I have just finished off a business trip to the UK. Sadly, I think that my business trips are the only time I’m going to find to be able keep this blog fresh. Eh, so much being so fresh.
When I accepted my current position, I knew that travel was involved and my support system (The Husband and Grandma) was accepting. Of course, we didn’t think that I would be on two week-long business trips within a month of each other. (Let’s knock on wood that I won’t have to go anywhere for a while! Though, collecting stamps in the passport is quite fun!)
To make this most recent trip a bit more digestible, I proposed to The Husband that I drop off Peanut with her grandparents, stay a day or two, she would then stay the week there, spend quality time with them, while getting fully immersed in francais, I would fly back, stay a day, then we would both fly home. What a grand idea it was!
Peanut was so excited to be going on the plane with mommy! She was so excited, that she barely slept on the plane. Yeah, my idea of actually wanting to watch a movie or read were thwarted. In fact, I was the one that slept, not soundly, of course. Peanut was playing quietly on the floor in front of her seat or watching Wallace & Grommit on her tv. (Thank goodness AF has individual entertainment screens!)
She, at first, was not thrilled when I told her I had to go to work. Though she was crying when I was leaving for the airport, I knew she would be just fine with Grany. She’s apparently had loads of fun with her cousin and her friends!
I, on the other hand, have been tired from the long work days and late workouts. The town in which my company has an office isn’t that quite exciting. So, after dinner, I hit up the gym. (I did go out for dinner with coworkers one night – amazing Indian food! The other night I was invited to a coworkers’ home a for take away dinner.)
Thanks to the gracious hospitality of a coworker, he had invited my boss and I over to his house for dinner (as mentioned) – fish n’ chips, complete with mushy peas, pickled eggs and pickled gherkins – an opportunity to relax in a non-hotel environment. It was interesting to see my coworker in this dimension – you’re obviously only seeing their “work persona” and once you see them in their home and meet their family, your idea of who you think they are is either confirmed or completely way off.
Anyhow, the town that he lives in has this unusual religious presence. This town lays exactly on the GMT line and another geographical line which in some religions has HUGE meaning. Tom Cruise has a house in the area as there is a huge Scientology center. People, churches also used to burn witches here, too. Used to.
So, now I am wasting time at Heathrow, waiting for my flight. Terminal 5 at Heathrow actually isn’t too bad. Harrods, duty free shopping…and Starbucks.
Oh, after being in the UK for a week, dodgy and bugger are my favorite words du jour.
Off to find Burberry…and possibly give in to Starbucks.
To save the company some money on airfare (hey, I do my part) I had to spent the weekend in Frankfurt.
(I hear Frankfurt and all I can think about is my frosh year at UCSD living in Frankfurter Hall – yes, Frankfurter Hall – named after this guy.)
- Bratwurst is good.
- Apelwoi is good, too.
- I think America needs to further embrace the waffel – nothing like a warm waffel with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a hot coffee to warm you up on a cold day.
- Porsche drivers drive REALLY fast on the autobahn at 6.30a in the morning. Like, really fast.
- I wonder about the foolios that actually purchase cell phone applications that are advertised on tv – an app that, when you point your phone at a woman, you see her naked, sans clothing. I mean, really? Really?
- Schnitzel is good, too.
- There were two, yes, TWO, Starbucks in Zeil shopping area. (I didn’t go, as I couldn’t resist The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at the Mumbai airport. I don’t know why I have a fascination with international Starbucks outposts.)
- I probably would have enjoyed myself this much more if people weren’t smoking. (So spoiled in CA.)
Camera Fun in Frankfurt am Main
Leaving, for me, was the hardest thing. I was excited about my business trip to India, but when the actual day came…out came the mom tears. Though I was looking forward to actually maybe sleeping on the plane, read a book, or just be alone for a few minutes without having to fulfill a child’s or husband’s need – I didn’t realize how much I was going to miss them.
