Joan's Minutia

Another old friend

2011-08-24T20:28:00.001-07:00

I had two groups of friends in Geneva. The Anglican church craft group and mommies and toddlers that lived in the same apartment complex.
Gabi was the one that I stayed close with, so I really wanted to visit with her, too.

We walked along the little stream in our old village. (it is much bigger now!)

We sent notes to some of the other people from that time and best of all, heard back from them. So then we took some pictures to send
The two of us

Tim (15 1/2), Carolin (18 - she was two when we first met and I became Oma Joan), Nelly the dog and Gabi

Gabi teaches kindergarten in the German school. They are moving into a brand new space so we went to see it
The upper school

The upper level will be the reading nook. The underneath part is for playing house. It has the normal play stove and fridge, but also has a microwave and dishwasher

They have a nice room for playing inside in bad weather which they share with another room

The bathroom. They call this the kindergarten, but it is from 3 to 5 years

Gabi and I talked, drank tea and talked - just like old times.

I had a fabulous time visiting with all of my friends. The time was too short, but I am glad to be going home. It will be good to sleep in my own bed and be in my own house.

I will try to post some of the movies - especially from the wedding.

Visiting in Geneva

2011-08-24T20:25:00.001-07:00

Chuck and I were supposed to visit Geneva this spring. Sadly, this was not to be. So I took this opportunity to visit with friends that I haven't seen in ten years.

Annemarie is still the head of the craft group. She and her husband, Alec picked me up at the airport and took me to their house. They gave a little party for the current members of the group that night. I still knew three of them and the rest had heard about me.
Annemarie

Louise

Joyce, Winifred and Maureen - Winifred is 92. Geneva is good for old ladies.

Annemarie made this tart with raspberries from their garden.

On Sunday we drove to Yvoire, a medieval town on the lake for lunch.

Alec with Jill, another member of the group.

Our table was right on the lake

We had fillet of lake perch, frites and salad and lots of good conversation.

That evening we were sitting in the garden after dinner and the hedgehog came for a visit.

This is what started my hedgehog collection (probably his ancestor). I was really glad to see him.

Leaving Barcelona

2011-08-24T20:24:00.001-07:00

I put them in a cab at 7:30 and went down the street to buy a Starbucks latte. This was the only thing open. Took it back to the apartment and sat in blessed silence.

When the department store across the street opened, I visited the supermarket in the basement. Big signs in many languages saying "Don't touch the produce."

This ENTIRE display was white asparagus

The fish counter goes around the corner

Cured meats - or PIG PARTS as Alec would say

Would you like a whole cured ham?

Taxi to airport and off to Geneva.

Barcelona day 3

2011-08-23T08:42:00.001-07:00

The kids are sleeping later and later. They are staying up late for dinner and also they are pretty tired by now. (I know I am.)

While Alec and the kids slept in, Jef and I cabbed over to the Sagrada Familia.

We brought back breakfast and started the day by walking down Las Ramblas, which is a very touristy street but lots of fun and interesting things to see. A store front

One of the many "statue people".

We toured the Palau Guell, which was the first Gaudi redo for a wealthy industrialist. It was a fabulous mixture of arte deco, craftsman and beginning Gaudi. The toilet

The ceiling

The chimneys on the roof

Branwen posing next to the snake motif on the gate

Jef chose someplace to go for lunch, but it only had pastries, but they recommended someplace a few blocks away that wasn't so touristy. We were really pleased with the place. We started with the tray of little sandwiches.

A platter of best cured pork in the world

Fried potatoes

And one order of paella which I forgot to photograph. We went back for dessert to the first place and then continued down the street to the harbor and the aquarium.

After a fine time, we headed over to the Font Magica. In the guide book, the dancing waters show was supposed to start at 8. They lied! It was 9. Too late for us. They had to get the cab for the airport at 7:30. We went bak to the apartment. Alec and I went back to the ham restaurant and bought "take away". The best ham again. This was Calder's favorite

Assorted other pig parts and bread

There was one more kind, but Branwen ate it all up before its photo op.

Really pleased with our last meal in Barcelona we packed up and went to bed.

