Flight Strategies

Flight Strategies

Interesting! I ran across this interview* with travel expert Ben Schlappig today - even though not all of the tips suit our style, there are (at least) three cheap flight strategies that will probably work for us:
1) Start your trip somewhere else! Ben Schlappig calls it "positioning" - find a cheap city to fly from/to, then fly there. His example is round trip Cairo-NYC to save 90% off the reverse. Ours is Oakland-Stockholm to save more than 50%. Lucky for us, we stumbled onto this idea - but he has expanded it from a simple concept to a whole new level!
2) Patch together flights - get from one continent to another, then use local airlines to get to specific places within that continent. This is exactly what we're doing for our upcoming trip - and even with baggage and other fees, our flights add up to less than half of what our traditional method would have been.
3) I knew about airline hubs, but I had the strategy completely backwards! He says to yes, use a hub, BUT! When flying OUT of Airline X's hub, use Airline Z instead! "...the key is to fly an airline out of the city where they don't have much of a presence."

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* read the interview here: http://www.vice.com/read/how-to-travel-the-world-first-class-when-youre-broke
see his blog here: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com

Downtown Groceries!

There's a lot to like about living in Downtown Albuquerque; it's just a short walk to all sorts of places - the library, restaurants, pubs, and government buildings (with plenty of public art on the way)! But until yesterday, no grocery store!

Today, we walked to the new Silver Street Market (less than 10 minutes) to check it out and buy a few necessities.

Everyone was friendly, and obviously excited about their neighborhood grocery store - in a few short minutes, we knew about the suggestion box and several ideas about a store bag in the works. A few more minutes of browsing told us that some of our usual items were cheaper than at Sprout's, and some items were more than at Smith's (both are quite a drive for us). Selection is generally reasonable; some things we hoped to find were not stocked. There are meat and deli sections, but no manned counters. The fresh bread sure looked good!

One very pleasant surprise was this!

I hadn't seen Badia spices since Costa Rica (yes, I had a sudden flood of good memories)!

Back to Work?

Here's where I've been working for the past 2 weeks:

It's not a bad commute, and the hours are pretty sweet (9:30 - 11:30). But, I never know if I have to work until 3:30 on the afternoon before. And there's not a whole lot to do once I'm there - I generally chat with my coworkers, read, do Italian lessons, and surf the net a bit. I get paid, but wow! I can't remember the last time I earned (earned? Hmm) less than minimum wage.

Is this the ideal job? Or one version of hell? Limbo?

Jury duty - and my certificate to prove it :-)

Flor de Itabo to Yucca

When I lived in Costa Rica, I was happily introduced to Flor de Itabo. "In season," the flower stalks are sold in ferias and roadside stands - virtually none make it to the grocery stores (they are snapped up before they can get there). I wrote a couple of posts about the plant:
- Flor de Itabo
- Tropical Chicken Lasagna

Now, here I am in New Mexico, and I'm experiencing a sort of déjà vu! I keep  seeing the flowers, but they're on the wrong plant! Well, I finally looked it up...

Itabo is also known as "Yucca Gigantea" - a type of yucca that is native to Central America :-\
The edible flower (for all yucca, I think) is called "izote."  It is not only the national flower of El Salvador, but it is also the state flower of New Mexico!  But here, it is simply designated "yucca flower"...

Here is another yucca (from California). Before I looked this stuff up, I labeled it a  Flor de Itabo...

My Day in Italian

Oggi, ho compiuto pulire la casa ed ho spostato il letto, la lampada, e la seggiola in camera. Poi sono andata alla biblioteca, l'AAA per il mio patente di guida internazionale, e sono andata di tutto i negozi per comprare altri camicie (ho trovato solamente una!). E, ho controllato la casella postale.

^ Looks impressive, doesn't it? (You should hear me say it!) :-)
Doing it? Well: Today, I finished cleaning the house and rearranged the bedroom. Then I went to the library, AAA for my international driver's license, and I went to all the stores to buy more shirts (I only found one). And, I checked the mail.

This is what a 42-day streak on Duolingo will do for you (and it's fun).

Meanwhile, I've been watching Italian movies:
Gamorrah (2008), Garrone
Il Divo (2008), Sorrentino
Caesar Must Die (2012) doc'y
The Postman (1994), Radford
Cinema Paradiso (1988), Tornatore

And reading Italian-themed books

Can you say "can't wait?" (Non vedo l'ora)

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Oops! I had some errors, and had to fix my Italian! I forgot that andato takes essere. And I may still have to change tutto :-\