Bedrunkav’s Blog

I think I would not go back to Northern Ireland. From the first day I arrived there I felt uneasy. I arrived in port from Scotland and took the train to Portadown. There were corridors of barbed wire along the train track. One day while walking to the store I was stopped by soldiers who were aiming their guns at me for no reason. I came to realize that due to the hostile religious tension no one was trusted. People in Norther Ireland are afraid of talking to strangers because they never know if I may be Protestant or Catholic, if your neighbors were a different religion they would hardly talk to each other and would never help each other. Most people were cold, unfriendly, and did not trust each other. In Belfast, their capital city, there were barbed wires on top of most of the fences. I felt as though the city was more of a prison.

I spent three summer and fall seasons in Norther Ireland on a farm, picking huge Bramley apples and working in a glasshouse with beautiful award winning plants. I am very thankful for this opportunity as I was able to travel in Norther Ireland and I was able to save money at the same time. Now, when I look back, I laugh. But there were days I wanted to leave right away, but the view of well paid work was stronger. There were days when I was hanging down from a ladder, picking frozen apples with icing on them and I cried. I was living in inhumane conditions with a filthy shower, one tiny kitchen for 15 people, 15 people sleeping on bunk beds in one room and rude farmers.

Despite all this I will never forget the scenic drives and nature, such as Giant’s Causeway or Dunluce Castle. There are some memories I will never forget. I will never forget eating so many apples (Red and Gold Delicious), I had about 20 apples or more per day. On occasion we had competitions to see who had the smelliest wellies (rubber boots). I will especially remember the days we had to walk about 5 miles to the shops to buy some food because the farmers were not willing to drive us there and we lived in the countryside.
While this was a rough and trying time in my life I am glad that I did it and I will always remember it.

My husband is crazy. He loves riding roller coasters and speeding in his car. I will never understand what is so funny about riding roller coasters with your eye balls out and stomach upside down and your brain being compressed with the high speed. No, thank you, I am the opposite of my husband. I went to ride roller coasters with him only once and I do not want to do it again. It was horrible. I only enjoyed the rides for little children, 4-5 years old. I was the only adult riding without children. People were looking at me like I was crazy, but I did not care. When we were in Thailand my husband wanted to do Zip Line adventure in the mountains. Unfortunately, the company had not had enough tourist for that trip so he did not go.
I never thought about going to Costa Rica but when I was looking in one of the travel magazines I saw the picture of  a Canopy Tour and a Zip Line and I knew he would love to go there. He asked me yesterday, where are we going in spring 2010? I said, I did not know yet. But now I think about doing this adventure, Canopy and Zip Line Tour in Costa Rica. It is very close to Florida, flight tickets are cheap and my husband will love it. I do not know if I will be brave enough to do Zip Line with him, if not, I will be happy with Canopy Tour walking up in the trees.
The nice part about going to Costa Rica is that I will not look so foolish if I do not attempt the Zip Line and only do the Canopy Walk.

I love saving money but somehow I was not able to save anything yet for our August 2009 Santa Cruz Trek in Peru. I feel like I just work and do not get paid. All my money is gone the day I receive my paycheck.

Although I was not able to start saving for our trip I know we are leaving and the trip needs to be paid for before we leave because I hate using credit cards. Recently our dog had his annual check up with all his vaccination, heart medicine, flea medicine and so far we have spent more for his annuals than for our health care. The other unexpected payment we have is tenting the house. A few weeks ago we found out we do not live alone but with those lovely termites. We have to move out for a week and tent the house, fortunately we have small house, but the cost is still too much. Last month my dentist told me again I should have a crown. Great! I would love to, but I do not have dental insurance so I have to come up with cash. No problem! And last weekend we found out the roof is leaking! Is there anything else I will have to pay before we leave for our trip? Yup! We both need new sleeping bags for cold weather, I found this one. It is not the best sleeping bag, but it has all we need, light weight and the price is good. We also need a new tent. The one we have is way too big and heavy to carry it for a week in our backpacks so we need new light weight tent. We also need a gas burner. My husband needs good walking boots and a waterproof jacket.