Peanut was sweet enough to give me a picture of a princess and a “map” that she drew so that I wouldn’t get lost. (sniff, sniff)
My journey got off to an interesting start.
Taxi driver looked like Slash. The smell of mary jane about knocked me over as the door was opened and Slash blasting Pink Floyd en route to the airport.
That’s all I’ll say about that.
Ten hours later, my flight lands in Frankfurt with enough time to grab sausages and pretzels for a quick lunch.
Though I was fully engrossed with my book during that flight to Frankfurt, the Italian man sitting across from me was providing plenty of entertainment. From sticking his crotch in my face (to reach the overhead bin) to trying to buy duty free Marlboros (an easy task, I’m sure, but in this instance, it was far from easy – “I would like to use my miles to pay for this.” “Sir, I also need a credit card number just in case you don’t have enough miles.” “But, I want to use my miles.” “Yes, sir, but in the event you don’t have enough miles, I need to be able to charge your card.” “Huh. Can you check my miles on board?” “No, sir, we cannot do that while we are in the air.” He finally agrees, when the receipt is ready to be signed…”oh, wait, that’s my wife’s card.”) to all the nasal clearing sounds he produced for the 10 hour flight. Yeah.
Before I know it, I’m loading up on bottled water, and boarding yet another flight to Mumbai.
With the book almost finished, we start our descent into Mumbai at 1.00a local time. The line at passport control is just like the line at Fry’s – 1 main line with a coordinator of sorts that directs you to the next available officer – coincidence? I,then, literally push and shove my way through at the baggage carousel. Another x-ray scan of the luggage, one last document to give to customs and off to find the hired car.
Pune is about 100 miles from Mumbai and takes 2.5 hours with no traffic. I was expecting the driving to be crazy, but I was not expecting people to run red lights (stop signs, included) like they didn’t exist, passing on both the left and the right, oy. I just had to close my eyes and hope the that dramamine was enough to knock me out so I didn’t have to witness any of this.
After a few days of work, (and an elephant sighting in the streets of Pune) I started the journey home, 6pm Pune time. I remembered to pop 2 dramamine, so after about 30 minutes in the car, I was out. Jet lag helped, too. I woke about 4.5 hours later in Mumbai, minutes away from the airport. I checked in at 10p for a 3.15am flight. Yes, 3.15a. Nine hours later, here I am, in my “executive” room at a hotel in Frankfurt. The upside, free internet access and free minibar. Downside, it’s not the Westin.
Yes, yes…we are back from (just shy of) 2 weeks on Maui. It was a much deserved and well spent vacay for the clan.
And yes, I did come back with a tee shirt, but also picked up some nice earrings. If anyone scored during this trip it was Mads: a $10 book from the ABC store that was well worth the money, jibbitz from the Crocs store in Lahaina, a cute Hawaiian dress from TropiKidz in Paia, reefs (of the flip-flop kind), a pony/horse book and play scene, a tee shirt from Kiwi John’s in Paia….
So, here are the top 10 highlights from our Maui vacay…
- Bento boxes from the Pukalani Superette – stopped here to pick up some picnic items and left with some darn good bento boxes: beef teriyaki, chicken lau lau, roast pork, macaroni salad, chow mein, rice (of course!) and last but not least, spam musubi. So, so good we were trying how we could justify driving up to Pukalani on the way to Wailea.
- Palauea Beach – just a few minutes south of Polo Beach in Wailea, this beach was perfect for hanging out, playing in the water, snorkeling (there were turtle sightings) and had great views of Molokini & Kaho’olawe.
- Island Birds – even the birds are laid back…they would move (walk, not even fly) out of the car’s path at the last absolute second.
- A rainy hike to twin falls – didn’t quite make it to the falls, but we saw beautiful flowers, big a** spiders, and my mom off-roading in this short hike all in the rain.
- Waking up to a gorgeous view from our private lanai
- Sweet & fresh fruit: mangoes and pineapples, especially
- Paia & the upcountry of Maui – being on the windward side, meant it was a LOT cooler. Paia & the upcountry towns (Haiku, Makawao, Ulupalakula) we visited were much nicer than the touristy spots.
