Last weekend, Ross and I sat at the computer and attempted to align my frugality, his holidays, along with T's holidays. The net result is that I cancelled out anything exciting for April much to his displeasure and it was not readily appeased with "but you are getting four nights on holiday in Nashville, Tennessee following your four nights at the Gaylord Opryland!" Needless to say, me trying to fob-off a work conference did not achieve me any points. Fortuitously, Qatar Airways, who rarely have great airfares managed to extend their flight specials for a few extra hours and I mindlessly searched for flights by European capital expecting nothing to come of it: then out popped Athens as a viable option. Bang we were flying there for eight nights.
My second best mate for travel bookings (first best mate is www.hipmunk.com) is www.booking.com and I discovered affordable accomodation in an area within a 30 minute walk of the Plaka and Acropolis. Shortly after perusing many of Rick Steve's Greek travel articles and chatting with a Greek friend, I had made a two night reservation in Hydra to the south of Athens - an island with no vehicles, just foot and donkey traffic. Methinks I now have a very happy husband!
To touch back on my resolution of being more digitally organised, I have been using google calendar and their labs much more. Within google, I am able to build a thorough itinerary and attach all booking documents and relevant walking maps. A key function within the printing section is the "agenda", provided all notes are well filled out, I get a professionally completed itinerary and am able to share the calendar with Ross. There are "apps" out there that will do this for you e.g. tripit, but for the life of me, I cannot see the advantage of a separate system to that of google and the agenda which will export to many other programmes and apps as required.
As I don't have any photos and it is not appropriate for me to link up holiday bookings etc, I am including some recent home photos below.
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| Sometimes, you just gotta sit with your mates! |
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| Most of the children are out of sight but with the pleasant weather it is a veritable racetrack and bike park on our street. |
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| Just wait mate! |