I think I am going to buy our flight tickets next week, hopefully the price will not go up before I buy them. In addition to the tickets we will have to buy travel insurance. I also have to save money for our zoo (3 cats, one dog and a bird), because I would like to give some money to our friend Naomi who will move in to our house to take care of our zoo. She hates birds therefore we are taking our parrot to breeder for babysitting.
Oh, and more expenses are coming! I signed up for classes in the fall and I would like to buy a new laptop. Husband talked to me and convinced me to buy Macintosh/Apple. Apple has great offer now for college students, when you buy a Mac you receive iPod touch. These two expenses will have to wait until we will be back.
I hate to live like this, work so hard and do not have enough money for all the bills. But I do everything I can to save enough so we can leave in August for Peru.

We went on our first camping trip without our dog Sox. I am not sure why we ever left him home in the past. We were going to apply for my new passport and we never thought about Sox coming with us. We knew he did not want us to leave when he saw us packing. It was very sad for him and for us, so ever since then we take him for every camping trip. We had to go back to Washington, D.C. to pick up my passport so we took Sox with us. He behaved very well the whole time and everybody loved him. He slept most of the time in the car so we tried to keep him awake by beeping my loud horn and knocking on the door which caused him to bark for some time. I loved camping up north along Blue Ridge Parkway and I enjoyed the cold nights with our dog,  snoring and hogging the whole mattress.

http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/

But I have learned that camping is not a very good idea in Florida during the summer. Last summer my husband decided to surprise me with “special camping trip” to celebrate my birthday. Yes, it was very special and memorable trip. We went to Cayo Costa with our dog Sox. The weather was hot and humid and there were mosquitos everywhere, Sox was covered head to toe. Since this trip I will never camp in Florida during the summer again. In the fall we went camping in Manatee Springs with Sox. The water in the spring is the same temperature the whole year round, 72 degrees.  We all went for a swim, dogs were prohibited but we managaed to sneak him in. That night my husband woke me up. Our bed hog, Sox, was not in the tent. We found a big hole in the front of the tent. He had chewed his way out. He was running around the campsite like crazy, smelling the forest and the deer. Since that night we put him on the leash and keep him tight to one of our arms but he still wants to run away when he hears the noises from the forest. This spring we went to Blue Springs, again with our sweetheart Sox. This time the spring was closed for swimming because manatees spend the winter time in the springs because the water is warmer than the river or ocean.

We were hoping to go to Rainbow Springs too, but these it is closed due to renovation. They have been renovating it forever! http://www.floridastateparks.org/rainbowsprings/default.cfm

We hope Rainbow Springs will be reopen this fall so we can go for our weekend camping trip again because Sox loves it!

My Birthday is coming up so I hope husband will remember that I do not want to camp in Florida during the summer any more.

While I consider myself a great traveler, my poor husband thinks otherwise. I think he would rather travel with this stewardess. She is made of cardboard, she will not scream, cry, or constantly go to the restroom as I do.

My passion is travel and most of the time it means I have to take a plane ride.I become nervous the day I buy flight tickets, I think about how scared I will be and how many beers or wine I will drink on the plane (that is how I count the distance). I enjoy searching for the best value ticket with quality company so I do not have to pay for any service on the plane. I think I am one of those passengers flight attendants can not stand. I am claustrophobic therefore I prefer to have couple of beers prior entering the plane. Sometimes this is not possible so I wait until the seat belt light is turned off and go to see those nice helpful flight attendants. Once I was so scared I was given the beer while taxiing. I did not ask for it, they just saw me and tried to help me. The other problem I have is that I usually drink one beer and one water to keep hydrated, but this makes me to go to restroom every half an hour, so I usually have to wake up the person sitting in the isle seat. When I fly on my own I usually sit in the isle seat, but when I fly with somebody I usually sit in the middle or window seat. I will only look out when they say it is safe to do so.
The worst flight I ever took was the one above Pacific Ocean. I was falling asleep while watching a movie trying to keep myself awake when the turbulence started. It lasted for about 4 hours and I was not able to get any drink because the turbulence was so bad that even the flight attendants had to sit for 2 hours! As soon as they unbuckled I push the button to let them know I needed more wine. I was yelling loudly on the plane: “I am not flying and going anywhere! I am not ready to die yet!” My husband tried to keep me quiet by putting a pillow over my mouth but it did not help. It was the worst flight ever.
Despite my fear of flying I do enjoy it when all goes well. I have already fulfilled 2 of my dreams on our last vacation. We were updated to first class on boeing 747-400, as well as being on the upper deck on the same plane.

