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Where the Google is Malta?

The fall of 2008 was my first exposure to the “budget airline”. The US has Southwest, Jetblue, and Virgin …but they have nothing on the budget airlines of the EU. Who knew you could fly from Venice to Dublin or from London to Geneva for 5 Euro flat, with NO taxes?
Yes, there are some catches, but that’s another post entirely. Because I was studying abroad in Padova, Italy at the time, our closest airport was Venice Marco Polo or Treviso. I only had a few short months in Europe and wanted to make sure I booked all my flights early… Ryanair (among others) came up quickly. Despite the negativity I’ve read about the airline, including numerous canceled, delayed,and “haha-screw you” flights…we went with the Dublin based airline. I’m happy to report that I’ve never had an issue with Ryanair, yet.
Ryanair was offering their notorious, limited time, no tax flights, and one of the options was Malta. After some Google-ing , I learn that Malta is one of the smallest countries in the world, and it is south of Italy. Yea, an actual country! Here’s emphasizing how my geography education has failed me.
The amazing offer was about to expire, so we booked the flight on a whim. We book for early winter and hope that Malta, being south of Italy, will still be supporting warm weather. I figured, 10 Euro roundtrip? If something comes up that weekend and we have to cancel, so be it…but we couldn’t miss out on the chance of a lifetime going to, uh Malta? I’m very glad we followed through with it.


By we, I mean myself and my traveling buddy for many a Euro-weekend trips, Karen. After booking our plans well in advance, the next issue was finding a place to stay. After checking the usual hostel sites, it was looking like Malta wasn’t a budget friendly place afterall. That definitely lowered the cost effectiveness of our cheap flights if our hostels were going to be so high! I dabbled with Couchsurfing and was determined to find someone…unfortunately, there are very few Malta CS hosts. I was just about to accept that this weekend get-a-way would burn away our travel savings a bit more than expected, but to my luck, Jorge took us. I can easily say, we wouldn’t of had half the experience in Malta without him!
That same weekend as our arrival, his friends from Portugal were flying into visit him. He obviously wanted to his 2 friends around that weekend + 5 people to a car = perfect for Karen and I to tag along for every adventure. We saw more in that weekend in Malta than I think we would’ve been able to see in a week that to Jorge.
(Pictures to post soon)
We checked out Valletta, the capital of the tiny country and a beautiful harbor city. It was also one of the earliest sites inscribed by UNESCO on the World Heritage list.
Valletta was the first place we located the numerous signs for “The Malta Experience”. We never paid for the overpriced learning experience, but the name definitely enticed us throughout our trip. We did, however, make it to St. John’s Co Cathedral. The audio guide is very helpful to a tourist’s ignorance of Maltese history, and the cathedral itself is beautiful with knights’ colorful graves lining the floor (that has been referred to as the “most beautiful floor in the world”) and a single huge fresco ceiling. My old camera definitely didn’t do it justice.
After trying to make sense of their bus routes (their buses are already unique), we take took the leap of faith to try and find Mdina. I am so happy we made it there. The well-preserved, quiet capital has an amazing view of the hills below and is beautiful – and creepy – as the sun sets. One could have many fun nights playing hide and seek in the small corridors.
For nightlife, we hit St. Julian’s.
On our final journey day, we somehow made it to the Blue Grotto. The rock formations are amazing photo-ops and we also found…._____?
Photos coming …..

Carnival Elation

To Cruise, or Not to Cruise: That is the Question

Up until recently, I was definitely on the – “I think I’d go crazy – and sea sick – sitting on a boat all day” – side of the pro- / anti- cruiser debate. If it weren’t for the affordable price, and the raves from my roomates, I probably wouldn’t have ever made it on a real cruise.

Spring Break 2010, was my senior spring break and it had to be amazing. We booked the Carnival 5-day cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, with 2 nights at sea and 2 nights in Cabo. I didn’t really know what to expect, but after my experience I can vouch that a cruise ship is definitely like a mini-city: an endless amount of food filled, city.

The Carnival Elation is a beautiful boat, but from what I’ve read an heard, there are much pricier and more luxurious cruise lines out there. Carnival Elation served our needs well enough. The food was great every night, the staff we unbelievable, gambling was fun, and even some of the cheesy entertainment was worth while.

