The Awesomeness of Puerto Rico

This is from a letter I quickly wrote to Dao and Rob (as they too have experienced the kick-ass nature of Puerto Rico):

Justin and I got back from a weekend in Puerto Rico late last night. We had a blast!!!! We took one of his coworkers (Alex) and his friend (Marisa). They said it was one of the best trips of their lives (and they've been all over the place). This is how our trip went:

Day 1: Breakfast at Casa Cubuy in El Yunque, hike through the rain forest and swim in a variety of pools. Get back to the hotel and discover there are masseuses-in-training just down the street. We each get a 1 hour massage for $20! Drive to Naguabo and go out with Capt. Paco to see Monkey Island and snorkel. Capt. Paco was super busy so he dropped us off on our own with a kayak and supplies! We snorkeled out there - just us, monkeys, fish and seagulls for almost 2 hours. It was great!!! We even got to take turns kayaking. We also saw lots of starfish.

It was amazing. Return to Naguabo and have dinner. Head back to the hotel with a stop to grab rum and mixers. Sit outside for hours talking and drinking before hitting the hay.

Day 2: Breakfast at Casa Cubuy then head to the end of the road, where no cars are allowed. We were informed of a neat hike that takes you across a metal bridge (actually, not so much a bridge as a big pipe over a river). We were the only ones on the trail (actually - on both days!). Hiked for a while and came to a beautiful scenic overlook. On our way back, Justin suggested we head down to the river. We found and amazing lagoon at the bottom of a treacherous looking waterfall! Marisa kept climbing up rocks and finding neat places to jump in from.

There were lots of tiny little fish and even some prawns! Leaving El Yunque, we stopped at a beach on the way back to San Juan, walked along it, and spotted some hermit crabs. Back in San Juan, we bought some food to take back to the airport with us (I got amaaaazing camarones enchilados - shrimp in hot sauce, and beans) and stopped for pina coladas at Barrachina - of course!!! We made it back to the airport just in time to get on the flight!!! All in all, an action packed, exciting weekend. :)

There were only 2 minor hitches and they both worked out. 1) Our camera tumbled into raging water and somehow we managed to find it. The memory card compartment came open during the fall and somehow we managed to find the Flash card, too! 2) Alex forgot his wallet at a gas station on the way back to San Juan when he was changing in the bathroom. This morning he spoke with a woman there that found it and is FedExing back to him free of charge! So nice!!!

Re-reading my entry above, I feel kind of like I am reading a diary entry from when I was a little kid. I was pretty much never patient enough to go into things in depth. I guess that isn't really a bad thing. :) Photos to follow. <3 :D

Photo Update
Ness's Flickr Photo Gallery
Justin's Facebook Photo Gallery

The Great Midwest

Justin and I are taking of in the morning and won't return for a week! We'll spend one day in Denver, Colorado and the Rocky Mountains!! I am so psyched to see the Rockies. Justin has talked to me about them, and visiting Glenwood Springs specifically, ever since I have known him, so I am really glad we'll get to snoop around a little bit.

The majority of our trip will be spent in Montana with three days in Billings and two full days in Yellowstone. It's guide training time for Austin-Lehman, which is as good a reason as any for me to fly out and meet everyone, see our offices, and work on face-to-face projects.

Justin plans to set up a remote JetBlue camp for the first few days from our LaQuinta hotel room before heading out to Yellowstone with the ALA crew. I am sure we'll keep you updated via Twitter (easy with my phone) and the blog for more thoughts, feelings, and photos.

Special thanks a mucho love to the Val! for watching our babies and inhabiting our apartment while we are gone. Happy birthday to Olivia!!!

Love you guys and I'll miss you!
Ness

Sunday Picnic in the Park

Riding our bike, roller blade skitchen, picnic, trees, relaxing, cherries and cucumbers.

All fun things to do on a nice Sunday in NY. To start our summer out right we headed to Flushing Meadows Corona Park for a picnic, perfect weather for one - breezy and bright. It was nice to have a happy wholesome day. See more photos on Flickr here.