Barcelona day 2

2011-08-20T00:59:00.001-07:00

This was Alec's day to explore by himself. There is a lot for an architect to see here. He mapped out his route and off he went. (He said that he walked for miles and miles all uphill. There was a 5 hour wait to get into the Sagrada Familia, which is the famous Gaudi cathedral. He decided to keep moving and went to the Parc Guell where everything is outside.

When the kids finally woke up, Jef and I took them to the zoo. Yes, folks - 4 countries - 4 zoos, and we enjoyed every single one of them.

This one was shady and had a lovely reptile house with lots of snakes - Branwen's favorite.

After the zoo, we walked to the beach and dipped our toes in the Mediterranean.

The water was cool, not cold and very refreshing. It also sparkled.

That night we ate in a place that specialized in ham. Guess how we knew.

Each ham had its own little drip catcher.

Again we had an assortment of stuff that we all shared.
Toasted bread with olive oil

Tomatoes and olives

Gazpacho - it had bacon bits on top, but I ate those before I remembered to take its picture.

Croquettes

Mushrooms with frites

Pork cutlet with ratatouille and frites

Special cured pig assortment 4 kinds

Cheese

Desserts

Went back to the fan shop. This time they bought.

Since there was no game, we could go to bed when we got home.

Barcelona

2011-08-20T00:34:00.001-07:00

We finally made it. The last stop in our trip together. We had no trouble finding the apartment, it is right next to the big square in old Barcelona. Alec parked the car under the square while we got settled in. The kids are in love with this place. They picked their beds and room and just made themselves at home.

http://www.you-stylish-barcelona-apartments.com/B305_Barcelona-Apartment-for-Rent-plaza-catalunya-lux-14.html is the web site so you can see pictures.

Alec and I returned the car just a little way away. In Paris, the agent had said that he thought that particular office was closed - but he was wrong. (I had assured him that I would take the car to an approved place, not abandon it on the street.)

We walked back, finding a place for dinner, where I made reservations, and the Barcelona team's fan shop. (glad I made the reservations, we got the last big table!)
An assortment of fried sea food. The kids both liked the squid tentacles.

Sausages, fried peppers, chicken wings and croquettes.

Potato assortment- the french fries had a garlic sauce.

Salad assortment under the pinkish sauce were little shrimps - Branwen's favorite

Bread with tomato smear

We were stuffed. The fan shop was stuffed also. There was a game that night between Barcelona and Madrid. It was starting at 11 pm so everyone, his brother and his cousin were stocking up. We decided to wait till another day.

OUR TV DOSN'T GET THE GAME. THIS IS CALDER'S FAVORITE TEAM. Good news, Alec can get it on the computer. He and Calder stayed up to watch, the rest of us went to bed.

The Loire

2011-08-17T09:13:00.001-07:00

Left Michelle's and drove directly to Chenonceau, the best chateau on the Loire.

This is the one that has the room that goes over the river. During WWII the line between free and occupied France ran right down the river and the resistance smuggled people out by taking them through the chateau. We also could see the kitchens and all of the equipment. They grow their own flowers for the arrangements that are everywhere.

Branwen wanted to know about every "princess bed" that she saw in the guide book, and made sure that we didn't skip any of them.

By the time we finished the chateau, it was 7:30 and we stopped in a small town and ate in an outdoor restaurant in the town square. The service gave slow a new name! The waitresses (only one and a half of them) had to go back and forth across the road. They only could do one thing at a time so it meant that they made many trips with open hands.

We still had to find our hotel and check in. The directions on line had been very strange but it was in a very very small town - how hard could it be? In the pitch dark of the French countryside? At eleven at night?

It turned out that this was an autoroute motel, but since we were not on the autoroute we couldn't drive directly to our room. You registered at the same place that you pay for gas. The lady gave us the code for the gate which was also the one for our room. The buildings looked like cell blocks from the outside, but were quite spacious and really comfortable in a minimalist kids of way.

It did have the best shower that we have had on the trip.

And free WiFi. Once I got over the weirdness of it, I would really recommend it to someone traveling on the autoroute - cheap and easy.

Leaving Paris

2011-08-17T09:12:00.001-07:00

Off to join up with Jef in Fontainebleau. Jean Paul came to check us out and figure how much I owed for electricity. This was a strange additional fee of nine euros, but since phone calls world wide were free, and we did call the USA for long calls, I didn't mind.

