Short Trips

Some might call it a Babymoon – let’s call it our last trip to Italy

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Lignano Italy

I tend to rebel against tradition just a little. Maybe I like things easier, or maybe I just like to rebel. I didn’t want a traditional wedding. And I’m not expecting that I’ll live up to the traditional expectations of parenthood – after all – there’s more than one way to skin a… baby?

I’m so glad I live in a country that doesn’t know what a baby shower is. It’s not me. It’s ok for those who want one, but I’m glad there’s no expectation here. There will be no maternity photo-shoot, or baby-shoot for that matter – where it angelically sits in a terracotta pot with a garland of flowers on its grumpy head.

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Short trips – I will see the sea in 2021 – I will!

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Trieste, Italy, Hotel Riviera

Despite over a year of living with Covid (or hiding away from Covid), we’re all still up in the air about what the future is going to bring. What’s the right thing to do? Should we be in Australian-esque-style lockdowns, or should we be celebrating Freedom Day? The government has an opinion, the scientists have an opinion and the people have an opinion… they don’t always agree, and no one really knows who’s right… if a ‘right’ actually exists.

In Austria, following the removal of almost all our measures in early July, our numbers are steadily increasing again, which is hardly surprising. So what do we do now? Half the population is already vaccinated, yet Delta is threatening to plunge us back into chaos.

I tell you what we do. We get in the car and we drive to Italy.

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Cov-olidays – a team event in Austria

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Ossiacher See

I think you’ll agree with me that holidays were ruined this year. There were cancellations across the world from both enforced regulations and personal preferences.

For our team event this year, my colleagues and I had planned a mid-May weekend in Croatia. We’d booked a gorgeous apartment by the sea, and we were optimistic the weather would be warm.

Of course, due to Covid, it got canned. We initially thought the company may reneg on its offer of paying toward a team event in 2020, so we were ecstatic to hear in late August that instead they increased the dollar amount we could spend.

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Short Trips – Halls Gap – The Grampians – Gariwerd

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Grampians The PinnacleDuring our recent trip to Australia, hubby suggested we take some time out for ourselves to see a little bit of the country. When you use up a big holiday period to visit home, it’s often hard to see it as a holiday, as opposed to hopping between the same places and people each time.

The place that came to mind instantly (remembering that we have to be practical, we can’t venture too far from Melbourne), was Halls Gap, a place where I used to go camping with the family as a kid.

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Short Trips – Bangkok OC (Oriental City)

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Bangkok OC (Oriental City) - breakfast hotelI’m not exactly sure what I was expecting from Bangkok when we arrived for a 4-night stopover on our way to Australia at the end of last year. And maybe it was because we’d been in India just a month earlier, but what struck me immediately was how clean it was, how sweet-smelling and how super organized.

Look… I know it’s a big city, and also a big tourist city, so that’s probably what most people would expect, but I hadn’t been. We arrived very early in the morning, and after breakfast in our hotel at the Lamphu Tree House, were delighted to have access to our room just after 9am for a quick nap after our overnight flight.

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Short Trips – a week with the Larry

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wolfsberg austria jauseIn an already busy year of visits and holidays, we had one last visitor to our town at the beginning of September, wedged between a trip to Crete and a holiday in India. At this time of year, the weather should be lovely… you would think. In the past we’ve often spent the first weekend in September in Italy, where it’s still warm enough to swim, but most of the crowds are gone.

Well… not this year. The weekend my friend Larry was with us saw it rain almost the entire time. Luckily she was fresh off the plane, hopped up with jetlag, and had been here before, so all she wanted to do was… well… whatever happens.

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Short trips – Rovinj, Croatia – when colleagues become friends

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Rovinj, CroatiaFollowing last year’s successful but cosy trip to Grado for our work team event, us girls this year planned a weekend away to Rovinj, Croatia, in early May. Each year the company allocates a budget to each team for a social event, but since us three girls actually like each other, we again decided to throw some extra money in the kitty and make a weekend of it.

Like last year we weren’t alone. We took three of our marketing mascots in our growing family of team members – TMF Bear, Gartner Giraffe and a new addition – Bonnie Jovi – the beautiful white horse.

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Short Trips – Düsseldorf – a recovery weekend with friends

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dusseldorf_drinksWhen I told people I was going to Düsseldorf for the long weekend the first thing they said was: why? Düsseldorf is a relatively large city on the left side of Germany (and that’s the level of preciseness you’re going to get from me), and from what I can tell it is renowned for two things:

  1. The shopping
  2. As an international business hub

Definitely not renowned for a ‘long weekend destination’. For us, it’s only flight from where we are in Austria, and when you’re constantly taking two flights to get anywhere OS, going somewhere that requires only a single hop is very enticing.

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