I love my life!

Just finished the trip planning this AM for our trip in October to the Nordic Capitals.  We are doing six days in Copenhagen (time on our own and visits with friends) four days in Helsinki (never been there except to transit at the airport for Tallinn Estonia) and five days in Stockholm (another new country- except for flying into Malmo Sweden once to get to Copenhagen- LOL- airports do not count in the countries visited total as they are all "airport-land".)

So starting this week it will be two months of pretty much solid travel- Bolivia this week then Colombia - I come home the end of the month and pick up Phil (LOL) who did not want to do the Bolivia trip.  Then we visit our friends in Traverse City area before we go to NYC for a week to visit our kids and our friends. 

Then we are back home for a bit and having out of town company and then Phil goes off to his 40th high school reunion (yikes!!!) and then we are off to Scandinavia!  And as if we hadn't done enough - then in December we are off for our trip with TB to Australia and New Zealand... so when we get home from NYC we will have to buckle down on the wine trip planning for that part of the New Zealand trip....

And we are well into the trip planning to Machu Picchu, the Amazon & Galapagos for May next year and southern China with Shanghai in October... oh and have I mentioned Sri Lanka for me in November 2013? I have a deposit down for that as well....

Being retired is sooooo fabulous!

And since some of the places on that list are "go again" spots I have photos to share (really? LOL)

First up Copenhagen:

below: the bird wanted to see the changing of the guard at the palace!

Then the bounty of Michigan in the late summer- this is fruit growing central - especially CHERRIES! (the favorite fruit of PSF)

For NYC see prior blog entries from various other trips, including the full week of 10/9/11 through 10/16/11 and
 http://semifreelife.blogspot.com/2012/04/food-and-friends.html

but back to the travel planning- when we head to southern China (Lijiang, Li River, Guilin, Hangzhou, Shanghai etc.) we will be flying into and out of Hong Kong - because we really love to visit this beautiful city on the "fragrant harbor" (what Hong Kong means in Chinese) - here are some of our favorite haunts:

in order: Man Mo Temple, Cat Street Bazaar and seafood mountain at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kowloon.

Then on to Peru- photos from the Pisac Market and Cuzco (while the Amazon and Ecuador including the Galapagos will be new to me- PSF did not take the Peru trip with me and TB and so it will be 100% new to him)

so one more day for me to get ready for Bolivia and Colombia and to make a list of all the things for Phil to handle while I am away...LOL-  but as I said to begin with- I love my life!