Taxi brick came as promised and took us to the car rental place. It was closed. The guy was across the street having coffee. We have a Peugeot mini van, so there is enough room for all of us and all of our stuff. It has a GPS which is taking some getting used to.

Jef had had a fine visit with her friend Michelle. She lives right outside the grounds of the chateau. When we got there we went out to see the market and then for lunch.

Michelle joined us and the kids had a ride on a newer carrousel - circa 1900.

We walked through the palace gardens to her street.

When driving through small French towns, I have often wondered what was behind those doors that open right on the sidewalk. Now I know.

This is the house. The lowest windows were the laundry room and behind it some storage and her husband's office. The open window above is the dining room.

Up a flight of stairs from the front door.

Turn right into the dining room

This is the entire kitchen. Michelle is cooking on the stove and to her right is a waist high refrigerator with a microwave on top of it.

The living room

The small deck. This their only personal green space, but they really utilize the palace gardens.

Up another flight

Guest room

Bath

Study with a convertible sofa

Up more stairs

The master bedroom

Their baby's room

The other side of Alyia's room

Another family came from England for a visit and overlapped our stay one night. All told, Michelle had 8 extra people in her house. I stayed at an Ibis a few blocks away. It was sort of nice to be by myself for a night.

We all went out for pizza for dinner.

We left the next day after lunch. The kids had grilled cheese sandwiches picnic style in the living room and the adults had a chicken pasta and salad in the dining room. Here is Michelle with her husband and daughter.

Paris day three

2011-08-13T01:09:00.001-07:00

Jef is going early to fontainebleau, so we planned to do things that the kids would love so they wouldn't mind her leaving.

At the Luxembourg gardens there is a very old carrousel. Alec loved it when he was calder's age. There is also a fabulous pay to play place. A good plan.
B at the top - she is the climber in the family. It took Calder several times on before he risked the top.

A climbing maze

The zip line

This space was filled with American kids. Lots of people were giving them breaks. This place had just opened when Alec was 7. We went to it with friends from school. We think that sometimes people just throw there kids over the rail and go to work.
The part we really came for

Alec is standing on the ground. The horses just hang. The only place to be is an outside horse, because you have a stick to snag rings. The ride ends when all the rings are gone.

Calder really concentrating.

Moved on to the Pompidou. Not much action.

Calder at the Calder.

Tried for crepes for dinner, but settled for Mac 'n cheese instead.

Packed our stuff and are ready to go in the morning.

Paris day two and another zoo

2011-08-13T00:31:00.001-07:00

When we started planning this trip, Alec said that we should do castles - knights and princess ones. Instead we seem to be doing zoos of the world. The large Paris zoo has been closed. Perhaps for reconstruction, we dont know. (it's a shame, the last time I was there they had a baby Pygmy hippo.). But, Paris has the menagerie, which was the king's zoo.

We went to the salon du tea around the corner for breakfast. When we finished the guy explained that he was closing for vacation, but that the brasserie down the street was good. There are three in a block. The first one was sort of OK, the second one was bad, the third one was the good one that we should go to.

This zoo is small enough to see all the animals, but after the snakes, Branwen pooped out and wanted to just sit. Calder and Alec went on so that he could see the biterong, his necessity for this zoo. Climbing on the hippos was very popular, and we all thought of Chuck, since this was his favorite animal.

We had a quick bite at McD and then walked along the river to the isle St. Louis for Bertillion ice cream. The actual shop closes for the whole summer, and all school holidays, which is more than strange! Now, other places on the island have it in the summer so we could still get our fix.

We chose our flavors and wander up the street. We had just finished when we came upon another shop with some different flavors. We got those in a cup for sharing.

We split up at this point. Jef and I went to some foodie stores, the famous knit shop and Fauchon. Alec and the kids walked along the Paris plage (beach). In August, they turn a major highway that runs along the seine into a beach, with sand and chairs and umbrellas and misters and games and entertainment. A wonderful thing to do for the people who cannot leave the city. The plan was that they would go a short distance and take the metro home. Instead, they ended up seeing the pyramid at the Louvre, the ferris wheel in the Tuilleries and the obelisk at the place de la Concorde, then they took the metro home.

