I’m pretending to clean house and feed myself:
- I don’t know what my problem is but today I got really excited about starting my garden this spring, not that I ever have time to take care of it. Shit, my Christmas tree is still up. E wants us to plant flowers and I have to say this year’s garden might be a little of both. At least I’m getting a handle on how to maintain a low-key garden after two (three?) years. This year I will concentrate on getting a bunch of perennials and ornamental grasses into the yard and finally cleaning up my failed herb garden experiment.
- HUHO is clearly on hold. It was going to happen this month but my computer died and was brought back to life and now there’s only a few days left in January. Start composing your posts for March and I’ll put a little something together for February 1st. If you’re feeling charitable, you can leave links and trackbacks in the comments.
- Ever get tired of spending time in front of your computer? Me too.
- Chef and I have done pretty much nothing to prepare for for our not-wedding. The one thing we want is a nice honeymoon since we don’t get much time together and probably won’t get the opportunity to travel together again for a long time. Sadly, the number one place we have talked of visiting for the last year is still considered an unsafe zone by the American government due to political violence. Supposedly the violence has died down and we could still have a fine time as long as we don’t jump into any protests and get our visas revoked, but it’s up in the air.
Nevertheless, we want to go somewhere in Central or South America if we can help it. Chef is fluent in Spanish (though I speak exactly none) and we’re looking to visit a cultural and culinary area that is off the beaten path for the honeymoon crowd. Sandals, we will not have ye. Any suggestions?
And I’m pretending to write two papers.
Not planning your non-wedding?! What the hell is wrong with you? Do I need to buy you a subscription to Patriarchal Wedding Quarterly? I heard University Inn is hosting the yearly Wedding and Bridal Extravaganza in February. Should I buy tickets?
Seriously though — any thoughts about the date/location/atmosphere? What about gift registries?
I have no idea about your ‘honeymoon’ destination. One of my Spanish instructors was from Argentina, and he just RAVED about it, so much so that I’d love to visit some day. From what I’ve been studying in my Sociology of Developing Nations course, though, I think you’re in for some serious shock wherever you do end up going if you stick with Central/South America.
Uh, well, we went to the Grand Canyon/Arizona for our honeymoon (about a year and a half ago) and while it’s not Central/South America, it was beautiful and excellent for us. We hadn’t been to that part of the country before (we live in the Midwest) and it was wonderful. We didn’t want a typical beachy-resort honeymoon, but did want to go somewhere neither of us had been before. Plus, you can make it as extravagent or cheap as you want as far as accomodations, activities, etc. Maybe it’s not off the beaten path enough, and I don’t know if that’s the kind of experience you’re looking for, but we truly had a blast and it was a great honeymoon destination for us. We also went to Toronto a while ago and had an excellent time (mostly on the cheap). Just thought I’d contribute as a sorta recent not-weddingy-wedding-haver :)
Good luck with your planning!
Well. I lived in Mexico for around half a year, and I can tell you how to take a great vacation on the cheap. Depending on what your budget is, I might be able to give you some great advice. The mountains around Guadalajara are fantastic, you can rent horses or motorocycles for very cheap and eat breakfast for less than two dollars. You can stay in a very, very nice hotel for around sixty bucks a night, and much less if you camp somewhere. Feel free to send me an email at jenny@justdreadful.com. If you really want to honeymoon in Mexico, I could probably give you an excellent and inexpensive itinerary.
Congrats, by the way. You have a beautiful family!
Well, seeing as it is rare for me to even leave my own backyard (if it isn’t work, its work) my more traveled friends have had many nice things to say about Uruguay. Well, that and it is a place I have wanted to visit for a very long time. Well, back to living vicariously through those with visas that use them!
I have not traveled widely in South America, but Mary and I had a wonderful trip to Peru (especially Machu Picchu) for our 10th anniversary. (We’ve passed 15 and that’s still the longest trip we’ve done without the kids.)
The culinary options were both excellent and unusual — Peruvian cuisine has a number of signature dishes (which I think are a combination of native, Spanish, and Japanese influences) that are essentially unavailable in US restaurants. There’s also delightful coca tea (which, while coca can be refined into cocaine, really gives a buzz that’s only a bit different from caffeine). Chewing coca leaves directly gives a somewhat more intense euphoria (especially useful if you are trying the challenging Machu Pichu hike). Just don’t try to bring any of the coca back to the US with you! If you want souvenirs, there are beautiful wool items that are quite inexpensive (and are starting to be imported here for big bucks).
There’s certainly consistent tourism there, but it’s hardly overrun.
Wherever you go, enjoy!
