How to prepare yourself for a city trip

Most of you guys that I’m off to my 3 cities adventure in the States soon, this Friday actually. Whenever I go to a city, I prepare myself, find out more and kind of make a list of what to do. I did exactly that for this trip as well, especially for NYC and Chicago, cause I kind of have my own personal tour guide in Dallas. Well anyway, I thought I’d show you what I do to prepare myself and also what I bring on a trip like that.

Let’s start with the preparation.

I booked all three hotels over a booking website online. I usually use ebookers.com, the Swiss version of course, the NYC hotel I booked with expedia.ch, because the had the better deal. While booking, I of course looked at the price, the room and also the location. I wanted to be very central for both NYC and Chicago to be able to go shopping, sightseeing and also be close to broadway shows or hockey stadiums ;). In Dallas I’m out of downtown because I will be close to my lovely second momma, she’ll basically be my driver and recommended the hotel. You will be able to see all that in the vlogs and blog posts about my trip.

After about a month, maybe a bit more, I emailed all three hotels, asking for a confirmation and a quiet room. It just makes me feel more secure and I know that I have a place to sleep at.

Then I bought a travel guide for NYC, one for Chicago, a travel magazine for NYC and then little bits and bobs for all three cities from magazines, the internet and other sources. I don’t have a lot for Dallas, since I my personal tour guide there. I actually love travel guides, it’s the perfect way of discovering places you want to go see and decide on what you want to do. Travel guides are full of useful ideas, they cover all sections: walks, food, shopping, nights out, popular places and other info on public transport and things you shouldn’t do. I always take out the map and circle the hotel. Then I go and circle the places I wanna go visit. With that I get a good overview. You can say now that it’s easier to have a map on your phone. Yes that’s true and I will have that. But I just prefer the old-fashioned way. In addition to the travel guides and magazines I also surf on the internet and ask my friends. With all that I put together I list, also of things that make sense doing on the same day. I won‘t make a list of days, that I will decide when I’m there. Certain things depend on the weather, so I will be spontaneous.

All there cities have hockey teams and as a big fan it’s a must. So what I did was of course looking at their schedules and booking tickets. I will see Tampa Bay Liughtning play the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden and in Dallas I will see the Nashville Predators vs the Dallas Stars. 

In the same areas are Musicals. NYC has the Broadway, so there is another must. I will go see School of Rock and Fun Home. 

Part of the preparation is also making sure how you will handle the money thing. How much money will you bring and what will you pay with your credit card?!

On we move to part two, what you need on a city trip:

-       Sneakers/trainers: Comfy shoes are the key! You will walk around a lot and you want to be comfortable.

-       Medium sized and handy handbag: When you’re in a city you need certain things so a small one would be too small. It also has to be a comfy one, not that your back hurts after an hour.

-       Sunglasses: A must on a sunny day!

-       Camera: to vlog and take pictures!

-       Phone: Photos, maps, texting etc.

-       Tissues: You never know, how clean a toilet is.

-       Water: Drinking water regularly is important.

-       Granola bars: It doesn’t necessarily have to be granola bars, but little snacks for when your hungry are always handy.

-       Umbrella: Depends on the weather of course.

-       Money

-       Most important make-up bits and little mirror

-       Pain killers, if needed. I also have my homeopathic globuli close by.

-       Maps, travel guide.
-    Portable charger. Perfect for traveling. 

I think that’s pretty much it. I could add more, but I have mentioned the most important things. I feel that it is important to take regular breaks, eat and drink and sometimes a little nap or a relaxing hour in the hotel room can do wonders.

I have to more travel related posts coming up, before I leave. One about my hand luggage and one about long haul flights. 

Ticino and Italia 2014

So last week I finally had a week off. I took the chance and went tot he Italian part of Switzerland with my mum. I love it there, the atmosphere is different and it gives my the holiday feeling.

