Making our dream vacation a reality

So John and I came up with the idea to take a trip to Europe almost 2 years ago and so it is hard to believe it has now come and gone. Part of our pay as the apartment managers is that we get to keep all the quarters from the washer and dryer in the building so in order to save for the trip we collected all of the quarters for almost 2 years. I called our bank to see about cashing these in as the trip drew closer and they informed me that we would have to roll all of the quarters to cash them. We had been collecting them in one of those huge water containers like you see in offices and rolling all these quarters was not a great option. I also didn't want the coinstar machine to take 10% of our earnings. Luckily some of our friends belonged to a credit union that had a coinstar type machine in the bank and they wouldn't charge you a fee for using it.  So we had to meet them at their bank and dump this huge container of coins in the machine, it was such a scene that everyone in the bank was watching us.  They even seemed to be excited for us once it was all done.  All in all we made over $2000 in quarters, not as much as we hoped but still a nice start.  We came up with a general game plan of where we wanted to go on the trip fairly quickly, I am not sure how decided but all of a sudden we had a starting plan. The rest of the details were now up to me. I knew we wanted to see Paris, Venice, Cinque Terre, Rome, Athens, and an island in Greece, we ended up going to Santorini. We only had around 11 days due to the amount of vacation time I had at work so we had to eliminate several stops we originally wanted to make and still were left with a pretty ambition schedule.  To start planning I knew the flights would be a major part of the costs so when I got a credit card offer from American that involved getting 30k points just for signing up and then another 30k if you spent 10k and the annual fee was waived I knew I had found my niche.  I got the card and we had not trouble racking up those 60k in bonus miles, it was the remaining miles that were slow to add up and I only had a year to do it. I realized almost to late that I really had less than a year to have the points I needed because I had to have the points before I could book the flight and awards type tickets get booked fast.  To get the miles we needed in time to still get tickets we ended up having to buy some miles.  All in all we basically got 2 tickets for the costs of 1.  There are lots of things about reward tickets I learned from this experience but as long as you have patience and time to call the airlines everyday to look for cancellations you can make it work.  Our original flight we booked got us home all in 1 day of travel and we booked all our other travel arrangements based on our overseas flight schedule.  Unfortunately we got a call closer to our trip that one of the connection carriers went out of business so now we had several long connections to get home and had to use an extra .5 day of vacation, this was our biggest hiccup in travel arrangements so I can't complain to much.  We also made the most of our layovers by adding a trip in to downtown London and NY City, I will get to that later. 
So as you can imagine I was a very unproductive employee for a large portion of the pre-trip period.  All of my free time at work was spent looking for the right hotels, train schedules, easy jet flights, car rentals, and activities we might want to do.  The internet has so much information that it can almost be overwhelming but we ended up relying a lot on trip advisor.  My criteria when looking for a hotel was that we had to have our own bathroom and how nice were the actual tourist pictures, not the hotel advertisment pictures.  My first time I went to Europe I mainly stayed in Hostels, the second time I stayed in tiny rooms with shared bathrooms, and so this time I wanted to go just a step above that.  I have to say that all of our hotels turned out to be more than we expected and we were totally pleased so apparentaly my formula worked.  Most places were between 100 and 150 Euro per night so you could definitely go cheaper but that is pretty reasonable for a comfortable room.  Since we were also going to several places in Europe I had to conquer how we would get to each location, basically plane, train, or car.  We used all 3 along with several other transportation methods.  For the longer distances we mainly did flights because we were on a tight schedule and didn't have time to waste on trains.  Also flights within Europe are a lot of times cheaper than taking the train, but you have watch out for fees and consider costs of getting to the airport.  We used 5 different different airlines on our trip so I made sure to read all the rules and tips for each airline because flight complications were my biggest concern.  Being a pound over a luggage limit can also cost you big time on budget carriers so I didn't want to risk it.  Another key when flying so many places is to plan ahead how you are going to get to and from the airport.  Most cities we were going to were usually close to an hour from the airport so you don't want to get stuck taking an expensive taxi in to the city. If you are wondering how you are suppose to keep all this information straight I used a binder.  I had copies of all our boarding passes printed, they charge you extra for that on some airlines, I also had information I found on travel sites online with detailed instructions about where to go in airports and how to get to the city.  Even if we didn't follow the instructions exactly it gave us a general idea what to look for since everything was foriegn to us in each new location and it can get overwhelming quickly.

