Off to Jolly Old England

Wednesday, I depart home to begin my England sojourn.  After spending two nights with Crystal in DC, we fly to Heathrow.  Crystal's friends, Trish and Dave will be joining us at the hotel and we'll hit the ground running.  We have tickets to tour Buckingham Palace  and would like to see a West End show.  Crystal and I want to take a whirl on The London Eye. 

Trish, Crystal and I have had such fun planning for this cruise.  Crystal and I have been to London before (my last time was in 1994, I think) so we will be enjoying the city through the eyes of new visitors!

Two nights we are staying in a hotel in the Kensington area and our final night we'll be in Mayfair.  Tuesday morning we'll take the ship's shuttle to Southampton and our home for 10 nights, the Regent Seven Seas Voyager.  Regent has named our cruise, Celtic Charms.  The itinerary is:

In true LCT fashion, I named our cruise CHARMS ( Cruising Heraldic Areas: Royals, Mansions and Scotch).  So from hence we will be called the CHARMerS.  Pictured above is our virtual pin.

A Trippy Summer

Well, with Memorial Day Weekend here, it's time for summer vacations.  I am taking three small trips in the US and two out of the country.

My short trips include a visit with my sister in Arizona.  It'll be nice to visit with her and her guy, my niece, nephews and meet my grand-nephew.  He's 5 so it's about time we get acquainted.  Another trip is to DC to visit my good buddy, Crystal and see Wicked for the first time.  I purchased the CD a few months ago and sing almost all the songs with no help.  Luckily I know most of the plot with the exceptions of two major points in the story, so there will be some excitement!  One more US trip might take me to New Jersey to have a mini reunion with my Aussie friend, Lee, her son, Michael and my other good cruise buddies from Cleveland, Kathy and Al.

Now for the out-of-country trips... to be continued.....

An OZing We Will Go

Crystal and I are sitting here twiddling our thumbs waiting, waiting, waiting to walk out the door.  With the time change last night, we got up earlier.  This just adding an extra hour to our wait.  Still need to close my suitcase and maybe take one or two more things out.  Just not sure. 

We booked this cruise in July 2009, so all our planning has been completed up to this point.  Some plans can change and that's ok, to a certain extent.  Lucky for us, we aren't on Qantas going over to Sydney.  Regent put us on United... this is my first UA flight, so the airmiles will have to go toward something else.  And I'm sitting here with over 100,000 Delta miles.  Such is life! 

Our travel companion, Betty flew over on Friday, so she is already in Sydney, sans luggage.  At least she has a few more days for her "mishandled" luggage to reach her before Wednesday when all we fly to Cairns to the Great Barrier Reef area.  Crystal and I both have GBR clothes and bathing suits in our carry-ons.

Not much else to say except, "I'M READY TO GET OUT OF HERE..... NOW!!"

Yes, I am excited.....

Left Home Today

Today, Friday, November 5, 2010, I began my journey to Australia and New Zealand.  I awoke around 2:30am with a sore throat.  Great, all I can see is the immigration employees in Sydney Airport excluding me from entering the country and Crystal leaving me alone, sick at the airport.  I then got up, took an Airborne and did a Zicam swab and went back to me.  Couldn't sleep, so watched TV for a bit.  Tried to sleep be had a bad dream.  Finally I got up at 7am, took a shower and did odd jobs around the house.  At 8:30am I was on the phone to my favorite nurse at the doctor's office telling her my dilemma .  She said, "Beth, you're leaving on your trip today, right?  Get in here, we'll give you a shot and meds."  Thank you, Kristy!!  What a doll.  That emergency elevated.

Went back home and finished my chores and my good buddy, Celia picked me up, took me to the Wilson Train Station.  A permanent passenger (on left with male friend) is seen sitting by the tracks each day.

more later.....

Travel Quotes

Along the way, I've seen and adopted many travel quotes.  This post will be updated when I acquire new quotes that fit me.  If I know who made this quote famous, I will surely identify them.

"It's there, let's go see it." - Beth Punte

"No one with a thick passport can have a small mind." anonymous

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson 

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."  - Mark Twain

"There are only two classes. First class and no class."  ~David O. Selznick

"A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between countries, so the officials can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly." ~Lemony Snicket

"The untold want by life and land ne'er granted, / Now Voyager sail thou forth to seek and find."   This quote comes from one of my favorite movies, Now, Voyager with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid, is a Walt Whitman poem "The Untold Want."

"Travel makes one modest.  You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." - Scott Cameron

"I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list"..... - Susan Sontag

An OZing I Will Go

I leave the house in four days... That means I have to wake up 3 more mornings.  Excited and a little scared.  Crystal and I will have the best time.  We meet up with Betty in Sydney and have lunch with our Aussie friend, Lee.  We met Lee virtually a few years back on our favorite cruise message board, Luxury Cruise Talk. Then we were fortunate to meet Lee and her son, Michael in person on our Alaskan cruise last September.

Here is our cruise itinerary.Australia-New Zealand Itinerary  (I apologize for the formatting issues.)

Date	Departure	Arrival	Transportation

Nov 16	6:00 pm		Sydney	board the Navigator
Nov 17			At Sea
Nov 18		8:00 am	Melbourne, Australia	Great Ocean Road
Nov 19	6:00 pm		Melbourne, Australia
Nov 20			At Sea
Nov 21	6:00 pm	8:00 am	Hobart, Australia
Nov 22			At Sea
Nov 23			At Sea
Nov 24	Milford	Sound	to Dunedin	overland tour-off ship
Nov 25	6:00 pm	9:00 am	Dunedin, NZ
Nov 26	6:00 pm	8:00 am	Christchurch, NZ
Nov 27	4:00 pm	8:00 am	Wellington, NZ
Nov 28	6:00 pm	8:00 am	Napier, NZ
Nov 29			At Sea
Nov 30	5:00 pm	8:00 am	Tauranga, NZ
Dec 1		8:00 am	Auckland, NZ
Dec. 3			fly to USA

My First Trip to Europe

Beth in Florence, Italy 1970

At the age of 17, between my Junior and Senior years in high school, my grandfather took my brother,age 20 my cousin, Scott, age 16 any myself on a bus trip around Europe.  My mom and aunt, we call her Cioc, wanted to go too. So all six of us flew to London (my first case of jetlag) for a seventeen night American Express tour of Europe.  If you remember the old movie, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, (1969), that's how our trip was.  Each day we got up, quickly packed, ate breakfast and got on our big bus.  My fondest memories of that trip are picking up a slight British accent after 3 days in London, going to my first discotheque in Lucerne, Switzerland and dancing with a greasy Italian guy and walking down a street in Rome late-late or early-early and swinging around the light pole.  Two or three of us did that out of a group of 12-15.  We'd been to a few bars that night too..... hey, I was with my mother!!  Another fun memory is being in Nice, France and looking out of our window late at night.  Our hotel was in the red light district.  My mom and I watched the ladies attracting men and the guys almost running after the women down the street.  My mom knocked on the wall to my aunt next door saying, "Did you see that one?"  I guess that was my first exposure to prostitution.