Last Night's Dinner with Thao and Katie

Thao comes over for Dinner
Originally uploaded by pandoralyrael

Justin and I had a really nice time having Thao and Katie over for dinner Thursday night. Thao shared with us a lot of her photos from Kenya (you can see them here) and narrated as she walked through the different experiences. Justin hooked my laptop up to our TV so we had a good viewing arrangement. It was so neat. I definitely want to go to Kenya now! If I can get a detailed itinerary of Thao's journey, I'll put it up here. She visited beautiful, deserted beaches; lovely, cheap inns; took a self-guided driving safari with some friends; took children to a giraffe feeding/petting area (not only did she escort these children, but she helped raise money so they could go in the first place - right on!); and all the while got around in bizarrely decorated buses. It looked and sounded like a lot of fun. She also brought me back salad spoons with rhinos on the ends! I love them :) Thanks Tizzle! :)

It was nice having Thao and Katie over... I just feel bad they got home so late on a Thursday night! Tonight, Val!, Justin and I went to Hill Country. A new friend of Val!'s, Chris, met us as well. The wait was an hour and a half but we had a good time. We sat there talking for hours and then for another half an hour on the sidewalk once we'd decided to leave. I pronounce "Friendship Friday" a serious success! :)

Harp Strings, Rock Wall, Last Day in Stowe

Harp strings and metal
Originally uploaded by pandoralyrael

Well, we had a great time yesterday for our last day in Stowe!
It was tough to choose to place a photo of an inanimate object up for my photo of the day. I sort of wanted to put up a climbing one, out of obligation, but my heart chose this one. :)

Aside - Running behind today on my updating. We took some photos with Beloved on Sunday and Justin spent a while trying to get my laptop to work with the camera.... *shakes fist angrily at Vista*

All is well in the world, except that it's almost 2 AM and I am exhausted.

More Photos - I've updated the gallery to contain only photos from the weekend in Stowe and be in chronological order - Friday through Sunday!

Justin and I had a lovely last day in VT! We woke up early, scarfed down breakfast (fruit, pastries, cream of wheat with cinnamon and craisins - and honey in mine) and headed to the fitness center for indoor rock climbing! It was awesome. I LOVE that.. although we barely made it under an hour. Our forearms were screaming after a few times up the wall. :)

We wandered around for a while and then gathered up our things. Justin checked out of the hotel and I went to my harp lesson! Woo! I love the harp - both the way it looks (I admit) and the sounds it can produce. I am so not musically inclined, having never played an instrument. Sadly, despite a couple of years of choir, I never even learned chords/how to read music. The instructer was super patient and nice and helpful. It was a good experience. Mom would be proud as I have finally done something sort of Irish - thus embracing non-German roots for a change. haha :)

It was a beautiful day as we drove back to Burlington to catch our flight. The sun was melting the snow and icicles so it really was the perfect time to depart. I still would've loved to stay and try cross-country skiing! Maybe next year. *crosses fingers*

Kissy whilst Snowshoeing

Kissy
Originally uploaded by pandoralyrael

We had such a good, active day today! We woke up at 9:30 AM - a little later than anticipated - and headed immediately down for breakfast. It was such a gorgous day filled with glorious sunshine. Justin had French toast, but said it was only so-so, and I had poached eggs over ham and an English muffin topped with cheese, which was also only so-so. Tomorrow I'll probably opt for just the continental breakfast! :) We both still totally enjoyed ourselves at breakfast.

After breakfast we layered up for our first ever snow shoeing sojourn! We were out for over five hours today and trekked 1,000 vertical feet to the top of a mountain where we came upon a cabin that served soup and sandwiches. I had no idea I was so hungry until I devoured a bowl of split pea soup! Justin had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We snowshoed back down a different trail that took us among tons of moguls and remote, forested area. It was BEAUTIFUL. Some trees had bark of gold! I have a good shot in the photo gallery. It was amazing.

I have wanted to try cross country skiing for a couple of years. Loads of people out there were doing it. Maybe tomorrow before we leave we'll have the opportunity to try it out. We scheduled time at the rock climbing wall today but allowed an angry lady with three kids from Boston to take our slot as the facility had lost hers (or she was wrong about her appointment). We tentatively schedule a 9 AM session for tomorrow.

We had a very pleasant dinner this evening. I have to admit that the food here is definitely not top notch but we had fun all the same and the service is good. I had lobster ravioli (fairly tasty), gorgonzola/walnut/grape/escarole/bibb lettuce salad with maple dijon dressing (fabulous) and NY strip steak (yuck). My steak did come with delicious scalloped sweet potatoes, though! Justin had yummy pork tenderloin and a delicious chocolate cake with mousse and cherries. We also had plenty of wine. ;)

Here is how my ideal day tomorrow:
Breakfast around 7:30 AM
Swim in the pool at the fitness center.
Climbing at 9 AM
Cross Country ski at 10:00 AM
Massage at 1 PM
Flight at 5 PM

Vee shall see!

Ice Climbing, Christmas, New Years, etc.

Look at all the topics I saved to write about, yet never did!

