2012

Well, its a new year.  Time to dust off the cello.  Signed up for chamber music class once again.  Had taken the last term off due to conflicting travel schedules.  Signed up hubby as well, he needs an excuse to play the violin.

Added another FSU online class towards the MLS degree to my schedule (5 of 12 to go) -- Museum Informatics which looks like it might actually be fun -- one of the projects is building a virtual museum exhibit using Second Life.

Language studies continue -- Chinese once a week with a new friend so I don't forget what I used to know.  Adding Korean to the mix with an online Rosetta Stone course since hubby and I are going to Jeju, Gyeongju and Seoul for our twentieth anniversary May 1st.

Add accounting work for tax season, stamp club work, and  helping out the local magnet school to totally book my dance card until April 27th when I plan to run away, far away -- first Korea, then China and Mongolia.

Sounds from San Jose, Costa Rica

Visiting friends in Costa Rica for ten days. Posts are on my other blog
http://travel.galitz.com

It's a Go...

Had a slow run through with the Clarinet tonight on the first movement of the Beethoven Trio. Chamber Music Teacher gave it a green light so we will be working on it for the December recital. I had practiced the first minute (up to the F chord) at half speed using "Audacity". The F chord is a real challenge. Almost as bad as when I first learned it on the guitar.

The Guitar trio is sounding pretty good. I forgot my camera this evening or I would have recorded our "dry run". Recital is October 20th and 23rd so we have another week to tweak the dynamics, etc.

Other exciting green lights this week:

Booked 10 day trip to Costa Rica to visit a friend for Winter recess.

Booked 33 day trip to China for intensive Mandarin for June 2010.

Back in Miami

I've returned from Europe. Not quite ready to practice anything at the moment. Maybe I'll get back on track next week.

Travelogue from latest trip May 18 - June 10, 2009 Feel free to skip the narrative and just look at the photos. I am hoping to do a specialized guide for Sofia and Smolyan sometime in the near future.

A Post from Sofia

Went to my friend's daughter's school program today in Sofia. The kids performed a nice bulgarian folk dance along with poetry readings, patriotic songs, choreographed pop tunes, kung fu exhibition, american idol style solos, and a rock band.

Thanks for the Giving.

I seem to be suffering from lifestyle change. After 3 weeks of physical activity, being asleep by 8pm and eating mostly vegetarian healthy food, coming back to Miami is a shock to the system.
I've been glued to the computer and getting only about 7 hours of sleep all week.

Last night reacquainted myself with the cello by doing some sightreading.

Anyway, I've finished my travelogue. Enjoy. Feel free to skip the narrative and just look at the photos. http://www.galitz.com/2008-Peru/index.html

Wishing everyone a very happy holiday.
Marisa

Almost Time for the Big Trip

Here's the itinerary for my 25 day trip to Southern Peru. I leave Monday evening.
Unfortunately, I will be abandoning my hubby. He has fallen ill and won't be going.
Happily, another friend is coming along so I'll still have company.

Unproductive Week

Managed to accomplish almost nothing this past week. Injured my right hand, scraped it while closing a door so there was no cello practice. Client web work on hold while they rewrite all the text. Our car wouldn't start one morning as hubby left the lights on. Had AAA come and check it out. They claimed that the alternator was going bad, so took the car into the shop. One hundred dollars and 3 hours later, the shop tests come back stating that there's nothing wrong. Well, I guess spending $100 to find out there's nothing wrong beats paying $500 for a new alternator.

Booked a tour 3d/2n at Posada Amazonas, Puerto Maldonaldo, Peru for 30 Oct - 1 Nov. $279 pp. It promises to be a real jungle experience with no electricity or hot water. Rooms open into the jungle, no doors or privacy, plus the likelihood of moisture and mosquitoes. Rumors of dugout canoe trips and hiking in mud. My hubby is wondering why he signed up for this :)

Practice Week #40

Boring stats - 7 days (Sunday 6/15- Saturday 6/21)

Bow exercises 4
Bach Minuets 1
Vibrato 2
Suzuki 1
Sight reading 1

Didn't do so well this week, only got 4 days of celloing and no keyboard, two days of trying to get some web work done and a day going over Peru travel arrangements interfered. I did make it up to SMA Saturday. The interstate was still screwed up but I gave myself 90 minutes to get there this time. I was able to get off the interstate and take an alternate route after spending 1/2 hr in virtually nonmoving traffic.

Excitement for the week was finalizing my Southern Peru itinerary with friend, Rusela, and my hubby. The airfare had gone down so our tickets ended up costing $514 each which is pretty reasonable. Also booked Pay Purix hostel 3k from the airport for the days coming and going from Lima for $28 a room.

