Little Black Guidebook

We all live in a yellow submarine… this song is so stuck in my head now. Via Black Eiffel.

^{Photo by Emiliano Granado}

Look at the photo. Those pants don’t look like travel pants do they? They certainly don’t look like bike pants. They don’t zip off and you wouldn’t think she was going hiking in a few minutes would you? But they shed rain and dirt, dry fast and resist wear and tear which makes them perfect travel pants.

I know they cost an arm and a leg, but pants I can wear to work, a meeting with a button down shirt, walking around and still sink-wash and dry-overnight might just be worth it. Available from Outlier for both men and women.

If you ever come to Fairbanks, Alaska for the summer solstice you’ll realize how much we love the sun when we can get it. Come back for Winter Solstice and we celebrate that too, just bundled up with lots of comfort food.

Dress up with 4,000 of us and run a 10k at the Midnight Sun Run.

Go to a baseball game at midnight.

Attend the Midnight Sun Solstice Festival for some live music and street food.

Whatever you get up to there will be light guaranteed as its 24 hrs around here now baby.

Funky, but at the same time, so chic. Via Sweet Paul.

Big Red Couch Set 1 (1 of 5), originally uploaded by DaveAustria.com.

We have one week of our Europe trip from August 11-18 where we have no plans yet. (Probably will have a car rented, oh God those poor Germans.)

We know we’ll be in Munich for most of that time, with possible side trips to visit some friends in Passau and Nurnberg in there somewhere, but for now we’re keeping things unplanned so we feel less like we’re on a strict tour of Europe and more spontaneous. This has me freaked to have no hotel plans, just a list of back-up hostels and an iPad with Wifi. Where will I sleep? A bench?! Sigh.

So I am trying to up my Couchsurfing.com cred by being a host before trying to be hosted. I have a feeling that if I was requesting someone in Munich for their couch, they’d be happier seeing I’m not some crazy person. So tomorrow I am having 3 young Chinese ladies over for two nights.

This has brought out my “I’m hosting Thanksgiving and the house must be perfect and everyone must be fed and entertained constantly or I’m a horrible person side.” I really have no idea what they expect beyond what was in my profile: a couch, pillows and their own shower.

I really don’t want to freak them out, so I have limited myself to e-mailing them a list of local events going on this weekend (Solstice baby, oh wait, that’s depressing because then we start losing light.) and cleaning the house to within an inch of its life. (What happened to Spring Cleaning?)

- Clean house
- Folder of local brochures and a list of events during their stay
- Plenty of pillows and blankets and towels
- Bus maps

Previous hosts, chime in, what else am I missing?

I prefer trains which go city center to city center, and so far haven’t rented a car in Europe. This article: Trains in Italy, no Cars Needed Here reminded me of how much I hate Italian trains (remember my Me Vs. Trenitalia.com post?). I hate booking them on their horrible website and I hate being hours late because the Italian conductor decided to take a super long coffee break in and didn’t tell us anything for hours. But would I really want to rent a car in Italy? No, that’s an even scarier thought!

So I am now somewhat more train skeptical and this fall we will be renting a car for the first time in Europe. There are just certain places that its complicated to get to using public transportation. It is possible to go Bayeux, France to Mont St. Michel by a combination of train and bus, but it costs more and takes longer than a 1 day car rental so that’s what we’re doing.

So we have a day long rental in France and I am in driving lessons again! My neighbors are scared. “There she goes again, lurching down the street with her white-knuckled friend hanging on and hoping she doesn’t kill his clutch.” Grab the children! Actually I do myself a slight diservice, I only threw him against the windshield once.

My naturally cautious nature had me smoothly and slowly letting the clutch out after only a few minutes. Now I just have to figure out how to smoothly transition between gears, both up and down so that I am not freaking out over mental checklists of procedures and can drive like a normal person. I have successfully mastered first and second gear and am now ready to leave the 15mph neighborhood and graduate to the 35 mph side streets. Watch out world, I’m going European!

Oh and for those of you going Bayeux to Mont St. Michel by public transport:

• Train Bayeux to Pontorson (book at http://www.voyages-sncf.com/), takes 1 hr 45 minutes, there were 2 trains with same day returns available for our August date), cost 20.80Euro
• Example: 09:30-11:15 (Bayeux-Pontorson) return 15:38-17:26 (Pontorson-Bayeux)
• Bus ride for the 5 miles Pontorson to Mont St. Michel, buses are coordinated with train times (times for line 6 Pontorson-Le Mont St Michel http://www.mobi50.com/, 13 minutes one way, 2.20E one way)
• Total cost for two people roundtrip = (20.80+2.20)x4=92E
• Total time on there = 3 hrs 45 minutes
• Total cost for 1 day car rental= 83.61E + gas.
• But, even though gas will eat our savings we could see something other than Le Mont St Michel that day for instance a side trip to Honfleur is now a possibility with the time saved not being forced into a particular itinerary.

Link Love: What the iPhone 4 really means for travelers.

I post this with a little guilt after having just bought an iPad.

“It means there’s yet another temptation in the world to spend some of your hard earned money on something you don’t need instead of the trip you’ve been dreaming about.”

I don’t know if I could call Paris the tea capitol of the world like the HIP Paris Blog, but it certainly has its appeal. Especially when you consider the availibility of authentic macarons to accompany the tea.

I’m putting together a list of tea places in Google maps so if I happen to pass near one of them during our 1 day in Paris this August I’ll be able to pop-in and see what all the buzz is about.

Trip to New York resulted in someone getting tea spilt all over their laptop and toasting it. (Not my fault, really!). You can’t exactly go to the IT department while traveling to get your laptop fixed, but thankfully she had her iPad with her. I think Apple sold at least 3 of those things to people in that meeting. I was amazed at the fact that they were fully functional at the meeting and the battery life of that thing. I think an iPad may be in my future. I’m tired of nursing my battery between charging it surreptitiously in airport bathrooms. I want 10 hrs of video and something super light to dump photos on when I travel.

You know what, I think I’m getting one! Now, on to bag shopping while I wait for this puppy to ship.

I want a purse/satchel, that just happens to fit my iPad. But it would be nice if hubby could carry it too without looking stupid, if it also is a stand that would be great to. Is the best iPad bag your current bag plus a sleeve? Is it really that small? I guess it breaks down into several categories.

iPad Cases/Bags by lisetiffner

This year the U.S. National Parks are offering free entrance days. Take advantage and plan a weekend adventure.

The first ones were held over National Park Week in April, and this weekend — June 5 and 6 — it continues.

For a list of the 100+ parks that are participating, check out this alphabetized list (by state).

Future Free Entrance Days this year are:

• August 14 – 15
• September 25 (Public Lands Day)
• November 11 (Veterans Day)

Of course “free” does come at a price, just like free day at the MOMA in New York there’ll be hordes of visitors. Well, maybe not in Alaska, but elsewhere. Have fun!