Seeing the World

After lots of hemming and hawing, we had a big weekend on the "travel" front.

We had originally narrowed down the options for our fall 2014 trip to the following:

• India (definite)
• Nepal
• Sri Lanka
• Maldives
• Dubai
• Qatar

And the Dubai/Qatar choice was largely going to be shaped by airline.  We had two basic options:

• Fly through Qatar and earn miles, or
• Fly through Dubai and get to visit it (somewhere we really wanted to see, Qatar less so).

Well, it's all done and decided now, and plane tickets are purchased!

We ended up with 3 one-way tickets for now:

• Dallas to Kathmandu, Nepal.
• Mumbai, India to Dubai, UAE.
• Dubai to Dallas. 

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We will definitely buy plane tickets to go from Kathmandu to New Delhi or Agra (since that is international travel), but we'll wait until next credit card cycle to do that.

And we'll probably buy plane tickets from somewhere in northern India to Mumbai (but that journey could also be done overland, depending on where all we visit within India). 

We also made one more big step in the last week in terms of our trip.  We had our global entry interviews (including fingerprinting) and got approved, which was nice.

I'm so excited -- and a little nervous.  Going unfamiliar places is always so exciting to me, but there's always a little bit of nervousness too. 

We've got a lot of travel coming up on the immediate horizon too, but not quite as exciting and definitely more domestic.

Tomorrow, we're flying to Pittsburgh for 5 days for my husband's step-niece's (?) (brother's wife's daughter) wedding.  That will be lots of time with my parents-in-law, and we'll be staying with my brother-in-law and his wife.  Another brother-in-law and his wife are staying there too, and we'll actually have the house to ourselves for two nights, since the brother-in-law and wife who own the house are going to be staying at the wedding hotel Fri and Sat nights.

Excited about the wedding.  It's going to be at the Pittsburgh Opera and I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.



The happy couple.  They are both self-described foodies, dieticians by trade, and love working out.  Their first date was at a great restaurant they love, and their second date was the Pittsburgh Marathon.  So cute! 

Then next week, a trip home to see my family over the Fourth, including lots of good time with my nephew and nieces I hope, as well as some time with my grandpa (who is doing exactly the same, which is to say, not great, but not worsening at all). 

I got a message from my sister-in-law saying that they were registering me with them for a 4 mile race on the Fourth, which will be fun -- and I think my nephew and nieces are doing it too (though I'd guess the youngest certainly couldn't be, right?  she'll be 5 in August).  Buuuuuut, part of me wants to try to PR.  I ran a 4 mile at the beginning of this month and finished about 50 seconds off a PR.  And on top of that, my 4 mile PR isn't great.  On the pace predictors, my current 4 mile time predicts me at a marathon time I've accomplished several times.  I much prefer short-distance PRs that predict me at my dream marathon time, but the bottom line is that my 4 mile PR is old and should be beatable.  Unfortunately, the 4 mile race I do most often is in June, which isn't exactly PR weather in Dallas.  But a 4 mile race in July in Milwaukee certainly could be!  But it might be nice to run with my niece who is my goddaughter, that whole thing of getting her into running, family time, etc.  Guess I'll wait and see what the course looks like, how I feel, what the vibe is, etc.