- Kalua Pork at HanaHou Cafe – and what would you know, the owner is French! The profiteroles and tarte tatin were pretty good too!
- A little girl at the playground referring to S & I as “uncle” and “auntie”
- Mads thoroughly enjoying the pool after being so uncooperative for swim lessons
looking out from palauea beach
Not quite a birthday weekend in Paris, but it sounds a lot better than, working remotely from France for one week and I happen to be in Paris for my birthday. Fortunately, or unfortunately, with the internet/WiFi/VPN one is able to work anywhere.
So, yes, I am managing to work, what makes it difficult is a clingy-jet lagged child. Finally, after 4-5 days, she’s not so clingy and is playing well with her cousins. She’s looking up to her cousine, wanting to do things like her. For example, this morning, her cousine was granted a spoonful of nutella post-brekkies. Next thing I know, Mads wants “like cousine”. Ugh. A spoonful of nutella isn’t what I had in mind for her brekkies, since she only had hot chocolate. I suppose anything goes chez grandparents.
an assortment of saucisson...
Friday evening, I managed to take the RER from Le Pecq to the 7th to meet S, family & friends for dinner at Chez L’Ami Jean. L’ami Jean is a tiny Basque restaurant in Paris’ 7th arrondissement and definitely not a place for vegetarians.
We started with plenty of saucisson, two small casseroles of pate campagne, some jambon, and a jug, yes, a jug, of cornichons. There were so many options on the menu, S & I made it easy on ourselves and ordered the menu for two: cote du veau. For some reason, I had scalloppine on my mind, so I was a bit overwhelmed when a small cow was presented on our platter. Our meat was accompanied by sauteed spring veggies and the most sinful mashed pureed potatoes I’ve ever had! Unfortunately, I’m not one to say non to dessert, so I opted for strawberries, but I did get to try the drinking chocolate that someone ordered and regretted not getting one of my own.
Chez L’Ami Jean
27 rue Malar
75007 Paris
Dinner was followed by a lovely walk from the 7th to Opera – passing such sights as Pont Alexandre III, Place de la Concorde, Place Vendome, Longchamps, John Galliano, Cartier, Hotel Costes, Buddha Bar and the like and a late RER train ride home.
Come Saturday evening, I was too tired to make the trek for a Parisien birthday dinner, so we opted for dinner in Saint-Germain-en-Laye at La Feuillantine. It was a small restaurant, charming and chic at the same time and food was SO good! Turns out Saturday was a popular night for birthday celebrations – 3 other people were celebrating their birthday, too! I guess, La Feuillantine is the place to go for your birthday. We started with an amuse buche of pureed lentils and chorizo (yum!). Followed was foie gras cooked in a vanilla-mushroom cream sauce for S and a feuillantine (puff pastry) with green & white asparagus, grapefruit, and prawns, with, of course, a citrus cream sauce for me. It was here that I noticed this was the second resto to serve us non-white flour bread – which was nice, seeing that I probably met my carb intake for the year in the past couple days. Our entrees were just as tasty – yes, there’s more! – lamb shank (I think) with couscous and fish baked in parchment with baby spinach, proscuitto, fresh goat cheese and a (salty, for me) thyme au jus. To finish, an Ile flottante on green matcha and a chocolate-raspberry dessert. (Sorry, no pictures of the food here!)
What a wonderful start to my thirty-something-th year!
Well, Arlington, Virginia really.
The time for my business trip that was planned months ago finally arrived! This was the first time I was going to be away from home for a few days since Mads was born!
I arrived at Reagan airport moments before a nasty snow storm settled in – thankfully I did pack my winter coat, gloves and hat!
My home for the next few days would be the Westin – known for marketing their “heavenly” beds. I can attest, the beds are indeed heavenly and I slept so well the next few nights.
