Legally Blonde's Proceedings

As you probably noted, I have a new look around here.  I'd like to say I was just ready for a refresh and ready to start re-blogging on the regular, but that's not the case.  Here's what happened: I went to log on to my blog this morning to look for something and this is what I saw I thought I had been hacked by some sort of ransom virus or something.  I looked into it further, and I sort of had.  Not an illegal virus, but I guess the cute images that I had on my blog header, sidebars, etc. had been saved on photo bucket.  Now photo bucket had decided that I needed to pay them $399.99 a year for them to house my images and post them on a 3rd party site.  Yeah.  No.   Not going to happen.   They also seem to be holding my images hostage until I pay up, so they are basically gone forever.  Luckily, I had this on one of my instagram posts and while I could use it in a header as an image from my computer, I just decided to go with ...

A few months ago, I got a coupon code for Hello Fresh, and I decided to try it out ( I'm giving you the same coupon at the bottom of this post! ).  I had heard dozens of advertisements for similar food services, like Blue Apron, and even trashed a ton of coupons for BA because their menus didn't really appeal to me.  When I check out Hello Fresh, their menus seemed much more to my taste, and it has quickly turned into my newest favorite thing. A little about my food situation:  I don't mind cooking, but I don't do so well when it comes to planning and shopping.  And if I need to thaw out something to cook, like chicken breasts, etc., well, there is a 98% chance I will forget to do that.  I also tend to buy too much food at the store, and end up with lots of waste.   Basically, Hello Fresh solves all of these problems for me.  They send me 3 meals on Mondays.  My Hello Fresh box includes every thing I need to cook the meals except olive oil...

I'm certainly no expert, but when people inquire about how I plan my trips, they always seem shocked that I do all the planning myself.  I don't book the trips through an organized tour, and I don't use a travel agent.  I do enjoy planning trips, and I know everyone doesn't, but it doesn't always require hours and hours of planning, and I think it is easy for everyone to do. I've written before about some tools I use for planning trips, so if you want to check that post out, you can click HERE . Where are you going? First step, is figuring out where you want to go.  This also will require figuring out how long you can be gone.  I always have a running list of vacation itineraries in my head, but if you don't, then a good place to start is by looking at a map.  I also will google train travel times from one location to the next to figure out destinations.  I think this is also where guidebooks and pinterest can come in handy...you can find gr...

I have blogged many posts about my travels, and for ease, I'm putting links to the the various trips here in case you want to access them (just click on each "day"): Italy (2016-2017) Milan (Day 1) Florence (Day 2) Florence- Siena, San Gimignano, & Chianti (Day 3)  Florence (Day 4) Venice (Day 5) Venice (Day 6) Venice-Milan (Day 7) London, Prague, Vienna, Budapest (2015) London Day 1 in Prague  Day 2 in Prague Vienna  Day 1 in Budapest  Day 2 in Budapest  Montreal & Quebec City (2016) Montreal (Day 1) Montreal (Day 2) Ile D'Orleans (Day 3) Quebec City (Day 4) Quebec City (Day 5 & 6) London & Brussels (2014) Day 1- Harrods, Earl's Court, Hotel Information Day 2, part 1- Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Borough Market Day 2,part 2- Millennium Bridge, Westminster Abbey, The London Eye Day 3- Highclere Castle (aka: Downton Abbey), Natural History Museum Day 4- Brussels, Belgium Day 5-Portobel...

The last full day of my vacation was on January 5th.   I spent a few hours in Venice before my 10:50 train out of Venezia San Lucia to Milano Centrale.  I went to St. Mark's Square first thing just to take in the sights of Venice one last time without crowds... A classic Venice scene... The day before I made sure I could find the taxi dock where I arrived, and I even walked down there to make sure taxis were available.  The day before there were 4 or 5 docked there.   That morning when I needed one, there were none.  Of course! I went to the end of the dock and tried to flag down some that I saw driving by.  I guess they don't do that?  Because they all looked at me like I was deranged.   I yelled over at some Gondoliers and asked how to get a taxi.  They suggested I walk to San Mark's Square dock.  I could do that, but I had luggage, and the streets are not great for rolling luggage, plus you factor in all the ...