Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Updated: My Top 20 Travel Destinations

I'm sitting here bored as all hell so I decided to post a list of the top 20 places I want to travel to before I die. Originally it was gonna be 10 but there are too many and I keep adding more. In actuality it could easily be a top 50 but I'm trying to narrow it down. I'm fortunate enough to be able to cross some of them out but I'd love to go back. Here we go.....

  1. Spain!!!! (I've been to Madrid and Barcelona but would LOVE to go to Ibiza...and back to Madrid)
  2. Greece
  3. Italy (Went to Assisi, Florence, and Rome but would love Venice (April 2016 and Milan)
  4. Egypt
  5. France (visited Cannes, Nice and Monaco but I'd like to do traditional Paris...Finally made it to Paris in 2016)
  6. England
  7. Amsterdam
  8. Puerto Rico (I went to PR in March 2012 and had an AMAZING time!)
  9. Australia (thanks to my Australian "hubby" from spring break last year)
  10. Mexico (Memorial Day Weekend 2017 in Cancun)
  11. Morocco
  12. Israel
  13. Portugal
  14. South Africa
  15. Vegas (I've been DYING to go forever - Finally made it for a bachelorette party this past June)
  16. Canada
  17. US Virgin Islands
  18. India
  19. California (I've oddly never been to the West Coast...Made it to LA in 2017 but I'd love to go back to San Francisco and maybe San Diego one day)
  20. Germany (Does a layover in Germany count? Didn't seem like a friendly place tbh)
There's plenty more places I'd love to go but for now these are the main ones. Happy travels!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Random Thoughts on Surrogacy

I don't know why but earlier today I just randomly started thinking about surrogacy. I'm mostly thinking about whether it's a good idea or not verses other methods of conceiving kids or even adoption. There's good and bad with everything I suppose but I never thought much about the problems with surrogacy. Not saying for everyone but for myself, there are some issues I would seriously have to consider before going down that road if the time came.

The Good: The potential couple could have their own biological child without worrying about being the next Jon and Kate. Unless I'm wrong and please correct me if I am. It's my understanding that in most cases you can take your own fertilized egg and implant it into a woman so she gives birth to YOUR biological child. Correct? I'm sure there's more good than this but I'm drawing a blank right now.

The Bad: If I were to ever consider using a surrogate, my biggest fear would be that she would grow attached to the baby and want to keep it after it's born. I would imagine there are laws to address such things but I don't know for sure. I'm mean legally the person who gives birth to the child is the mother right? Anyone remember that episode of Law & Order: SVU with the fertility clinic? The biological mom took the birth mom to trial for custody of her child because of a mess up at the fertility clinic they both went too. Messy, messy.

The other "bad" that I was thinking of today is the behavior of the surrogate mom. You assume that's she's taking care of her body and not doing anything that would potentially harm the baby but there's no way of knowing for sure. It's not like you can be with the surrogate 24/7 and monitor her activities, meals, etc. I'd probably be freaking out everyday wondering if she was treating this baby as if it were her own and being extra careful. But as I said, there's no way to know for sure.

That's all I have to say really. Like I said this just randomly popped into my head. That's all for now.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

My EF College Break Experience

The purpose of this blog is simply to share my experience touring with the company EF College Break. Before and even after I signed up for my EF tour I did a lot of research and read a ton of customer reviews to get an idea of how legit they are and make sure it wasn't a scam. There were a number of things that I found questionable before the tour which had me a little hesitant. For example, it seemed as if most of the positive reviews for the company were from people who worked for them or had something to gain by promoting them (for example, campus managers for the company get a free trip if they get a certain number of people to sign up and use their promo code). However, I was reassured when I found out by pure chance that a good friend of mine had traveled with EF in high school and had a very good experience. After that I wasn't really worried about it being a scam job anymore.

Now on to what I did and didn't like while on the tour......

They have what they call 'optional excursions' during the tour. In lieu of free time you pay an extra fee to do something extra in the different countries (ie: Flamenco dancing, wine tasting, Monte Carlo night, a trip to Toledo, etc). My problem was that about 3 days before I was set to depart I got a call from EF saying 3 of the optionals I signed up for had been canceled....womp, womp. Naturally they were the ones I was most looking forward too--Rome cooking class, a side trip to Salamanca and a visit to the Monte-Carlo casino in Monaco. It pissed me off but hey, stuff happens. At the time I didn't know why but for two of the excursions not enough people had signed up and the Grand Prix was going on in Monaco at the time we were in France so the streets were blocked and the bus wouldn't have been able to drive us there.

The main thing I disliked on tour was the bus rides in between cities and countries. We had 8 and 10 hour days riding this big coach bus from Madrid to Barcelona to Cannes, etc. All together we spent over a day of our 15 day tour traveling. If I'm not mistaken there were two 10 hour days and two 8 hour days. 3-4 days if you count flying there and flying home. A lot of us felt it wasn't really fair to have travel time included as part of the days of our tour. The traveling also cut a lot of our time in certain cities like Cannes and Florence. We spent about 10 hours driving to France so it was evening when we got there (around 6-7p), then we had an outing the next day until 4p and the day after we were on the road again to Italy. The same thing happened in Florence. We were only there for two days and the majority of one was spent riding the bus there. I really felt cheated out of my time there (on the up side that's the perfect excuse to go back).

Another thing I didn't like was that I felt like I HAD to tip the bus driver and tour director. It's not that I really minded tipping them but I didn't like being told how much I should tip. We were told to tip the driver about 3-5 Euro per day of driving (at the end of the tour from France to Italy we had the same driver for everything). Then we were told to tip the tour director about 8-10 Euro per day of the tour. For 15 days that's 150 Euro. Umm, NOT gonna happen. As awesome as our tour director was (Marcello if you happen to go on an EF tour), there's no way I was giving him that much money.

Those are really the only negatives I have about EF and the tour itself. Overall I had a great time and would travel with them again. I'd also recommend them to others because the prices are pretty reasonable for what you get compared to other companies or planning a trip on your own (believe me I looked for cheaper before making a final decision). I felt there was a really good balance between the structured outings to museums, sites, etc and free time to do whatever you wanted. Honestly, you can do whatever you want on the tour just as long as you make it to the bus on time to go to the next city. Our tour director warned that in the past he's had to leave people behind who didn't make it to the bus on time. Can't say I blame him. There's no reason to throw the entire group off schedule just because a few people can't get out of bed.

Sorry this is kinda long but whatever. That's all for now. (Edited to add the video I made of my tour)

Disclaimer: This video was made prior to me having an iPhone and new digital camera....lol