Down Under

One of the greatest perks about my job (and I'm really trying to focus on the perks right now) is that I get to periodically travel to cool places.

When I first started traveling for work I thought it was pretty exciting. I would often add on some additional time in each new city to get some additional free time.  But as the many years of work travel have added up, I do this less and less. Partly because I rarely go to a new city anymore and partly because I'm typically ready to get home and get back into my Austin routine.

But every so often I get to travel to some cool places.  Most recently (directly from my honeymoon) I went to Brisbane, Australia. There is an annual international psycho-social oncology conference.  I've been to it once before in Vienna, Austria - both because I was accepted as a conference speaker.

Devon also went on this trip for some additional work related projects with some partners in Australia.  And I'm super glad she was there - for many reasons!

As previously stated, leaving my honeymoon and re-entering the work world was hard but spending a week in Australia, with Devon, was the best way to re-enter it.  Not only did it give me time to check emails and get caught up at my own pace, without people coming to my desk or spending all day in my meetings, it also allowed me to spend time with one of my favorite people!

I hadn't dissected the wedding with anyone yet and, of course, hadn't told anyone about our honeymoon so it was fun to recap this with her. She also caught me up on her life and how work had been. I left the week that the Fall Lance drama hit (USADA report) and it was a tough week at the office. I was thrilled to leave (with a smidge of guilt) but I was glad to get caught up.  For those of you who know Devon she is a great story teller so I knew her facts would be thorough and entertaining!

We rented a one bedroom condo for the five days we were there, which was perfect. We shared a room but there was a kitchen and living area so we had plenty of space, which was often needed with our weird jet lagged bodies.  It was the start of Summer in Australia so the days were longer.  The sun set around 6ish but rose by 4am.  So many nights we were asleep by 9 and up by 4 - even working out by 5.  We did wake up once in the middle of the night to hop on a work call.  Again, it's very strange to be in such a different time zone.  We were literally in the future. We'd wake up at 4am and work would still be in the previous day, post-lunch, working hard.  It made it both challenging and easy to work. Challenging because you couldn't work 'live' but easy because you could really take time to respond to things - which is not always a luxury we have at work.

There were so many great things about the trip and I really loved Brisbane.  It reminded me of Austin - it's a college town, right on water and people are very outdoorsy.  So after 2 weeks in Spain with limited green vegetables and English I was ready for the laid back environment of Brisbane.  They had veggies (especially avocados!), eat eggs for breakfast, love gluten free options (although they also make their iced coffees into milkshakes), spoke English (even though they of course have their own nuances too) and the weather was amazing.

Devon and I tried to make the most of our limited time there - going on some walks (including a brief nature trail walk, which made Nicole very happy), running (me), Crossfit (Devon), eating at every restaurant in walking distance including an amazing pancake house restored out of an old church, shopping and we even took one day off!

We rented a car and drove up to the Sunshine Coast to check out the beaches.  After 2 failed attempts with beaches that were too windy (note: Devon was still finding sand in her backpack weeks later), we found a lovely, beautiful spot. We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing. The water was lovely, too - cold but so clear with no major drop offs.

The most challenging part of the trip for me was driving and walking on the opposite of the road. I quickly got used to it and then found, once I got back to Austin, I had to readjust again.

So not only am I so grateful to have a work place that provides me opportunities to travel to such great places but so grateful that I got to experience this with Devon!

She's returning to Australia this week for some ongoing work and it makes me sad not to go with her.  The only thing I'm not jealous of is the 14 hour flight.....

Brace Yourself...

The long awaited (ok, maybe it's just been on my to-do list forever; I realize no one is waiting with baited breath) honeymoon blog is here.

I think these big blogs (wedding, honeymoon, etc.) are the hardest to write because they will never do the event justice.  And I don't want to bore you all with a laundry list of what we did.

And then I thought about it and as much as this blog is written for others to feel caught up on my life it's also written for me to look back on and see, documented, the important steps in my life.

So, here we go....

Thanks to my very smart husband, and knowing that Hurricane Sandy could impact our connection in NY, he rebooked us the day before our honeymoon to fly through Minnesota. While it took us longer to get to Spain - we got there and did not have to deal with weather issues.

Our first 2 nights were spent in Barcelona, where Carl's family is from and his grandmother, aunt and some cousins still live.  Our very jet lagged selves spent our first afternoon with his grandmother, who doesn't speak any English.  Even if I wasn't jet lagged I would have found it hard to keep up. I just succombed to nodding eventually and that seemed ok.  The large plate of paella that she fed us, while delicious, was only inducing a food coma on top of my jet lag.

After forcing ourselves to stay up late, go out to eat and have some wine (duh) we slept for 12 hours that first night.  It was amazing!  Not only that I slept that long but that we could. We had no agenda, no schedule, no one waiting for us. The day was our oyster!  

