the large collection of peacocks tucked inside the courtyard.

After pretty much exhausting the sites of Thess, we had another tasty meal at a place called Krasodidio (maybe- I can't read Greek!) on Filippous. The restaurant must be near the courthouse since it has some kind of court theme. We had a delicious giant bean salad in tomato sauce and a tasty arugala salad (roka). The mixed grill, stuffed squid, grilled squid, and broccoli salad were also good, and the whole meal (with wine) for 5 people was a bargain at about 50 euros (75 USD).

Well fed, we packed up and head south to Meteora.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/12/965945220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/12/965945220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/12/965945220/tpod.html Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:18:23 -0400 Costa Rica - from coast to coast in a week

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Tortuguero, Province of Limon, Costa Rica

While the Caribbean side of Costa Rica doesn't have great beaches, the wildlife is very cool. Different people have different opinions about Tortuguero. I loved it. There is nothing more amazing than watching a giant green turtle drop a 100 eggs in the sand in the middle of the night, in the hopes that just one makes it to the ocean intact. On the other hand, my sister had a large snake hanging out in the tree outside her hotel room door, so she wasn't such a big fan.

I've also heard mixed things about Monteverde. Everyone seems to think it is the highlight of Costa Rica. When we went (during the rainy summer season), there was not much wildlife to be found. A beautiful katydid and walking stick just didn't do it for me on our nighttime walking tour (I was looking for a jaguar!) Iit didn't help that most of the wildlife we saw were the bugs that seemed to be all over our "ecolodge". The butterfly farm and sky walk were nice, but uneventful.

Arenal didn't disappoint, however. From the Tabacon Hot Springs, we could see the bubbling lava on the side of the volcano. The hotsprings were wonderfully relaxing, although I am pretty much always a fan of hotsprings. Unfortunately, going to the volcano park itself would have been great, but there had been a plane accident a few days before, so the whole park was closed.

The Pacific Side of Costa Rica is very chill. Tamarindo is a nice surfer beach, and we had a great seafood meal there. We also had a very relaxing stay at the Marriott's swank Los Suenos resort, although the beach wasn't all that memorable.

San Jose is just a big city not worth spending any time in. Although on my second trip to Costa Rica in 2005, we stayed at a nice place just outside the city, called Hotel Bougainvillea. On this second trip, we braved the bus to get to Manuel Antonio Park. Unfortunately, the bus ride took forever and the park was closed on Mondays, so we didn't actually get to the park. The beach wasn't bad, but not worth the 4 hour cramped, unconditioned bus ride...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/9/1199757240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/9/1199757240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/9/1199757240/tpod.html Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:10:39 -0400 Miami

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Miami, Florida, United States

My first taste of South Beach was a mouth watering slice of pizza at pizza rustica, at 9th and Washington. It was so good, it was almost worth missing the last rays of the day at the beach.

The best part of staying at the South Beach Group hotels are their evening happy hour where vodka drinks are free from 6-7. We managed to get our money's worth each evening, people watching on the couches outside, reading the paper, and playing cards.

The Art deco festival happened to be going on that weekend, so the streets wee teeming with vendors, people, dogs, rollerbladers, and some neat antique cars. There were lots of free outdoor concerts, which were fun.


We had a decent brunch at News Cafe on Ocean at 8th. Mostly it is good people watching.

The columbian hot dogs at La Ventana weren't bad, either.

We had a fun dinner with peter's coworkers at Lario's, one of Gloria Estefan's
restaurants. The outdoor atmosphere on Ocean drive is great, although the food was just mediocre.

I was curious to see Little Havana, so one day we rented a moped and head across the bridge. After driving by a few places, we found the best cuban sandwich and coffee at Cafe Versaille. Turns our Mccain was campaigning there the next week! On our way back to south beach, we jumped on the bunjee trampoline.

By far our worst meal was at Joe's Stone Crab, where the line was long (even though we arrived very late) and the service horrible. Our stone crabs were cold and tasteless. What a waste. At least we were close to Nikki Beach Club, where we stopped in for some dancing. It was a sort of strange crowd, however, so I don't know if it was all it was cracked up to be. I think I preferred Mansion, the place we had tried out the night before, although that place was also pricey and not all that...

We also caught a nice flamenco show at tapas y tintos, on espannola way. It's tucked away on a very picturesque street. I wish we had tried the food there.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/10/1195005780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/10/1195005780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/10/1195005780/tpod.html Tue, 09 Sep 2008 21:46:04 -0400 Hawaii

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Waimea, Hawaii, United States

Hiking, canoeing, snorkeling, watching the sunset with a bottle of wine
and fresh sushi. What more could you ask for on an island vacation?

We were staying right across from the Poipu State park, so we took a quick walk on our first full day in Hawaii. Right away, we saw three adorable monk seals chilling on the beach. We even spotted 3 giant green sea turtles, which bode well for spotting great wildlife on our trip! We head in to town to rent cheap snorkel gear from Snorkel Bob's. and picked up a few bottles of wine (including a terrible local pineapple wine) at The Wine Shop.

On our second day, we found a fabulous fish market on the north side of the island. http://www.hanaleidolphin.com/fishmarket.html. We picked up some fantastic freshly made poke (basically raw tuna with some soy sauce and scallions) for our sunset picnic. We also got a tasty bottle of fish marinade, which we were able to use to grill fish back at the timeshare. The 2 hour drive to the Napali coast took longer than expected, but the views from the Kablua trail were worth it. We didn't have time to hike past the first beach to get to the falls, but we had a nice swim at Ke'e beach. We made a quick stop at the Kiluea Light house, which had a nice view but unfortunately the wildlife refuge was closed.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/2006-japan/1187796000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/2006-japan/1187796000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dctravelbug/2006-japan/1187796000/tpod.html Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:37:20 -0400 Albania is not a place I could have identified on a map before I met Ejonta.

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Saranda, Albania

I had a grand time visiting Ejonta and her family in Albania. We ventured south to the beautiful Ionian Sea at Saranda, wandered the impressive ruins of Butrinti, and danced until the wee hours at Mango Beach. I even learned how to do traditional Albanian Dancing!

Back in Tirana, we did a day trip to the Skanderbeg Castle (Albania's National hero) in Kruje. I saw my sister Cindy and her husband Paul, who had driven over from Macedonia. Too bad she collapsed of heat exhaustion. It was 100 degrees and the electricity was out for at least 5 of the hottest hours of the day in Tirana.

Ejonta and I did an overnight trip to Durres, where we stayed at her brother's apartment steps from the Adriatic Sea. Too bad the one day we were there the winds picked up and blew sand everywhere. By the end of the day, we were the only crazy people still on the beach!

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