Travels and Adventures

For the sake of posterity, I wanted to record the places I have been, with some information about each:

To start off: The United States

1. California-To my knowledge this is the first trip out of Utah that I ever took. I have been back many times and I miss it! I have been mostly to Southern California, though I did go to San Francisco for my honeymoon and quickly fell in love with Napa Valley. If I could afford it, I would move there in a heartbeat.

We drive there usually, and I will never forget the time that my friend got pulled over in Bakersfield, CA and when the policeman asked where we were going so fast my friend replied "California" and he dryly replied "You can slow down, you're here". Ha ha.

2. Nevada-Kind of goes along with California since most of the times I have been there it's because I am driving TO California. I have mostly stopped in Vegas, though a few times we have stopped in Primm and once we went to Reno instead. Primm is home to "Buffalo Bills" a very tall, very FUN roller coaster :)

3. San Antonio, TX-Absolutely beautiful. I can't say I enjoyed the few hours I spent in El Paso on the way, but San Antonio is lush with green as far as the eye can see. Went to Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Sea World, where they had some of the best roller coasters I've ever been on. The Riverwalk was my favorite part and I remembered the Alamo, too.

4. Drive across the country #1-We saw many states and many cities, we drove the southern route, through New Mexico and Texas and so on and so forth. We got pulled over in Texas (I TOLD Matt he was going too fast) and experienced some southern hospitality when the Policeman realized that we were from Utah and we told him we were driving to Florida. No ticket, but we promised to keep it under 70 MPH. I especially remember singing (loudly) "The stars at night, are big and bright *clap clap clap clap* deep in the hearrrrrt of Texas!" over and over with Matt as we drove late into the night and probably went a little crazy. Ha ha

5. Drive across the country #2-We drove the northern route this time. We made a few stops on the way. I bought my very first scratch ticket in Kentucky. I won 2 dollars! I didn't cash it in though, I wanted to save it. There was a Subway in a gas station in a small town that was packed. I got the feeling it was the most exciting thing to happen there for a while. We saw a turn off for Elizabethtown and REALLY wanted to stop, but we didn't. Sad.

6. Drive across the country #3-We drove the northern route again. Many places I wanted to stop and see we did not. I drove with my mom this time though, and that was fun! :)

7. Massachusetts-Since my hubby is from here, of course I have been! I've only been to Boston once, but it was very busy and a pain in the butt to drive around in! The rest of the state is beautiful. I love continental style homes. :) Matt's family lives in Sunderland, which is just outside of Amherst. We usually go into town a couple of times while we are there, which is always fun. Emily Dickinson's house is in a small town nearby, but i've never toured it. Maybe next time! One of my favorite things to do while we are there is go to Yankee Candle. The company's headquarters is there and the building is HUGE! It has many different sections, including one where there is snow falling year round. (Fake snow of course).

8. Connecticut-I'll admit that most of what I have seen of this state consists of the airport (Bradley), since this is usually where we fly in and out of Mass. Therefore, it barely counts.

9. Vermont-Matt's parents took us up there on a little drive once when we were there. it was very pretty and I got caught up looking at the leaves (I totally was one of those people). We stopped and got some Vermont maple syrup. Mmm...

10. New York-We went by train and I spent 5 hours there. It wasn't nearly enough. I want to go back! I got to go the the World of Disney New York but what I really wanted to do was go to Tiffany. Alas, it was a Sunday and closed by 5. Sad.

11. Idaho/Wyoming-I lump these together because I've barely been to both and both were for family functions. Fun none the less!

12. Montana-I went to Montana for New Years eve 2000 with two of my best friends. It was in the middle of nowhere. The hotel resembled the hotel from "The Shining". I kept expecting twin ghosts to pop out and say "Come play with us Erica". Despite that, I had a lot of fun in a mostly abandoned hotel in the middle of nowhere. :)

Outside the country:

European Choir Tour
1. London, England-London was bustling and exhilarating and fun. I loved the accents, and the "Mind the ______" the hotel elevator stated "Mind the door" every time it closed. It was fabulous. I got to see "Phantom of the Opera" while in London, and I got to go on a Jack the Ripper tour which was horribly fascinating. I loved the British Museum and everything that went with it!

