Friday Favorites: Vacation Mindset Edition

Happy Friday! This week has been a funky one here in Brisbane between houseguests on Monday night, a holiday on Wednesday and last minute happy hours on Thursday, but hey I am not complaining one bit. Without further ado…

1. No work on Wednesday

We had a random public holiday on Wednesday so people could attend EKKA (pretty much the state fair). This is where we spent our bonus day off…

(yes, it is still winter here).

2. Vacation Planning

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To be honest all I can think about right now is our trip to Thailand/Vietnam next week. Literally it’s all I have been googling, pinning, talking and thinking about. This is unlike any vacation we have done before, it’s longer, has more destinations and is exploring a completely different culture. To say we are excited is an understatement. This week we have been in full planning mode, which is convenient since we do leave in less than a week (#procrastinationstation). We booked several things and firmed up our itinerary some more. One trip I am quite excited about is our day trip to Phi Phi Island. I feel like it will be be pretty touristy but with beaches like that I really don’t care.

3. Elephants World

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To be honest the whole Thailand/elephant plan has been a little stressful to me. Since I read so many travel blogs I am well aware of the animal abuse elephants in Thailand go through. I knew that I wanted to spend time with them while we were there but I only wanted to do it if I could do it right. Most of my research for humane elephant sanctuaries was coming up with places in a different part of the country that we weren’t going to. Luckily, fellow aussie expat Shane posted about this same issue this week and included a link to a site I hadn’t seen before and it had one place around Bangkok on their list (see the full list here). We booked in a day tour to Elephants World and I am SO excited. I can’t wait to share my experience when we get back.

4. This American Life Podcast

An oldie but a goodie, I have really been loving the episodes lately. I have gotten to the point where I can’t just listen to music when I run. I need something that will really take my mind off how much I hate running and want to stop (I don’t completely hate it, ok I do) and This American Life does just that plus they are long enough to take up my entire run. Recent favorite episodes have been: The Problem We All Live With (Part 1 and 2), Abdi and the Golden Ticket and The Captain’s Log. You should check them out Does anyone else feel like everything they learn lately comes from a podcast? Nope just me…

I loved Anne from Modern Mrs. Darcy’s post the other day of her favorite podcasts and episodes to check out. I will be downloading several of those to listen to on the plane.

5. GHD Straightener

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This one is kind of random but when we were moving to Australia I realized my Chi straightener wasn’t going to work so I decided to just buy a cheap dual voltage. I am not sure why I thought something that I use every single day would be a good thing to go cheap on, but I have pretty much whined and complained about it ever since. I’m assuming Travis was tired of listening to me complain so for our anniversary he did a bunch of research on hair straighteners (always the most educated buyer) and bought me a GHD straightener.

They aren’t cheap so we both were pretty interested to see if it would be worth the doll hairs it cost, in fact I didn’t use it for the first couple days because I was debating returning it. Then I decided to give it a test run… 2 thumbs up from this judge. I have a ton of hair and it takes forever to straighten but I can do my whole head in less than 10 minutes AND I can curl it! I am completely hair curling illiterate (seriously, it’s even on my 30 Before 30) list but it is so easy with the GHD! So anyways what this long rambling paragraph is getting at is if you are on the fence about buying one you should just do it.

And one more meme for the road…

Have a fabulous weekend everyone, I will be back one more time next week before we head off!

As usual linking up with Heather and Andrea.