Summer and Europe

Summer always makes me yearn for Europe, even though I've never been to Europe in the summer. It is because everyone else seems to go to Europe in summer, and so I come across numerous travel articles and television shows about European destinations.

Indeed, every travel magazine, section of the newspaper, and television network, will re-do Paris a dozen ways or more every summer. In the New York Times not only does their travel section contain a "Europe for Every Budget" slideshow feature and a "Frugal Paris" article/slideshow among other travel section gems, but the summer Paris fever has bled into their art and movie sections as well. There are at least three recent articles or columns on Julia Child and the new movie "Julie & Julia," and a featured column in the art section on the viewing habits of today's museum-goers, focusing on the columnist's recent experience at the Louvre.

I haven't been to Paris in six years, but I feel the tug every summer, knowing full well that summer is the worst time to go. But they sure make it seem inviting, don't they?

Vacation Alice

I always seem to possess superhuman strength starting the day before a vacation until a day or two before the end of the vacation. On Monday night, I stayed up until 5am packing, tightening up my itinerary for our trip to England, printing maps to match my itinerary, printing our boarding passes, etc. It didn't help that our desktop computer is really slow.

The maid arrived at 8:30am, and while I could have slept in a little more since our bedroom is always the last room she cleans, I needed to finish our packing before she got to our room so that she wouldn't have to navigate suitcases splayed open on the floor and piles of things that still need to go in the suitcase. So I got up.

I was completely finished packing by 10:30am, more than 8 hours before the flight, and I'm sure a record time for me. I'm usually a last minute girl. I could have taken a nap after the maid left, but I didn't. Instead, I proceeded to tidy up the clothes and knick-knacks that didn't make it into the suitcases, clear and charge the camera, clean up my TiVo line-up (this included watching some of my TiVo'd programming while I ate lunch so that I could delete it), toss food that wasn't going to make it through the week, pick up dry cleaning so that Mark would have pants to wear when we returned, turn off alarms, and otherwise get the house ready for our return.

Next thing I knew, I was off to the airport, we were on the plane, and I had gone 36 hours with only 3 hours of sleep. The flight wasn't the most comfortable (see Travel with Alice blog), and I only slept a few hours of the 11-hour flight. Luckily, the rest of the way to Bath was smooth. When we got to our B&B, it was 9am Wednesday morning in California, and I had slept less than 7 hours in 2 days. It seems hunger is more powerful than sleep, though, so after unpacking a bit, we ate, and I finally crashed a few hours later. It was 10pm Bath time (2pm back home).

You would think I would then sleep for at least 8 hours before waking up bright-eyed, but I found myself fully awake at 4am. I tried unsuccessfully for half an hour to go back to sleep, so I got online and wrote this blog. It's now 6:50am, and I've updated FB and both my blogs.

I can't wait for breakfast at 8am!

Season's Ending

Every year after the new year begins, I look for the end to the holiday season. Is it January 2 or later? Maybe the Monday after? I feel strange displaying holiday lights after New Year's Day, so even if we haven't taken everything down (you know how it is, sometimes those lights stay up weeks or months into the new year), I stop turning the lights on in the evening . But every year, I see others do it. It seems the more extravagant the light display, the longer it stays up. I appreciate having the beautiful lights to look at on the way home, but not as much as I did up through December 31. It just doesn't feel a bit stale, as folks start back at work and hunker down for the post-holiday winter quarter.

Speaking of the post-holiday winter quarter, since I have a few months of freedom, I've been looking for something to punctuate my days. So I started a regime on my new Wii Fit, one of the holiday gifts I received this season. Today was my first day, and considering I've never kept to a New Year's Resolution for more than two straight months and my fitness goal requires a 3-month long commitment, I'm hoping to make this new habit last a bit longer.

I'm also committed to finishing at least a book a week. I somehow whiled away December without finishing a second book (easy to do when your sister needs babysitting 3 afternoons a week, you commit to throwing 3 parties in that many weeks, and you take a 3-night vacation in Las Vegas). I've also indulged in a bit of reading ADD - allowing myself to jump back and forth between books - so I'll have to be more disciplined. As an English Lit graduate of Cal, I'm ashamed to admit it, and so hopefully motivated enough to exceed my (relatively conservative, unless my list includes Finnegan's Wake or Paradise Lost) goal.

Even though I won't have work to distract me from these goals, it won't be easy to do. Like with any good sabbatical, I'm making travel plans. Los Angeles in February, Japan and Hong Kong in March, and more if I can help it (New York in May?). Just listing off the cities is getting me excited.

I best go and help my husband take down the Christmas tree now.