NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Hello Everone,
We left sunny California really early Monday morning and got on a plane headed for New York and landed right dead smack in the middle of REALITY! In California the difference in seasons are so mild that I guess I forgot that it really IS the middle of winter....but New York reminded me of that IMMEDIATELY!  It is COOOOOLLLLLLDDDD!!!  Fortunately, we are prepared and armed with lots of winter clothes, but for some reason, no matter how many layers I wear, I still am NUMB by the time we get to where we are going.  But it's New York City and staying inside is out of the question, so we put on our "suits of armor" and went out exploring. We walked down to Time Square from our hotel and ducked in and out of a few shops and cafes in between. (mainly to thaw out) and took pictures of parks and statues like real "tourists". :-)

This evening we went to see the Broadway play, "Memphis".  I heard that it was great, but it was AMAZING!! I highly recommend that everyone see it when it comes to your town, or you come here. It is an old story of two people from two different worlds who fall in love, but it is done in a very original way and it is really funny, sweet and sad all at the same time.  And it's choreographed so well, it inspired me to get out my "dancing shoes" and take lessons when I get back home.  Oh and the music is all original and is fantastic! If you love the blues like I do, you will want the soundtrack immediately after the show.

We leave here tomorrow and head to Frankfurt. But before we do, we will try and brave the cold again to get to Central Park.. pray we don't turn into Popsicles!

*For those of you who are worried about our Egypt stay, please know that we will not be going unless it is safe for us to. As it stands right now, we are not able to re-route our trip with the airline because they are so bombarded with calls. And, as most of you know, they have no Internet in their country right now so we cannot even go on the website for Egypt Airlines to find out where we can go instead.  But since we are not scheduled to be there until the end of March, we are hopeful that by then the civil unrest will be settled. And at that point, it might be a cool experience to still go... But once we know more, I will send an update.

For those of you who have asked if we won the lottery, the answer is NO! I am surprised by all the things that I have learned and am learning about planning a trip like this too. So since I realized that most of you are not married to your own personal travel agent like I am, I decided that I will share some travel tips on each blog on  "how to book a trip for less" so that each of you can start to plan your Around the World Trips too! :-)

Travel Tip #1: Travel on an "off season" it avoids crowds and prices are lower.  (Even though it will be cooooold in some places)
Travel Tip #2: Fly on a Tuesday -Thursday.
Travel Tip #3: BUT if you do fly on a Monday or Weekend, you may get a chance to volunteer to get bumped for the standby passengers.  IF you have the time, do that so you can ask for a travel voucher for an additional free flight somewhere, or a dollar amount towards a ticket (which can come in handy later in your trip)

More tips to come....

Thanks for visiting. Hope you are all well! Please feel free to write comments.

Two kisses,
Michelle