2. Paris, France-Paris was beautiful. I turned 18 while we were there. I got a kiss on a balcony at sunset from a friend for my birthday. It probably would have been more romantic if I had liked him. Ha ha. We got to see the Moulin Rouge, the Arc de Triomphe, the Sacre Couer, Le Tour Eiffel among other amazing things that you only see in books. The Louvre was amazing, but I didn't get to spend nearly as much time there as I would have liked. I remember the hotel lobby being kind enough to let me call long distance to my mother on my birthday when I couldn't get my calling card to work. They will never know how much that meant to a girl who was far far away for the first time in her life. Even though my dad was there to keep me company too :)

3. Champery/Zermatt, Switzerland-By far my favorite place so far. In the world. It was sprawling and beautiful. Champery was basically cut right into the Swiss Alps, and the people were absolutely wonderful. Zermatt was nothing if not absolutely majestic since it contained one of the most magnificent mountains in the world, the Matterhorn. It certainly is NOT the same as seeing it at Disneyland. My favorite moment during the trip occurred in the small town below the Matterhorn. It was raining and I decided to do some cart wheels in the rain in the middle of town. I'm sure that local passerby were just thinking I was a "crazy American" but it was pretty fun!

4. Venice, Italy-We were only there for a day, but we got to sing in St. Mark's Basilica, which was beautiful, albeit awful for acoustics because of the gold paneled ceiling. We ate at a place that was essentially called "The Cavern". We got to see how glass was blown and found out that red glass is the most expensive because they put a bit of gold in the coloring to make it stand out.

5. Lichenstein-We were there for about 3 hours. I spent almost all 3 hours trying to find food that would accept cards. When I found a place, pretty much everyone else was there too. I snapped one picture as I got on the bus.

6. Seefeld, Austria-Fun little town, with delicious pizza and gellato. We got to go to the Swarovski Crystal outlet, since they are based there. They had a lot of beautiful EXPENSIVE things!

7. Rothenburg, Germany- It was a very cool medieval town. We got to tour it at night with the "Night watchman" which was awesome. The first town I saw that was actually surrounded by a moat.

8. Dachau, Germany-Went to a concentration camp here. It was very sombering, but something that I think everyone should experience once in there life. This camp was unique in that they never used their gas chambers (not from lack of torturing punishment), but nevertheless it was extremely creepy to walk through this seemingly unharmful "Shower" room. It even had the german word for shower written above the doors.

Carnival Cruise

9. Freeport, Bahamas-We went on a fantastic tour with "Uncle Chuck" and I collected soundbites from him as we toured the small island. My favorite, "We realized we were never going to be rich, so we decided to be happy instead".

10. Nassau, Bahamas-Catered much more to tourism and as a result seemed much less "Real". Still, i enjoyed the worst trained Flamingo show ever to exist (i'm sure), an underwater adventure and Senior Frogs.

Quarter Life Crisis

My friends who are all 25 and 26 would swear to you that this is a real dilemma. The Quarter Life Crisis starts to creep up right around the time that you are 24 and 3/4. I have no idea when it ends, but it hasn't ended yet! I'm almost 26. Officially in my "Late 20's". If I wanted to be really kind to myself I could say "Mid to Late 20's". Ha ha. This whole year has been a year of reflection. Where I am and where I want to be has been constantly travelling around in my brain. Logistically, I have a very clear view of this. Emotionally, it is a whole different ball game. Saying where I am and where I expect to be doesn't prepare me for experiencing it. I also find myself thinking that I am behind somehow because I don't have kids yet, and I don't have a "career" yet. (Though I could probably work at a Credit Union and be perfectly happy as long as I have opportunities to move up). Facebook almost makes it worse because every day I see posts like "Check out my new awesome baby, aren't they adorable??" or "Got my dream job today, and it pays a gazillion dollars!" (Ok maybe not so much them money part, but still!) After all of this I pause to question where the pressure is coming from? Maybe a little light pressure from my parentals, but luckily, it is kept mostly to a minimum (love ya! ;o)), but realistically most of my closest friends are in the same boat as me right now. On the verge of starting a family, but notquitethereyet. Or they are coming down with a severe case of still-trying-to-figure-life-out-itis. I've heard that that one can strike you at pretty much any age. I realized that it might just be the pressures of the world we live in today. We are expected to do it all. Career, Marriage, Babies. We see women all the time who perform a balancing act that deserves attention from Cirque Du Soleil. It looks exhausting, and because I haven't done it yet, I can't attest to whether or not it's worth it. So while I am kicking myself for NOT having a career and NOT having babies, I think I am more afraid that I will have to give up one or the other. What is my career worth? Is it worth missing all of the little things that make motherhood so wonderful? But will I miss working if I stay at home? I know myself pretty well. I like days off of work, I love vacations, but I was without a job for 2 months and I got ANTSY. I like being good at what I do, and I excel. I would hate to be left wondering what I could have achieved. On the flip side, I don't want to be a mother who is overworked and over stressed. I don't know if the Quarter Life Crisis is more pressing on women, since we have the pressure to make use of our ovaries before they shrivel up and die, but I know that I have only heard one complaint from a man, and that complaint was finding a gray hair. Oh deal with it! You can call yourself a "silver fox"!


