Author: Edward Pizzarello

My goal in life is to fill my family’s passports with stamps, creating buckets of memories along the way. You’ll find me writing about realistic ways for normal people to travel the world, whether you’re on a budget or enjoy luxury. I also enjoy taking us on the occasional detour to explore the inner workings of the travel industry.

Interesting Airline Geek Thing

Sent to me by a family member, I’ll paste the description here, rather than trying to summarize myself: “It is a 24 hour observation of all of the large aircraft flights in the world, (recorded by the ‘plane flight transponders, via Geo-stationary orbital satellites),…

Barcelona: Sagrada Familia, Part 2

We’re back home now, but there’s still lots more to discuss about Sagrada Familia. I left off the last post talking about the Passion facade, which was to be sculpted by Josep Subirachs. He has been quoted as saying that he departed from Gaudi’s…

Returning Early

Michelle’s grandmother is expected to pass away shortly, so we are returning today. I will summarize the rest of Sagrada Familia and Ra Beach as time permits over the next few days.

Barcelona: Sagrada Familia

Day 2 started out oddly. Michelle nodded off at 2 am, but I couldn’t get to sleep. I started trying to sleep at 3am, but didn’t fall asleep until 5am. My alarm went off and woke both of us up at 1:30pm. Yikes! Most…

Barcelona, Day 1

We arrived in Barcelona this morning at 9am after taking the red-eye from JFK. We had an enjoyable dinner on the plane and nodded off about 10PM, with 4.5 hours left on the flight. It was a pretty bumpy ride after we nodded off,…

Competitours: For Those Travelers as Crazy as Me

If you’re looking for a new adventure, then Competitours might be right up your alley. Someone I know has started company that conducts Amazing Race contests for regular people. He’s a pretty smart guy, and an avid traveler, so I have no doubt this…

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was an enjoyable one spent with lots of family. Michelle and I are off to Barcelona tomorrow afternoon. So, next blog post will be from a tapas restaurant while we’re sipping intriguing Spanish wines. Stay tuned…

Giants Lock up Home Field Advantage

This was supposed to be a meaningless game. Just beat Philly or Dallas (we already beat them both once), and we lock up home field advantage throughout the playoffs. But that didn’t happen, so a game against Carolina in the freezing cold was to…

FlightMemory

For those that read my blog regularly, this post shouldn’t seem too abnormal. That’s only because most of you know I’m a bit obsessed about frequent flier miles. A while back, I discovered a website called FlightMemory.com. Most people will think I’m nuts, but…

Another Way to Earn Miles

Shopping portals are a great way to earn airline miles. Here’s a good article in the NYT about them. Look for another post on airline shopping portals in the near future. Or send me an e-mail with your airline of choice, and I’ll help…