Central Park

Woke up this morning and it wasn't the nicest days outside. It wasn't raining yet and according to the hour by hour on weather.com I had until about noon til it was going to rain. So I decided that instead of going to the gym for my work out I was going to trek it up to Midtown and go to Central Park. I hadn't been there since I came here and even having been there before I never really explored it.

So I set off. 25-ish minute subway ride and I made it to Columbus circle. I wasn't sure exactly which way to go so I just started off walking down the paths and watching where other people were going. After about 20 or so minutes I realized I should have turned the app on that I have on my phone that tracks how far you go. After looking at the map I realized it was going to take me a longgg time to get to the other end of the park and then back to the beginning.

Down windy paths, stopping every so often to enjoy the view or looking at the map to see where things were and where I was, I made my way through Central Park.

There was a Parkinson's Walk going on today so there were many people there with signs and tee-shirts. It was about 11:30 and I reached the other side of the park and thinking about what the weather forecast had said before I left I realized I better start booking it to the other side of the park.

On my way back to the front of the park I ended up getting lost on some trails up in the north part of the park. Down one of them I saw this little waterfall that immediately took me back to walking the trails with my love in Zambia.

In the end this is what my workout ended up looking like and I got a great tour of Central Park! :)

Central Park is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy bigger than I ever remember it being. It's crazy! I look forward to more weekend workouts in the park!

Dj Tiesto's Club Life Volume One: Las Vegas album got me through my power walk sesh this morning. This is one of the great tracks on this compilation.



Peace, Love and Power Walks.

Joburg, SA

We got to spend a day in Johannesburg, South Africa before parting ways and going home. (I don't want to think about it, I'll get teary eyed again)

We stayed at a great little hotel called the Quartermain. It was so nice and quaint and totally different from Zambia! haha

So we really had absolutely no idea what to see in Joburg so we hired a private tour guide who took us around the city in the morning.

Milton first took us to see the World Cup Stadium. The World Cup of Soccer was held in South Africa last year and this stadium was used for the opening and final games.

Next Milton took us to the Mandela house in SOWETO. It was really interesting to see their old house and learn about all the events that took place. There was a brick wall they put up in their kitchen that they said the children would hide behind when people would be shooting at their house. It was really sad, but really interesting to learn about.

After our tour of the Mandela house we drove around the city center of Joburg. It actually was pretty disgusting because their garbage collectors went on strike and haven't collected trash in awhile. There was garbage everywheeeeere.

Gross- right? YUCK!!!

After driving through the city center we headed back out into the suburbs and went to see where Nelson Mandela lives today. On our way we stopped and saw a great view of the area.

As you can see, he made a little bit of an upgrade with his current house:

Check out all the rest of our Joburg pics!

We didn't really do too much in Joburg just because we didn't have a lot of time, we really didn't know everything that there was to do and we were worn out from the rest of the activities we did that week.

Felt like this song was probably appropriate ;)

Peace, Love and Soccer

Circle of Life

During one of our African Adventure days we went to Kasane, Botswana to Chobe National Park. The morning was a boat safari down the Chobe river followed by a 4 by 4 safari throughout the animal park.

We were picked up at our resort and transported to the border of Zambia/Botswana/Zimbabwe/Namibia. There's no bridge over to Botswana so we had to ride in a little boat over to Botswana.

Once over the river Mike picked us up and took us to the Chobe National Park! We arrived at the Chobe Safari Lodge and it was beautiful! Such a pretty lodge. 

Once we got to the lodge we had to check in and wait for a few other people to show up. Once everyone was ready we loaded up in the boat and set sail down the Chobe river! At first we only saw birds, but then we started seeing bigger game. Impala, TONS of hippos, buffalo, crocodiles, etc.

The boat safari was about 2 1/2 hours long and then we had a buffet lunch at the lodge. Once lunch was over we loaded into the jeeps that brought us to the lodge and we headed into the game park to see animals! We pulled into the park and immediately saw giraffes and elephants. Then Mike, our guide, was told over the radio that there was a lion spotted! He said that if they're lucky they get to see a lion about once a week. So we booked it over to where the lion was and we basically stalked the lion for about an hour hoping that it was going to attack an impala. It never did, but it was so awesome to be so close to the lion!

It was such an amazing day. Definitely a highlight of the trip. We almost didn't end up doing it just because it wasn't the cheapest activity, but it honestly was so worth every single penny that we spent.

