Monday, July 16, 2007

Eve's Lunch


Eve's Lunch so it seems is still in the process of moving. The hyper link goes to the Eve's Lunch site. I called the phone number on the site 610-277-6600 and the message said they will be opening around the third or fourth week in July.

Lizzie and I were in the mood for a Zep on the third, when we scheduled a business meeting at Eves, but had to relocate to Houlihan's in Plymouth Meeting...not quite the same.
Anyway, hope Eve's is up and making those fabulous Zeps which according to Eve's Lunch site are made of "provolone cheese, cooked salami, tomatoes, onions, oil and oregano. Unlike, the hoagie it has no lettuce and only one type of meat."


And don't forget the famous Conshohocken rolls....

When they open, hope to see you at Eve's for Lunch.

First post were I wrote about Eve's Lunch was entitled Cheese Steak Again. Yes I know, a Zep is not a cheese steak.

I tried to send them an email via the email on the site, and it was bounced back. I also was going to leave a message on the phone, but the voice mail box is was full.

Update: 11/7/2007 called the number and the message says that Eve's Lunch is still closed due to delays beyond their control. My mouth is still watering in anticipation of a Zep.

Update:1/8/2008 Eve's Lunch is now open and serving those wonderful sandwiches. Check out the Eve's Lunch post on Thegrubhound by clicking the previous link.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Spanish Language Schools... Now that's a Good Idea

Traveling is definitely a passion of mine, but there was a time that there was fear behind the passion – especially when traveling to countries that don't speak English – such as Spain. Silly me --- there are a number of Spanish language schools online and off. I believe that Spanish is still the most spoken language in the world – but, I could be wrong about that fact. Even so, there are many great countries – which I still need to visit – where Spanish is spoken. From my experiences in non-English speaking countries – fear of communication is no reason to not visit those countries.

But, if you happen to know that you will be visiting a country where Spanish is the language spoken and you give yourself enough time – take advantage of the opportunity to take some Spanish courses before you embark on your adventure. Planning for these types of things in advance has never been a strong suite of mine, but taking courses would be very beneficial.

Then if you happen to know that you will be able to stay at your destination for a good bit of time – what could be better than to actually learn Spanish in Spain. I spent a semester of college in Rome, Italy. I did take a course on Italian before I left for Rome – but, what really enabled me to learn to speak Italian was actually leaning by living there. I was forced to speak the language to survive. So, if you are fortunate enough to travel to Spain – take a look at the Spanish courses offered at Babylon Idiomas – one of the Spanish language schools online.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Lizzie Joins the iFollow Movement


We have disabled the "no follow" tag in the comments on, so if you stop by and leave any comments, your link in your comment will count towards your link love. However, comments will still be monitored for spam.
The badges can be found at on RandaClay.com. If you would like to join the iFollow movement check this Pixelheadonline iFollow update post with links to some posts that offer detailed info on how to go about removing the tag from both Blogger and Wordpress blogs so you too can join the movement and increase your blogs comments.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Puerto Rico Honeymoon | Friday Through Monday


The next day was Friday. We went back to Rosemary and canceled our Vacation Club, and then hung out at the pool until it was time for our Spa.
The Spa was well worth the time we spent listening to the lovely Rosemary. Lizzie and I were escorted into our separate changing rooms. Inside the changing rooms we were able to use the steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, and showers. After about half an hour of using these facilities, we were then escorted up stairs where our massages would take place. We were together in a room and had to lay down on the massage tables without any clothing on, but covered with a sheet. The two girls then proceeded to give us two amazing 45 minute massages.
We also had been planning on going to the evening Kayaking, but had a mix up with the time to meet the bus which was to take us to Kayaking. We should have been out in front of Gran Melia at 530pm, but were told to be there at 730pm. Regretfully, we rescheduled the Kayaking for the next night.
Since we had missed the trip we decided to head out of the resort for dinner. We ended up going to McDonald's off of Rt 3. The staff of the McDonald's were very friendly and helpful. Funny thing, I tried to order a vanilla milk shake using the name on the menu, but they seem to know it as shake as well.
On Saturday, we got up early and were planning on going to one of the islands off of Puerto Rico, Culebra, which we were told was a cool little artist type community. However, we met the owner of the local Avis car rental in the parking lot, and she advised against it since today was the holiday of Noche de San Juan and the beach on the island would be very crowded. Also, we were a little late as the ferry to the island leaves very early. It was about 9am, and we should have left at about 6am to make the ferry.
On the night of San Juan, at midnight, there is a tradition of stepping backwards into water and taking seven steps and flipping into the water. We did not participate in the event, but chose to go back to our villa. I was still a bit under the weather, so were asleep by 10pm.
Taking the advice of the Avis owner, we decided to head out to Rincon instead, which is at the other end of the island. We were told that the waves at Rincon were some of the best on the island. We had a nice drive, but had a little trouble locating the beach in Rincon. We did eat lunch in Rincon at El Cerdito del Cielito the only Barbecue pit restaurant on the island. I had a great sandwich, but Lizzie, not being a meat lover, was not pleased, especially since her sandwich arrived with moldy bread, which was replaced with a much fresher role. But at that point, Lizzie's appetite was affected badly.

