Netbooks? Anyone?

For our Europe trip we're thinking of getting a "Netbook". I just learned about them over Christmas, evidently they are tiny lightweight laptops that pretty much are internet only usage, unless you get an upgraded hard drive, but then they are getting into the price of regular laptops. (they have a few other applications, but they don't have the processing power to handle MS Office or big photo editing software or really much of additional software) However, they are supposed to be superquick to start up and connect to the internet and they weigh under 3 lbs and are about 9 inches wide and one inch thick and because of their simple functionality, they are around $300, give or take, depending on how much memory to get.

We have a simple cheaper laptop but its about 7 lbs and its on Vista (don't get me started on Vista!) and thus it takes FOREVER to start up. We were thinking it would be nice to have a lighter alternative to look things up online, communicate with others via email on our trip (and not spend $2 a minute on the phone) and be able to upload pics and what not.

Has anyone gotten one of these? Heard about them? Any reviews? Buy or no? Is it worth the extra money to get extra memory?

Stocked up and a hot weather red

I've taken advantage of a few sales lately and so I'm happy to report our wine fridge is nearly full with really good deals. One of my recent purchases was an 18 bottle purchase that I got on sale, then another discount and then free shipping - between all the discount I think we ended up with an average per bottle price of $13, which we needed because another shipment was a bit more expensive and we need a bit of relief.

Of course, we promptly tried a wine that was going to be a contender for my wine club's "Old World Wanna-be's" theme next month - the 2006 Ventana Rubystone. Its listed as a Rhone style blend, with 62% Grenache and 38% Syrah.

I was really excited to have this based on the tasting notes:
Liquid silk caresses the palate with intense flavors of black cherry, black currant and candy apple. It is full bodied and full flavored with a lovely lingering finish. This gem of ours will complement many of your favorite dishes.

And also the Awards:
SWEEPSTAKE - Best Red Wine, Monterey Wine Competition 3/09

GOLD - San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition 1/09

PLATINUM (3 Gold Medals)- Lodi International Wine Competition 2008

DOUBLE GOLD - Riverside International Wine Comp. 2008

GOLD - Critics Challenge 2008

GOLD - Tasters Guild Wine Competition 2008

SILVER - International Eastern Wine Competition 2008

SILVER - Dallas Morning News Wine Comp

2008 SILVER - Hilton Head Wine Competition 2008

SILVER - Grand Harvest Awards 2008

SILVER - Finger Lake Wine Competition 2008

We opened it up....and its ok. I think we were expecting more "full" in the body than it was - it was more like a light american fruit forward pinot, very cherry. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad I have another bottle, but I had really expected it to be a bit more full, have a bit more ooomph, and I think maybe that's why I was dissapointed. I actually think it would be a good hot weather red. Not to overpowering.

I look forward to trying the other wines because bottom line, I liked this wine for what I paid for it. Lots more tasting to do....rough life, I tell ya....

To Europe and back on planes, trains, and automobiles

Ok, we had a little snafu with the final bookings for our Europe trip. As you know, we got a killer deal from Chicago to Dublin and Paris to Chicago for $700.32/person. Well, we don’t live in Chicago so we still had to book to/from there, as well as how to get from Dublin to France. Clearly since Ireland is an island we can’t hop on the EuroRail, so a new flight was in order. When we booked in January, I was excited to learn that Aer Lingus flies into Bordeaux France and I decided I would wait to book the rest of the transportation until later on, March-ish.

So, here we are, in “March-ish” and guess what? The only flight that Aer Lingus is sold out of from Dublin to Bordeaux is the one on June 10. Oh My God. I am so mad at myself. Grr.

So, after searching other options and coming up with insanely priced flights, I look at other airports that Aer Lingus flies into and find that Toulouse is a 2+ hr train ride from Bordeaux and we can get that flight for about $100 each, so we book it. Done. 2 hrs lost, but then again, even in my original plan, in we wouldn’t have gotten into Bordeaux before the chateaux close anyway…(they mostly close at 4pm)...so now we’re just in a bit later and have to make sure we pick a place to stay that has an on-site restaurant. C’est la vie, right?

However, that did prompt us to book all the legs of travel, with the exception of the Eurorail pass – I need to be a bit more investigation on that. Our total travel costs so far are $1,740.30 – from St. Louis to Dublin, Ireland to Toulouse, France and from Paris, France to St. Louis. Not too bad, right? Its lot of travel though - a LOT, particularly that last day!

I was putting our itinerary on one spreadsheet and I thought I might as well share it with you:

So, you might have noticed that our trip starts out with “BUS”. Yes, that’s right, that’s a bus. We found that the train from St. Louis to Chicago wasn’t going to work out time-wise anyway, so we looked into Megabus.com (which offers really low cost direct buses to a limited amount of destinations) and booked both our tickets for $20.50 total – which is good since we are flying back from Chicago.

So, literally, we are taking Planes, Trains, and Automobiles in our trip. I’m going to try to get a boat in there just for kicks – why not round out and include all modes of motorized transportation???

Stay tuned for more Europe 2009 posts as we book the rest of our travels!!!!