Technology: A Necessary Evil when Traveling Overseas
Posted on November 21, 2012 No Comments
Technology is a necessary evil. As much as I would have liked go completely off the grid on my trip overseas, I brought two major pieces of technology with me on the trip: my iPhone 4S, and my Nikon D60 DSLR camera (with two lenses).
Me! Shooting in Venice.
Prior to the trip, my phone was the biggest hassle. I don’t remember the costs exactly, but Sprint’s international rates were much too high for my liking. I was worried that given all the data my phone downloads, texts that come in, and calls I receive, my phone costs could tally up to more than $1,000 for one week. My boss wasn’t going to pay for it, so I abandoned the international plan real quick. Read more
Italy Costs
Posted on November 18, 2012 4 Comments
Our hotel in Trieste, on the Adriatic, fancy!
Some of you asked me how much my Italy trip cost.
The honest truth is that I don’t yet know the true cost of the trip. Several elements factor into that:
- The trip was a gift to my mom. Therefore, I started putting money into an account for her about 5 years ago. The first check I wrote was for $500, and since then I’ve put checks of about $50 to $250 in the account for her birthdays, mothers days, and Christmas gifts. I don’t have access to the account (my brother, who also contributes, managed the account), so I don’t know how much I’ve put in over the years. I’m not going to factor that portion in to this recap.
- I split a few costs with other members of the trip, including the cost of the rooms and the rental car and gas. We still haven’t settled the costs. But I estimate they probably even out, since we each paid for a different portion. I only included my estimated portion here. Read more
Mama Mia! Thoughts on Italy
Posted on November 12, 2012 3 Comments
I’ve never seen my parents happier.
My parents, dancing in the streets of Rome.
Italy in a week!
Posted on September 26, 2012 5 Comments
Hello old friends. We leave for Italy in a week. I’m sorry I haven’t posted much since my last note, but you would not believe how much work is involved in planning a European getaway for eight people – sette adultos e uno bambino. We have so many issues! A crib for my nephew, two cars because we don’t trust the whole party to make the train, people with bad hips, gluten-free needs, mobile connectivity. Mama Mia! It’s been making my head spin!
Plus I’m trying to pick up a little Italian to speak there, and my eight years of Spanish are not making it easy. Who knew there were so many ways to pronounce the letter c? Or that all of them were exactly opposite of espanol?
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Italy is Booked!
Posted on July 19, 2012 11 Comments
The Colosseum, Rome
My brother and I have been saving for a few years to send my parents on a trip to Italy, a lifelong dream of my mother’s. Her father was born in Italy, and she’s always talked about going. So, more than two years ago, he and I opened a savings account and started putting money in it. We made deposits for birthdays, Christmases, mother’s day, and father’s day. And we encouraged our parents to start saving, too, in case our deposits didn’t cover their trip.
During this two-year savings period, the trip has evolved into a substantially bigger extravaganza. My parents, it turned out, didn’t want to travel to Europe for their first time alone. We’re now up to eight travelers, which includes my parents, me, my brother, his wife, and their child, another of my brothers, and an aunt. We’re planning to visit Venice, Rome, Florence, and Trieste on this trip. And though we’re trying to do it frugally, with travelers ranging from a baby that can barely walk to my father, whose arthritis also renders him in the “barely walking” category every once in a while, we have to make more expensive choices than I typically make while traveling. Read more
