Ach! I really wanted today to be a triple posting day to make up for the dearth of posts over the last few days. The three posts I had in mind were: 1) Summary of Belize with Travel Tips, photos, and videos; 2) Recap of Khang and Kathryn’s wedding in Indiana; and 3) The Peruvian Preview and my Packing List (this post). (more…)
Author: apip
The Travels Continue
After getting home at about 2am last night, Sophia and I made a 3 hour drive down to UIUC in the afternoon. I’m crashing w/ our cousins Adam and Abraham, while she is staying w/ some friends from school.
Sophia really wanted to come down to hang out with her friends, and the timing worked out really well because I have Khang and Kathryn’s wedding this weekend. Urbana is pretty much the halfway point between home and New Harmony (where the wedding is), but this way I get to split the 5-6 hour drive across 2 days instead of one. Plus I now I’m not in the car on my own either.
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Last Days in Belize
I can hardly Belize that an entire week passed by so quickly. Our last two days (one full, one half) went by especially fast, with back-to-back snorkel trips (and seasickness for both me and Sophia) on one, and a full twelve hours of travel on the other. The majority of this post was composed while sitting on a turbulent airplane ride full of screaming kids traveling from IAH to ORD, so I would not be surprised if I am a bit more cynical than usual >.<. Also, I have tons of photos and videos, but will add them in a separate update because I don't have them ready for upload yet. (more…)
Lamanai Trip
We had a super long tour today to the Mayan Lamanai Ruins on the mainland. It was an hour long boat ride to the mainland, followed by an hour long bus ride, followed by another hour long river boat ride. All together, three hours one way, six hours in total. Oh yea, we also left our dock at 6:45am and didn’t get back to our room until 6:40pm >.< (more…)
Lazy Sunday
Today is pretty much the definition of a lazy Sunday (photo cred above to Anne). We’re taking a well needed break while on vacation to rest up. We spent the morning and early afternoon just hanging out at the resort while waiting for Anne to arrive—Sophia did reading for her summer classes, while I wrote the bulk of this post (which is why the tense changes below). After Anne got here, she took some time to get settled in before we went out to dinner. Immediately after getting back from eating, we took a water taxi into town and picked up little souvenirs (mostly Sophia) for friends.
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Hey Buddy
I think I have discovered my new favorite phrase. We left the dock today at 6:45am and were greeted by our tour guide Devin from Seaduced by Belize adventure tours with a cheery “Hey buddy” in a thick creole accent. I must have heard “Hey buddy”, “Yo buddy”, or just plain “buddy” about a hundred times today between all of the people we met while cave tubing and zip lining today but it never ceased to bring a smile to my face.
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It’s My Birthday
First and foremost, I want to thank everybody who has wished me a happy birthday via fb, txt, email, etc. I am truly blessed to be able to call each and every one of you a friend. Thank you for helping me celebrate the fact that I am now on the wrong side of 25 >.<;; (more…)
The Kindness of Strangers
It has been a pretty long day, and I’m almost semi-delirious while writing this post, so hopefully it’ll make sense. I feel really fortunate though because today could have been significantly longer for us if we hadn’t run into some plain ol’ good luck and benefited from some kindness of strangers.
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All Packed and Ready to Go!
The first stop on my travels is Belize. I hear it’s a fantastically gorgeous place and I can’t wait to see it myself. With beaches, coral reef, snorkel/scuba, rainforest, cave tubing, Mayan ruins, and parasailing, the itinerary for the week is looking pretty packed… but with fun and relaxing stuff. My awesome sisters got me a GoPro for my birthday, so I’m definitely excited for sharing some cool footage with everybody.
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Day Zero
Dear Friends,
Many of you already know that I recently received the opportunity to go through a real quarter life crisis, with the ending of the product line I was working on and closure of the manufacturing plant I was working at. I really loved and believed in the product I was working on, and thought the reasoning behind our closure was a bit dubious, but there isn’t much I can do about it now.
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