• ice climbing (photos)
• christmas eve
• christmas day
• san antonio and christmas
• new year's eve
• jetblue shuttle
• From an email I wrote after the event -
  
  When we got back to the airport last night (1/1/2008), the line for the taxis was really long so we decided to take the JetBlue shuttle bus instead. It drops us off just a mile from home and we can either get a cab or take the subway from there. We made it on the 10:30 pm shuttle and as we were leaving the airport on this major 3 lane highway (the Van Wyck) I saw 5 lug nuts glittering across the road. Moments later, the bus began to vibrate and both of our rear left wheels came off! One of them flew parallel to us, bouncing on the ground and proceeding high into the air, smashing down on the bumper then the roof of a little red car in the adjacent lane. It was so surreal. Everyone was fine, but it reminded me of something from those Final Destination movies.
  
  We were stuck on the bus for about an hour in the middle lane of traffic waiting for some alternate form of transportation. Luckily, a flight attendant that was onboard the bus with us had a number for an emergency contact at JetBlue and they sent another bus to rescue us. It was an eventful night. ;)
  

My mom sent this to me, it seems pretty cool: 21 ways to use old coffee grounds

I have a new Goal!!!! - Visit all of the top 10 wine regions in the world. And possibly discover one in Asia since they don't seem well represented.
Check out this map and click "top 10 wine regions" if it's not already selected.

Cool Things I've Done in the Last 3 Months

November 2007 - Traveled to South Africa - Hiked, biked, kayaked, and went on safari.
December 2007 - Ice climbed for the first time in the Catskills upstate.
January 2008 - Took the puppies to Puerto Rico so they could swim for the first time - boogie boarded, partied.

Wow - lots of cool, new things! :D

PS: *sings* I got a corporate Amex card aaand I paid for my taxi with it. :)

Puppies Swimming

As you can see, the puppies are already fabulous swimmers and undeniably adorable in their little life jackets. They were immediately at home in the water and played in it constantly... I wish! - actually, they were swimming desperately for the shore!!!:) They enjoy the sand but the water, eh, not so much!

More photos!
Even More photos!

Living Tropically

Updates are scarce lately, it's true. I haven't had a lot to write about. I have been so busy with work and random other things that there has been little to no time to update the blog. Val! was in Paris last weekend. I still haven't seen all the pix. Seems like she had a good time though. She went over and came back on flights Dao was working. How cool!

Justin and I are off to Puerto Rico for a long weekend. I still have to work tomorrow, but at least I'll be doing it from an island apartment overlooking the ocean. It beats the heck out of chilly New York! And the puppies are coming with us. :) Yay!!!

Leaving TOMORROW for Africa - Please send me your addresses

Hi Everyone!

I am leaving for Africa tomorrow and I'd really love to send postcards to everyone.

Please email me your addresses - even if you think I SHOULD have them, there is a good chance I don't.

Love you guys. I'll miss y'all. See you when I get back!

Ness

Off to Africa

Africa has always seemed impossibly far away. Growing up in the 1980s and 90s, the few things that stuck out in my mind about Africa were largely negative, from the continent having the largest concentration of AIDs in the world, to seemingly endless wars and the trouble with elephants being poached for their tusks. The benefits of going on safari, seeing the foreign and exotic landscape and animals, and meeting the indigenous people seemed far too dangerous.

It was less than five years ago that I even learned metropolitan cities existed in the middle of what I’d always thought to be severe, hot, dry wilderness. Never mind I had no idea there were wineries and waterfalls. I’d only met one person in my life before I moved to New York who had actually been on a safari in Africa. He is a serious hunter and rancher in Texas. His photographs showed images of exotic animals, beautiful landscapes, smiling people, and huge termite mounds 2 or 3 times as tall as an average person! He’d gone on a luxury safari which had cost him upwards of $10,000. He said he loved it so much he’d go back in a heartbeat. I was completely floored with how safe he felt there, how kind everyone was, and by the beautiful scenery in his photographs. It seemed that there was much, much more to Africa than I’d learned in school.

Just two weeks ago I received a phone call from Dan (Dan Austin - Director and co-founder of Austin-Lehman Adventures) and Carmin (Carmin Arnot - South Africa Regional Director). It was my very last day working for JetBlue Airways. They had both been on the phone for a while going over their plans for an Africa trip and abruptly called to ask me if I wanted to go. I was at a loss for words… OF COURSE I wanted to go! Who in their right mind would say no to a trip to Africa? And I hadn’t even officially started working with Austin-Lehman yet! I was told there was still a lot of planning to be done and that I may end up not being able to go at all – everything was still pending approval. I tried, to little avail, to keep from getting my hopes up or talking about it. Finally, last week, it was confirmed – I am definitely going!