I definitely made the most of my time away – the first evening I went to see a movie. (It had stopped snowing by then, but it was still quite cold.)
an evening at the millennium stage
The second evening took me to The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. (The Westin was situated near a metro station, so I was only 10 minutes away from the District.) I hopped on the metro, took the free shuttle from the Foggy Bottom station to the Kennedy Center. The Millennium Stage offers daily, free performing arts events – they were in the midst of their Arab arts festival, ARABesque. So, that evening was a piano duet by Rami Khalife & Francesco Tristano. It wasn’t quite classical piano, but it was very interesting how they got their pianos to sound like a bass. After the hour long performance, I was able to walk around, check out the JFK bust, the arabic clothing on display, etc.
My last evening, the seminar ended early (thank goodness!) and under the advice of an FDA employee, I made it to the National Museum of American History. Recently renovated, the museum was great and I was able to adequately explore in a hour and a half! I especially enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen, the First Lady exhibit – complete with inaugural gowns, portraits, accessories, and the 1814 flag flown at Fort McHenry.
julia's kitchen
washington monument at sunset
All in all it was a great few days away from home…but as always, coming home to smiling faces and a wagging tail was even better!
Lucky for me, I arrived just before the storm hit.
It's a snow day in Arlington
Using my Southwest credits, we decided that we’d fly down to Phoenix to visit some friends.
It was going to be a quick visit as there were only a few non-stop flights to choose from.
Now that Mads is 2, we’ve got to pay for her seat now…and bring along her car seat (as it’s the safest way for her fly). She did well on the flight out – she seemed a little scared during takeoff and landing. As we were taxi-ing on the runway, I said, “Hi Phoenix!” and Mads was quick to say, “Hi Kleenex!” How cute is that?
Of course, the excitement of it all kept this little one up until 11p. Ugh.
We started our Saturday in Phoenix at the Adobe resto at the Biltmore golf club. The restaurant is in one of those golf communities where properties on the market for a mere $12M. We were informed that mostly athletes, actors, and politicians have homes here. Well, yah, they’re the only ones that can afford these properties.
After brekkies, we headed to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix. It seemed fairly new as most exhibits were under construction. Mads enjoyed almost all parts of the museum, the giant play area, the art room, the faux grocery store (where she got to play cashier), and especially the faux ice cream cart!
I have to mention that we felt very “California” in Arizona, also known as McCain territory. Even more so, since we splurged and rented a Prius. I had only seen ONE other Prius the entire weekend.
We spent the afternoon at the pool, despite an attempt to nap. Though, the pool water was a tad bit on the cool side, Mads had a great time splashing around in her little bikini and chasing after the pool toys.
Mads finally went down for a nap in the car ride to dinner (lovely) and managed to sleep for about an hour in a noisy restaurant. She woke up shortly before left to enjoy the mac n’ cheese & fried chicken we had ordered/saved for her.
Now, I know that my friend R has fully acclimated himself to Phoenix. (He was previously living in Chicago.) As soon as we got home, R had asked S if he wanted to go scorpion hunting with him. Enough said. 🙂
So that was our weekend in Kleenex – short, but sweet, always nice to see friends we hadn’t seen in a while.
I’ll try to update this post with photos later on…
Though the time was nice, I was excited to see Mads after one week away.
When we finally met up, she buried her head in grany’s arm and then ran into mine, saying, “mommy!” Then, as she always does, she told everyone that this is “mommy”. She had changed while we were gone, for one, she was speaking & understanding French – amazing!
fishing for duckies @ jardin d'aclimatation
Feeling unmotivated to shop (I know something must be wrong with me), we decided to take Mads back to the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne – she had gone earlier in the week with grany & granpy. Okay, this place is a kid’s heaven…I don’t think we have anything quite like it here in the Bay Area – not to my knowledge at least. It’s a mix between a petting zoo, the Children’s Playground and a carnival or county fair, but permanent. Mads ran around like crazy, checking out the animals, fishing for ducks. She seemed really intrigued by the mini-dragon roller coaster.
