Tickets in Pocket

Six weeks left. Still.

We are a bit giddy these days. Jennifer made an appointment with a brick and mortar travel agent thinking we could find some great deals using a professional. Uh, that apparently doesn't happen anymore. Even with an appt. she waited half an hour only to be frustrated enough that at one point Jennifer simply asked him politely if he had even heard of the internet (after he quoted us a round trip price that was almost twice what we had found)? So we ended up jumping in ourselves and after a long evening and a great bottle of wine, we ended up purchasing all of our tickets over the internet using Orbitz, British Airways (amazingly efficient customer service), Hotels.com, and a few sites like TripAdvisor and CondeNast Traveler.

We booked our entire trip over the internet, including hotels, but we aren't leaving until Thursday, December 18th, so we will be here in the USA an extra week. No problem there. We are flexible and getting more flexible every day it seems. The trip has morphed from a straight shot from Tampa to Shanghai to what is now another adventure! We start in Tampa then fly to NYC for a long weekend at Dream, then we're breaking up the haze-inducing route by flying across the pond to spend the week of Christmas in London. I used to live in Scotland (in the early 80's!) and hit London on the weekends, but Jenn has never been so we are excited about the sites in this cosmopolitan city. After several days in London we figure we will be refreshed enough to face the last leg of our journey that takes us to Pudong airport, Shanghai, China, and an evening of luxury as we spend our first night at JW Marriott. Out of only a handful of Five-star hotels in this magnificent city, one night at JW Marriott is less than spending an evening on the Gulf of Mexico here in Clearwater, Florida in a Three-star hotel! The prices in Shanghai already have us grinning with anticipation! We just can't pass this value up for our first night in our new city.

Our other plans are coming along nicely. My last day at PricewaterhouseCoopers was last week and although I will really miss that company, this frees up some much needed time to continue to check items off our long list of things to do before leaving. We have managed to have some fun amongst the chaos over the past few weeks including seeing Games 1 & 2 of the World Series against the Phillies (Go Rays!). There was also a Halloween Party at a local South Tampa joint (Wild Wings) as well as our annual Guavaween Celebration krewe parade here in Ybor City, Tampa. This was my last parade as a member of Brigadoon and here's a toast to all my krewe members - Cheers!!

Take a look at a few pics, here

Last weekend found us at Jennifer's Mom's home down in Bonita Springs where we got to win a little $$ at the greyhound track (Win, Place or Show seems pretty easy to pick..:), and even got a day of fishing in on a perfect Saturday (thanks, Jack). After a quick drive back home Sat evening we scooted over to a house warming for my friend Brad and I even got one last round of golf in on Sunday which turned out to be embarrassing since I haven't played in several years, but catching up with friends these days is more exciting than ever.

This week finishes up with a weekend trip up to Chicago to see Jennifer's brother and his family along with her vivacious sister, Susan, and I've been promised a night of poker on the gambling boats, along with the ubiquitous xmas shopping and festivities. If you haven't been, Chicago is an impressive city and so much more so when they decorate for the Christmas season! Gorgeous.

Happy Holidays.