After lunch, we headed south on 115 or the main road out of Rincon and saw a beach sign which is where we headed. We ended up going to the beach outside of Rincon on a public beach which cost us 3 dollars for parking. Very nice little beach. The waves were pretty small, but the sand was very soft. This is also were Lizzie took the coconut pictures. We were only at the beach for a short time, because we had to make it back to the resort so that we could meet the bus at 530pm for the Kayak tour.
We made it back to the resort without getting lost since we are now pretty familiar with the roads and the Avis map.
At 530pm we board the bus that would take us to the town of Fajardo for the Kayak tour. This was a very enlightening experience for us, that thankfully did not end up with divorce. We had to pat ourselves on the back, because we were by far the worst Kayakers, having had to be pulled by our guide. The lure of going kayaking at night is the fact that the waters of the bay that we went into were filled with bioluminescent plankton that lit up when disturbed by your hand or paddle. This is one of less than a dozen places on Earth that this occurs. If you ever have a chance to go during a rain storm, I hear it is spectacular.
We had a really good time on the Kayak tour in spite of our difficulties. We would highly recommend going with Enchanted Island Eco Tours, which proved to have a very knowledgeable and capable staff. Note: Take waterproof camera on kayak trip to take pictures.

The enchanted Kayaking was probably our last planned activity out of the resort. The rest of the honeymoon was spent as Lizzie wanted, hanging out by the pool relaxing. We also did a little gambling, mostly slots, but a little roulette also. Lizzie ended up being the big winner of the two of us.
Monday morning came all too quickly. We had very little trouble getting to the airport, and found the lines at the airport to move pretty quickly. Other than having a two hour delay of our US air flight, it was pretty much a smooth sailing flight.
We got into Philly, and seemed to have to wait for ever for our bags. Finding the location to pick up our luggage ended up being another little trip that involved going outside of the airport. After getting the bags, we quickly got on the shuttle to parking and eventually located our car.
Side note: never leave your car with a nearly empty tank.
We ended up stopping at The Boat House in Conshohocken, PA, and then headed home to Boyertown at about midnight.

View the other posts in our Puerto Rico Honeymoon series.


Also please check out our Gran Melia honeymoon photo's on Flickr.

Puerto Rico Honeymoon | Wednesday and Thursday

The next day was our first excursion out into Puerto Rico on our own. So with the map from the concierge, Sergio I believe, we headed out to Old San Juan. The first bit of confusion we had was with the directions. After getting over a bit of confusion about East

and West which are a little different in Spanish, we did make it into Old San Juan, but missed one of our turns so, we ended up driving around Old San Juan. We eventually found parking and then walked around Old San Juan. We had lunch at Tamarind Steak a Latino Steakhouse. Loved the Cheesy Black beans. We also had two drinks: Sangria for me, a delicious margarita for Lizzie.

After lunch we proceeded to walk around Old San Juan hitting up the shops for gifts and what not. Love the streets of Old San Juan because of the lively colors of all the buildings.

