Did I say Puerto Rico?? I meant Aruba...obviously.

 

So after much booking difficulty, we ended up going to Aruba instead of Puerto Rico. Still awesome. The trip is a distant memory now, but I'm slowly working on culling through my hundreds of photos, so here they come.

Going to Puerto Rico!

reef2, originally uploaded by cmlamber.

surfing, originally uploaded by cmlamber.

waterfall us, originally uploaded by cmlamber.

Becky and I are going to Puerto Rico! It is way too expensive, but going to be awesome...check us out back in our younger days in Fiji and the Aussie reef! Things I have learned about trip planning: if you find a good deal, book it; spring break=horrible time to travel; if you put two tickets on hold on American, they will cancel one and not tell you. They also have no sympathy for any resulting problems; too many options is not always a good thing. Things I have learned about myself: not a good decision maker, but then I already knew that; being meticulous about travel decisions can bite me in the ass; I am not actually that flexible. Once that slow decision is made, it is hard to change my mind. In the end, I'm feeling a little guilty that if we had been smart and booked right away we would have saved a good $100 and much stress, but still, the trip will be awesome and it is good motivation to get my chapter done!!

Dreaming of Trips!

 

It is cold and snowy and nearly time to get out of town again. I'm planning a trip to the Caribbean in March!!! It should be awesome, but planning is more difficult and more work than would be preferable...who would have thought? There are so many search engines and none that really do what we want--namely find us somewhere nice and affordable and warm, any island is fine, and any reasonably better than crappy hotel with a great beach is good. Preferably said great vacation would be found without having to read 50 reviews on trip advisor, but that seems to be too much to ask. The Frugal Traveler at the New York Times feels our pain. Seriously, this should be easy and fun. We've currently narrowed things down to Jamaica or Puerto Rico and must book soon....more to come when that decision is made. And then, it will be time for plane rides and beach time! (And before that the gym and possibly some shopping, but hopefully not much).

On another note, I've become completely obsessed with the show What Not to Wear, which is either great--I will dress better--or horrible--I will soon be poorer than I already am as a grad student and/or be unhappy with many of my clothes...Someone should give me $5000 for new clothes and the sake of television viewers' entertainment! :-) But I think they need to do two things: A. talk about shopping on a budget. Seriously, most of the people watching this show (I assume) cannot go buy a bunch of $200 handbags, jeans, shoes, etc. to go with the other (somewhat) more reasonably priced items they bought. Those that can, great, but for the rest of us... B. They need to help some people dress for winter. You simply cannot go tromping around town in heels when there is snow on the ground. Or I can't anyway and no one should when it is actively snowing or recently has unless you are going to drive everywhere. And long underwear is going to totally change those jeans. These are important issues people! Anyway, clearly, I need to spend less time watching the show or the youtube videos....back to dreaming of beaches...

Seashells

 

More San Diego

 

 

 

 

San Diego!

 

I visited sunny San Diego for the annual History Festival last week. After my interview and some panels, I was lucky enough to have a full day to enjoy Coronado. Blissful.

Snow!!