The netflix experiment has gone well. The instant video is fun but hubby is finicky and hard to please. The problem is we currently subscribe to blockbuster. Don't want to do both. May put blockbuster on hold for three months and switch back and forth with netflix for a while.

Hubby is feeling better but stamina is low. He still wants a ride to work and back. Normally, he'd take the metro. Also, South Florida has been having a lot of thunderstorms, no fun getting drenched. Still it's a dangerous commute driving the 3 miles into downtown Miami. There's always a strong chance of getting one's car bashed by some frustrated SUV.

For fun, I've been budgeting our grocery bill. Hubby tends to buy impulsively but since he's been sick, I've been in charge of getting groceries. My goal is to keep our total grocery bill under $300 a month based on this estimate: $3 a meal x 3 meals/day x 30 days = $270.

Not Miami

Scene from my sister-in-law's backyard via cell phone.

Here I am in cool, somewhat drizzly with scattered sunshine, Maryland. It's a nice break from the heat and sunshine of south Florida. Getting exercise just walking my sister-in-law's dogs up and down the hills. Yesterday was treated to some hail. I always forget how green everything is up north. Miami is so paved over.

Peru

New excitement. Friend wants to go to Peru in the fall. My husband (if he goes) wants to do a tour. I'd prefer independent travel. My friend does too! Maybe we'd do a little tour with my husband and then do the rest of the places on our own.

Another friend is willing to tutor me in Spanish since I haven't studied that language since 1976.

If anyone has been to Peru, all advice would be appreciated.

Muy bien!

Last Day of School

I didn't even bother studying for today's test in Human Growth and Development as it's all about the middle ages and old-timers. Afterwards celebrated getting an "A" in Music History Class and went out for sushi buffet lunch with a classmate and my husband.

Tonight I finished my long standing web project for a client. He wanted his website upgraded a year ago and I kept putting it off -- afterall the old one was working fine and pulling in lots of hits from google. I've been working on it on and mostly off for the past six months. Changed the site to CMS (Content Management System). I've been moving most of my clients towards this system as it allows me (or permitted users to update) their website from any internet access point.

Final recital tomorrow and then nothing till January 8th when chamber music starts up again. I'm going to start counting my cello practice in weeks instead of days. Makes more sense at this point.

Girlfriend told me her husband is skipping town for a week in mid-January, so I'll go visit her and have a mini-vacation.

My husband's Romanian stamp show in June needed booking. I found a decent hostel for $40 a night private room in the center of Bucharest. Beats paying $140 for the "official hotel". Still have to book the flights. Looks like most require TWO changes. The only ones I see that are ONE change of plane get you into Bucharest at 11pm. That's too late to arrive.

Having lots of fun with my new cellular -- got a USB cable so I could backup my contacts onto my computer and spent a long time looking for software that would work with my phone. Tonight ordered a car charger and headset. The LG Rumor LX260 phone is really nice for CNN news, google docs/maps, weather, email, blogging and photo sending, texting and facebook.

Starting reading "Water for Elephants". My sister-in-law left the book when she was here last month. It's an easy read.

I'm Back and Trip Photos Are Online

http://www.galitz.com/2007-Turkey
Hope you enjoy the pictures from our latest travelogue.
I'm off to Chicago next week.

Turkey Talk

Enjoying my first day in Cappdocia. I'll be blogging about this trip at http://travel.galitz.com

Wild Swans

Finished "Wild Swans" which was a memoir running from the turn of the century to 1990. A slow read with a lot of sad stuff. I wonder if there are any memoirs written by Chinese men. This is the third book I've read about Chinese history that was written from the women's point of view.

Working up Prior Learning Assessments towards the BA. Getting all the materials together will take time. Tomorrow, I'll take out Velina and try to get her warmed up again. Poor girl's been neglected for almost a month.

Also distracted with more travel plans. Got word from my husband that we needed to reserve the hotel for Istanbul already even though the stamp show isn't until October. That started the planning domino effect -- started making plane reservations for visiting a friend at the end of July, Baltimore for the end of August and Chicago for mid-November.

Airfare for Istanbul runs around $900. I'll have to call Amex membership rewards and see if I can get a reduced fare. I'm planning on going a few days earlier than my husband to visit Cappadocia. Its a perfect place for me to visit alone as my husband doesn't want to go into any underground cities or float in a hot air balloon.

Looked at Rosetta Stone, Lesson 1 for Turkish. It's a strange language. A few words make sense like "adam" for man, kedi (kitty), and banya. The rest I haven't been able to connect to anything yet in my head.