Leap Day

Happy Leap Day! The day that only comes around every four years is here, and the weather here in Walnut Creek has finally decided to be normal-ish for winter.  Our 70º days have been replaced with 40-50º days with rain, which sucks, but we need the rain pretty badly.

Life in general isn't too exciting around here. I babysat most of the day yesterday and have just been working otherwise. One of the little boys I babysit has a birthday next week and is turning 3! I'll have to find him a little special treat for when I see him on Tuesday. In general i'm just enjoying being in CA before I move to the midwest in July. Like I said, life isn't too exciting but it's good.

The Ocsars

Last night was the 84th Annual Academy Awards, aka the Oscars. The show absolutely did not disappoint. For the first time in my life I went to an Oscar Party at my mom's friend Michelle's house. the five of us (me and four of my mom's friends) all filled out sheets with who we thought the winners would be while we watched the Red Carpet coverage and we scored our choices as the main event aired. Billy Crystal did an excellent job on his 9th time hosting, and many of the speeches were wonderful crafted and sincere. Hugo and The Artist were big winners, and Meryl Streep finally won her third Oscar after nearly 30 years (she has 17 nominations total, wow!). I totally lost the game we were playing, but at least I got most of the big categories correct (director, actor, actress)! We also had a wonderful meal prepared by Michelle and cooked by her husband John. All in all it was a really fun night!

This Means War

Last night I finally got to the movie theater to see This Means War with Reese Witherspoon, Chelsea Handler, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. It was quite hilarious and I definitely recommend it. My dad was even laughing and he is generally skeptical of any movie we try to bring him to. The premise is that two CIA agents are both dating the same woman (Witherspoon) and they get their team to do surveillance on her to one up the others dates. Quite funny and a new story line, which I found to be nice (though Dad found it predictable, but he says everything is predictable).

(Thanks to my mother for finding all the errors in this post that I wrote from bed on my iPhone)

Travel Crazed

Budget emailed us back and said there is no upper age limit for their rental cars in Ireland. Wonderful news! Now I can help my grandparents book their car when they get back from their golfing trip in Palm Springs.  In other news, I booked two nights in London for when Kelly and I are there. We will stay in a hostel the center of Soho, one of my favorite areas in London. I also received my Eurail pass in the mail yesterday so now I have even more information to work with!

I am completely obsessed with researching and planning for my trip. Last night I found an app called DB Navigator. It is a free app created by the German rail system and has time schedules for most European trains. This is fantastic! I can also tell which trains require advance reservations and can look at multiple routes straight from my iPhone. Sweet. Spent five hours this morning using the app, my new Eurail information, and the internet just looking around and coming up with ideas. Fun times.

Part Time Travel Agent

Today I finally got to book my grandparents flights to (and within) Europe. I love planning trips and have been waiting for almost two months for them to have all their dates worked out and they were finally ready. Booking the flights ended up being much more stressful than I anticipated, but everything got worked out in the end, even though it took three hours! They are going to Ireland and the UK and I will meet up with them for a few days with my dad in Lahinch. Anyways, we still have to book their rental cars, but we are waiting on Budget to let us know if there is an age limit since most Irish rental car companies have an upper limit of 75.

Other than that today was fairly uneventful. Worked in the morning, then went to volunteering in the afternoon. Only one more month of volunteering to go before I will finally hit my 200 hours for the year!

Personality Test

This morning I was reading a blog by my friend that talked about a personality test her team took. Ever in the mood to procrastinate, I decided that I should absolutely take the test too to see how I would be categorized. From looking at what the different personality traits were I made a guess as to what I thought I was going to be before I even looked at the test. Turns out I was right! I am a "Thinking Relator" which is Blue/Green. I don't think I am as socially awkward as the profile makes me out to be, but some of the other stuff is more or less true. Anyways, check out the profile it gave me. Quite entertaining. If you want to take the test go to Equilibria and take the Personality Diversity Indicator (PDI). It's not very long.