The pool was crowded every day with screaming kids, drunk college kids, and seniors, but hey, whatever. We’re all on a boat to have a relaxing time. The chairs fill up fast, so we had to get there early. The drink prices definitely burn through your tab quickly, but we splurged because we are on vacay.

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Monday Memories: In Bruges, w/o Colin Farrell

Mondays are always especially rough for me.  My 8th graders are a bit more indifferent on Mondays than on any other day, and mornings are usually hard after sleeping in Saturday and Sunday.

To get over a case of the Mondays, I’ve chosen to go down memory lane. It is still chilly outside, winter is in the air, and ice is stuck on my windows. As I defogged my windows this morning, I reminisced over our trip to Bruges.  Before Colin Farrell’s dark comedy, I could only name two cities in Belgium: Brussels and Antwerp (Antwerp from a lyric in a song from Cabaret).   Yes, I actually was a fan of the Colin Farrell, dark comedy movie, but we also wanted to visit because of the Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival.

Our base for the trip was Brussels.  I had an old couchsurfing friend, Dimitri (who I had stayed with in Paris while I studied abroad).  He was kind enough to let us crash after he moved to Brussels!  We woke up early and headed on an hour train ride to spend the day in Bruges.

We arrived and busted our the tourist map.

We quickly found it was easier to just wander aimlessly.

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Updated Bucket List page!

So technically a “bucket list” is a list of things you want to accomplish before you kick the bucket and die, but we definitely don’t equate marriage with death.  Rather, it’s more of a list of things we would like to do before we hit our late 20s (which is around the age we always wanted to get married anyway). This list started when we were still in college, and we completely forgot about it until this blog was started. Realistically, we might not be able to accomplish all of these things before we want and feel ready to get married and that’s fine, but some of these things seem so simple yet some couples don’t accomplish them!  The list has a wide range of things. Some we’ve done so many times together, we couldn’t pin-point the first time. Others are probably once in a lifetime experiences. Some of these we thought of together and some we stole from other couples’ bucket lists (glad to know we’re not the only ones). There are also a lot of “pre-kids bucket lists” too, but we won’t have to worry about that one for a long time!

Charmander & Won Ton’s Bucket List before tying the knot (must be done together)

1.) Go camping
2.) Go on a road trip
3.) Go to Disneyland (First of many trips, July 2004)
4.) Go to Universal Studios
5.) Visit an aquarium (Dallas World Aquarium, May 2011)
6.) Go to a Zoo
7.) Visit Knott’s Berry Farm (October, 2005)
8.) Go to Europe (Netherlands & Belgium, December 2009)
9.) Go to Las Vegas (First of many trips, July 2009)
10.) Go to Mexico (Cabo San Lucas, March 2010)

Read the full list here…

Travelgasms, Why Not?

Carrie Bradshaw might’ve coined the term “shoegasm”…but there are tons of possibly pseudo-suffix, “gasms” out there! So why not travelgasms? My definition?

Travelgasm: an unrestrained excitement over all things travel.

There are over 180 countries, 1500 culture-groups, and 5000 spoken languages in the world today…and I’m obsessed with all of them…even those I don’t know about yet or with names I can’t pronounce properly.  I’ve spent my entire life – okay, well my recent life – studying politics, languages, and cultures of places I may never get to see, hear, or experience.

From studying abroad to majoring in linguistics and political science, my college experience definitely sparked fire for my obsession.  I realized how ignorant we all are in many aspects of the world and probably will inevitably continue to be, but I truly believe in Mark Twain’s wise words: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”.

This will be my log of travelgasms…and a way for me to help and connect with travelgasm lovers and seekers too!

See. Learn. Experience.
—before we can’t anymore…or before these amazing places don’t exist anymore, whichever comes first.

This site is a combo of my obssessions: travel and planning. Traveling for me isn’t just finding the best deals, going to the “must-see” tourist spots that are often throwing up tourists in the masses, or eating the food I cant find at my local McDo, it’s about doing everything you can and experience the beautiful cultures and eye-gasms most people don’t know exist.

This will also be a place for me to rave and rant about travel-anythings and get advice and opinions from other travelgasm lovers too.  You can plan your own adventure without a travel agent, a tour package, or Rick Steves.