We eventually made our way up to the Old Fort, but were unable to tour it because it was closing at 5pm and it was then 450pm.
So we then headed back to the car, but not before stopping off at the casino in the Sheraton to use the bathroom. Feeling a bit guilty for using the bathroom, we decided to spend a little money in the slots. We ended up leaving the Sheraton Casino $10 ahead. This was more than enough to pay for our parking.
Leaving Old San Juan proved to be a little more confusing. We ended up on a highway that was leading us away from were we wanted to go, and got off of that highway to be on another highway. We eventually did get turned around, and remembered our concierges advice to head towards the airport.
Prior to going back to the resort, we stopped off at Pizza Hut for dinner then got gas and bought some water and beer for the room.
The next day, after Old San Juan, I woke up feeling dizzy and feverish. We did make it down to the pool, but I ended up spending the day either on the bally bed or in the room bed. Lizzy had to occupy herself the best she could. At one point she did venture out by herself, but came back frustrated due to language difficulties and she also may have been feeling a little ill herself.
The next day was Friday. We went back to Rosemary and canceled our Vacation Club, and then hung out at the pool until it was time for our Spa. We also had been planning on going to the evening Kayaking, but had a mix up with the time to meet the bus. We should have been there at 530pm, but were told to be there at 730pm. Regretfully, we rescheduled the event for the next night.
Since we had missed the trip we decided to head out of the resort for dinner. We ended up going to McDonald's off of Rt 3. The staff of the McDonald's were very friendly and helpful. Funny thing, I tried to order a shake using the name on the menu, but they seem to know it as shake as well.
Check out all of our San Juan Pics on Flickr.

NEXT:Puerto Rico Honeymoon |Saturday, Sunday, and Monday

At Gran Melia Puerto Rico

Lizzie had made our reservations so that our villa was garden side, but on the side of the complex nearest the ocean. Our package was a Royal Service package, so upon arrival, we were escorted by a butler to the Royal Services Lounge were our check-in was expedited and were we received our Royal Services Bracelets(see photo to right). Royal Services BracletThese bracelets enabled us to have access to the kid free Royal Service pool,as well as some other groovy features to include continental breakfast in the morning, cocktails and snacks in the Royal Services Lounge, and our own butler. We really did not take full advantage of the butler service, but it was nice to know we had access to a butler.

Our very first full day at the resort, we had no idea what we were going to do. So we headed up to the lobby and talked with the concierge who hooked us up with some maps, and a tentative activity schedule. He also was the one who asked us if we would like to check out the Gran Melia vacation club, were we were to meat Rosemary.

After our initial meeting with Rosemary, we then scheduled to meet with Avis to rent a car the next morning and made other activity reservations to include the Enchanted Kayaking on Friday, which ended up being on Saturday due to a mix up.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the Gran Melia's adults only Royal Services pool sipping coctails and floating on rafts in the tempid water.

BlogPhiladelphia Unconference

Lizzie has made reservations last week at the Radisson in Philadephia for two over nights during the BlogPhiladephia Unconference. The scheduled activities start Wednesday night from 6-8pm and then Social Media sessions will be held all day Thursday and Friday.

The event should be quite interesting and should provide ample opportunity to network with lots of influential Philly bloggers.

Further posting during the event will be done here, on Pixelheadonline, and on Fatladysingz.com.

Hope to see you there.

The Trip to Puerto Rico

Our Honeymoon in Puerto Rico has been over for over two weeks now. We are back on schedule with our daily grind. I just realized I had not done one more Puerto Rico post that I had been planning on doing. So this is the first of several review posts that started out as one, but are ending up as a series.

Flight to Puerto Rico



In spite of our fears, we did make it to the Gran Melia with very little confusion or trouble. Our trip actually started out the night before our US Air Flight departed. Since it was a 930am departure, we decided to avoid the Philly morning rush hour traffic and stay over night near the airport. Lizzie booked a room online at the EconoLodge, which might have been a 1 or 2 star hotel. The good thing about staying in a place like this, it made our final destination seem all that much better. I know neither of us was able to sleep in this dingy room, but it was what it was.

The next morning we got up and hot footed it to the airport. After dropping our car off at the econo parking, we got to the airport. At the airport we had breakfast at The Famous Famigilia restaurant. The huge sandwiches are quite a bargain at 5 bucks.
We then waited for a short time and boarded the plane. The entire trip lasted under 4 hours. At the airport, we got our bags, and then asked were the shuttle was located. After purchasing two round trip tickets for $120, we boarded the shuttle and proceeded to Gran Melia. One little tip. If you are traveling in a group, it might be cheaper to take a taxi from what we were told. By 5pm we were in our resort villa, checking out the facilities.

Other Posts in the Puerto Rico Honeymoon series:


Pictures of our honeymoon in Puerto Rico and other travels are available on Flickr.