Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

Holidays in Buenos Aires

December 22, 2008

Hello All,

First I am sorry for not updating this blog since early December. Those of you who know me know that in addition to running Pangea Collection, I also teach two days a week. The end of the year means lots of marking and that kept me pretty busy for the last couple of weeks.

In addition to finishing up the semester I also needed to finalise all my travel plans for a trip to South America. Joe and I are now in Buenos Aires. We arrived on Monday after an overnight flight. Luckily we were in business class (thanks for aeroplan) so the 11 hour flight was livable. Although I didn’t sleep a wink, I could at least be comfortable.

Before leaving for Buenos Aires I had read a number of posts which indicated that we needed to be extremely careful not to be robbed/mugged. As you know, I have traveled quite a lot save one place in the world (I won’t mention where), I had never really felt in danger.

I have a insight about feeling safe in a place (whether that’s a city or not). I believe it has to do with familiarity. After reading all these posts about what you should and shouldn’t do and where you should and shouldn’t go. I admit I became down right paranoid.

Our hotel is near Calle Florida and I had read that this street is a common street for muggings etc. Our first walk on the street made me pretty uncomfortable. Then in the days that followed (we’ve now been here for 6 days) I became more and more familiar with the city and more and more comfortable. Having said that, we still are not waving cash out in public and we are not wearing expensive jewellery (I never travel with jewellery anyway, read my post on travelling with jewellery). We are being aware and carrying a small amount of cash. So far so good. Fingers crossed we’ll leave tomorrow for wine country without incident and be sipping wine by the pool.

Chin chin, sante, cheers and all that.
Have a wonderful holiday too!
Patricia

An ExPat Connection

October 2, 2008

Hello Everyone,

This post has been inspired by someone I’ve just met via social networking through a wonderful group called Ladies Who Launch. Her name is Kelly and we met via a post I made on one of the Ladies Who Launch groups.

As you may know, Joe and I are going to South America at the end of December. While I have traveled a lot I have only been to South America once and Joe has never been. Our plan is roughly this:

Arrive in Buenos Aires December 15th and use BA as a base to discover BA, surrounding suburbs as well as Uruguay. We then head to Mendoza for Christmas and hopefully lots of wonderful wine. After a few days in Mendoza we’re off to Santiago then back to Canada. I’ll write about the trip of course when I get back.

Anyway, back to connecting with Kelly. I posted a request for suggestions on our trip nd Kelly replied. I read through her profile and was really interested as we do have some similarities in that both of us have been expats and teachers and of course share a passion for travel.

Kelly has a blog – Global Roam – which has sections for teachers as well as posts about travel and one in particular struck me as interesting. It is a post about a book “The Geography of Bliss”. I was really intrigued by this book as it somehow speaks to me and my search for happiness in a distant land.

Check out her post where she talks about the book and the expat life.

Cheers
Patricia

Travel Stories Update

September 12, 2008

Hello Everyone, I know it has been a little while since I have posted a travel story. These posts always seem to take much more time.

Even though I have traveled a lot and have many favourites, before I write about one, I always do some back research. I look back in my travel books for the sites, museums, shopping hotspots that I liked the most. I usually make notes in my travel books for this exact purpose.

This process usually takes more time than say a straight opinion on a fashion look or something like that. So I will get back to doing some soon. In particular I will write about Vienna and Croatia.

Vienna should be pretty easy since a friend asked me a couple months back to provide some recos on where to go and what to see so I have some notes from an email I sent to her – should be a good starting point.

Until then, I always think re-reading the stories on Bangkok or Paris are worthwhile. You can read them here in the archives or on the Pangea Collection Travel Stories section on the website.

Bon weekend,
Cheers
P


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