We went to the good brasserie for a very late dinner. The kids were very adventurous. Calder had smoked salmon, and Branwen had quiche. We ordered 6 escargots so they could see them - Branwen thought she would try it, but gave up at the last minute when it didn't come out of its shell easily.

Fell into bed.

Paris day 1

2011-08-12T13:49:00.001-07:00

The kids both were excited about visiting the Eiffel Tower. We knew that we had to get there early, because the crowds are unreal. The lady in the information booth recommended 8:15. Alec and the kids got there at 8:30, and were in the middle of a Spanish tour group. Jef and I brought pain au chocolate and some drinkable yogurts. Then we took over the place holding and Alec and Calder found hot chocolate. I started chatting with the spaniards, so they stopped trying to go around us.

It was great. We got to each level without having to wait in any more lines and could see stuff without being squished. By the time we were ready to go down, the lines on the ground were snaking all over the place.

We walked back to the apt. for a bathroom break and then went to the Champs Élysées. We ate at one of the outside cafes. Alec had frogs legs and both kids tasted. I had croquet monsieur, which they also tasted. They are being fairly good about trying new things.

Alec showed them where he went to school and we visit every soccer team shop on the street.

We took the metro to the Gilmour apt. The big excitement was that I saved Jef from a pickpocket.

As were getting on the train, a young woman was pushing her way by in a strange way. I grabbed her arm and told Jef to check her purse. The woman immediately showed me her empty hands. She had a scarf or sweater over them which was strange, but I was still holding on to her. She wrenched herself free and hopped off the train - a real confirmation that something was wrong. She didn't get anything, but jef's purse was half unzipped.

We did a casual dinner with the Gilmours and went on the Bateau Mouche. I think a good time was had by all, but we are going our own ways. We aren't really doing a true sightseeing trip, and their girls are old enough to see more.

No pictures today. I didn't take my camera.

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On to Paris

2011-08-12T13:12:00.001-07:00

Monday morning the Whitten and Gilmour families moved out. We were all taking the same plane to Paris. Tim told us to just take a cab. I had found what seemed to be a taxi gathering place on our street - to call it's a taxi stand would be giving it too much stature. The problem was that twice when we went by, there were cabs and once NO CABS and I needed a large cab or two small ones. Tim had also warned us that sometimes they tried to rip off tourists.

The plan was that I would walk out and get the cab. The thing that made me nervous was that I didn't have a plan B. I realized during this, that I always have a plan B.

We decided that we would go to the airport early and have breakfast there. That way there was time to wait for cabs to arrive. It turned out that I had worried for nothing. My next problem was to convince the cabbies to let me take the second cab in line because it was a large one. Much talking and gesturing. My cabbie got the point and started explaining to the first guy. I then had to get him to make a u turn and go to our apartment and pull up on the side of the road where everyone was waiting so that they didn't have to drag everything across the street. I really am good at this, even if I do say so myself! We got to the airport and he charged us the amount that we had been told would be the base with luggage added on. No add on. I gave him a nice tip.

The bride's parents brought the Gilmours. We all met up at our gate and were able to arrange the seats so that the kids got to sit with their friends and I sat with Maggie and Larry.

Our apartment is great. We are all really pleased and I would rent this one again. The living room. The red couch pulled out and the kids shared it.

An adjoining room with a table and single bed. This was my room. There were boxes of games that the kids really liked.

Kitchen

Master bedroom

Bathroom that NEVER turned into a swamp - one of my pet peeves in France.

Separate toilet room.
Very fragile table place exactly where someone exiting the bedroom would fall over it. Notice it only has two legs. When we moved in, it was attached to the wall with two nails just at the ends. Alec took it apart and fastened it more securely. We managed to leave it in one piece.

Very narrow elevator. Alec wore his backpack on and couldn't turn around. To get the suitcases up and down was tricky, but we have played this game before. Load up suitcases with one person, send them up. Call it back, load just suitcases and call it from the apartment floor. Repeat as many times as necessary.

We went to la vauban for dinner. This is right behind Les Invalides and Chuck and I had eaten there a couple of times. Everyone liked their dinner and except for some burping were very well behaved.

Afterward, Branwen and Jef went back to the apartment and Alec, Calder and I walked over to the Eiffel tower to find out what time it opened in the morning. We ran into Larry who had come over to take pictures, so we all hung out together until it started to sparkle.

