Photos taken at a polo tournament at the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club a couple of Sundays ago.  I love polo, it may be the most beautiful sport I've ever seen.

Tomorrow begins the largest vacation I've ever taken in one fell swoop.  I'll be based in Vilseck, a itsy-bitsy town in Bavaria, Germany.  I've also planned quite a few little trips to places I've never been. Mellieha, Malta. Alsace region of France. Pilsen, Czech Republic.

And wouldn't you know if, I've never been to the legendary, original, Hofbräuhaus in Munich?!

And in between all of this trips, I'm planning long runs in the most beautiful region of the world, Bavaria.  I can jog from town to town, greeting the locals with a "Grüß Gott!"

Luckily for me, my mom lives in Bavaria! She's my traveling buddy, and her house will be our base of operations. And she has jobs for me to do, like setting up her new computer.

I have to complete my online check-in.  Expect lots of pictures!

Inspired by the Jim Carrey movie, "Yes Man," I took my camera with me on my run today. I just ran the fitness trail on base with my workout buddy, Kaiser the Dog.  It was fun!  I think I'll switch my mp3 player for my camera more often! (By the way, the camera is that new Samsung TL220 that I showed you in a previous blog.)

Today, I went down to Santa Barbara to meet a friend for lunch at Cafe Buenos Aires.  This is the view from my favorite table, on the patio next to the fountain.  I had my usual... a caipirinha (my favorite cocktail, when I can find a place that makes them) and the El Choripan sandwich.  My favorite waiter was working, too! Halfway through the meal, he apologized for switching between Spanish and English without thinking.  And I realized I hadn't noticed! I was answering in Spanish or English, too! My American accent probably tipped him off, but it kind of made my day that I was speaking in another language without thinking about it.

The pictures below are all from the i Madonnari Italian Street Art Festival in front of the Santa Barbara mission.  This was an unplanned trip... I didn't even know it was going on! My friend mentioned it, so I knew I had to see. I was not disappointed.  I even got an italian soda ;) 

I've been in love with this art since I was a little girl.  My parents were stationed in Germany, so going to Italy on vacations was the same to us as American kids going to Disneyland.

These are pictures from Burg Colmberg, a castle in Germany's romantic Franconia region.  I stayed there for a few nights a couple of years ago, and I can't wait to go back!

I finally redeemed some of my miles for merchandise through United.com.  I've been wanting the Samsung DualView for a while, but when it popped up on United, I knew I had to get it!

Here it is: Samsung DualView

It was 39,000 miles, but totally worth it.

It took forever, but I finally crested the 100,000 mile mark on United again.

And that's enough for a free trip to Europe... or if I pay for a the trip, definitely enough for a first class upgrade. I prefer the second option... that's a long flight from California!

I haven't flown 100,000 miles, but I have my secret methods of acquiring miles.  OK, not so secret.  But I am dedicated.  I have the United Debit Card, the United Visa, and the United Business Debit.

My next big hurdle is getting back up to Premier status.  That's the base elite status, where you get to use the fast check-in counters, upgrade to Economy Plus, and automatically get at least 500 miles per flight.  Most of my flights begin with an 83 mile flight to LAX, so that's alot of extra miles!

Now they're beefing up the program, so I can use my miles for all sorts of things.  Car rentals, hotel rooms, even electronics.  But I prefer to use them for something flying-related.  AND I can use them on Lufthansa, my favorite airline.

I still haven't forgiven United for the SFO (San Francisco) disaster... but I think that has more to do with the airport than United.  So I give my hugs back to United, but will try to only fly into and out of itty-bitty airports, like SBA and SMX.

A few related links:
United Mileage Plus

United Mileage Plus debit cards from Chase

United Mileage Plus Credit Cards

P.S. I'm not an affiliate for United or Chase!  I don't make any money for promoting them, I just like the relationship they have, since it gets me free flights for stuff I already do...like shop!  :)

I made the switch to a weebly.com hosted blog.  All previous blog posts can be found at http://roaminggnomette.blogspot.com/