vacation at home

We're in complete hotel seeking gear now. Spent the last weekend at a local hotel to use up some gift certificates I had won signing up for the gym. We did what we normally did on a weekend. But it was nice sleeping in a new place. We stopped by several of the local franchise stores that were going out of business and managed to find a few good deals.

We couldn't beat the $1/CD over at Tower Records and manage to stock up on some jazz and cuban music. There were stacks too of Jocelyn Enriquez. I always wondered what happened to her. We got some good deals on shoes at Copeland Sports which was bought out by Sports Authority. And found a nice pair of earrings at the Diamond Center.

Now that we're home with the end of the year fast approaching, we've been looking forward to Europe in the spring. Went to REI yesterday and found some travel underwear to reduce the luggage load. Basically, they're made of material that dries really really fast, so you could easily have clean underwear the next day with a quick pat of a towel and some air drying.

The last few nights I find myself on various European hotel websites. Our rewards points were good enough for 4 free nights on the Champs Elysee! whoo-hoo! Central London hotels are quite pricey, so we're looking down the metro lines for more affordable boroughs, maybe a bed and breakfast. I still have to discuss Madrid with my cousin as I'm not sure we'll stay in Madrid the entire time. She tells me there's a town nearby that specialized in baby lechon.

We get next week off, which is already filling with closet/storage cleaning, video work, another birthday party, my birthday, a bowl game, oh yes, Christmas and New Year's.