Culebra

Culebra is a little island about halfway to St. Thomas. When we bought our tickets in the morning, they told us that the return ferry was "conditional." Basically, if the weather turned any worse they would cancel the ferry and we'd be stuck on the island for the night, and Isa would miss her flight back to New York the next morning.

We figured it was worth the risk. :)

The ferry ride over was crazy. The people on the top deck were screaming like they were on a roller-coaster. I thought the boat would flip a few times. Way fun.

The island was gorgeous. We went straight to Flamenco Beach, which apparently is rated as one of the best beaches in the world. I beg to differ, but whatever. What do I know about tropical beaches, right? It was pretty, but one of the best, I don't know.



The coolest part of the beach were the abandoned tanks out on the LEFT side of the beach (not the right, as Isa and I found out when we hiked all the way out past the rocks into the bees nests and found no tanks).



At the end of the day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the water was calmer than a lake, so we had no problem going home:

El Yunque

Yay. Isa came down to visit me. :)

We went out to El Yunque. This is the only tropical rain forest in the US. It was amazing. I've never driven though anything like it before. My favorite part was all the bamboo. I don't think I've ever seen bamboo growing in the wild. It was pretty exciting for me. You know, I'm pretty simple to amuse. :)

We went out and hiked to a waterfall and then continued up (off the trail) along the river. It was fun.


You should watch the video: I swung from a vine over a river just like Tarzan. It was awesome.

Puerto Rico

Woohoo! I love this island! I've only been here a week but it is quickly becoming one of my favorite islands. The people here are great, the energy level is high, and the island is beautiful.

I've been working a lot, but I just went and explored Old San Juan yesterday. I'll post a video on YouTube shortly, but here are some pics to start out with.





This is El Castillo San Felipe del Morro (watch my video about it):







And this is my apartment. Pretty sweet, huh? :)

NYC Update!

Hey Everybody,

I'm just sitting here in my apartment trying to stay out of the slush and it occurred to me that I never told you about the final decisions regarding our Greece/Turkey trip in March. Well, you know how the news does the New York Minute? Well here's a New York Update in under a minute (as long as you can read faster than me).

We couldn't make Turkey and Greece work. Sad, huh? :*(

So we're going to Italy instead. :) I'm so excited. It will be 7 of us all together. Five from the original Europe trip (five years ago - oh my gosh has it really been that long?) and then two husbands. They're cool too, and we're all really tight, so it'll be a great trip. We'll be spending two weeks there, starting March 15 and going through to the 31st. We start in Milan and go up to Lake Como, then down through Cinque Terre to the Amalfi Coast (Positano, yay!) all the way down to Sicily and back up to Rome. I am so excited to get back to Italy I can't even tell you.

Also, there are several store openings in the works. I'll let you know about them as soon as I know for sure.

And that's all the time we have for today folks, tune in next week for more exciting adventures! :P

Top of the Rock

I don't care if you're a tourist or a local, you need to go to the observation deck at Rockefeller Center. It's called the Top of the Rock and it's amazing. This was my second time up, Isa's first. We went up for sunset tonight. No lines. No waiting. I love New York in January. :)





They also added a very cool room with lights that can sense where you are and they follow you around. Here's a little clip so you get the idea, but you seriously just need to go see it for yourself.

Road Trip for Selena

Florida is LONG!!

So my friend Selena dances (well, danced) at Disney World in the Animal Kingdom. This weekend was her last performance. She sent out a blog and invited anybody in the area to come see her dance and also go to her house afterward for a party. And I thought, 'Hey, I'm in Florida. I'm 'in the area.' I should go!' So I committed. It wasn't until I was planning out the hours that I realized just how far that was. It took me about 8 hours to drive it. Eight hours!! Going up wasn't that bad since I was excited to see her and her show. I really didn't want to leave though.

It's funny to think about that if I were in New York, and she was performing in DC, I never would have driven down because DC is SO far away from New York. But in actuality it's only about 4 hours. Half the trip! But because we were in the same state, my mind just assumed it was in "the same area." haha

Well I'm so glad I went. The show was absolutely incredible. Selena was amazing. She got us backstage to meet the cast:

They actually brought me out on stage for part of the show. I loved it!! The party was super fun too and their house was unbelievable.

I borrowed Adam's camera and I also used some footage from Selena's dad's camera to make a video:

Happy New Year

I'm in Key West, which is apparently the third largest gathering for New Year's in the US (behind NYC and Vegas). I don't doubt it. There were a ton of people on Duval St. last night. It was insane. Instead of a ball that drops, they lower a drag queen in a ruby slipper at midnight. Unfortunately, I am sans camera. I broke it in St. Thomas. :*(

I'm using my new Blackberry (I got the Storm just before I left for St. Thomas - it's touchscreen and very cool) to take pictures and video, but it doesn't hook up to my Mac (seriously Blackberry, what's up with that?) so I can't get them to you very easily. If I figure it out later, maybe I'll come back here and put up some pics or something, but honestly, I doubt it.

So if you want to see the craziness, just google Duval St and look at pictures. Know that the pictures will probably not be safe for children.

Oh, funny story. So the other day I was at the grocery store and the checkout person was a drag queen. So he/she checks me through, and as I get my bags I notice that none other than Elvis was behind me. So I stopped and stared for a minute as Elvis bought his groceries from a drag queen - Only in Key West.