Before we knew it, we were packing up, including all the loot miss Mads received for her birthday. Luckily, I had packed my Longchamps tote and we were able to throw toys, books, and other miscellaneous items we collected on the way, like the double sized Nemo beach towel that we couldn’t leave the Disney store without. Yup.
We said our goodbyes at the airport and waited to board our flight home. Surprisingly, the flight was not full and we managed to have a whole row to ourselves. Mads managed to nap after takeoff and before landing.
Before we knew it we were home safe & sound…though I was hoping for cooler weather as a Bay Area heat welcomed us home.
We knew our vacation was coming to a close as we headed up to Sevilla. After minor directional setbacks (i.e. lack of visible and prominent street signs), we finally found our hotel, Las Casas del Rey Baeza, recommended to us by our friend BlondeTulip. The small lobby was decked out in modern black & white furniture and they greeted us with ice water and sangria! As we entered our room, we were glad to have these modern amenities on our last two nights in Spain. The rooftop pool is amazing, but since it was Sunday afternoon and the Real Alcazar is closed on Mondays, we skipped the pool for now and made our way to the Alcazar before it closed for the day.
alcazar arches
The royal palace was immense as it was amazing, but once you’ve seen one Moorish palace, you’ve seen them all. I still stand by the Mezquita as being the most impressive.
We booked tickets to a flamenco show at El Arenal that evening, so we laid out poolside the remainder of the afternoon.
I was happy to read, after the show, that the flamenco at El Arenal is the most professional of all shows in Sevilla. S + I were seated at the edge of the stage, so we got to see & hear everything up close. There were 2 older Italian couples seated behind us and by the middle of the show, one of the Italians decided that he could sing along. Wrong move buddy. S + I both swear that he got the evil eye from the lead singer and after he got sushed, I was convinced that the gypsies were going to jump him after the show. From that moment on, S + I patiently waited to eat or take a drink of water. Those flamenco women mean business.
Our last full day in Sevilla, sadly started out with a late breakfast (12noon) at one of the three Starbucks on Avenida de la Constitucion. We headed out to go shopping for gifts, but with high temperatures and high exchange rates, I was highly unmotivated to shop. So we went back to the hotel and laid out at the pool, the remainder of the afternoon.
S decided that we should go somewhere nice for our last night in Spain and that somewhere nice landed us at the Hotel Alfonso XIII – the BEST hotel in the city. They had just opened a restaurant in their patio and we were able to walk in without a reservation. The service and food were fabulous and the patio had Vegas-like water misters misting on intervals.
It was a wonderful ending to our vacation – but it wasn’t quite over.
We were on an early (9am) flight to Paris, so with checking out, returning the car, etc., we had to leave the city by 7am. In doing so, I think we managed to wake up the entire hotel: As I was showering, I saw Sylvain jump out of his skin, screaming that there was cockroach-like insect on the floor. Then I started screaming at him to get his shoe and kill it. No sanctity of life issues here. With that said, I really do want to recommend Las Casas as a great place to stay in Sevilla…maybe it was because our room was on the bottom floor, near the entrance…the pool, the room interior (sans roaches & other insects), the free & fresh oranges, the welcome sangria…perhaps, just a recommendation with high reservations?
By the time we got to the airport, we were happy to leave smoky, dirty Spain – I won’t even go into the cleanliness of the airport bathrooms were like – it’s Sevilla, not some back country village. (It seemed as though Spaniards love their cigarettes more than the French – by the time I went to bed every night, I felt like I had smoked at least two packs. Blech.)
Despite our last morning’s…ahem…activities, our vacation to Andalucia was wonderfully hot, wonderfully delicious and wonderfully relaxing.
We also learned that as we navigated the streets and roads of all these Spanish towns, S + I would be “that” couple on The Amazing Race getting frustrated with each other because they couldn’t find the frickin’ exit. Oh well.