I guess I can handle the pressure and the baby hunger for little while longer while I try to figure out how to age gracefully. Besides, I need to enjoy the 4 more years I have until I am 30! Who knows what life will look like then?



Finally, for no reason other than to decompress your brain from my lengthy blog...a ridiculously small dog:

Technology...

I was speaking with one of my friends about the amazing advancements in technology that have occurred since even I was a kid. I wanted to make a list of sorts about the technology I remember being debuted in my life time: When I was a young kid, I listened to music on a record player, we had a old TI computer that didn't have a backspace button. The Atari was considered top of the line. Since then.... Music -I listened to Tapes and had a Cassette Tape Walkman. The first tape I ever owned was "Whoomp, There it is" ha ha. -The CD player made its debut. My dad bought one of the first generations. I believe he spent quite a bit of money on it! I had several CD walkmans throughout the years, and I remember being very excited to get a Walkman that was "Skip Resistant"...until I found out how fast it sucked through AA batteries. When going on long roadtrips I always had to have at least a twelve pack of batteries to keep it going. Lugging around my 3 cases of CDs was also enough to cause anyone a headache. -The mini-disk was introduced, but short lived, since MP3 players were nipping at its heels. -Finally, many MP3 players were introduced, but one reigns supreme, the Ipod. I got my first Ipod when I was 20. My Dad bought it for me for my birthday. -I have 2 Ipods now, as technology expands. One of which has more memory than my first laptop. Movies -While I have been alive, I have watched movies in many formats, including Beta Tapes, Laser Disk, VHS, DVD, and finally BluRay. Computers -I remember the TI computer, the Atari, the DOS system, Windows 95 (a triumph! And still one of Windows BEST platforms), Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. -I remember distinctly having to type in commands to use the computer. (Especially when players computer games). -I remember FLOPPY DISKS, and not the hard cased floppy disks that are also now defunct, but truly floppy, giant disks, that probably only held 1 KB of memory. -I remember a time where I could easily go to download a song, watch a movie, come back and the song would still not be done downloading. -I used IRC, mIRC and Pegusus mail. None of my friends have any idea what any of those are. Ha ha -My first laptop has a 40GB harddrive. I filled it up with music. :o) -I remember the switch from Dial Up (my mom much more recently than my dad) -I bought my first mini-pc two years ago. It is already a relic, but I love it. Communication -While I was really too young to be aware of the cell phone era where you talked on a brick and got no reception anywhere, I clearly remember the days of the black brick flip phones that all the biggest business honchos carried around. My mom later owned one, and I thought it was so cool. -We actually had a car phone, in my mom's BMW. We never used it. Mom said it was too expensive. -I remember having a cordless phone and a caller ID box, I thought I was soooo cool. -I was jealous when my sister got a "Beeper", even now it amazes me that these were as popular as they were. You got a page, then had to locate a pay phone to call the person and see what they wanted. So archaic compared to today. -My friends all got Nokia phones in high school. I remember that they all had interchangable faces, the annoying Nokia ringtone, and Snake. I wanted one so badly, but I never got one. -My first phone did not have a camera, I'm honestly not even sure it texted. It was a cell phone in the purest form. At least it was small. :o) -My next few phones got fancier and fancier, first, texting, then a camera, then a camera with a flash! Then it could make movies, and even go online, for a price. Now I use my phone more than I use my computer. About 80% of the time, I don't use it as a phone. It is a gaming device, a camera, a video camera, a computer, and almost lastly a phone. No wonder my data usage is through the roof (thank god for unlimited data!) and my phone usage has barely reached a quarter of the way through the limit (despite there being 4 people on the plan). Well, there are so many other amazing inventions and advancements that have been made in my lifetime, but I am going to end here. I hope you enjoyed my journey through technology :o)

An Ode to Butterbeer

You come two different ways, frozen or non, but either way can be quite fun, the delicious foam you have on top, lasts all the way down to the last drop. I love the yummy buttery taste, and make sure that none goes to waste. Non alcoholic so all can enjoy, give one to parents, little girls and boys! Thank you Harry Potter for inspiring such a delicious treat, and thank goodness it doesn't taste like feet.

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medieval times

Matt and i went to medieval times over the weekend and it was a blast! We have wanted to go for many years, so it was exciting to finally cross an item off of our "florida bucket list". There are still many items on that list that i would like to get to, but we'll see!

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