Kelly’s Antarctic Blog

Interested in Antarctica? Follow Kelly here!  She’s heading to the Amery Ice Shelf with the Australian Antarctic Division

Happy second blogiversary to me!

My blog is two years old today!  In the past year, I’ve visited 11 new countries – Jamaica, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Norway.  I’m also presently on a crazy trip around the US on JetBlue.  It’s been a great year for travel!

Apology and explanation for lack of posting

It’s been over a month since I last posted, and for that I am sorry.  I got laid off at about that time, so I have been focusing on my job search and on doing things other than blogging.  For example, I’ve gotten a lot of scrapbooking done (I’ve scrapped my life birth-6th grade), and I’ve been “workin’ on my fitness” on my new Greenspeed GT3.  That’s a recumbent trike, and it’s really fun.

If you don’t follow me on Twitter or know me in real life, I am an intellectual property attorney with five years of experience.  I’ve done quite a bit of litigation, even arguing before the Federal Circuit, and a wide variety of transactional work, from a bit of patent and trademark prosecution to a fair number of software licenses.  I’m looking for a new position that will both allow me to utilize the background I have and grow in new areas.  My preference would be to stay in the Triangle since we have a house here, love our friends, and really enjoy our activities here.  That said, we would move elsewhere in North Carolina or somewhere totally different (i.e., Chicago, DC, Atlanta, etc.) if I find a good position somewhere else.  So… if you know of a firm or company who’s looking for someone like me, please let me know!

Anyway, I have a lot of things to share with you over the next few weeks, so be sure to check in regularly if you don’t follow me via RSS feed.  I promise it’ll be worth your time – more about my NC Eatin’ quest, what we did on our last trip to Europe, and a big surprise… (Okay, again, if you follow me on Twitter or know me in real life, it’s not a surprise – but I promise it’ll be fun to read about anyway.)

Triangle: Durham’s City Guide

The fabulous Design*Sponge recently shared a guide to Durham from photographer, blogger, and Durhamite, Jessie Gladin-Kramer.  Check it out!  She tells you where to eat, shop, drink, and visit.  She also gives shout outs to a few blogs, including one of my new favorites, Carpe Durham (“Ramblings about food by people whose only qualification is that they eat a lot”).

Changing plans at the last minute

Sadly, we’ve un-picked our plans to visit Mexico.  With the increased pandemic level by the WHO and the massive closings, we decided it wouldn’t be such a great trip – we wouldn’t get to visit the Mayan ruins as planned, we might run into some issues with respect to cancelled flights, and our friends and family were hassling us a lot.  My husband’s boss even told him to work from home for a week after we were to return!

Although I’m incredibly sad that we won’t be traveling with one of my dearest friends and her husband and I’m totally crazed about planning our replacement trip, I’m also looking forward to it.  We’re flying in and out of Frankfurt, Germany for just $50 more (total, not per person) than our airfare to Mexico (under Delta’s policy, we were able to change the tickets without paying a change fee; not as nice as American’s option of a refund, but better than nothing).  Our tentative plans include checking out plenty of castles and perhaps Czeching out Prague.  haha

Because we haven’t planned this trip at all, I’ll probably not have time to post much over the next couple of weeks.  Sorry!  I promise I’ll try to give you some good info once we’re back though.

The tourist has been out sick…

Sorry I missed Travel Tip Tuesday this week.  As an apology, I’m sharing professional pics of me.  No, I didn’t hire a photographer.  Remember the vow renewal I mentioned before?  Ami & Scott’s photographers posted some more pictures recently, and I made the cut.  First up – the famous and wonderful Jessica Claire.  I’m the girl in the pink dress, not the adorable dog.

Annnd here I am with Mr. Feisty Tourist.  Isn’t he cute?  And whoa, Michael Norwood is pretty much AWESOME, right?

Oh, you probably want to see Ami and Scott too.  Here’s a terrific one by the third star photographer at the shindig, Mark Brooke:

Travel envy

Ben just posted on the Sydney Morning Herald’s travel blog about travel envy.  Hilarious stuff – go check it out.  My favorite bit:

And then there’s Facebook where, if you really want to, you can follow the everyday minutiae of a person’s travelling life, even before they’ve left, thanks to the never-ending flow of status updates: “Dave is going on a trip to Cuba! Woo! … Dave can’t decide what to pack for his trip to Cuba … Dave is thinking this Cuba trip is going to be awesome! … Dave thinks he’s going to need plenty of sunscreen for those Cuban beaches … Dave is going to be drinking daiquiris in three days! … Dave’s pumped – two days to go! … Dave’s in Cuba!”

And so on. It’s enough to make you un-friend a bloke.

Ha!  Do you get travel envy?  Oh, and just in case you were wondering, I just booked a Baltic cruise yesterday.    St. Petersburg here I come!

Image from Concierge.com.

Reminder – more Feisty at EADL

Don’t forget!  You can read more posts written by yours truly on Mondays over at Elizabeth Anne Designs Living.  I know you can’t get enough of my writing. 

Image via DishDesign.

BFF’s vow renewal

So this isn’t exactly travel related, but I’m sharing anyway!  I’ll try to tell you some useful Atlanta stuff soon, but for now I’m just AWing for my BFF, Ami.  She and her husband of 10 years celebrated by throwing a huge amazing set of parties in Atlanta around New Year’s.  We were there and loved it.  Why am I telling you this?  Because you should go see her posts about it and check out her photographer’s pics.

TTT: Take a break!

As you can tell by my infrequent posting this month, December has been super busy for me. What does that mean? It means I’m going to take my own advice. My travel tip this Tuesday is to take a break, whether you’re going on a special trip or staying at home, whether you’re celebrating Christmas or just grateful for a couple of days off of work. Take some time to relax!