Home to bed.

The Reception

2011-08-11T11:20:00.001-07:00

Alexander turned the AC on full blast when we got back in his car and assured us that the reception would be air-conditioned. Kristina had said that it would be from 3 to 10:30. We figured that we would take a cab home when the kids conked out. It was waaaaaaay out in the woods and up in the hills - we were going to be there until the end.
The hall

The drinks offerings - and the waiters kept them coming and coming and coming. Alec said that every time he took the first sip from a beer, they put another one at his elbow.

Two teenage girls in the family had made little wrist favors. Guests gave them money, and we figured this was for the bride and groom. Branwen and Isabel started to help and I think may have upped the contributions.

It turned out that the money was for the girls and came to about 20,000 dinar $300. They were going to split it 3 ways, and maybe were thinking that the little girls had horned in on their action. Jef straightened it all out. The little girls got 1000 each and they were thrilled. The older ones split the rest and they were thrilled, too.

At the beginning the band played old American songs - they were the ones that I remembered from proms. Maggie and I were taking turns identifying them and what movies they were from. Then they started playing Serbian folk songs VERY VERY VERY LOUDLY.

The dancing is done in a long line around the room. It is like doing the hora in a straight line for hours and hours. The guy in the front is in the national fold dance troupe with Kristina's brother. He was very good. The group is going on tour to Mexico in Sept.
Tim and Kristina had their first shuffle. There is a reason to take some lessons and have something choreographed.

Food started coming first course

Second course chicken soup. Third course stuffed cabbage

Chunks of whole roasted pig for the main course with. A salad plate with tomatoes, cucumbers and shredded cabbage. There was also spicy green peppers and horseradish for condiments.

It's was so loud that we took turns escaping to the parking lot so we could hear and talk.

The cake which had many flavors

The bride and groom figures

The father of the bride. We were trying to get him off the table to say goodbye.

My ears rang all night. We had a great time and were truly welcomed by the Serbian relatives.

Home to bed. We leave for Paris in the morning.

The. Wedding Day

2011-08-11T00:56:00.001-07:00

The reason for our trip is finally here. Details have been a little vague, but last night at dinner, I found out exactly what we were doing. Kristina's cousin Alexander has been assigned to be our driver. He will pick us up at noon. We will go to the church and then to the reception with him. He is wearing a jacket and a tie (it is really hot here - the guys really wanted to know this).

When we woke up this morning, we discovered that the Mosquitos had discovered fresh blood in Serbia. All of us had lots of bites. I have seen one or two in the apartment - but by the bite count, we should be seeing squadrons of them.

We walked down the street to a McD for breakfast and through an open air market for ambiance. Then we dressed in our finery. Calder has the cutesy tie. It is pre tied and zips up. Since fewer and fewer men wear ties regularly, this might be a good idea in full size ones.
Alec and Calder

Me, Jef and Yelena

Dan (Tim's brother), Nick (the best man - had to be Greek Orth. And not a relative. L.A. Is great - he happened to have a friend who fit the bill.)

Kristina, the bride

We stood through the ceremony. Since no one had told us how long it would be, I was a little worried. There was a lot of circling this table. They walked around it three times with the kit candles, then later three more times with crowns on and their hands symbolically tied together.

Tim in his crown.

The kids keeping quiet.

The walls of the church were covered with icon frescos.

After the ceremony, we stood around for awhile in the courtyard and gypsies begged, they also had a band that played for tips.

I have some movies of some of these things which I will post from my real computer when I get home.

Day two continued

2011-08-10T15:20:00.001-07:00

I'm just going to post without pictures. I will through up the whole lot when I can.

A few minutes later Calder said that he smelled zebra poop so the zoo must be nearby. I smelled poop - but was not identifying a specific animal. The Serbians said that this wasn't anything special, but we really enjoyed ourselves. It was small, but charming, and since in Eastern Europeans feed the animals, the animals are very aware of humans and livelier.
This guy was handing over something that looked like cheese puffs. The elephant loved them.

We saw mountain goats having head butting wars, lion cubs nursing
And tortoises mating.

The face painting only cost $1.50 so both kids had it done.

On the way out we had a photo op with a man on a camel. It reminded us of Chuck.

