2 posts tagged “travel”

The honey and I have been trying to plan our 2008 vacation for some time. The current plan for our week-long trip is Playa del Carmen! I've read that it's a lot less commercial than Cancun, and I've always wanted to visit the Mayan ruins, since I studied them in college as an anthropology major. Here are the things that sound really fun:

• Mayan ruins - I read that Chichen Itza is a better visit than Tulum if you only have time for 1
• cavern diving
• trip to an eco-park (Xcaret or Xel Ha?)
• swim with dolphins
• nightlife - I read about some nightclub in a cavern in Playa del Carmen, that sound cool
• and plenty of beach-lounging

Based on a Frommer's guide, we're thinking about staying at the Shangri-La Caribe. We're planning on going in November for 7-8 days.

So, neighbors, have any of you been to Playa del Carmen or Cancun?  Do you have any recommendations, must-sees, "don't"s, etc.?  Thanks in advance!

P.S. I am hoping my work sends me to Tokyo in July and Amsterdam in September (and the honey and I are dying to visit Tokyo and some friends in Okinawa)... more on this later!

Howdy ho neighbors,

I've returned from my 9-day excursion to Barcelona, Spain. What a ride. I went for work -- to attend and work at my company's biggest trade show, Mobile World Congress.

MWC was a unique show to attend. Everyone in the industry attends. Which means that at any given time, there are about four languages being spoken in our booth. Pretty cool. You really meet people from all over the world, which to me (a former anthropology major) was the funnest part. I got to hang out with my co-workers from France, Germany and Finland. They always teach me a few phrases in their respective languages so I'm building up quite a vocabulary. We also did 2 major annoucements, including a hardware device we released. It's about the size of a matchbox, and it turns any Wi-Fi enabled phone into a mobile TV phone. You just put it in your pocket, and it receives and transcodes mobile TV signals, and sends them wirelessly to any WiFi device (laptop, PMP, phone, etc.). We demonstrated it on an iPhone.

The trip was also a terrific chance to bone up on my Spanish. I was a Spanish minor in college, and took 7 years of it. I have lost a lot of it, but by the end of the week I was holding pretty decent conversations in Spanish. I would love to go live in Spain for at least a few months some day.

I'm planning on posting some photos later on once I've got them off my camera. Here are some trip highlights:

• La Sagrada Familia -- The single most amazing thing I've ever seen. I've never seen a more inspired piece of architecture, something that draws forth so much emotion. Increible. I spent hours there and could have spent all day, just absorbed in it.
• Coffee -- it's hard to find a bad cup of coffee in Barcelona, even in places like the airport.
• Speaking with people from all over the world

And finally, coming home to my honey was nice. He's a real romantic. He planned a spa day for us yesterday... complete with couples massage, champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. It was soooo nice.

Trade show season is soon, thankfully, coming to a close. I've got one more big show in Vegas in 6 weeks, and then we get the summer off and I can return to my normal pace of work. Ah. And then maybe I can actually see my friends!