Tag Archives: USA

#27 Get Upgraded on a Flight… (again! YAY!)

23 Jun

After an extremely busy 10 days in the US (Atlanta for a friends wedding and Miami to visit friends) it was a lovely surprise to be upgraded to premium economy for our red-eye from Atlanta to London.

Premium economy was actually better than I thought it would be. With seats reclining much further than economy and extra leg room it was much easier to get some rest. Sometimes I think that Nick could sleep standing up, but I never do well on planes without about five of those mini bottles of white wine. Only one glass needed with premium economy! British Airways, our jet lag and my liver thank you!

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#38 Collect 30 fridge magnets

5 Apr

Am I still allowed to keep this blog going even though I just turned 31? Am I really 31? Wow. Is this real life?

So this is one item on the list that we started immediately. I can’t remember which magnet was first. Probably from the state of Pennsylvania when attending a friend’s wedding, or from the US Open on the same holiday. I think almost three years later we may have achieved this…

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Let me go take some photos of how our fridge looks now and count the magnets.

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SUCCESS! I counted 32 different locations! There are more than 32 magnets however, some places we loved so much we bought two (I think Australia has four!) and some places we haven’t been to together. At first I didn’t like the idea of having all of the magnets on display but every time I look at them now it makes me so happy. It reminds me of how lucky we are to be able to travel to all of these amazing places.

#9 Brooklyn Bridge (take two)

17 Oct

Nick’s 30th is fast approaching and I feel like our list is just treading water. We haven’t crossed anything off in a few months now. We had snowboarding lessons and a helicopter ride booked for our trip to Queenstown in June… but as many of you know, we never got on that flight and long story short, that was the very start of the reason why we are now living in London! Thankfully we have until late March to complete everything!

So to make myself feel a little more productive, I’m going to post a take two of #9 – Walking over the Brooklyn Bridge.

In transition to London, Nick and I met in NYC for 10 days. Would you believe that the first time we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge together, we didn’t actually get a photo of the two of us. This time we crossed the bridge during the day and it was a beautiful 30 degrees – maybe a little too hot for Nick!

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#9 Brooklyn Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge

21 May

Not much of an explanation needed here… they’re on the list and we crossed them back in August 2012.

We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge after an AMAZING dinner at River Cafe in Brooklyn. The restaurant had an amazing view of the NYC skyline so it was the perfect ending to a fantastic dinner!

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The day that we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, it was absolutely freezing and neither of us had packed a warm for the trip. San Francisco was surprisingly cool for Summer. We wanted to ride bikes over the bridge and into the town on the other side but the weather was so awful that we opted for a hop-on-hop-off tour bus and froze all the way over and back on the rooftop!

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#14 Napa Valley wine tour

21 May

We actually did this one a while back in August 2012 during our trip to the United States. The Napa and Sonoma Wine Country Tour was definitely a highlight of our time in San Francisco. It was wine tasting for beginners but offered more than just a few vineyards, Chardonnays and a bucket to spit into. You meet the bus down at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and you get a scenic day tour all the way to the vineyards with a running commentary.

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Our bus driver was quite entertaining and was filled with interesting facts on towns and landmarks as we drove past them. I’m positive that he didn’t take a breath for the whole journey. Non-stop talking. Seriously. Most people slept the majority of the journey there, which I found disappointing (for them), but not everyone loves travel as much as we do.

The quality of the vineyards varied, as did the wine. Some vineyards were beautiful with average wine and some had beautiful wine with average vineyards.

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The guides at each vineyard varied with their knowledge and enthusiasm to educate us all but we did walk away with a little more knowledge than when we arrived. What was our biggest learning from the tour? “The bolder the (bottle) shoulder, the bolder the wine!”

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I don’t think that I would recommend this wine tour to anyone that knows a bit about wine… however, it is perfect for beginners (like us) or anyone that just wants to visit the area.