In Italy we decided to rent a car so we could drive from Venice to Cinque Terre, which is on the west coast of Italy, and then from there to Rome.  We hoped to see Bologna, Parma, Pisa, Florence, and parts of Tuscany all from our little car along the way.  We were dreaming but it still made for some of our best memories of the trip.  Rental cars are a whole different level of planning because we wanted to be flexible but had timelines to be places so you have to have some general routes planned and then alternate routes and I spent a lot of time looking at different places we could stop along the way.  I will get in to more detail about our Fiat experiences in another blog. 
Also since we would be taking public transporation once we were in all the cities I knew from past experiences that we would be hauling our luggage down city streets trying to find a hidden gem of a hotel.  That is another reason we tried to pack lightly.  We each took a duffel with wheels, mine was small and John's was medium and then we each had an average size backpack.  I actually have very little trouble packing and never felt like I needed more clothes while we were over there.  The key is to be realistic and we knew we weren't going really formal anywhere so I could leave the heels at home. I bought a pair of toms that I could wear with anything and read online that they should be comfortable with all the walking and they were. I also had a couple small sandels and a pair of tennis shoes for our hiking day. I brought an old pair so that I could just throw them out after I didn't need them anymore, this left room for a few souveniers.
Most of the remaining research time I spent online involved researching sites we might want to see. It is good to look ahead at places you know you will want to see because museums are closed on random days, so our restaurants, and markets and you don't want to set yourself up for dissapointment. Also you can find lots of tips online about how to efficiently see stuff, like where to find the shortest line.  I did drop the ball on my Athens planning but other than that we had a pretty good plan for each day.  Don't get me wrong we wanted to be flexible but when you are on a tight schedule it is good it have an idea of what you really want to see so you can make sure you can fit it all in.  We also planned the trip so that we had a mix of cities and non-cities. Cities can be very tiring and overwhelming so we actually found most of the non-cities stops to be our favorites.  We also love beautiful scenery so sometimes you have to get out of the city to find that.  So now we've got our binder of plans, copies of important documents, and bags packed, next blog we will be in Europe.  If you are wondering what planning John had to do for this trip, he looked up food stuff, that is his speciality.

Where Have I Been???

So it turns out that planning a 12 day European vacation is very time intensive.  So any free time I had at work on the Internet was purely devoted to trip planning, I am sure my boss appreciated all my hard work.  Hence, my blogging has suffered.  Once again I debated just stopping the blog but I am no quitter so here I am again.  With a few trips between my last post and this one I will try not to overwhelm you with details all at once.  I have many stories to report from Europe but before we jump across the pond I need to blog about the amaziness that is Utah.
If you are like I was a few months ago then when you think of Utah you mainly think Mormons.  I am here to tell you that there is so much more in Utah than just Mormons.  I said after we went to our first trip to Utah last year that if we moved from California I would put Utah on my list of top places to live.  I know that might seem surprising and perhaps I haven't thought out all the sacrifices of living in a primarily dry state but what it lacks in liberalness it makes up for in natural beauty.  We have now visited 4 must see places in Utah, all natural parks I might add.  Zion, Bryce, Arches, and Canyonlands.  Given we only had like a day at each place so I haven't fully been able to enjoy all they have to offer, but after what I have seen I can definitely give it 2 thumbs up.  Currently Zion and Canyonlands are competing for the top spot, not that the other 2 weren't awesome in their own rights.  The problem with seeing overwhelming natural beauty is that you want to capture it and show it to your love ones so they will be inspired to make the journey themselves but pictures never do it justice.  If you have ever gone to the grand canyon, which I did for the 2nd time last month, you have been struck by the size and taken lots of pics only to get home and look back and think that is not the same thing I just saw.  So frustrating.  Hopefully enthusiasm in this blog in combination with facebook photos will inspire you to book your plane tickets now.  If there was ever a place to take a week long RV trip I would say it was southern Utah.  We are already planning more trips back, if only we had unlimited vacation days.
Let me break down a few details for you to help you understand.  Zion, amazing colors and mini-mountains layered in tons of shades of pinks and browns with lots of greenery on top of everything.  Water is abundant and you can even do hikes in the river.  No cars allowed in the park so you just drop your ride and take a shuttle where ever you want to go and it is small enough that you don't waste to much time doing this.  Canyonlands, so we only got to explore one little section of the park which is massive so it will definitely require follow-up visits.  We explored the Needles area of the park which is basically rock spires that I guess resemble needles but not in a bad way.  We stayed outside of the park in an area that is just free camping off the road, so there weren't amenities like bathrooms but you quickly get over that.  Our campsite felt like Mars, red rock boulders, canyons, crevasses, climbing, you had it all.  The hike we did once we got in to the park was our own creation since we combined a few of the trails together to make a big loop and it was seriously in my top 3 hikes ever.  Most of the time what makes a killer hike for me is a huge payoff view at the end and maybe some along the way.  This trail did have some good views but it also had a ton of variety which made it so interesting and fun the whole way.  We experienced lots of different terrains.  For example caves, overlooks, desert, woods, red rock, white rock, and sand.  It was like 5 hikes rolled in to one.
What also made this trip great is that we met John's sister and brother-in-law, Amy and Josh, at the park.  It was nice because they had some experience in the area and a good idea of where to camp so it took some of the usual trip planning stress off of us.  Considering my time had been devoted to Europe trip planning I didn't have much time to think about logistics on this trip so it worked out great.  Sometimes I want to be a control freak but this time I was happy to just sit back and enjoy the ride.  We also took turns cooking dinner so it was less work and since we could divide up some of the stuff we needed to pack it cut down our load a little too.  I am usually nervous to go camping with other people because if they don't camp often you will be doing twice the work to get them ready but when you go with experienced campers it just makes life easier.  Did I mention the weather was also amazing on this trip and that we made a stop at the Grand Canyon on the way home.

OK so I have a few other stories from before Utah and after that I need to tell but I am typed out for now.  I also want to give an update on how my annual goals are going so far.  Stay tuned.