THE NOT SO BLONDE TRAVEL

Before planning a trip, most of us do two things: Google all possible activities & check the Weather App. I only do the Google thing ... I don't trust the weatherman, and for good reason, he is usually wrong. So while enjoying our last evening in Cape Town, my partner in crime Deidre and I were of course plotting our next stop. We had not come so far for "just" one stamp on our passports. We needed one more before heading back to the U.S. After going through hundreds of possibilities, the last two contenders were Mozambique and Mauritius. On the one hand, Mozambique sounded fantastic, but we only had 3 days left and felt it wasn't enough to explore. On the other hand, three days in Mauritius seemed enough to do most of what we wanted to do - which was drink, eat and tan, but the weather was not promising. It said rain rain and more rain.  We were about to cancel our escapade and "just" got to Dubai when Deidre's genius mind went in...

I have been horseback-riding for decades, and I am only 27. Needless to say, horses are a huge passion of mine.  I did some jumping when I was younger, but competition was not my thing. I played some polo when I got more "sophisticated," but I always worried I would hit one of the horses or my own horse with the wooden ball or the mallet. Honestly, nothing ever beat simple trail riding in the mountains while having private conversations with my horse, and No I am not crazy - I am sure you talk to your dog too 😝 Best Listener Ever!  Then one day I went to the beach with my beautiful Jincin and swam with him. That was a whole new level of awesomeness and I was sure nothing could ever beat that. I was wrong.  Horseback-riding while wine tasting is the bomb! Seriously!  I am not talking about getting drunk while riding. That would be dangerous and pretty stupid. I am talking about riding through vineyards and pit stopping for a few sips of w...

After my girl's trip to Costa Rica fell apart,  I guess I could have hidden in a little corner to cry. Maybe I even did. I will never tell . But I got over it, and got on to planning another trip, or to be exact, I crashed another trip. Let me explain.  Since my friends had abandoned me, and there is no legal shop to buy new friends on the spot, I didn't have second thoughts when my "friend" Deidre mentioned hopping on her South African journey, I just said yes.  I had never seen Deidre, Tyson or Diego when I said yes, and since Brian was not part of the South Africa trip's Facebook chat, I didn't even know a Brian existed on our trip until I met Brian in Johannesburg. Diego had mentionned the name I am sure, but I had not paid attention.  But Brian was very much real, so were the others, and I almost have more selfies with Deidre, Tyson, Diego and Brian than I do with my "real friends." We met elephants, zebras and giraffes together in...

Most girls care about Valentine's Day. Flowers, romantic dinners, gifts and bla bla bla ...  I am not going to lie. I was very happy to get flowers yesterday morning. But not because it was V-Day, just because I love flowers. If I were given flowers once a month, I think my life would be pretty much perfect, and/or if I win the lottery.  But out of curiosity, I googled top Valentine's Day gifts to see what I was missing out on by not celebrating V-Day, and here is what I found in the top 10: a heart-shaped waffle machine, a lucky bamboo plant trained to form two hearts, a 400 piece personalized jigsaw that features a heart- shaped puzzle, and best of all , "smitten mittens" so you can hold hands in the cold and literarily be attached at all times. the SMITTEN MITTENS I am not going to lie. I thought many of these presents were a bit cheesy, but I expected them to be since V-Day is cheesy. They made me laugh more than anything. However, here ...