Here was our safari group for the day: a family from South Africa, a couple from the Netherlands, and then of course the hottest couple ever ;)

Check out the rest of our pictures from our Chobe Safari!!



Peace, Love and Simba!

Zambia is for Lovers :)

Fore warning: I apologize in advance for all the ‘awesome, amazing, cool, beautiful, crazy, etc’ words. I was just seriously blown away by this place and that’s exactly what I kept saying all week.

Victoria Falls - from the Zambia side

  
Totally passed out for the entire flight. The ‘hour nap’ I took at the airport hotel wasn’t really cutting it. Once we got there and I was up I was ready to go and made it until that night when I passed out around 9/930.

The airport was so small. It’s funny because there was a small airport in Venice that sometimes we would fly into and the ‘Livingstone International Airport’ was way smaller than that one. (I honestly cannot remember the name of it now- CIMBAllers… anybody?) I wish we would have known to buy a transferable visa when we got there. They only told us $50 for the visa and we didn’t know it was only a 1 time use. (Meaning, if we were to leave the country we’d have to pay the $50 again to come back into Zambia) 

Walking up to the airport from the plane

We had a driver waiting for us at the airport. He took us, along with a few other families, to the Sun International’s resorts. As we were driving you could see a bunch of clouds out in the distance that looked like they were rising from the ground. Those ‘clouds’ were in fact the ‘smoke’(as they call it) rising off of the falls. I was really anxious to see them after seeing the smoke. When I was on the plane I looked out the window and saw them from above. They looked amazing. I was soooooo excited to see them up close.

View from the airplane of the falls

First stop was The Royal Livingstone. Pulling up to the resort my first thought was whhhooaaa. Wow. Fancy Shmancy. Seriously, felt like it was jumping off a page of Travel + Lifestyle magazine. Looking out the bus window through the lobby you could see the great Zambezi river flowing behind the resort. Beautiful. I already knew I was going to love this place. We dropped those visitors off and made our way over to the other side of the property to the Zambezi Sun Resort, where we were staying. As we were driving in we passed Giraffes and Zebras on the side of the road. I was blown away! I have seen them in the zoo before, but just passing them in your car on your way to your hotel?! WHHHAAATTTT? Crazy.

Welcome Crew

We pull up and there is a group of African men playing drums and singing chants to all the visitors getting off the buses. One look at them and I immediately broke out into a huge grin. This was exactly what I pictured Africa to be like hahaha! We get off the bus, check it, of course get our pick with the ‘welcome crew’ and then make our way through the resort to our room. Wow. Walking through the resort not only do I notice all the bright colors and the beautiful décor but THERE ARE ZEBRAS HANGING OUT BY THE POOL. Ok. Zebras on the way into the resort = awesome. Zebras hanging out by the pool = speechless. Seriously. So so sooooo cool. We make our way to our room and I’m in awe with all the beautiful bright colors. Looking out our back door you see the smoke rising above the trees and can hear the loud roar of the falls plundering off the edge down until the unseen bottom.

Me hanging out with the Zebras

Each day was filled with different activities ranging from safaris, exploring the falls to even just laying at the pool (and getting sun burnt haha)


Here are some of the fun things we did! 


Elephant Safari:

One of the main activities I really wanted to do was ride an elephant. We were picked up at our resort and headed out about a half hour into the bush of Zambia to ride Ellies J!! (I love that the one leader guy kept referring to elephants as Ellies, so I decided I’m going to refer to them as Ellies as well) After sharing some coffee and tea and giving us a safety briefing we got to get on the elephants! Brad and I had Mashube (and for the purposes of here on out this is how I will spell her name. You say it like Ma- shoe- be so I assumed this is how you spell it.) Mashube and trainer Jani (who, btw, loved Brad’s sunflower seeds hahaha), Brad and I set out on our adventure through the Savannah bush. Mashube is the matriarch of the group so she always led the way. All along the way all the Ellies kept pulling leaves and branches off of basically every plant/tree/bush/anything we walked by.  Seemed like they were very hungry! Haha It was a great ride. Honestly, soooooo glad we did it. It was amazing and surprisingly comfortable (at least to me).  We got to ride them for an hour, looking at all the scenery and enjoying the experience.