We went back to our apartment to change for the rehearsal dinner. We were a pretty big group. So we sort of broke up into smaller pods for ordering. We had several pig parts - pig is big here.

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Another attempt to post the pictures

2011-08-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

Day two in Belgrade

2011-08-10T11:54:00.001-07:00

I am having trouble uploading pictures, so am trying to do this.

Today we just hung out with Maggie, Larry, and Dan until it was time to go to the reunion dinner. We wandered over to their place which was on the main shopping street and had some brunch.

The main attraction is a large fort in the defensive position on a cliff overlooking the river. The others had been there the day before, but the kids were willing to go again. Calder was pushing for the zoo and it was part of the same grounds. (He was a happy camper when he searched the map and found it there.)

First the kids climbed on the left over military equipment.

Dan was a good source - pointing out that the lower one didn't really have a gun - so was in deep doodoo after arriving at a battle.
Then the kids climbed up one of the castle walls.

A bride (I do like to photograph them.)

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On to Serbia

2011-08-08T13:30:00.001-07:00

Belgrade is only an hour and fifteen minutes from Munich. Tim and Kristina met us and took us in 2 taxis to our apartment. It was very eastern european. Then they walked us over to Maggie and larry's. The central shopping street was like a straight line Century City. They went off to run errands and we walked around a bit. It started to rain, so we stopped at a cafe for ice cream and beer.

Branwen bonded with Isabel, Tim's oldest daughter and hasn't left her side since we got here.

We went for dinner on a cute street of restaurants. This wasn't ours but was too cute to pass up.

Alec and Dan enjoyed catching up.

What is great is that we put the kids all together at the end with their I-thingys and we can enjoy an uninterrupted meal.

We stopped at Republic Square and played on the cows while Kristina got us a disposable phone.

Calder, Branwen, Isabel and Ava.

Stopped at a cake store and then home to bed.

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Our last full day in Germany

2011-08-08T13:28:00.001-07:00

Still trying to deal with the jet lag, we took the train to central Munich. First, we walked around the outside food market and bought an assortment of smoked meats, some bread and paninis for lunch.

Another German fashion statement.

After lunch, we split up. Alec and I took the kids to the zoo and Jef got a chance to wander through some stores.

The Munich zoo is lovely. It is right next to a river, so there are lots of little streams running through. Chuck and I had borrowed a child to take when we visited 38 years ago. Because we only had a limited time, we had each child pick their must see animals. Branwen wanted the reptile house for the snakes and Calder wanted to see the bats.

The snakes were good, but the bats were a little scarier than Calder expected. They were not behind glass. We were in a darkened room and they swooped right by our heads.

The baby elephant was cute.

We took the train back to meet Jef and had an early dinner at the Ratskeller. Another famous German beer hall.

Branwen managed to stay awake until we were almost back to the hotel. Alec, Calder and I went for a swim in the hotel pool. Then, since we all had to go in person to check our baggage, we put a sleeping Branwen on top of the luggage cart and wheeled her over. She never stirred through the whole process.

Alec carried her back while Jef, Calder and I finished the process. One less thing to do in the morning.

Branwen slept for 11 hours and has rejoined the land of the living.

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Back in germany

2011-08-08T13:26:00.001-07:00

Our second day in Germany we decided to rent a car and go to a fairy tale theme park that Jef thought that she remembered from her childhood. It looked like something the kids would enjoy and if Branwen crashed again, she wouldn't need to be carried for miles.

Marchenwald was about an hour outside of Munich. It had rides, climbing structures and dioramas with very grim Grimm's fairy tales.
Putting faces through

Slightly creepy climbing tunnels - Calder took a little convincing.

We never had to wait for more than the current ride to stop,so we were able to go on everything in the park.

Lots of do it yourself rides.

And climbing areas

This was the warthog ride

No one helped the kids get on or off the ride, told them how to sit or determined if the were tall enough, light enough, etc. Parents rode with babies, kids rode together. You climbed on and pulled the rope when you were ready. The hog move out. We watched one older girl hop off her hog and on to her friend's in the middle of the ride. It was really fun. It was at this time that we realized that about five people were running the whole place.

Jef ran the Ladybug ride for a while. The ride kept going as long asa tall person pushed the button. The kids said when they wanted to get off. The mom pushing the button before Jef had a 2 1/2 year old.

