trailer!

To all our guests: Richmond welcomes you!

Welcome to Richmond! Above is a video of a few things you might see while you're in Monica's hometown. If you're a guest flying in from out of town you'll want to rent a car. Travelocity is a well-known site for booking flights and renting cars. Just click through one of the banners on our site and you'll find some great deals!

We've reserved a block of rooms under Graham-Jackson wedding. Please refer to our wedding website for that information.


While you're in town for the wedding we hope that you get the opportunity to explore the city at your leisure. Here's a good place to start: Visitors Guide to Richmond.

If you're a history buff, you'll enjoy taking a stroll down Monument Avenue, seeing beautiful historic buildings downtown and visiting the Richmond Valentine History Museum with views of the James River Park. Court End radiates from Thomas Jefferson’s Capitol to include nine National Historic Landmarks and twelve buildings on the National Register of Historic Places.



If you love the nightlife and like to boogie, this is a good list on clubs in Richmond. Or if you love the nightlife and like comedy Funnybone showcases great comedic talent on the weekends. Another great place for comedy is Comedy Sportz which pits two improv comedy teams against each other in a battle of wits.


For nature lovers, Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden offers a fun time in the garden. Cruise down Richmond’s Historic Canal Walk on Canal Cruises. With wildlife exhibits, gorgeous flowers and beautiful landscapes, Maymont Park is a nature lover's dream.



If you're into arts and cultural activities, Richmond has an exciting visual arts scene. Here you'll find a good list of art galleries in Richmond. The Science Museum of Virginia offers plenty of exciting exhibits and an IMAX theater. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is a must on the to-do list of art lovers.

This is a portrait of a live model that Monica painted while taking a painting class at The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

For sports enthusiasts, visit the Diamond to watch the famous Richmond Braves play the lame Norfolk Tides.


Photos courtesy of Scenic Virginia Photography, Richmond Braves and Moni's photography.

Hawaii is Paradise

This is the true story...of one couple on vacation, to find out what happens... when people stop being New Yorkers and start being Hawaiian. The Real Vacation: Honolulu.

Bienvenido a Miami!

Our trip to South Beach, Miami was a really fun, short trip.

Clydica Cruises the Bahamas

We loved the cruise. It was an action-packed, fun filled vacation.

Vegas vs. Atlantic City

In this corner, we have Las Vegas

In Lala Land - Los Angeles' Best

Back in January of '07, Clydica took a lovely trip to LA and Hawaii. The video above is from the LA portion of our trip. We mainly used public transportation to get around in LA. Their bus system is surprisingly accurate and thorough. Pretty good for a city where everyone drives. It's probably safest to take the bus anyway since the stars and starlets seem to drive under the influence as a general rule. j/k.
Anyway, we went up the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu, to Universal Studios, and through Santa Monica on the bus. We even went to a taping of the Price is Right. Guess how we got there...yup, ON THE BUS! lol.

A Montreal Story

On July 1, 2006, Clyde and I embarked on a most exhilarating trip to spend Canada Day where else but in Canada. We also attended the Montreal Jazz Festival. We researched to find the most inexpensive trips online and our search led us to one of our favorite forms of cheap transportation, the Chinatown bus. They have plenty of tours around the country and many are under $500 with roundtrip transportation, lodging, tours and some meals included. We started off our trip in Boston which is where the bus left from. Neither of us had ever been to Boston, so we figured taking a Greyhound there would be a great treat!

We got to Boston at night and pretty much slept in the terminal until it was time to go to the Sunshine Tour bus headed for Montreal.

Here's the way to Montreal for that tour.

Turbo Tax Contest Entry

This is our video from the 2007 Turbo Tax Youtube contest. We didn't win, but we sure had fun incorporating all of our cool trips into our video. Check it out!

Egypt Part 1 of 4: Giza, Memphis, Saqqara, Sphinx

Egypt Part 1 of 4

Welcome to part 1 of a four part series:
Clyde & Monica - The Egyptian Week.

Part one features: Cairo, its people, its billboards, and its traffic. A Stroll through our resort in Giza, a stop at the Papyrus museum, a stop at a carpet school, a visit to King Ramses, and the ancient cities of Memphis & Saqquara.
The highlights of part one include the trip to the Step Pyramid, the Pyramids of Giza (the only remaining wonder of the world that still exists) and the Sphinx.

Enjoy!

Egypt Part 2 of 4: Karnak, El Souk, and a dinner cruise on the river Nile.

Egypt Part 2 of 4

Welcome to part 2 of a four part series:
Clyde & Monica - The Egyptian Week.