Personality Test Results (click to enlarge)

Planning Europe

My Europe trip is coming up just around the corner! I can't believe that I'm leaving in just 2 and a half months! With another trip to a second look weekend for med school and Molly's graduation, and possibly a trip to looking for housing for next year I bet the time will just fly by.

The planning for my trip is going quite well, though it stresses me out that there is just no way I can get to every single place I want to visit. Currently getting to everything I want to see in Croatia is my stressor. The trains take a while to get places, and Dubrovnik is quite far south and not on a train route, so I will have to either cut it out, fly there to avoid backtracking and then take a bus to Split, or backtrack through all of Croatia. I am leaning towards options 1 and 2 right now.

The beginning of my trip is completely planned out since I am going over with my dad (whom I have learned to be an obsessive over-planner when it comes to big trips!). I am sure I will appreciate being able to pack everything in to short amounts of time, but the amount of things that are already planned are a tad bit overwhelming right now. Anyways, we are flying into London and then taking the Eurostar train to Paris. I'm pretty excited for that because we get to travel through the Chunnel! We will spend three nights in Paris where I will finally get to return to Laurent, my most favorite restaurant in the entire world. It has been eight years since their glorious food has graced my palate, and I cannot wait to indulge again. In fact, re-visiting Laurent is most of the reason we are going to Paris at all! We are also going to visit a bunch of museums, hit up the Moulin Rouge, etc.

After Paris we are taking a flight to Cork in Ireland. This will be my first time visiting Ireland, so I am pretty excited. My dad is basically golfing every day, so I will have plenty of time to explore on my own in Cork, Tralee, Waterville, Ballybunion, and Lahinch. I think we are going to visit Galway for a day as well, which should be fun. When we get to Lahinch we are meeting up with my grandparents who are golfing there for the week with other members of their MacKenzie group (Alister MacKenzie is a famous golf course designer who designed our country club along with many famous courses including Augusta National, Pasatiempo and of course the Old Course at Lahinch). My dad and grandparents leave at the end on the week, at which time I am starting my first solo backpacking adventure. I am going to Dublin for two nights to see the other side of Ireland, with a possible day trip to Belfast since my train pass gets me there for free.

After Ireland I am all set to fly to Athens! I have studied a lot about ancient Greece and I am so excited to see some ruins and the National Archaeological Museum. I'm spending two nights in Athens as of right now, and then my trip becomes more of an idea than a plan (at least until mid June). I have to get to Beograd, Serbia before the end of May to visit my friend, so I have to hurry through Greece and Bulgaria a little bit. I plan to stop in Kalambaka and Sofia and possibly Thessaloniki on my way up to Beograd. After I see my friend I have about two weeks to travel around before I have to meet my cousins up in Glasgow, Scotland. I plan to see Croatia and Slovenia and make my way up to Germany to stay with my godmother near Stuttgart.

Once I get to Glasgow my plan is once again solidified for the next two and a half weeks. My cousin Kelly and I are visiting Kelly's sister Christine in Glasgow for a few days and then taking a mini road trip down the UK to London. I think we plan to stay with family friends for a night or two during the mini road trip to cut costs and allow us to see more on England. Once we get to London we will spend a few nights exploring the capital before we fly to Sweden for Midsommar! Our relatives (I think 3rd cousins) are picking us up at the airport in Gotebörg and driving us back to the small town they're from on the west coast. It is one of the most beautiful places I have visited and I am excited to bring Kelly there for the first time! We are going to celebrate the national holiday there and spend a few days with the fan before we head back to Gotebörg to fly to (most likely) Hamburg, Germany. From Hamburg we plan on going to Amsterdam and Brussels before Kelly flies back home, at which time I will have just ten days left to pack in everything else! I think I am going to try to see Bruges and Luxembourg, hit up Euro Disney, and visit some friends in Spain before I head back to London to catch my own flight home.