The program that put on the tour did a wonderful job. From the start with offering us drinks, to the whole ride, to afterwards with juices and biscuits – and they even filmed the whole trip, edited it into a dvd and then showed it to us. Of course I bought it. I knew if I hadn’t I’d always wish I had that keep sake. Come over- we can watch it ;)


Look at all our pictures here: Elephant Safari Pictures


Exploring the Falls:

We went down to the falls numerous times. It was a 2 minutes walk to the trails from where our room was so there was no excuse not to go down there. When I pictured Victoria Falls I pictured something reminiscent of Niagara Falls. I was not surprised for what I saw at all. First off- there are no big guard rails, security or anything preventing you from getting to close to the falls. In fact, we definitely put our feet into the water at one point. (don’t worry- Brad wouldn’t let me do it where it was going real fast… we had to go in the ‘calm’ water. He’s almost as bad as my parents sometimes haha jk)

What was really cool about these trails is that each one took you to a different look out point and further into the bush. It was so exotic and cool. I have so many pictures it’s kinda ridiculous. If you kept walking you eventually got to a part where all the smoke was coming down all around you like huge water balls. Think of the biggest rain drops you’ve seen and then multiple them by like 5. They were huge andddd freezing!! The first time we walked down to the falls we saw people drenched and we were kinda surprised. We thought maybe they had gone and jumped in the water… nope. If you just walk across the bridge or even walk to some of the look out points you’re bound to not have a single dry spot anywhere on you. I was so happy that I got my waterproof camera for Christmas! This was the first opportunity I had to use it! It really would suck if you didn’t have a waterproof camera because there is no way you could take a regular camera down there. Even under a poncho I really don’t think it’d be a smart decision. With the way the water was coming down and swirling all around I wouldn’t risk it.

The last day we went down to catch them out there actually was a double rainbow. That was so neat to see! BEA-U-TIFUL! Seriously. Gorgeous beyond belief. I don’t think any explanation or picture could ever do that place justice. It’s crazy to me that 1. We didn’t see all of the falls 2. You can’t see the bottom of the falls 3. You can barely even see the falls at all because it’s the rainy season and the river is flooded therefore there is double the amount of water flowing over the falls edge. I would absolutely love to go back in the dry season to see the difference in how the falls are.



Purchasing Items from the Victoria Falls’ Market:
Honestly... I wish I had a video of what went on in this market. It.was.ridiculous. 

Their famous line was 'No pressure here. Just look at what I have. Just look.' Yeah- then they bombarded you and wouldn't let you leave. Honestly, take the markets down in mexico and then times it by 98782038. It was thaaaaat ridiculous. When we were coming back into Zambia from Botswana these guys even followed us to our van and were sticking their hands and items into our car until our driver shut the door! It was crazy!!

Lounging Around the Resort:
The resort was soooooo nice! Check out all our pics to see the rest of the resort. 

Sunsets at The Royal Livingstone:

Every night we would walk over to the Royal Livingstone resort and sit on their deck which was right on the mighty Zambezi river. It was an AMAZING place to watch the sun set every night. It was right on the edge of where the water fell over the falls edge. If I had to pick my favoritest thing from the trip I would have to say sitting out on the waters edge here was by far my favorite. 

 You can see in the last picture the smoke from the waters edge on the left and the sun setting on the right. It honestly was an amazing view.

See all our sunset pictures here! :)

Zambia was great. All the Zambians were more than nice to us and kept asking us when we were coming back! Hopefully sooner rather than later. Honestly, I'd suggest going and seeing the falls to anyone and everyone. I got to try Kudu - which, btw, was delicious. The meat just melted in your mouth. One of the best pieces of meat I've ever eaten! I fell in love with mango daiquiris and guava juice is my new favorite fruit juice!

Zambia exceeded every expectation I had. It. Was. Amazing.

Peace, Love and Waterfalls

Finally Got There!!!

Southern Africa. Wow.  I knew it would be beautiful, but I honestly was so shocked at what I experienced this past week. I’ve dreamed of taking an African safari, seeing elephants, zebras, exploring exotic places- it truly was like walking right out of one of my dreams.

I ended up getting to Johannesburg, South Africa at 4:30am on Wednesday morning. I was supposed to have arrived at 4:30pm on Tuesday, but that didn’t happen.  They originally told us to be at the airport at 3am because the flight was going to leave at 5am. Then at about 5am they said they weren’t sure when they were going to board because the plane had JUST landed. So we waited… then they brought us donuts and coffee as a peace offering… then more donuts and coffee showed up at about 6am. Then finally at about 7am we started to board.