Part two features: The end of our visit to the Sphinx, A ride through the city of Giza, a trip to various marketplaces, dinnertime - Egyptian Style, as well as a cruise down the river Nile.

You will also see an Egyptian Discotheque (which was in our resort complex). We took a nine hour train ride to Luxor and you can see the pics of that city as well. In Luxor, we went to the Karnak Temple, went on a feluca ride (sailboat) to Banana Island, a carnival which was across the street from our hotel, and to the infamous El Souk Bazaar.

Enjoy!

Egypt Part 3 of 4: Balloon Ride and Luxor

Egypt Part 3 of 4

Welcome to part 3 of a four part series:
Clyde & Monica - The Egyptian Week.

Part three features: A Hot Air balloon ride over Luxor's West Bank... with a post flight dance party! You'll also see our boat ride from the east to the west bank after our flight. And... an Egyptian cat.

Additional highlights include visiting the Luxor Temple and a Mosque in Luxor.

Enjoy!

Egypt Part 4 of 4 - Luxor to Cairo to Giza to Cairo to the air

Egypt Part 4 of 4

Welcome to part 4 of a four part series:
Clyde & Monica - The Egyptian Week.

Part four features: More pictures of our day in Luxor, and a trip to the El Hussein restaurant.
We visited both the Luxor Museum and the Mummification Museum's but we were not allowed to take pictures inside. We attempted to walk through the city to the airport and saw the real Luxor. We took a plane back to Cairo and took pictures from the Cairo Tower, the highest point in the city. We walked over the Tahrir Bridge and took various pictures as we walked through the metropolis center called Tahrir Square (including fast food restaurants, statues, and assorted people.) We hopped on the metro and attempted to go to Cairo University. After a dangerous cab ride, we partied at La Deenar one last time.

We also saw the Egyptian Museum which houses mummies of ancient royalty and other artifacts that we weren't allowed to photograph.

You will see pics of a rural area on our way to Memphis.

As we leave Egypt, we both think if you haven't gone.... GO! And if you have... go again! It was a real treat!

Silent Cell phone video - Pyramids of Giza

Silent Cell phone video - Pyramids of Giza

Cell phone video - Ramses

Egypt Cell phone - Ramses

Moni & Clyde's Rio Adventure

Enjoy!!!

Booked by Travelocity

Cheap Eats Brasilian Style

Our hotel offered a breakfast fit for royalty. It featured pancakes, sausage, bacon, pastries, waffles, scrambled eggs, and freshly squeezed juice and chocolate milk that was truly addictive. The Premier Copacabana had us up every morning by 8am to enjoy their very filling, very tasty and very free (!) breakfast. That was one of the highlights of our trip in terms of food.


I know, it’s criminal, but we didn’t actually eat at a churrascaria. A churrascaria is (from Wikipedia) “a Brazilian or Portuguese steakhouse. Churrasco is the cooking style, which translates roughly from the Portuguese for 'barbecue'.” So pretty much it’s a grand parade of meats of all kinds right into your tummy. I’ve been to one in Richmond run by Brazilians so I didn’t feel too bad about missing out on it this trip.


Other than that, fruit is cheap in Rio and plenty of street vendors will try to hose you when buying it. I bought a half of a watermelon from a vendor for about 4 reals. It should only cost about 2 or 3 but it was so hot outside and the melon was so juicy and sweet looking, I didn’t even care.


We found plenty of little cafes to eat at and were so thrilled to find that a huge cup of acai only cost about R$3. Oh. Acai. When you go to Rio, please, please try some acai, unless of course you don’t like for your taste buds to be taken on a journey of love and warm, happy feelings. It takes all kinds of travelers.



One of our favorite fast food restaurants was Burgao. It’s like Burger King but it also has food like steak, chicken, rice, beans. Stuff Americans would call “real food”. It’s a good little place to get a nice meal for about 5 or 6 reals. This is what I had

Carioquinha Frango Empanado:




- Arroz - Rice

- Feijão - Beans

- Peito de Frango Empanado - Small Chicken Empanada

- Alface - Lettuce

- Tomate - Tomato

All for only R$6,30


They also have the regular beloved fast food like hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes.

I believe you call it "soccer"

When in Rio, there are some things you just have to do in order to make your trip complete. You have to hit the beach. (Check). You have to go to a Brazilian steak house. (Ok, so we missed the boat on that one). Go hang gliding. (Check). Go to a discotheque. (Ok, so we didn't do that also.) Visit the Jesus Christ Statue. (Oh yes!). Snorkel (Doh!)