We left on Wednesday morning. From our house it’s about a 2 h 15 min drive to Lugano, that’s where our hotel was. The hotel is called Continental and it’s just next tot he station there. It’s beautiful, surrounded by trees, with a nice park and a pool. The weather wasn’t too good on Wednesday, mostly cloudy, I was surprised to see the sun at some point. We walked down to the city, had lunch and then we went shopping. There are a lot of really expensive stores in Lugano (Hermes, Gucci etc.), so not really for me, but the there is „Massimo Dutti“ my fave ever. It’s so my style and I could spend hours in this shop, like I did in Riga ;). And guess what, of course we were in there for a long time and I tried on so many different things. I bought some of them and kept the others in mind, just in case… ;)

Then we had coffee and walked around a bit more, looking for a good restaurant to eat dinner. That wasn’t easy and we ended up in a weird place, leaving again with a lame excuse. But then we found a god restaurant.

The second day meant Como, Italy, for us. I love this city, it’s sweet, small and cosy. Our GPS took us to the right parking area and we were ready to explore. Driving in Italy is always a bit of a thing, but we managed. Of course we went through the shops again, but weirdly enough there was nothing, I didn’t buy a thing… For lunch we went to our favourite restaurant, I had some nice vitello with mushrooms and polenta, oh my was that delicious…

Whenever we go to Italy, we go food shopping in a big supermarket to get all this special Italian food, so of course we spent about 2 hours in there getting pasta, olive oil etc. In the shopping centre there was also a shoe store, my mum found some great shoes there, I wanted to buy some as well, but with my tony feet that’s so difficult.

We spent the evening in our hotel room with beer, olives and The Voice of Germany.

On Friday we went down to Massimo Dutti again and I bought the other things as well, I couldn’t resist ;). Then it took us on the road again. This time to Ascona. My favourite place in the Ticino. We had lunch in our osteria, walked around for a bit and then enjoyed the nice sunshine at a bar by the lake with a nice summer drink. Finally some summer feeling in the middle of October. We left Ascona and drove to Locarno to have dinner there, just one word: yummy!

For the last day we decided to go to Ponte Tresa. That’s a Swiss and Italian city, so half half. They have a nice market on Saturday, so we took the train there and went through this market, bought some fresh vegetables and guess what?! Yes, shoes for me, I found some shoes!!! After lunch, going through the stores and a coffee outside in the sun, we took the train back to Lugano, where we enjoyed an hour by the pool, on a sunlounger with a book. The weather was

perfect… and it was the perfect end to my short holidays…

FLORIDA

I’m a little excited about this post to be honest. I love Florida and the holidays there are the best.

Epcot Center

The first time I travelled to this beautiful state, was in 1991, when I was 2 years old. Let’s just say I don’t remember much. Apparently I’ve also been to Key West, there is no proof for that though ;).

Around the age of 7 we’ve been to Florida three years in a row. Of course we visited Orlando with the Disney World, Epcot Center and Sea World. Most of your time we spent in Siesta Key in an apartment at the sea. The beach there is so gorgeous and the sand: WOW. It’s the whitest sand on earth!!! The sunsets at this beach are stunning. Siesta Key also meant visiting Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, St. Armands Key and more...

Siesta Key

In 2009 we finally returned and I was over the moon when we booked everything. We passed the first three days in Orlando, went to the Epcot Centre, to different shopping malls and to Cape Canaveral. That was awesome. We stayed at a great hotel and also spent some time at the swimming pool.

Then your journey took us to Siesta Key, yay! The beach, sunshine, beautiful sunsets, BBQ at the beach, shopping and so much fun!!!

The men in our group also went to a NHL game of Tampa Bay Lightning. I wasn’t very interested in ice hockey back then, so I didn’t go. Tampa and St. Petersberg are great as well.

A day trip took us to Sanibel Island and Captiva Island. These two island are beautiful and the perfect place for a beach wedding.

Speaking of wedding, we were kind of part of a wedding at the beach, because a couple married at the beach of our apartment. That was really interesting ;).

I can’t wait to get back to Florida, it became a second home to me and I really hope I can return next year. Then I’m also planning to spend some time in Miami and Key West (thank you Paige Toon for introducing it to me).

Riga 2014 - World Choir Games and more...

