Tag: Travel

firsts: ocean

December 10, 2010

first feet in the ocean, paradisus playa conchal resort, guanacaste, costa rica

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
firsts: ocean, playa conchal, costa rica
travel: playa conchal, costa rica

December 9, 2010

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
long exposures of stars at night, playa conchal, costa rica
rain day

December 6, 2010

the weather channel says it’s not raining outside right now, but i’m afraid that it is. accuweather says it’s rained this morning, but would stop before breakfast, but i’m afraid it hasn’t.

the costa rican weather service says it’s going to rain, but gives out it’s forcasts by thirds of the country — which is a bit like saying that it’s going to rain somewhere between michigan and maine today.

all of this appears to have made the costa ricans into weather philosophers. when we asked for the weather outlook, the nice young lady at the front desk said:

it looks rainy today, but it was beautiful yesterday. it could be beautiful tomorrow, too. who can say?

awesome.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
rain day, arenal, costa rica
photos: lost iguana resort, costa rica

December 5, 2010

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
photos: lost iguana resort, costa rica
lessons learned

December 5, 2010

with great power comes great responsibility, and sparklet’s new found power of walking are starting to have great impacts — to her cranium.

in the last twenty four hours, she has walked into two walls, collided into both the bed and the crib at full ramming speed, and fallen over about a dozen times.

this afternoon, she did a full double gainer into the pool and then tried to breathe underwater — neither of which turned out well.

(i’d give the flip a 4.2, but there was a discernable splash when she entered the water…)

in semi-related news, she invented a new game today — called “toss mommy’s shoes into the pool.” she clearly thought it was the best game ever. so did mommmy.

so did i — until she started to reach for my stuff.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
swimming, lost iguana resort, costa rica
travel: arenal, costa rica

December 4, 2010

holy crap, we’re in costa rica.

i don’t think the lady sparkler or i really thought we were leaving the country until we landed in costa rica, looked around and saw a whole bunch of costa ricans.

even then, only the temperature — 80 degrees, sunny — made me think that we weren’t just in some undiscovered part of our neighborhood in d.c.

sparklet’s been quite the trooper during our day of travel. a three hour flight to miami, a two hour layover, a three hour flight to costa rica, and then a three hour car ride to arenal — all without anything approximating a meltdown.

we rented a big honking land-rover-type monstrosity, which i was thinking was a comical level of overkill on the part of my beautiful wife, untill we drove through half a dozen landslides in the last 20 km to the hotel.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
travel: arenal, costa rica
found: ominous sign

December 4, 2010

it’s 4:15 am. we’re leaving for costa rica in a couple of minutes. in the “you are here” text directly under it’s clock, my phone is telling we are in the Orlovskaya region, a small oblast in southwest Russia.

even my phone thinks it’s way too early in the morning to up.

UPDATE: I left my phone on the flight from DC to Miami, and didn’t realize it until I was 40 gates away. I ran back, tried to get about a half dozen people to help, and finally got on the plane with AA’s Miami operations manager. No phone. The Russian this morning really *was* a bad omen.

UPDATE 2: I’m sitting on the flight to Costa Rica, and who to my wondering eyes do I see — but my new friend the American Airlines Miami operations manager. With my phone. She said it was in the overhead compartment of the earlier flight (which is funny, because I never was) and gave me a little eyes-down-nose-over-spectacles astonishment to be more careful with my belongings. And, that’s okay by me because it looks like she might be right.

UPDATE 3: It’s the layover of return trip to DCA now, and I’ve still got my phone — but I just left my wallet, camera and computer unattended for 10 minutes next to an ATM I had attempted to use. In semi-related news, it’s increasingly hard for me to believe that there is no competency test before you’re allowed to reproduce.
size restrictions

November 27, 2010

well, sparklet is officially too big to be a lap-baby.

… not according to the airlines (they don’t really seem to care) but according to mommy’s stomach, my nose, and the eardrums of those around us, it’s about time to start getting her her own seat. sparklet careened around for the full three and a half hours out to houston, and then the full two and a half hours back.

(while i’m just about over careening, at least it isn’t the most mortifying thing that happened during the trip.)

for what it’s worth, it doesn’t actually seem to be a problem that isn’t limited to the airplane right now — if she’s being held, she wants on the floor. if she’s being carried, she wants to walk. don’t bother trying to put her in a stroller. and, if you turn your back for 1/4 second, she’s ready to bring on the pain.

if these aren’t the terrible twos, i don’t want to know what’s coming.

(really, don’t tell me.)

ps. we leave for costa rica in exactly one week — and fortunately, we had the good forsight to get sparklet her own seat. ahhhh.
national aquarium in baltimore

October 26, 2010

i have a love/hate relationship with aquariums.

aquariums, by and large, are nasty/brutish places, over-stuffed with parents desparately trying to ignore their shrieking kids — a chaos that is the exact antithesis of the peace you see underwater.

so, while i love beautiful collections of fish in large tanks and could sit in front of just one exhibit for hours on end, at an aquarium if you stand in one place too long you are invariably jacked up against a wall by marauding tourists.

tonight, however, the conference i’m attending rented out the national aquarium in baltimore after hours for all it’s attendees. so, instead of the building being overstuffed with nasty-brutish families … it was overstuffed with nasty-brutish drunk marketers.

oy.

deflated, i trudged my way through the aquarium with some friends at a brisk page — looking at the fish here and there, but moving pretty quickly to avoid the drunken pre-hookup marketer rituals.

i fell behind my friends at one of the last exhibits and, as i finally made my way by the front entrance on my way out of the aquarium, an official looking woman with a yellow coat hurriedly waved me over.

we’re shutting down the exhibit — you better get in there if you haven’t already been through. you haven’t been through yet, have you?

“um, no … i just got here.”

i skittered on past, she pulled the rope across behind me, and for the next forty-five minutes i basically had the entire national aquarium to myself.

joyous.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
national aquarium, baltimore, maryland
travel: baltimore, maryland

October 25, 2010

i’m in baltimore for a vendor conference and i think i’m annoyed. baltimore is far enough away that we had to get hotel rooms — and to strip out just about every ounce of excitement about spending time in city other than our own.

i will say that, living in DC, i don’t “get” to wander around the streets of baltimore at night often, but that sounds an awful lot like something to be avoided — especially considering the only reason i was out was because i had forgotten contact solution and was desperately searching for a 24-hour pharmacy.

See Slideshow of the Photos on Flickr:
travel: baltimore, maryland