Basically there is still a lot to do, but I hope to make a lot of my set plans when I am already over in Europe so I have the flexibility to be a bit spontaneous. I'm getting more and more excited every day!

A Wonderful Week in Kauai

Well, here we go. Time to start a brand new blog about my life and other adventures. Not sure how this is going to work out since I don't see myself as a particularly gifted writer, but I guess we will find out soon enough.

I think the best place to begin is on the island of Kauai in the beautiful state of Hawaii. I returned from a week long vacation on the Garden Isle just two days ago, and needless to say I already miss it. Along with my parents and grandparents, I enjoyed beautiful weather in the 70's the entire week with minimal rain and lots of sunshine. Everywhere on the island was overrun with chickens and roosters as usual, and we had those lively natural alarm clocks cock-a-doodle-dooing at all hours of the day. My mother and I had the pleasure of doing most things together since my father and grandparents went golfing every day. During the week we went on an amazing sail up the Na Pali coast, shopped in the little town of Hanalei, went zip lining near Princeville, went to the Kilauea Lighthouse, had a wonderful breakfast buffet at the amazing St. Regis over looking Hanalei Bay, and just generally relaxed by the pool.

As soon as we got of the plane we made the traditional trip to Costco to stock up on food for breakfast, lunch, and a few dinners. Most importantly we stocked up on Manapua! Manapua is basically a steamed bun filled with red colored pork and it is beyond delicious. This Costco trip also featured a lunch built of delicious free samples as all Costco trips are. After we were all set, we made the drive up to Princeville on the north coast of Kauai near Halalei.

I have been to Kauai many times before this trip, but this was my first time since my parents bought our timeshare in Princeville. The timeshare was very relaxing, and much more low key than the timeshare we have on Maui. We had a room on the first floor that opened up onto a large lawn that culminated in a cliff that dropped off into the ocean. It was quite a beautiful view, I must say. There were also two Nenes that hung out near our room, which was awesome because I absolutely adore Nenes and couldnt get enough of them! Anyways, Sunday and Monday were pretty low key. We drove around Hanalei, had a shave ice, shopped a bit, relaxed by the pool, and took a walk to the market. Tuesday my mom and I took our first big excursion.

We knew we wanted to go sailing from the moment we booked the trip who knows how long ago since it has become somewhat of a tradition when we visit Kauai. We usually go with Captain Andy's, but our timeshare concierge recommended taking the Holo-Holo Charters boat this time around. We were a little skeptical at first since neither my mother nor I are terribly fond of changes like this, but we ultimately decided that trying something new could be an adventure. We booked the trip on Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning we were on our way down to Port Allen (at 6am, eek). At the beginning of the trip we started to question our decision to try a new company. The captain seemed grumpy and barked the rules at everyone on the boat (we later decided that he has probably had to deal with way too many exceedingly stupid tourists in his time). We also found out that we were only stopping to snorkel once during the 5 hour trip and it was right at the beginning (we were expecting three stops, most likely since our recent snorkel trip around Lanai have all had three stops and we got used to that). Anyways, we got into the water as soon as the boat was anchored in the little cove and had a wonderful time snorkeling despite our earlier skepticism. We both saw tons of fish and even a Hawaiian Monk Seal! One of the boats crew members also showed me a archway about 20 feet down that I could swim through (only after did he tell me that sometimes a huge sea turtle hangs out in there). The coolest part of the entire snorkel trip was that when I dove down and waited a few seconds I could hear all the songs of the humpback whales! It was the most surreal experience since I have never heard anything like it nor did I know it was even something that could be heard without electronics. I guess I just never thought about it before. I tried to get my mom to hear it too, but she had some trouble diving down. I did help push her down a little and I think she ended up hearing it too! Anyways, we were the last people out of the water and back up on the boat, and everything about our attitudes towards being with a different company totally changed from there on out. The crew on Holo-Holo was AMAZING. They were so attentive and genuinely wanted to help you by telling you about the animals, the island, or even just asking if you wanted a drink. They made the trip quite wonderful. The captain ended up being great too and he could literally look at the water and tell you where a whale was about to surface! Speaking of whales, we saw a TON of them. I swear they were everywhere. We saw them jump and dive and slap their tail, spout and spy hop. There was even a mother with a newborn calf sitting at the surface learning to breathe. We also saw an enormous pod of Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins that were all jumping clear out of the water and doing multiple spins in the air. I have always loved the Spinners so seeing them is always fantastic. We also saw bottle-nosed dolphins, sea turtles, and brown boobies! I didn't even know there were boobies in Hawaii, but as I said we saw the brown boobies along the Na Pali coast and we saw red-footed boobies at the Kilauea Lighthouse! In addition to all of the wildlife we saw, the views of the Na Pali coast were absolutely beautiful. The rugged mountains, the cliffs, the waterfalls, and the waves pounding into the island are quite a sight. All in all the day was amazing and I would recommend Holo-Holo to anyone going out to Kauai!