And this theme continued for the next 12 days.  We knew how long we were going to be in each city and some of the things we wanted to do there but it wasn't overly planned (shocking I know).  We quickly accustomed to the Spanish lifestyle of pastries for breakfast, wine at lunch, afternoon naps and then late dinners.  I thought this would be hard to adjust to since I'm often in bed by 9pm, which is when we'd head out to dinner in Spain. Turns out, when in Spain......

After our 2 days in Barcelona, we rented a car and drove north to the Rioja (wine) country.  This is the Basque territory, close to France and the northern coast. We stayed in a small town (of note: where there was a Marriott) but spent our days driving around the countryside - going to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, tapas/pincho hopping in San Sebastian and enjoying many, many wine tastings.  

Both Carl and I agreed this was our favorite part of the trip. The food was best here, the wine was a plenty, the people seemed friendlier.   All in all it was delightful.

We drove to Madrid for just one night. Due to a delayed start, a rainy drive and then an even rainier night in Madrid, I can’t say we experienced much here besides a delicious meal and nice hotel.  Maybe next time?

Then we were off, by plane, to the Canary Islands.  Side note, packing for this trip was hard. We experienced temperatures as cold as 30 and rainy and as warm as 85 and sunny.  

This part of our trip was certainly the most outdoorsy. We spent the day on a (naked – sorry parents) beach, walked around the town, hiked down an old volcano and drove around the hillside.  There was more history here than I expected, though, and it was beautiful and a nice change of pace from tapas to seafood.  Even I was growing a bit tired of bread and cheese. But not wine!

After our 3 nights in the Canary Islands we flew back to the Spain mainland for our last 2 nights. What should have been a 4 hour plane ride turned into an all day airport experience.  It took us over 14 hours to get back to Malaga and we lost an entire day there.  Malaga is close to where another of Carl’s cousins lives and we did get to see her, eat some great last meals and spend our last night reflecting back on what a great trip it was.

Our last day we departed separately – Carl back to the US and me to Australia for a work trip.  Our flights were about 12 hours apart and I was looking forward to a day of sight seeing on my own.  It didn’t quite happen that way. I was an emotional wreck – from saying goodbye to my husband to knowing I was re-entering the work world, it was a tough day.  I’m so grateful that Devon was in Australia and greeted me back into the real world. More on that trip later….

As with most things, I like to take note (and make lists) of the ways in which Spain had its unique characteristics.  Things like:

1.    They serve potato chips as appetizers (their version of chips and salsa?)

2.    They eat tuna (as in cold tuna fish out of a can) on their salads.  Gross.

3.    Their salads also only consist of ice berg lettuce, the aforementioned tuna, raw onions and tomatoes. Double gross.

4.    It is clear why they are going bankrupt – they are very inefficient and have lines everywhere with no one actually available to help you. Most likely because they are on a break somewhere.

5.    They are very polite and kind, which is a great thing but also means no one uses their horn.  Not ideal when driving in a city like Madrid.

But there were many things I loved about the trip as well. Too many to name.  Of course spending that much time with Carl, post-wedding, not thinking about work and not having access to email were the highlights. And while I loved being with Carl so much and we got along great, you do run out of things to talk about. Thank goodness we brought our iPad. We played tons of trivial pursuit and monopoly and watched movies when we could stream.  

So thanks for your patience while I wrote this blog (and in reading it).  I know I’ll never experience a trip like this, again, so I’m happy to know I can reflect back on the pictures and words I used to describe it.

New Year, New Goals

I just read my friend Haley's blog who posted on her goals for the year and I felt inspired to post about mine.

For the past 5 years some friends and I have held each other accountable to our goals. We document them at the beginning of the year and then have monthly lunches where we check in with each other.

It's not meant to be punitive if we don't reach out goals.  But if and when we do reach them we get everything from a round of applause to colored star stickers.  We are easily pleased!

This year some of my goals focus on simplicity.  Last year felt like such a hectic year, from the start, that I'd like this year to be about minimizing some things in my life (some things...I'm not going to suddenly stop shopping. That's just crazy pants - for me).

So I found a few things on pinterest and got help from Devon who focused on decluttering her house last year and am working on removing the physical and emotional clutter from my life.

In addition to some of these ambitious goals I'm also working on the following:

Flossing more
Accessorizing more
Picking a marathon to run in 2014
Planning my work sabbatical
Taking advantage of the free yoga and pilates at work
Going to visit Katie and Rob

And more....

This week, while the second week of January, really seems like the first full week of the year.  Carl is back on the road for work and I am working 5 full days in a row.  I have been known to over commit my free time but this week I had zero plans after work besides running and pilates.  So I have been home every night and it's been lovely.  I've gotten caught up on small projects around the house (i.e. an ever-growing ironing pile, some thank you notes, working on planning Jess's baby shower) and I've gotten to bed early and just enjoyed not feeling frenzied or rushed in the evenings.

So while I know weeks like this are rare I'm really appreciating it!