Almost ready for my SE Adventure!

I am getting sooooo excited!  I love it when a plan comes together!!   My holiday is just over 3 wks away and I've already started packing - pretty much unheard of as I'm usually still doing laundry an hour before I'm due to leave for the airport!!

Anyway, all the various components of my holiday are coming together nicely.  I think I realised a few weeks ago what an endeavour this adventure is - triggering a mild anxiety attack right after I got back from Cyprus!  Actually more things to think about than I'd probably anticipated but I've made good progress in the last couple of weeks and think things are almost there!

So, flight is booked - 22hrs via Seoul (ugh!) but at least business class with Korean Air (huzzah!).  Vietnamese and Cambodian visas obtained and passport back in my possession in record quick time (thanks, Pfizer travel desk!).  Life insurance (in case I get squashed by an elephant or other Asian hazard) - done.  Travel insurance almost done (still farting about shopping for policies!).   Hotel for extra 2 nights in Saigon - booked.  Hotel for extra 2 nights in Bangkok - booked.   Transfers to and from the airports - reserved.  Cycling gear (shorts, shoes, shirts, gloves, socks, helmet) tried on and bought (padded shorts are deeply deeply unattractive!).  Only one more pair of gloves plus SPD cleats and pedal set left to get.  I'm deliberately packing light (as they helpfully reminded me in the pre-departure briefing document, its a cycling holiday, not a fashion parade!) as i'm sure there will also be lots of great stuff (silks etc) to buy whilst I'm out there!

So really, I think I'm pretty much done.  I've been training like a nutcase recently (although for some unknown reason its been a very slow week for me so far this week), so hopefully I'm not going to be the unfittest person there!  All i've got to do now is try and get through the next 3 weeks at work, try and remain focused on what I'm doing whilst attempting to contain my excitement!!  

Back home - to a surprise gift!!

So now back home in Manhattan, refilling my lungs full of fresh city air, after a lovely weekend with the gang.  Today we got up around 8am (after a night's sleep disturbed by a chirping smoke detector) and, after a little light yoga stretching to wake my body up, Iain and Rachel cooked an ENORMOUS English brekkie for everyone.  I was uber-healthy and stuck to my nice and clean oatmeal - yum!  After breakfast, we wandered into town for a mosey round - I bought a ceramic red apple for the kitchen (perfect for putting my brillo pads in!) and Rachel splurged and bought an etching (bargain at $900!).  After a soy cappuchino in town, we then headed back to the house to check out and head back to Manhattan.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous - beautifully clear and sunny, so the drive back through the Catskills was stunning, with the vibrant colours of the autumn leaves on the trees.  Felt a bit sad driving past Woodstock but I guess to be a little expected, so I'm not going to give myself a hard time or get too wrought up.

So got home about 7pm to find that the boys had accidently locked themselves in my bedroom.  God knows how long they'd been in there but i'd wager quite a while, by the squeakiness of their meows and how pissed off they were.  Dozy sods - I guess I'm going to have to start wedging the bedroom door open now too.   Started my unpacking (both from the weekend and from Cyprus!) and found that the little darlings had peed in my suitcase.  Oh joy.  But I guess it could have been worse - at least they hadnt peed on the bed.  So I chucked out the clothes they'd peed on and counted myself lucky (perfect excuse to replace my semi-knackered suitcase anyway!).  Then re-counted as I discovered that they had, indeed, peed on the bed.  Oh double joy.  So now I'm sleeping on the blow-up bed in the lounge until I can buy some pet urine remover tomorrow - I just hope it works as replacing the mattress will turn this into a very expensive little weekend getaway!!!  *sigh* 

Friends, frolics and giant marshmallow yoga in the Catskills!

So, no sooner have I got back from Cyprus, then am off again - this time for a weekend with friends in the Catskills! There are 6 of us (5 girls and 1 guy - brave soul!) and we've rented this amazing place called Turquoise Barn for the weekend. Its about 3hrs drive from Manhattan (I drove this enormous tan caravan thing but managed not to crash into anything!) and is in the heart of the forest, so we're surrounded by beautifully coloured autumnal trees.

We arrived last night around 5pm after a fairly easy drive up (although Iain and Mandeep got a bit lost in their car!) and Michelle, the owner of the place, met us and showed us around. Its absolutely gorgeous with more space than any of us know what to do with, and is all beautiful wood and rusticness! There's a river and little lake out back (along with a meditation hut - alas, a bit chilly to use right now though!) and this morning, was all covered in a thin layer of frost and looked stunning, with the mist rising up from the ground.

This morning, after Iain manfully chopped more firewood, we headed into the nearby town of Delhi for coffee, breakfast and to buy food for supper tonight. Afterward, we came back to the barn, vegged out for a bit reading the papers before finally rousing our lazy arses to go for a walk along the river. Was a bit of a slog through the quarry and overgrowth first, but we finally found the trail and ambled along quite happily for an hour or so. Found some humungous bales of something whilst walking through this corn field, thus prompting some spontaneous giant marshmallow yoga by Rach, Iain and Mandeep!