We also accidentally stayed at the beach without knowing how close the airport was. We walked down the beach and found out there was runway next to us. It was amazing to see the planes take off and land within one hundred meters of where we were standing. When the planes took off we could feel the warm thrust.
I am willing to pay the prize of getting loose (drinking) on the plane because that is the only way how to get to the places I want to go. I feel sorry for flight attendants as they have to deal with customers like me but I try my hardest to make it easy and always come to get my drink instead of calling them to my seat. I give them lots of credit for doing this work because they are always polite and very well groomed.

This will be a dream vacation! Just lying at the beach, taking naps and be served with anything you want.
I want to comeback to another place I have been to. Sinai Peninsula, Egypt is breath taking.
I cried when we were landing and I saw the corals in the sea with Sinai Mountains and the sun was just rising.

This picture was taken from the plane on the way home, I did not want to leave!

I visited Egypt few years ago but unfortunately I did not have enough time to see all the beauties of the Sinai Peninsula. As I saw most of the hotels in that area I know I would like to stay in Sharm El Sheikh which is on the Red sea. It is known that the Red sea has one of the best coral reefs in the world.

I also enjoy busy places and different cultures such as Egypt. I am sure you all heard about the bomb attacks but what can we do? My American husband worries too much, but he will survive this vacation.
I would like to go up Mount Catherine, which is 2,407 meters (7,897 ft) high. It is the highest point in Sinai. http://www.egyptvoyager.com/towns_sinai_stcatherines.htm
It must be a beautiful view after walking up there in the cold night for couple of hours to see those red mountains. I can’t wait to be there!

My husband will love this vacation, the service in the hotels is excellent, and the staff will do everything to make you happy, even get your bed ready for you before you go to sleep. Most hotels are all inclusive, so I already see my husband lying by the pool, sipping the beer, taking a nap and waking up for snacks, from time to time to go for snorkeling and back to the pool again. I am sure he’ll be thankful for this trip and will love Egypt as much as I do.

There are places I would like to visit again, but this time with my husband.
When I was 18, I visited Scotland for the first time and fell in love with Edinburgh. I moved to Edinburgh when I was 22 to study English and I loved every minute of it. Everything was close. The mountains were just there, about 30 minutes by city bus, airport was about the same distance (most of the European cities were 2 hours away by plane) and there was beach at both ends of the city. We used to have barbecues at one of those beaches watching the planes flying above our heads aproaching for landing. The city is multicultural and I met people from all over the world.

I would like to climb up Ben Nevis again. It is 1,344 metres (4,409 ft), the highest point of Great Britain. I was at the top in summer and it was snowing! After this “lovely” hike I wasn’t able to walk for 3 days!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Nevis

I also want to go to Isle of Sky again because it rained whole time when I was there!
http://www.skye.co.uk/

I miss Scotland! I miss the cold and rain, wind and drizzle, I miss those low hanging clouds, I miss Scottish accent and people; everybody is friendly!

I want to spend whole night in my favorite Australian pub Walkabout

I am not sure how soon I will be able to go back to Scotland but I think about it every day! I hope my husband will enjoy Scotland as much as I do.

I decided to go to Peru. I am married but I am lucky my husband let me to decide where we go for vacation. My husband doesn’t care as long as he gets plenty of food and good sleep with afternoon naps. Well, this trip might change his mind.

I am planning to go to Andes, Peru. My husband doesn’t like to drive to Miami. Well, I am sorry, my dear, but cheapest and direct flights are from Miami. I was planning to go to Machu Picchu but flights are more expensive and I don’t want to share those beautiful moments of sacred place with hundreds of other people. I found this web site:
http://www.besthike.com/southamerica/peru/santa_cruz.html    

and did a little research of why Santa Cruz Trek is among one of the best hikes in the world.
Here is why I would like to go: http://www.gang-gang.net/nomad/andes/andes15a.htm  I love those mountains!

I plan to go in September/October 2009 for about 10 days. I am very scared of altitude sickness, therefore we should stay couple of extra days to get use to it because here in Florida we live at sea level. I would like to start training by walking up the hills, but I better forget about that here in Florida!
We also have to carry enough food for at least 5 days, tent, sleeping bag and gas cooker. So far I have only good boots and gore-tex jacket. He has nothing.
I am not sure how much of good sleep my husband gets as there will be a less oxygen and it is more difficult to get good sleep in that altitude (the highest point is the pass Punta Union 4760m/15,617ft).
He will also have to carry all the food for 5 days! And he is a big man who eats a lot!
So in the end of this trip he might change his mind about me deciding where are we going next!