Well, we got our tickets to Colombia! It was a bit of a mind twister, because my mom and brothers are coming too, but we all are doing slightly different times, although luckily no one has to travel alone. I'll explain why and how we worked it out, but feel free to skip this the stuff between the stars if it's too confusing. :D
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G wants to go for as long as possible and has plenty of time off from MUM. Me, my mom and Tommy have work considerations, so need to try and keep the days off work down. My mom can't leave until the 17th because she has a final class/phone call on the 16th. Collin has money saved up from his old job, and is just doing work for my parents right now, so he thought he'd like to go for a few days longer. We all want to be there for two weekends, because the first weekend is going to be our reception down there, and the second one is Carnivals. Gilberto and I need to enter the US on the way back at the same time in the same airport to make sure there is no problem with immigrations. And of course we all want the cheapest tickets possible.
SO - Collin and Gilberto are going together on Feb 14th. (My husband is spending Valentine's day traveling with my brother. Insert eye rolling here). G is trying to figure out what to do with an 18 yr old boy who doesn't speak Spanish for a few days on his own. heh heh. Me, Mom and Tommy are traveling on the 17th. Reception is on the 19th. Mom and Tommy go back on the 27th. Me, G and Collin go back on the 28th. We all got the same flights, but on different days, ie, they leave the same airports at the same times, so we can all park our cars in Moline.
Here's the other trick - Traveling TO Colombia, to get the cheapest tickets (by a couple hundred dollars), we all will have to spend a night in Bogota (in the center of the country), get up early and take another plane to Baranquilla (on the coast), where his family lives. It's not too much of a difference as far as spending time with them, because even if we'd gotten a direct flight to Barranquilla, we would get there at about 11:30pm and only really have time to go to bed. G has family in Bogota who can put us up for the night. And luckily G will have done the same thing a few days before us and can talk us through it. Going home we have direct flights, thank goodness. Well, direct from Colombia to the US. Iowa isn't direct to anywhere, heh.
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So even if you didn't read all that, you can see by the length that it was a lot to figure out, and that's not even going into all the possibilities we explored about which routes to take, airports to fly out of, who is leaving cars where, etc.
Anyone have any New Year's Resolutions they want to share? I have the common ones like eat better, exercise more and lose weight, but I'm super motivated right now because the idea of the moment is to bring my wedding dress to Colombia and wear it again, and I've packed on a few pounds over the holiday months here. :P Part of the whole package is I have to get to bed on time so I can wake up in time so I can get to work in time so I can leave work in time to exercise and feel like I have enough of an evening that I'm satisfied to go to bed on time again! My other resolutions are to study more Spanish (also motivated by the trip!) and practice my guitar more, with the idea of having a concert sometime this year and hopefully earning a few extra bucks.
Hrm. I've heard that you should be specific and realistic with your goals in order to get what you want. And share them with people. Ok.
- Bed at 11:00pm
- Work by 8:30am (which means I can leave at 5:30, 5 if I take a short lunch.)
- Gym at least 3 times a week, yoga on Saturday
- Spanish at least 15 min/one computer lesson per day.
- Guitar, do at least one song at open mic every week, which means at the least I'll practice for half an hour every Wednesday. :)
- Bring breakfast and afternoon snack of fruit to work so I don't end up buying stuff from the cafe
- Concert: Thinking about doing it before the trip to Colombia, but in reality probably after is a good idea, rather than cram it in with everything else in before the trip... And I'll probably need time to recover afterwards. So maybe April. But start making a song list and practicing now. Would also like to have one new original song to debut at the concert (at the least.)
That sounds like enough to start out with right? heh heh.
G and I had a lovely New Year's Eve with Goj, Cat and Tobi. Went to G and C's place and did collaging of stuff that we wanted etc for the new year. I made like a double sided poster board AND a little small one. It'll be fun to try interpreting it all more and more over the next few days. G and C had to go to bed earlish, so G, T and I went around the corner to my studio to finish up, and then we ended up talking for quite a while, G was curious about birth and Tobi knows enough science of it to help satisfy his curiousity, and I don't mind finding out things, so that was cool.
I went to the bathroom to wash the glue stick off my hands and the trash can started ringing! I think it might have been Tori's phone, cuz it said Victoria on it, and I don't know if it was on purpose or what, but I took it out of the trash can and left it on the counter.
Saw Dad and April at the contra dance downstairs in the Broadway Building, so got to say happy birthday. By the time we left it was about 11:20, so Tobi figured she might as well stay up and do the new year thing. So we went to my mom's so G could call his fam, and ended up having a sparkling juice toast there, and doing sparklers, which ended up burning a little hole in my mom's kitchen floor!!!! BAD ME!!!!!
Did not go out to any bars or such, just wasn't motivated, even if there were people there. Blah. I'll see the ones I need to see, and have more quality-ish time with them than in a smokey loud bar place. For sure.
Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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