Travel Woes

The thought for today is where to travel...is familiarity and comfort more important than novel experience?

I've had this toss up before most notably in the Turtle bay vs Hong Kong debate which became a null decision since mother fell sick and had to cancel Turtle bay but the new place had won.

However this year, I did a new place and cannot say was impressed by it even though it came with many good reviews.In my life, where leave is an issue and money sometimes, it pinches to waste both on an average experience!

So the husband and his BFF and wife love Samui and thus want to go there all the time, in this case specifically for New Year's Eve! Now I loved the honeymoon and thought it had a fantastic vibe but I hate to go to the same place twice when I can try something new but was thinking, Thailand assures you of a fantastic experience and you cannot go wrong with it - whereas if I insist on someplace new for example Hampi and it does not work out, it seems to be self defeating! Also the other argument is that the value for money is much higher in a place like Thailand than anywhere in India where expensive rates are not a guarantee of good service or standard!

In other information, thanks to pinterest, I now have some very exotic locations on my to visit list.

addition # 1 Lake Bled in Slovenia - where the water is so clear, you can see under the boat!

this is a picture pinned by Lauren G which I think looks amazing....similar picture is the Hilton at Bora Bora.

addition # 2 Austria Green Lake in the Hochschwab mountains - would it not be amazing to take a break while diving and just sit on the bench waiting for you there?

Side note: ok so clearly my first time posting in this new blogger template and while it looks cleaner (much like gmail), it does feel too sanitized!

on friends

I never realised it's been almost 7 months since I last feel the need to say something! I think I might have forgotten the password to blogger but it's one of the 3 that I use everywhere so got lucky there, unlike my internet banking password where I have set a new one every time I use the damn thing due to my inability to remember what I had chosen the last time - this is further exacerbated by the fact taht they expect you to change every 3 months in any case which means about the time I sort of remember, it's due for change!

There has been a series of minor events in my life - trying to set up a house, hating afore mentioned house, house developing leak, living at mother's for 2 months, finding new house, living with only 2 chairs in new house for nearly 2 months now but still...the floor is sparkling white so feels good to sit on it!

In other news, the BFF had a second baby so I trotted over the 2 oceans and god knows how many countries to visit her, my 2 and three-quarters old godson (first time seeing him by the way) and the new bonny boy who crossed 5 kilos at the 4 weeks stage! I really enjoyed spending time with R and not doing anything at all but chilling in the house and sort of helping to look after the boys (read as letting baby D sleep on me while R rushes around changing, feeding and bathing the baby not to mention the 2.5 yo!!) - very good sort of assistant I is - I tell ya!

on the way  back, stopped off in HK and spent a night with the charade - was great catching up and we stayed up till 2.30 talking - don't ask me about what!

It was this and the 'depression' I have suffered since then which actually brought me back to this forum.

I am 30 years old (yeah that's the other eventful thing that happened - I crossed over to the dark side - was so unhappy could not even do a recap post!) and at this point, 2 of my friends from college live in this city! Hanging out with the girls kinda causes a wrench in my chest because no matter how much I love the friends I have here today, nothing quite compares to someone who has known you for half your life, if not more in some cases! out of the group of 12 girls, around  6 -8 of us are still in fairly close touch one way or another, some more than others leading to everyone being fairly aware of what all are doing. Out of these, 5 are from the same school so even more history from that....these girls understand where you come from always, you have made so many memories, its very easy to share the new ones - somehow we are invested in the children as well coz they are 'of' the friends. It's very easy to resume a conversation even if the last one was years ago. It was not just me who felt this way - both R and Charade also commented on how comfortable and nice it was to just have a conversation in person - another friend also remarked on how she was missing other girls who in turn responded with the same sentiment (maybe we all just 'mawkish'?).

I think part of the problem for me is it's much more difficult to make friends as an adult than as a child/teenager - if you join a university, those people might be carried with you but post that.....I think for me also, I was very happy with the friends that I have and object to replacing the people who suit me just fine even if they live continents away -I'd rather have a phone conversation once a week with the BFF than dinner every day with someone else!