Some photos from the past few weeks…
Hello again. I almost feel the need to completely re-introduce myself after launching a blog and then falling into the ether for 6 weeks. I do promise more consistency from here on out. The formats of these posts are a work in progress so please feel free to offer some constructive criticism as we get them rolling out. I want them to be me, but I also want them to be useful to others. There will always be a comment section at the bottom for any insights/ideas. I cannot promise to incorporate them all just in case I hate them, but please do share, I am learning. Which brings me to the first section of the blog that I think is going to be a staple around here because it is important to me to always be learning, about travel and planning specifically, because the places to be, the people to see, and the best means of getting there are continually changing.
New Things I learned this week.
Usually this will be something from the past week. However, with my disappearance this one in particular is from a few weeks ago.
I will start where I last left off. Last time I talked to you all I was about to head on a trip to Switzerland and Italy. The stop in Switzerland was short, but very very sweet (pun intended there was a LOT of chocolate involved). Our stop includes visiting a friend who does live there, otherwise I would highly recommend making sure you look into staying close to the city center. If you don’t you will need to figure out how to use a few different modes of public transportation. We were also there about two weeks before an apparently very cute Zurich tradition that is signaling the start of spring by flooding all the fountains in town with flower petals. If you are planning to go in spring, I would suggest making sure you are there for this event, the photos we received the next week were stunning
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Things I chose to do this week.
The next section I hope to keep regularly will basically be a life update from me on the previous week. For this section again it will normally summarize the last week but as I fell off the earth for 7 weeks this information could be from yesterday, could be from 6 weeks ago, you may never know.
One of the things I chose to do last week to help me destress/avoid the travel planning that I NEED to do was declutter our apartment. I took it one room at a time, leaving the bedroom for last because if this rolled over to next week at least the common spaces that everyone can see are good to go. (Should I upload before and after pictures next time?)
For me, this mostly means finding the appropriate number of useful objects that I can set on furniture until my boyfriend gets annoyed, and at the same time keeping at least one thing that he loves in each room to compromise. Taking things one room at a time can also save me from getting overwhelmed and help me to understand that the space does not need to look perfect overnight. Breaking each room into small projects and prioritizing what can be done in each. For example, to help the living room look less cluttered we can move all of the workout materials lying around into the eventual office/workout space room. It will need to be in there eventually anyway and will get us started there. For the bedroom, the main focus is keeping the clothing under control: i.e. finding storage for all of our clothing and going through the clothes that we don’t need or wear getting rid of them.
My first roommate after college had a real knack for interior design and decorating. After living with her I developed an appreciation for unique, cozy, and useful items around the place to make it feel more like a home. Nothing needs to look perfectly clean and organized all the time- but lived in and like it has your personality attached.
Unsolicited tip of the week:
I want to emphasize that whatever this tip may be, I still highly recommend doing your own research to make sure it is the right thing for you to do in a similar situation. Finishing each week with a “tip” or a piece of information you may not have known before, or something to make you think differently about a situation or task could be fun so I am going to try it, but we will tweak as we go along.
With that said this week I had a friend ask me about travel credit cards and lounges. I am new to this environment but have done quite a bit of research on what works for me/what I am willing to pay in an annual fee for a card. This particular friend already had a capitol one card and the Capitol One Venture X is the card that I am just itching to get. There is a hefty annual fee, but there are a lot of benefits to the card that include lounge access, credit towards TSA precheck and Clear, and a few others I can’t remember (look it up). The important thing for her with this card was that she could apply to upgrade her already existing Capitol One card which would have less of an impact on her credit than applying for a completely new card. Which was something I was unaware you could do until recently. Highly recommend looking into the cards you could upgrade to if that is something you think would fit your needs more.
Choosing Travel 
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