According to the flight crew ‘since they were in such a hurry to get out of IAD they didn’t fully restock the plane and didn’t have any snacks or the little packs of socks/toothbrush/socks they usually give you.’ Whateverrrrrrrrrrrr I was just happy to finally be on the plane. The nice thing was that since it was delayed they ended up cutting out the stop to Dakar so it was a direct flight to Joburg and also since there were people on the flight that were going to Dakar they were put on another flight. There honestly weren’t a lot of people on the plane at all. Everybody got their own row on the flight! I did try to get upgraded since I was pissed off about the delay (which was sold out, btw) but it ended up being totally fine. Let’s see I watched: Tangled, Burlesque, The King’s Speech, Due Date and a few tv shows. Read a few magazines and slept for about 4 hours. Direct flight was 14 1/2 hours. It surprisingly went pretty fast.

When I got to the airport I started trying to figure out how I was going to get to our hotel. Since it was so late I was just going to hop in a cab and meet Brad at where we were staying. Well! I walk out and was totallllly shocked to see him standing there!! He had gotten there and was waiting for a while just to make sure I knew where to go and that I wasn’t alone. :)  Ends up we were staying at the hotel at the airport. It worked our perfectly because we went back and I got to take an hour nap

Then I got up, showered and we headed back down into the terminal to get some breakfast and to catch our flight to Zambia. It worked out because we didn’t end up having to change our 2nd flight since I got in so early in the morning.

Tried to have a quick breakfast at News Café, but due to the waitress’s lack of motivation it ended up being a longer breakfast than we wanted to have. Oh well… no one seems to be in a hurry on this continent.  After brekkie caught our flight, I caught an hour and a half nap and then we were in the great country of Zambia.

Over the course of the week our African adventure took us to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls, Kasane, Botswana to Chobe Game Reserve and to Johannesburg, South Africa to explore the city.

I'll break my posts into the 3 different locations just because I have so much to share!!! Stay tuned!

Peace, Love and Happiness for finally arriving!!!

delayed... again

At least this time by only an hour. 6am departure time now... at least they slid a paper under the door to let us know this time. THANK YOU S A Air... no thank you to the Holiday Inn Dulles which, btw, has more ants in their room than I've ever seen before. EWA.

ughhhhh.

I love this song...


Peace, Love and TRYING to have patience.

DELAYED.

WELLLLLLLLLLL shit. I wasn’t planning on a vacay in DC, but I guess it was a surprise vacay.

So here’s what happened… My flight was delayed an hour from Pittsburgh because of the stupid rain. Not gonna lie, I was sitting on the plane so pissed off praying I wasn’t going to miss my flight. I sat there for 2 hours thinking about how long this flight to Joburg was gonna be, how bad my back hurt, how I didn’t really want to read the book that I had, and how excited I was to see my baby J

So I finally got to DC at 445 and my flight was to leave at 540. I stepped off the plane and went to look at the departures board and there was no joburg to be found. I was really confused so I asked and 3 ladies who worked there told me to go to A14/A16 as that’s where all the South African flights took off from. Once I got there there was no sign that the flight was to leave from there. So I’m standing in line to check in (or so I thought) and I start hearing people getting this ‘well the flights delayed’ speech. So I start to listen. ‘Well, the flight is delay because the returning flight never left Dekar last night due to mechanical problems. Due to this the flight is ESTIMATED to leave at 5am tomorrow. Please return at 3am and we’ll start to board at 415.’ So I start thinking… ok the plane didn’t leave LAST NIGHT. Africa is 6 hours ahead which means it’s already 10/11pm there so it’s been almost 24 hours. Noone said anything to me when I checked in, nothing was on the website, what. The. F.