Another self controlled ride. You climbed in and fastened the locks, then someone on the outside closed the gate and pushed a button. The kids on the ride pushed a button to make it turn summersaults.

From the dioramas Hansel in the witch's cage and the eviscerated Wolf in Red Riding Hood.

Another fun thing was the giant slides. One ladder and a choice at the top -
big drop, curly, or long straight. Branwen needed an adult, but after the first few times we decided she was OK on her own.

Just as we were leaving, it started to rain, so we were really glad we had a car. I think Branwen was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot. (which was free)

We all loved our day. Renting the car, paying the admission, having lunch and a snack for 5 people was only slightly more than one person at Disneyland.

Another dinner at the airport with the jet lagged children. Branwen was now awake and didn't fall asleep until 4. Being the grandmother is great! It's not my problem.

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Sock Summit 2011 in Portland

2011-08-07T05:42:00.001-07:00

Sock Summit is a convention for sock knitters. Yes, you read this correctly. It has all of the great convention accouterments - classes to learn new stuff, a marketplace to buy new stuff, and the opportunity to meet and hang out with your own kind.

My friend Ana and I had attended the first one in 2009. The minute we heard the dates for 2011 we made reservations.

Me, entering the marketplace through the "SOCKGATE" with my pretty pink handknit socks.

Some of my fellow knitters. There were nine of them - all in knitted Viking helmets, but each one a little different.

Here we are forming up for our flashmob. We danced to "The Time Of Our Lives". There are several YouTube videos you can look up. They had posted an instruction video so we could learn the moves.

I had to leave early Sunday morning so I missed the "fleece to foot" competition. Five teams had formed and named themselves. Sheep were going to be sheared, then the raw wool was going to be handed out. The winners were going to be the team that could card, spin and knit a pair of socks. A design contest had been held earlier for a modular pattern that could be knit by 5 people at the same time and then put them together.

I haven't heard how it went, but I presume that there are Youtubes of this also.

I flew home did my laundry and then flew to Germany that night.

There, now we are caught up.

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On to my sister Susan's

2011-08-07T05:40:00.003-07:00

I always visit my family while on the east coast. Susan made it a very special visit by inviting David and Susan my brother and sister-in-law,
and also relatives from Scotland who are currently living in Philadelphia.
We went to Luke's 5 pitch game.

James and Joyce, our Scottish relatives. Joyce's father and my mother were cousins.

Here we all are eating a delicious dinner - James, Joyce, sister-in-law Susan, brother David, and sister Susan.

It was fun visiting with everyone again.

I returned home in time for Branwen's graduation ceremony from Emerson school. This was a fabulous adult education program that we have been a part of since Calder was a baby.

Poor Branwen vomited on the way to the ceremony IN MY CAR. Alec was a quick thinker and handed her my little garbage container so it was nicely contained.

She managed to get through the ceremony. She said that she wanted to be a herpetologist when she grows up.

This is fabulous teacher Nancy. I will really miss being part of this program.

This was Branwen's self portrait. Each child made one and these were the decoration around the room.

This is Branwen at the end of her New World Montessori School experience. She is moving on to the Immersion Japanese kindergarten. In September she and Calder will be on the same school. Ray ray ray.

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A visit to New Haven in June

2011-08-07T05:40:00.001-07:00

Now that I have figured this out, I am going to backtrack on my travels.

In June I went to Chuck's 50th reunion from Yale. I stayed with my friend Lorraine and we went showing of "Yale '61 - a 1000 voices and to the memorial service for those members of the class that had passed away. Both events were very moving and I spent most of the time in tears.

Between the two events we visited some of Chuck's favorite places and left little memories of him.

An inner courtyard at the library

A tree in the Silliman courtyard - his residential college

The physics lab

A few nights later we went to Sally's Apizza (the New Haven term) and had a pie in his memory. ( I also bought 3 small ones to freeze and bring home to Alec and family.)

They rest of my time there we just had a fabulous time hanging out. We went on the Thimble Islands tour - can not believe that I had never done this.
Lorraine and I on the boat

The islands are very tiny - some only slightly bigger than the house that is on it.

A heartfelt thank you to Lorraine and her husband Bob for helping me through a very emotional time.