Ok, so we didn't do everything that lonelyplanet.com would have advised but we fit lots into one week. And one of the events that we actually did go to was a soccer match at one of the world's largest and most famous stadiums, Maracana. It often has 90,000 plus ravenous fans screaming and yelling for their respective team.

There is a huge statue of Pele near the entrance. Pele scored his 1000th goal at Maracana. Maracana is also the site for multiple World Cups. We truly were walking into a sports cathedral.

As you can probably guess, we went to Maracana via autobus. The wonderful thing abut the bus system is how you always know what neighborhood the last stop is in, as opposed to two random street names you may have never heard of. We arrived about thirty minutes prior to the posted start time. It was amazing. We took pictures of the building, then walked over to the ticket counter where I ordered dois tickets. (It's funny whenever I had to speak to someone. My Portuguese is more broken than all my Thundercats toys.)

It was open seating so Monica and I could've picked where we wanted to sit. There were the fans of Flamengo (red and black) on one side, and Vasco (yellow and black)on the other. We sat close to the Flamengo troop. These fans were amazing. They carried huge 10x12 flags, wore the jerseys, yelled across at the other fans, sang fight songs, and this was all before the opening kickoff!



Soccer is a game that can either be very exciting or very boring. These players are so quick and agile and have the ability to control their bodies and move full speed across a field that is much larger than an American football field. The half ended in a scoreless tie. Moni wanted something to eat/drink, so we went to the concession stand and she got this pudding. She loved it! I wished I could've bought her a box of it to bring home. We went to the bathroom and considering how many people were in the arena, it was relatively clean. There were even recycling bins. America are you listening!!!

Anywho, the game started again and we were watching, but with only somewhat interest as we took pictures and fan watched and plotted the rest of our day. So, all of a sudden, we hear a thunderous roar from the crowd, we turn to the field and see the players jumping. They are chanting unintelligible words. We missed the goal. One score all night, and we missed it. Oh well.



I would fully recommend scheduling a trip to Maracana when in Rio. You wont regret it.

And try the pudding in the orange and purple cup. It's real sweet. You'll love it.

Rio to Go

When we first arrived in Rio, I immediately forgot every bit of Portuguese I had learned and we walked directly up to the line of taxi drivers that were just waiting for spacey-looking-Americans-still-high-on-Ambien-from-the-twelve-hour-flight to perform highway robbery on. I knew better, but I was so tired, and I just didn’t care, so we spent about 60 reals on the ride to our hotel. Whoops.

For travel around Rio we used the subway and bus lines. Rio has a very clean and easy to understand subway system. I felt really safe taking their trains and there was a pink caboose in the back that was supposed to be just for women but I didn’t feel the need to use it. Luckily for us, their signs were in English so we had no trouble navigating the system. That is, until we got above ground. Oh yeah, we’ve got stories. We mostly just took whatever bus appeared to be going somewhere cool and prayed that we would make it there. And we did every time. We once got lost for about two hours and ended up wandering up the hill in a favela, or "shantytown”.

After deciding that I would no longer walk around “the hood” on some old "shook ones" vibe, we hopped on some random van-like bus that took us up through the beautiful mountains with the most astounding views and back down to a little shopping area that was filled with buses to get us back to familiar area. Bus trips are about reals and you don’t even need exact change because there is a person on a little high chair who takes your money and gives you change if needed.

Tijuca Forest

We decided to take a hike. Through the Tijuca Rain Forest, one of the world's largest urban forests. We started in Copacabana and waited for the bus to get to Centro. From there, we waited for the bus going to the forest. And we waited. And we waited. Until finally, we decided we were going to jump on the next bus that said it was going to that neighborhood (Barra da Tijuca) and just be aware of our location. Please note that the bus driver made no announcements, there were few signs after leaving the Centro region, and we barely knew the language.

We managed to get off very close to the entrance of the forest. We took pictures (as is our custom) and started the trek. The signs were bilingual and we started our adventure up the hill for what was sure to be a remarkable view at the apex. We looked at the different paths for our ascent and chose the simplest hike for adults which we translated “Hill of the Easy Trail.” We wanted to challenge ourselves.

It was the most exhausting hike we've ever taken. Easy Trail... HA!! There was lush vegetation, mini-waterfalls, friendly Cariocas. It was most exhilarating. Each step pushed us more and more as we attempted to take a photo for the ages!



This is probably where you would see that photo. But since we turned around about 2/3rds of the way up, there is no photo. Instead, I would advise that you take the mini-hike and not the intermediate and especially not the master level hike. Or at least bring more water than we did. Two bottles of Aquafina will not do when battling the Tijuca Rain Forest.