Posted by Andrew Hickey on May 21, 2009 in
Travel 
In 18 days I will be leaving the country for a three week trip to Poland. You may ask, why Poland? Well that is where my wife was born. She moved to the United States with her parents at a young age and last visited her hometown of Raciborz (about two hours outside of Krakow) in July 1999. Yes it has been nearly 10 years since she has seen many family members and walked the streets of where she spent the first 10 years of her life.
So I am pretty excited. Not just about traveling, but about the valuable time she will get to spend with her family. Aunts, uncles, cousins and her grandmother, who was a prisoner during World War II by the Nazi soldiers, will all be awaiting her arrival. I had the chance to meet her grandmother about 4 years ago when my wife graduated college. So it will be great to see her again and enjoy some home made Polish food. Of course we have a language barrier between the two of us, but my wife can translate and I happen to speak a few words in Polish.
During my stay in Raciborz, I will have a 1-bedroom apartment with my wife that is located right in the town square. If you have been reading this site, you know my love of town squares, so it is going to be great to live by one for three weeks. I will just have to figure out the WiFi situation, lord knows I can not go 10 minutes without internet capabilities. It is a sickness!
I will be updating the site as often as possible while on the trip. I mean I will not be glued to the internet nor will I be updating you with travel deals. Instead for three weeks this site will be strictly updates from locations like Krakow, Zakopane, Tatra Mountains, Katowice, and of course Raciborz. We had planned a few days in Prague, but have since decided that we want to focus on Poland during this European trip.
So much has been planned already for our visit, so it just didn’t make sense to travel outside the country during our stay. No complaints here, I am looking forward to getting the “real” Polish experience. That means plenty of borscht, blintzes, pierogis, potato vodka and beer. Lots and lots of beer!
Other random thoughts:
- I am obsessed with travel…yet my wife hates it. Well let me rephrase that. She doesn’t hate it, she simply hates me talking about it so much. She loathes flying, hates to book a hotel, and wants to sleep late when away on vacation. As for me, I will find any excuse to board a plane, always make the travel reservations, and am up early each morning while I am away. Well maybe not so early if I am out a tad bit too late the night before.
- Am I the only one that has never watched American Idol? I believe they just ended a 7th or 8th season yesterday. I have no clue why it is so appealing to such a large audience. It is basically karaoke. Some people sing good and some sing bad. But usually when I do karaoke at the bar, we enjoy the bad singers over the showoffs.
- H1N1…swine flu…whatever. No one is dying from it here. I am sad to hear that people in places like Mexico have passed, but the American media is scaring the hell out of people…and for what? A flu!? The people that have died “due to swine flu related causes” were already sick. Shame on the media for making much to do about nothing more than an extreme case of the sniffles. People are dropping dead by the millions each day from hunger, AIDS, war, and various other threats. Yet this flu gets front page news for a month. What? If I had the time, I would be on a plane to Acapulco, Cancun or Cozumel taking advantage of the super low flights and hotel rates right now.
- As much as I love bread, wine, expensive cheeses and crepes…I have yet to visit France! It is on my short list of places to visit…along with Japan, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
- Places that I have “tentatively” scheduled to visit by the end of the year include Austin, Chicago (for the marathon), Napa Valley, and Portland, Oregon.
- I do not watch much television, as I find most shows to be painfully boring to follow, but I have to admit that I never get tired of Rescue Me. Since it debuted a few years back, and was filmed in my hometown of Rockaway Beach, it has had me glued to FX each week. Bravo to Denis Leary for making such a fun show to watch.
- The “Best Town Square” poll round 2 is doing good this week with the votes. For 48 hours there was an eight way 1st place tie. How odd?! As of this post, one of the eight took the lead…and not by a little either. Of course after Sunday morning 10 of the 20 town squares will be cut.
- How will you be able to win this free guidebook you ask? Stay tuned for that announcement this Sunday. Trust me, I will make it as simple as possible.
Tags: acapulco, austin, australia, california, cancun, chicago, cozumel, france, germany, H1N1, illinois, japan, katowice, krakow, mexico, napa valley, new zealand, oregon, poland, portland, raciborz, swine flu, tatra mountains, texas, zakopane
Posted by Andrew Hickey on May 14, 2009 in
Travel
Krakow, Poland's Rynek Glowny is the largest Medieval Town Square in the world...but is it your favorite?
If you have traveled to any major city in the world, then chances are you have walked by, snapped a picture in, or spent the day at a town square. From New York’s Time Square to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, people love to check out these public meeting locations filled with everything from chic cafes to amazing architecture. So I ask you, what is the best town square in the world? Which one epitomizes what a town square should be?
Over the next few weeks I will be asking that question on this site and every week narrow it down until we pick the most popular town square in the world (according to the people that read this site of course.) Who knows, maybe I will even visit the winning location on a future getaway.
Click here for to vote between 50 of the most famous town squares in the world. The 20 most popular will move on to round two. You have until Sunday May 17 at 11pm EST to cast your vote. Thanks and may the best town square win.
Tags: amsterdam, argentina, australia, barcelona, beijing, bologna, boston, brussels, buenos aires, california, canada, china, christchurch, cuba, czech republic, europe, florence, france, germany, havana, italy, lisbon, London, lyon, Madrid, massachusetts, melbourne, mexico, milan, monterrey, montevideo, montreal, morocco, new york, new zealand, north korea, Paris, pennsylvania, philadelphia, portugal, Prague, rome, salt lake city, san francisco, serbia, seville, south america, spain, toronto, town square, ukraine, uruguay, utah, vatican city, venice, Washington DC
Posted by Andrew Hickey on Apr 19, 2009 in
Travel 
A survey released by Expedia.com finds that 34 percent of employed Americans will not use all of their earned vacation days in 2009. When asked why they are planning to not take a break from the office, the number one reply was “work-related pressure.”
On average, American workers will give back three vacation days this year, according to the ninth annual Vacation Deprivation survey performed by the opaque travel website. Expedia’s study also revealed that workers are taking fewer extended vacations, with the number of adults who plan to take a two-week vacation dropping to 10 percent in 2009, as compared to 14 percent in 2008.
Other interesting notes from the survey include:
- Women tend to feel guiltier than men when it comes to taking time off from work (40 percent of women vs. 29 percent of men).
- Roughly 39 percent of working Americans expect to use most of their vacation time in 2009 by taking at least one full week of vacation and spreading out remaining days.
- On average, Americans had 13 vacation days in 2009, one day less than the previous three years.
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Although French get the most days off, they were once polled as being the crankiest workers in the world.
So how did the rest of the world fare in the Expedia Vacation Deprivation survey? Well the site asked countries like Canada, Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Australia, Japan, and for the first time, New Zealand. This year, Canadian, French and Australian workers will be granted between one and two more vacation days than in 2008, while all other countries will either receive fewer vacation days or see no change in earned time off.
Want a lot of vacation time? Move to France, where the workers receive and use the most vacation days of all countries surveyed by Expedia. French workers receive 38 days and leave only two days unused.
Now while it may look gloomy for American workers, since we receive the smallest number of vacation days, Japanese employees are the least vacation-minded, as 92 percent of the workers polled said they would not use all vacation days and will leave an average of seven days on the table.
Tags: american, australia, austria, canada, england, france, germany, great britain, italy, japan, new zealand, spain, Travel, uk, usa, vacation
