Why We Didn't Use AirBnB

When we went to Europe we had five hotels to book, which added up to 17 nights of hotels in the space of about a month.  Once I narrowed down my search on Trip Advisor, I was definitely stressing about how much money all of these hotels were costing us.  I felt I owed it to myself to check out AirBnB and Home Away, just to see what my options were so I created accounts and started looking.  However, I found that the search was even more exhausting over there than on Trip Advisor and that it probably wasn't going to work out because A.  I probably wouldn't be saving all that much money in the end and B.  I just wasn't comfortable taking a chance on some of the places. 

Hotel #3 NOSTOS APARTMENTS in Santorini.  This adorable kitchen.

I considered going the non hotel route but it didn't work out and this is why.

Some of the rentals have pretty rigid cancellation policies, and I only feel comfortable booking when I can cancel.  I don't even mind paying up front as long as I can get my money back if I  need to. Even the cheaper no cancellation allowed price doesn't lure me because I can't stop the what if anxiety.  How many big vacations have I had to cancel?  Zero! But still.  You never know.

Sometimes it's all Just a Little too Much

September was the worst.  

Coming home after 6 weeks abroad was fantastic. There were spiders in every corner of my kitchen. Disgusting Spiders. And you know how much I hate spiders? A lot. It's just one reason I really need my husband to come home. I'm so afraid of spiders that I took my garage door opener with me to Germany, and it's not because I drove to Germany or even to the airport.  My car was in the garage the whole time I was gone, but I knew I'd never make it through the front door of my house in the dark with my luggage through cobwebs (I knew were waiting for me) without some serious mental trauma.

I was also really thrilled to show up at the post office on Saturday afternoon to collect my mail only to be told there was no record of my mail hold.  How are they going to send me an email that my mail hold is ending soon when they never even did it in the first place? I was beyond annoyed.

The other awesome thing that welcomed me home was my dear old friend insomnia. Return to USA jet lag was not so bad. Dead tired at 7pm, deep sleep, and wide awake at 4:30am (before my alarm) was doable. I could work with that, but as the days progressed, tired at 7pm, barely any sleep, and an alarm clock that goes off at 6:30am, leaves much to be desired.  Grocery shopping. Meal prep. I missed it so much! The familiar zombie like routine of work, eat, skip the work out cause I'm too tired, and then go to bed so I can not sleep was back in full effect. I was not impressed.

What most of my weekends look like lately and I'm not mad about it