The Kilauea Lighthouse was also a pretty cool little outing. My mom had been there before so she wanted to take me out there. The first thing you see when you get to the cliffs in Kilauea is a large area that is a designated wildlife refuge for a bunch of sea bird species. We drove by the lookout point since you can see the area from the lighthouse and went on the park. The various signs telling about the wildlife in the area told us that we were seeing red-footed boobies, albatross, frigate birds, and some other species that we didn't actually see while we were there. We also saw a whale breach a few times from the lighthouse point! The lighthouse itself is being refurbished, but soon people will be able to go to the top of it again. Regardless of not being able to go into the lighthouse, the views from the point are quite spectacular and it was very enjoyable.

Thursday was full of excitement as well. Mom and I went on a zip lining trip on a ranch about 2 miles from the timeshare. There were about 9 zips, including King Kong, the 1200 foot final zip where you race. I sadly lost, and I'm sure my mother will rub it in any time zip lining comes up since she still gloats that she also beat my father a few years ago. After ziping over the valleys, we met up with my grandma to go have pedicures at the St. Regis. Since they can only do two people at a time I volunteered to wait until after they finished and took full advantage of the spa facilities. I spent time in the steam room, the sauna, had an amazing shower, and did a little reading in the quite tranquil lounge. My pedicure was wonderful and I finally got the pink nail polish off from my pedicure in Maui in November (that being three months ago you can imagine how nice that nail polish looked before that day). The spa at the St. Regis was incredibly nice and so relaxing. It was definitely a wonderful day.

I probably could have gone on even further about our various other excursions, but I am getting quite bored of writing :). Sad to not be by the ocean in shorts and short sleeves anymore, but happy to be back with my puppies (and to no longer sleeping on a pull out couch), and excited to continue planning my next adventure: 2 months in Europe! I think my next post will be about the planning of that trip, but who really knows. Until next time.

Having a drink by Hanalei Bay at the St. Regis Princeville the day we arrived. The timeshare has a shuttle there every hour to use the beach and the spa, eat at the restaurants, and shop.

Zip lining near Princeville with Mom.

The pool with the best view at the timeshare (Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas)

One of my Nene friends outside our room. Two of them came everyday and one day there were six! Did I mention how much I love the Nenes?

Guava Jelly! If you don't know the song, look it up on YouTube. It is amazing.

Relaxing poolside at the timeshare was really tough.

This was near the Kilauea Lighthouse. The Red-Footed Boobies nest here along with a variety of other sea birds. All the white specks on the cliffs are the Boobies.

View from the cliffs at the Kilauea lighthouse.

I'm pretty sure we had the best table in the restaurant for breakfast at the St. Regis Princeville. The view was unbelievable.

We may not have the most beautiful feet, but our pedicures were lovely.