Best,
Fred
The Yucatan is very nice… one of my all time favorite foods is either pork or chicken pibil. Wrap in banana leves, stick in fire pit, cook all day while drinking beer. Plus excellent fresh fish and beautiful scenery up and down the coast (if possible to avoid the big tourist traps of cancun/cozumel).
Depending on the time of year, Buenos Aires and Uruguay (Montevideo has a kind of sleepy belle epoque feel to it while remaining cosmopolitan but not quite to fast paced as BA) are great. There’s a small resort town up the coast from Montevideo called Piriopolis that’s lovely… you can sit in an oceanfront restaurant eating fresh fish gazing at the sea. The caution would be, don’t go in their winter, because it will be 40 degrees with wind driven rain. Ick.
If you’re really adventurous, why not the northeast of Brazil? Bahia is beautiful, and the food outstanding. You can sit on the beach and (hmm, there is a theme here). :) The bad thing about Brazil is that it is probably more expensive. The Yucatan or coastal Central America are probably much more affordable.
In any case, it’s nice to dream about people taking tropical trips as I try to ignore the fact that it’s 18 degrees outside. Wherever you choose, you’ll have a wonderful time!
I stumbled onto this place yesterday:
http://casacolibri.typepad.com/
looks better than Brooklyn @12 degrees…
Cusco, Peru is one of my favorite places in the world, but it is definitely not off the beaten tourist track, and I don’t know if there is any way to fly cheap to Peru (and unless you have a lot of time, you’d also have to fly to Cusco, but if you did end up travelling Lima-Cusco by bus, I could give some dated advice on that).
Do you want to go to a city and stay there and explore, or do you want to move around?
I haven’t traveled in Latin America, but one of my friend’s sister has travelled extensively. She lived in Guadalajara for a while and really liked it; I think it’s more of a cultural center than people realize, and, if I remember correctly, has everything from a major museum to bullfights (check out its wiki article). Seh curretnly lives in Argentina, and it is apparently very Europeanized. Since she –hey, come to think of it, her name is also Lauren–prefers places with stronger indigenous feels or cultures, she doesn’t care for Buenos Aires so much. So, there’s some third-hand information that might be useful.
Western Sonora, Mexico is lovely in the spring. Skip Rocky Point (too touristy) and hit Kino Bay instead. Upsides: the beach and lax border crossing requirements (as part of the Sonora Free Trade Zone). You could rent a car out of Tucson and be there in 5-6 hours.
I’m invited to the wedding, right?
I haven’t been any further south than Mexico, but I’ve heard excellent things about Belize. It’s supposed to be just beautiful, and very affordable. My sister spent a semester in Ecuador, so I’ll ask her if she has any suggestions. I know she really liked the Galapagos, but I think that’s about as pricey as South America gets.
I think almost all countries have some tourist-beaten paths and some out-of-the-way treasures. I spent time in Ecuador, which was really interesting and nice, as did several friends of mine (all at different times). One of them also lived in Chile for awhile. Patagonia, if you’re into that sort of thing, is awesome, or so my X-treme hikery friends tell me.
Pretending to finish my goddamn thesis here!
I absolutely, completely loved Brazil. We did have the advantage of going to an area that, while well-developed, was not terribly tourist-ish. They did have English menus most places, but those menus also had the Union Jack on them. They don’t see too terribly many Americans, I’m guessing.
Florianopolis was absolutely wonderful, and if you can find an inexpensive way to get there, I could even tell you places to go, stay, eat, etc. Once you’re there, it’s damn cheap, but until you get there, it may be iffy (price-wise).
Rio is, as I understand it, really sketchy in some places and very nice in others. Ditto with Sao Paulo. But I loved the country, the people, the trip, and the experience. And I sunburned my legs in December while working poolside, so that’s hard to beat, too.
Dammit. Now I miss Brazil. :)
You do know that you have to have a passport to go anywhere that is not a U. S. territory, right? It takes about 8 weeks to get one and they are about $100.00, so you better get on it if you want to have the wedding anytime in the next six months.
Is your mother helping you with your plans? I bet she would have a lot of ideas to offer. Just a thought.
Oh, you know, that’s right. It increases our security to make, you know, fucking everyone get a passport for anything, because having more passports in the world surely makes them harder to forge…
But this is a fantastic point. And unless you’re traveling somewhere that doesn’t require an entry visa (lots of places for short stays, you don’t need one), you’ll need to allow another month for your passport to go back and forth in the mail to get that visa taken care of. Or you can drive to a large port-of-entry city nearby that has lots of consulates, and then drive back the next week to pick up your newly stamped and visa-ally devirginized passport, which is what I did.