Travel

Of course since I live here I am a bit biased, but there are so many things to do in the United States on holiday. One of the places that have been to that I think any visitor to the United States should go see is New York. Right now you can get a flight to New York at a pretty decent price. Whether it is something as complicated as a two week vacation or simply a series of New York weekend breaks there is something right for you.

New York is the largest city in the entire United States. Just the city itself has a population of over 8 million people and that doesn’t count the metro and surrounding urban areas.

This is a picture taken in Central Park in New York City courtesy of Wiki and is in the public domain. It is a picture of a Gothic arch bridge spanning the bridle path south of the tennis courts. When I was in New York back in 1986 I was able to do a bit of site-seeing but the closest I go to Central Park was the Plaza Hotel.

One of the things that amazed me while I was there was the eclectic mix of architecture. That same mix is also shown in the inhabitants of New York, the true melting pot of United States society.

If you are coming to the U.S. but don’t want to deal with the hassle of the big city there is always the option of getting a cheap flight to Orlando and going to Disney or one of the other big area attractions, or maybe just nap during the day and lie out by the pool in the evenings for a pretty relaxing time.

I’m not entering this one, but I thought I would pass it on:

So, you are a fan of The Superbowl and you always wanted to star in one of those cool commercials..this new competition sponsored by MyBowlAd is going to give one of the blog writers in the fuelmyblog community the chance. The rules are simple, we are having two rounds, the first round is to write in just 300 words why you think you should star in a Superbowl commercial seen on average by a billion viewers worldwide. The second round entrants will be determined by votes, the top twenty voted for write-ups will need to produce a 30 second video showcasing their talents. The winner will be determined by number of views, more on that later..

Dates and Prize

The first round of the competition starts 15th May 2007, last entries will be accepted by 12pm GMT on 12th June 2007. Voting will start on the 13th June with the final 20 announced on the 19th June 2007. The deadline for the videos will be 10th July 2007 and the winner announced on the 19th July 2007.

The prize consists of return flights for two people, from anywhere in the World to Los Angeles(USA) plus accommodation and you will get to appear in the ad with some of the internet’s top stars.

How do I enter and what are the rules?

Simple, email us your 300 word entry, you must post it on your blog (your blog needs to be on fuelmyblog), you must also tag your post mybowlad and fuelmyblog. That’s it!

Good luck!

Lastminute.com and FuelMyBlog are holding a competition wherein you put up a blog post describing your best weekend ever. The top prize is a weekend getaway to Vienna with airfare AND hotel. Sweet. Just need to get a passport. The competition is only lasting until the 18th (FOUR more days) so DON’T enter otherwise you will lessen my chances at winning…

You know…I should read the rules…Contest open to UK residents only. They should have listed that at Fuelmyblog. No big deal and no sense wasting a good post. I am much more thorough about my posts now than I was in 2005.

Anyway, I suppose that my best weekend trip ever was the one that the wife and I took to New Orleans back in March of 2005. At that point in time the wife and I had NEVER had a vacation without our children. As a matter of fact, we have only been out of town one time since without them, and that was to the blogmeet in Helen last September.

We flew down at the end of March. When we left Atlanta it was raining and cold but by the time that we arrived, we had to ditch the coats. Even in the winter New Orleans is pretty comfortable and can be very muggy at times. Anyone that has been hanging out here for awhile knows how much I hate flying, so the trip was pretty important to get me on an airplane. If I should actually somehow win THIS competition I will have to take sleeping pills in order to make it overseas. Anyway, we decided that since we were going to go straight from the Louis B Armstrong Airport straight to the French Quarter that we would not rent a car. We caught the bus at the airport and rode it to the outskirts and walked the rest of the way. We had packed overnight bags since it was just for the weekend, so the walk wasn’t too terribly awful, although it got a bit hot toward the end.

We stopped along the way to our hotel for a frosty libation and lunch at Pat O’Briens. That was really nice. I had the Crawfish Etoufee which was very tasty. The walk and flight had done us in though.

Looking tired and ready for a nap, no? I probably took this with my cell phone. I did quite a bit of blogging from my phone during that trip. After lunch we walked the rest of the way to our hotel. Part of the way there we ran into none other than one of my regular customers and his girlfriend, who were getting ready to drive back to Atlanta. Small world and all that.

I had booked our room at the Bourbon Orleans. We were pleasantly surprised upon check-in. They had upgraded our room to a two-story suite with a balcony that looked out upon Orleans Avenue, about 50 yards from Bourbon Street. Very nice. Once we checked in we immediately decided a nap would be appropriate and without children we had that luxury. We slept until dark and then wandered around for awhile. We stopped for supper at a place called Sammy’s Steak and Seafood. They had one of the best ribeyes that I have ever eaten. Truly mouthwatering. After we ate we wandered some more and found our way to a blues club where we listened and drank beer for hours until we decided to head back for more sleep (something I never get enough of in my job).