It all started July 10th in the morning. My mum and I met my friend Laura and our friend Barbara at the train station in Zug and we drove to the airport. Laura and Barbara are both in the choir as well and we decided to go to Riga a bit already to have time to explore the city. Check-in was fast, we went through security, got a coffee and boarding had already started at the gate. It took us 2 h 30 min to fly to Riga, we even flew over the ocean, it was beautiful.

After leaving cold and rainy Switzerland it was great to land in warm sunshine. I think it took us about 15 minutes to get out of the airport, we wanted to take a Taxi into town to the hotel. That’s where it started. We had a voucher for the taxi and the driver tried to load four suitcases into the back of the car, the last one didn’t fit, so he said: “Next car”, we were already sitting in the car, my mum was outside, the suitcase as well. He just wanted to drive off, so we took the forth case on our knees in the back of the car. We were just glad when we finally arrived in Riga, that guy was so rude and unfriendly (Russian).

Our hotel was located in the middle of the Old Town, a beautiful building with a great restaurant and awesome rooms. Ours was even spread on two floors and we had a kitchen in it. After a bit of relaxing and unpacking we went to explore the old town. There are so many cute squares with bars and restaurants with so much charm, but some of them are also tourist traps ;). We got an antipasti plate and omg… not really my taste. The big river in Riga is called Daugava, the atmosphere there is amazing, especially towards the evening when the sun is setting, this doesn’t happen for a long time in Riga. It’s only getting dark towards 11 pm. At the river you can see the National Library, this building is very interesting and modern. The different bridges are also worth seeing. We had dinner at a restaurant called “1221” and it soon became our favourite. The food was awesome and the dessert and drinks, wow!!!

The next day we did a “Hop On Hop Off” tour to get an overview of the whole city. We saw all the main sightseeing spots. After having lunch and some doing shopping at the Galeria Centrs we went to the parks around the Opera. The gardens are beautiful and we discovered a little canal, so cute, with little Latvian boats. Our stroll took us to the Freedom Monument and than to one of the stages of the World Choir Games just next to the Russian Orthodox Church. We listened to some of the choirs before visiting the church. The cathedral is beautiful inside and outside. Then we were hungry and thirsty again, so we went up to the Skyline bar. The view up there is breath-taking. You can see the whole city with the old down and the bridges, so beautiful. After that we went to another shopping centre, but the stores there were really weird, so we walked back and had dessert at our restaurant.

On Saturday we went to a big shopping centre called “Stockmann” and another one just next to it. After that we were really exhausted and that meant coffee and lemonade. I never had a better lemonade in my life, so fresh with limes and peppermint, really good. We walked to a cute little “shopping mall”, but they only had weird stores, so we just had some typical Latvian desserts and left for our Opera tour. On the way we were able to listen to an amazing choir from South Africa, it was BRILLIANT!!

The Opera is beautiful, but our tour guide was not good at all. She only memorised her sentences in English, when someone asked a question she couldn’t answer.

After that we had dinner a “late” dinner at our hotel, it was delicious and they had a self-made fresh Ice Tea, it was yummy!

For Sunday we decided to go to a shopping centre a little out of town. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling to well and couldn’t really enjoy it. After about three hours I felt okay again and we went back to the Old Town to have lunch in a cute little restaurant. We went back to the Massimo Dutti store in Galeria Centrs, they have great things and we wanted to have another look. On the way back to the hotel we met the first members of our choir and listened to another choir from Ohio. Together with our choir members we went to get a drink and suddenly we met more and more of them and they joined us. We had so much fun. Dinner took us back to “1221” and then back to our room, where we watched the World Cup finale, with my friend supporting Argentina and me supporting Germany. And I won!!!! J

Monday we finally made our trip to Jurmala, a small village about 30 minutes from Riga at the beach. We

took the train to the last station and then also saw the river Lielupe. We sang a song called like that in the competition. Then we walked to the beach and wow it’s beautiful. The sand is really fine and it was really peaceful. We walked along the coast until we saw green parasols. They belonged to the Baltic Beach Hotel with its Baltic beach club.  That meant time for a drink, an Ice Tea specifically. It was nice just to sit there and relax just next to the beach. We also wanted to have a look at the village, one street actually, but we were really disappointed and went back to the beach, walked and then

had lunch at the Baltic beach club again. Then we just relaxed and went into the water with our feet ;). In the evening it was time to meet a friend who arrived just that day. We showed him the city and the skyline bar.