So then I get the same speech from this lady (who, btw, all the workers were employees of Qatar Airlines not even South African) and they were actually really rude. So I kind flipped out. I mean… ok. Let’s run down the facts. I’m a 25 year old white girl traveling by myself to Africa. I’m going to Joburg and when I get there I’ll have no form of communication to get in touch with Brad … so I’m relaying on our plan of me ‘walking out through glass doors and going to the left by the money exchange place’ to meet Brad. Now, mind you, I am a pretty confident person and this really hasn’t bothered me up to this point, but then I started thinking what the heck am I gonna do if this flight ends up getting delayed again and I don’t know how to meet up with him? So my first reaction was to flip out. And I def did and didn’t hold back my emotions or how I was feeling. This didn’t really go over well with the people at the counter and everybody was kinda like ummm we’re all in this situation calm down. But idk, I just wanted them to know I was pissed. Maybe not the best approach, but that’s what I did. So then I told them I wanted to call customer relations. So I did. And flipped out on these people. I mean- you OBVIOUSLY knew 24 hours ago… why the f did you let me get on a flight to come here only to find out I can’t even go? Had I known prior I could have flown to JFK and got a flight from there OR even gone through a stop in Europe. Well they told me they couldn’t do anything either and the only people that could do something were the ‘people at the airport, because ma’ma, I’m not at the airport. I’m in a call center’ Well NO SHIT, seriously? I had NO IDEA you weren’t at the airport and were at a call center. Wow, how didn’t I figure that out.

So pissed off I decided I’d start my trek to the great old Holiday Inn that they were putting me up at until 2am. As I was walking out I though, well let me try the ticketing counter. Maybe I could get them to switch my flight a day or two later coming home and not make me pay a fee. Well I tried a different approach that time. I ended up crying about how I was all alone and I didn’t know how I was going to meet up with Brad now and stuff and they felt bad and switched my flight to leave on Monday instead of Sunday now. Ha! I tried to get upgraded to first class, but that didn’t work. I’m not gonna lie… I’m gonna try when I check in tomorrow anyways. We’ll see. Or else when I call and complain about how they should have informed us before I’m def going to try to see if they’ll give me status on US Airways.

Anyways, so I finally get to the Holiday Inn and there are like a million people from my flight here. Even people dressed in African garb. It’s actually kinda funny.

So I ended up drinking a few Guinness, making friends with some people at the bar, and eating some dinner. Gonna try to fall asleep for a few hours and get up at 2am to get the shuttle to the airport. So much fun… oh yeahhh… except I kinda screwed up. I wanted to get a neck pillow but in all my anger I didn’t get one. And now that I think about it I’m pretty sure nothings gonna be open at 3am at the airport. Damn it….

Ugh, I’m gonna be so gross in my same clothes 3 days later once I actually get to Africa. OH! And that’s another thing… noone can tell me when we’re gonna get there (now on WEDNESDAY! Ugh). So I don’t know if we can still make our Zambia flight on Wed or not. Hopefully someone will be able to tell me this tomorrow so that if we need to change it Brad can change it.

Hell. Maybe once I get there I’ll stay until he comes back for Easter. Shit. It’s been such an adventure getting to freaking DC who even knows what tomorrow will bring.

I wish this is what I was doing tonight:

Peace, Love and Anger.

Ps. I met this guy tonight who has a site where he reviews music on it and was telling me about how to contact music producers to get music to review and it’s all free. I’m thinking about getting my own domain and doing the same. I mean. It sounds like pure winning to meeeeeeee.

Getting excited!

Sitting in the Pittsburgh airport:
I feel excited! And nervous! And it really hasn't hit me that I'm going to southern africa. I feel like I'm just getting on a flight back to NYC. Maybe when I'm in the DC airport I'll feel differently because that'll be an unfamiliar surrounding. We'll see! I'm sitting at the gate charging my camera battery. I can't find my battery charger anywhere so I had to go and buy one this morning. Hoping I can't get my battery charged in time for my flight! Have a few more minutes before we leave so I'm thinking I should be good.

Contemplating making 2 purchases. 1. A neck pillow and 2. Beats by Dre headphones
Prob gonna go get #1. Maybe in DC I'll get #2. I'm just not sure spending that much on headphones is worth it... Although music basically is my life though soooooo maybe?

No. I'm not doing it. I'm gonna be financially smart on this one. Nothing wrong with my current ones.

Annnndddd I'm glad I just had this debate with myself over my blog.

Oh it's gonna be a long flight... Well my 2nd flight will be ;)

Leavvvvvvvvvvvingggg

I decided this will be my anthem for the next week:


See ya on the flip.. I hope that Zazu or Simba are waiting at the airport to welcome me to Africa :)

Peace, Love and I can't wait to wear flip flops ;) hahaha!!

Julie

I have my own Bollywood song . . .



Peace, Love and Julie Loves You ;)