Sunday, December 30, 2007

American Christmas...part 2 - A Sick Christmas

Well, don't you kind of think that life's kicking you in the ass for apparently no good reason, when you fly 7000 miles to spend Christmas with your friends and you get sick for like a week and you don't get to enjoy anything?

I must have done some horrible things in my life to deserve such a lousy Christmas. I was literally in bed with the phone in my hand, ready to call 911 at any moment, because the pain was too much for me. That's how all of the 2007 Christmas pretty much sums up.

I was supposed to do a lot of things, meet with a lot of people, travel, enjoy the scenery, instead I was in bed, crying from the pain, alone in the house, because the healthy people I'm staying with were doing whatever normal, healthy people do for Christmas in this part of the world.

Anyway, I am now up and kicking, no more back or pancreas or kidney pain, no more coughing, no more huge amounts of tea or fist-fulls of pills. I am alive.

You never get to appreciate your well-being until after you have felt the worst. I am so glad that the pain is gone and I can enjoy the simple things I took for granted, like walking through the snow and taking photos and sitting at Pizza Hut, having some nice pieces of apple pie and checking up on my e-mails.

I wish all of you a Healthy and Extremely Pleasant New Year!


Best wishes,
Lumi

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

American Christmas...part 1 - The Departure

Well, little I knew that the visa part was going to be the easiest and less expensive of them all, I would have worried less prior to the interview, by doing that I would have saved myself loads of precious neurons and my skin would have had less wrinkles, but noooo, I had to worry.

Here's a free piece of advice, which I promised myself I would take every time I have something hard to do, but I somehow almost always forget about it...DO NOT WORRY! WORRYING DOES NOT DO ONE GOOD THING FOR YOU. On the contrary, it makes your body anxious, it decreases the power of concentration, it clouds your judgment and it makes you annoying as hell to those around you, trust me, I've been there.

Back to the main topic, namely, my departure, I got my plane ticket (I kind of made a huge hole in the family budget because of that, but I love my parents and some day, I will pay them back, with interest), I got myself a medical and luggage insurance. NEVER LEAVE THE COUNTRY WITHOUT ONE!.

It doesn't cost a lot and it covers a lot of expenses in case of baggage loss, broken arms - I am going to ski after all :D -, flight delays and much more. You can get the travel insurance at any travel agency or insurance firm or in other places that I don't know about yet.

I'm going to leave this Saturday and apparently I'm going to be stuck in two airports about 9 hours in total...that should be fun, all alone in Amsterdam and LA, with no time and no money to visit anything in the cities, 'cause the airports are too far from the airports :)...but I don't want to complain, after all, after about 24 hours straight on the road, I will have to drive about an hour and a half to the place I'll be staying at. I can't wait for the actual travel time to be over and have some fun in a ten-hour-time-difference-from-Romania-zone.

Imagine, although my trip is about 24 hours long, I'll be leaving Romania on the 15th and arrive in the States on the 15th, same day, different continents.

And on a trip related subject, but another kind of trip, namely the carrier trip in our life, for those of you who live and breathe for PR and for those who have the courage to start their own business, in case you haven't heard about it yet, there's a book called "Guerrilla PR", written by Michael Levine. Read it and you won't regret one page; it's easy and fun to read and it has great advice on how to make your own PR campaigns without a lot of money.

I recommend that you read it in English though, because as I have noticed, translations seem to loose some of the charm of the writing and it would be ashame not to benefit from all that this book has to offer.

My next post is probably going to be from the States or from one of the airports on the way, since I'll have so much waiting time on my hands.


Take care of your budgets and don't fall in the holiday-retail-trap!


Best wishes,
Lumi