On Tuesday we explored the parts of the Old Town we didn’t see yet and then went to the famous Central Market, they had fresh fruit, vegetables and much more. However, there were too many people, so we went to have some coffee, crepes and lemonade. Then we finally did our canal tour and we saw a lot. It was great to see all these sights from a different perspective. After that it was the official start of the World Choir Games with a parade. All the nations walked in it and it was great to see so many different choirs. The music was the same all the time, I really couldn’t hear it anymore at the end. In the morning we heard it already and we had fun dancing and posing to it (see the umbrella pics). In the evening “1221” had us and some of our choir friends back, we also got an official World Choir Games badge.

On Wednesday we really had to get up early to meet the whole choir for rehearsals and checking the singing locations. It was an exhausting morning, so we went back to the hotel before the first performance, had

lunch, slept and changed into our choir wardrobe. The first competition we had was in a church, the category was called “Musica sacra accapella”, it went really well. Then we had a rehearsal again and another competition where we sang Lielupe and a song we accompanied with glasses. It went really well, even better than the first one. We were all so happy and went for some drinks, the last drink we took on the terrace of “1221”, such a cute little place.

We slept in on Thursday and then went to the Occupation museum and then had crepes, lemonade and coffee again, at the same places we had them before. In the St. Peter’s Church we listened to some choirs and talk to other Swiss choirs. Then we had a tour around the Old Town with some of our choir members. It was really interesting and we discovered some places we didn’t know about. In the evening we had dinner with the whole choir in a really crowded and loud place. The only thing we wanted to do is leave. We ate and sang and there were two Chinese children’s choirs there, they were so happy when we sang, such cute reactions. I went for drinks with my two closest choir friends after that and somehow the whole choir ended up there. We danced and had a lot of fun. Let’s just say we went to bed really early.

On Friday we went to listen to some of the competitions. The music in the first one was a bit depressing, so we changed locations and listened to the category “Popular Choral Music”. We heard the best and the worst choirs just after each other. After lunch at the hotel we went to get some typical Latvian presents for our conductor and president and then it was time for our first award ceremony in the evening. For that we had to go to the Arena in Riga. Diplomas were handed out in the Open Competition and Medals in the Champion Competition. We competed in the open one and won gold in the Musica sacra category. We were so happy and of course went celebrating.

The second award ceremony was Saturday morning and we won silver!!! :) After the ceremony we went into the city and just sang on the Dome square, it was great. In

the afternoon we went to the Champions Concert to listen to the best choirs. It was absolutely amazing. Of course we ate at our restaurant again and then went to the Closing Ceremony in the Evening. It was marvellous, the atmosphere was unbeatable and we were just singing! We also exchanged contact emails with our two choir assistance girls and some other, I really hope I’ll see them again. Of course we went celebrating again after that.

Not for too long though, cause mist of us had to be at the airport be 8 am the next morning.

At the airport they told us that your suitcases wouldn’t make it to Zurich with us. We were shocked. Only in Zurich they told us why and we had to fill out forms to get them. They arrived Tuesday night. It was so weird; always when I needed something I remembered that it is in my suitcase, oh well…

I also bought some postcards in Riga, but I didn’t have time to write them there, so I wrote them here and send them from here. I also didn’t have time to read, I read on the way and back in the plane and that’s it. I missed it and blogging as well, but I had an amazing time and came back with great memories. The Latvians are really friendly and open. We had some rude meetings, but that was mostly with Russians. And one of the portieres in the hotel was really cute… ;)

If you happen to travel to Riga once, go try the Garlic Bread, it's delicious!!!

I've created a pinterest board with all the pictures, have a look here: http://www.pinterest.com/simonaelenasky/riga-2014/