This was not the best picture I have ever taken, but it is the view from the balcony at 7AM the next day. We had made reservations for brunch at the Court of Two Sisters so we got an early start to the next day. We walked through the French Market and had beignets at Cafe’ Du Monde. You can’t go to New Orleans without stopping at Cafe’ Du Monde. I have been several times and always get beignets there. Brunch was great. It was a pretty nice experience as well as having pretty decent food (and several Mimosas!!)

Another cell phone picture. We sat right next to the fountain during brunch. We sat outside (most everyone does) and the “ceiling” was an interconnected Wisteria vine (possibly more). It was amazingly huge. I have a Wisteria next to the deck in my back yard, but nothing can compare to this one. They had lights strung through it as well and birds were constantly fluttering through as well.

After brunch we decided to nap some more (of course). We had walked most of the morning since brunch was at 11, so once the alcohol from the Mimosas had hit my blood stream I was pretty wiped out. Did I ever tell you what a cheap date I am? Very cheap. Two beers and I am ready for sleep. Here are a few pictures I took while we walked around the area.

That last one was taken in front of St. Louis Cathedral where the wife lit a candle for her mother and grandmother.

We wandered back out around Five PM and went back to Sammy’s for dinner. It was just as good as it had been the night before. Bourbon Street even in March is pretty packed on the weekend, and this was no different. We started out at the Famous Door, then went back to the blues club we had been to the night before, and wandered back down to the Famous Door. I must have had seven or eight beers by then, but had decided to pace myself. We ran into one of the Wife’s teacher friends at the Famous Door and off they went to dance to the pretty decent rock band. I am not much of a dancer, so I just hung out and watched the crowd. All was well until one of those shooter girls started coming around with jello shooters carried quite provocatively. That’s what did me in. Several shooters later I decided I had reached my proverbial “puke point” so I grabbed the wife as I hate to stumble down the road by my lonesome and we headed back to the hotel.

We had to fly back relatively early the next day, so we packed up and took a cab this time rather than riding the bus as we needed to get to the airport by 8AM. The flight back was pretty horrible due to really bad weather over Mississippi and Alabama, but it is the only thing that marred the trip. Here are a few more pictures that I have posted here no and again. It’s nice to recall what a wonderful trip we had.

The trip itself was a blast and made all the more memorable since the wife and I never get any time to get a weekend together without the children. I love them all very much, but occasionally it’s just time to have a bit of adult company.

* This Post is Sponsored by EasyToBook.com.

EasyToBook.com is a website that will allow you to book vacations in Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Rome. If you are thinking about taking a vacation in Europe or already live there and want to get away for the weekend, then you might just want to head on over to Easy To Book. Currently featured hotels include the Hotel Amstelzicht which is a 3 star hotel located right in the historical heart of Amsterdam behind the famed Rembrandtplein. Since it is so centrally located in the city it is great for tourists looking for shopping, museums and entertainment.

Another centrally located hotel is the Apple Inn Hotel Amsterdam which sits opposite the Vondelpark right in the cultural area of Amsterdam. Most of the famous tourist attractions in Amsterdam are within walking distance to the hotel and many more are fairly close by. Amsterdam is a pretty cool place to visit, and one of those cities that I want to go to when I can eventually retire. Amsterdam is a unique city that is a melting pot of many different cultures and styles.

I constantly write about different vacations and places I would like to go. It’s gotten to be sort of a habit and part of it is wishful thinking, but part of it is missing the time when I would travel a lot. I certainly haven’t been everywhere in the US, but I have seen a pretty large chunk of it, and would like to go back.

One of the companies that allows you to purchase vacation packages is vacations.net. Right now they have packages available where you can save up to 50%. The biggest moneys saving offers that they have are all-inclusive resort packages.

If you get the chance to check out their web site, there is quite a bit of useful information over there including lots of pictures and virtual tours, information about local customs, and ratings from prior customers, which is always important to me.

Since I am back at work from my last vacation of course all I can think about is the next one 🙂

One thing we have looked at is something that a good friend of mine did a few months ago. Her boyfriend works in Mexico, so he flew her and her kids down there and they all stayed in on of those Condo Hotels. They are actually pretty reasonable when you consider what you get. If you have the kind of money to spend it’s much better than a timeshare and are usually managed well when you aren’t staying in your suite.

I could see living in a few different condo hotels year round and just traveling to where ever the weather happened to be nicest at that time of year. Caribbean or Baja in the Winter, New York or Canada in the summer. The freedom would certainly be nice.

Most of the time I spend thinking and planning vacations in exotic places but once the kids are a bit older I would like to explore so other areas of the country as well. I have only been through the mid-west a few times, and that was usually on the way to the west coast, but there are some really beautiful places there. Branson Missouri is supposed to be the “Live Music Capital of the World” and that in itself is enough to get me thinking about going to check it out. The Ozarks are supposed to be really nice, and it would be kind of nice to spend some time during the summer in the mountains rather than sweltering at the beach someplace.

Two of the people that went to the blogmeet in Helen have their own yacht and ever since I talked to them about their trip to Belize last year I have been really interested in taking at least one vacation and just sailing somewhere in the Caribbean. I would be really cool to just ship the kids off to relatives one summer and take one of those yacht charters with the wife for a couple of weeks. Possibly in the next couple of years, but it probably won’t happen this year.