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Day two downtown Munich, BMW World, sea life

2011-08-04T13:32:00.001-07:00

We took the S bahn down town. The first thing that we saw when we got out of the station was a fruits and flowers parade.

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We ate lunch at the famous Hofbrauhous. Ordered lots of things so we could taste.

Went to BMW World - the Germans treat car places like palaces. This had fake fireplaces, grand pianos and zillions of lovely cars.

Both kids took this opportunity for a nap.

This is a fashion statement - lieder hosen with calf socks

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Day one starting on our trip

2011-08-04T13:30:00.001-07:00

We are on our way. No trouble meeting and checking in at the airport. With a flight at 9:05 pm the children settled in very well. Branwen made herself really comfortable and Calder leaned on me. By the time we reached Munich we were all very tired but not crabby.

We took our picture in front of the BMW that makes an engine noise when you stand in front of it.

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Our hotel is really nice and is located right next to the airport. We walked out of the terminal, turned right and there we were.

That night we ate dinner at the beer garden that is in a giant plaza between our hotel and the terminal. We had the worst waiter of all time - even the other waiters were complaining about him. Jef and the kids went back to the room while Alec and I waited and waited and waited for the bill.

I took a sleeping pill and slept through. Alec had slipped sleeping during the week to finish as much as he could, so he slept through. Jef and the kids were up and about at 3:30!
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Testing with a new device

2011-06-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

I have a new iPad and need to see if I can create my blog with it.
Going to have to find out how to add pictures. Doing the words is pretty easy.

Food from the Middle East - The End

2010-03-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

This will be the end of the blogging for awhile. I notify will when the blog is active again.

In the interest of completeness - here are all of the pictures that I took of food and food related items in Jordan and Egypt:

3/17 & Cairo

2010-03-17T03:10:00.000-07:00

This is our last day in Gran Sasso. It snowed again last night for a short time - but didn't stay. The people at the hotel have been very nice. Italians like to talk to people, even if we don't have a language in common. They provide vocabulary words - so now I know much more Italian than when I started.

One of my readers commented on the fact that much of my blog deals with food. That is a reality of Whitten life. This time though, I might be in trouble - so much to eat - so little exercise. I may have to stop eating altogether when I get home.

And on that note, here are all the pictures of food that I took in Italy:

And back to Egypt. We had another early morning. We had to be on the bus at 6 to go to the airport.

When we arrived in Cairo, Passant once again showed her worth. It was too early to check into the hotel. Part of the group wanted to go to a shop that sold cotton things and part wanted to go to the hotel and have lunch there. She figured out that the bus driver could drop the cotton shop group, take the others to the hotel, pick up falafel sandwiches for the shoppers and come back to the shop. We finished shopping and then had a light lunch on the bus. Chuck wanted to get some short sleeved cotton shirts. I wanted to get a tee shirt for Alec. It turned out that they would embroider a personal cartouche on the shirt and deliver it to the hotel. After picking out Chuck's shirts, they had long sleeves. NO Problem, they would shorten the sleeves and deliver them, too.

That evening we went to our home hosted dinner. The bus driver was in big trouble. He dropped us off at the wrong place. We had to walk several blocks and cross a busy street. The guard stopped traffic for us - see they do come in handy.

Notice the gold on the furniture - but not as much as Abdul's!

The next morning we visited the pyramids. They are truly incredible. It is hard to believe that people could build these massive structures more than 4000 years ago. When you see pictures, they look quite close together. That is only because they are so large. We had to ride in the bus from one to another!

One of the guys with the rifles took this picture in return for a tip. He had a special place for me to stand which would create the illusion.

Chuck & Maggi. Larry went inside the pyramid. Since it involved walking bent over down a tunnel and then being in the burial chamber where everyone becomes aware of the tons of rock balanced overhead, the rest of us passed.

Me at a view point:

This was a boat that was buried next to one of the pyramids. It was used to take the pharaoh on his last ride. After its discovery, it took 20 years to put it together. (I kept questioning this, because the pieces were really in the proper order, it was obviously a boat - what took so long? It may have been that they had to preserve the pieces before reconstructing it.)

Chuck and I at the Sphinx

All of us at the Sphinx. From the left: Larry, Maggi, Me, Chuck (hidden), Kathleen, Linda, John, Ann, Bob, Don, Penny (peeking out), Jeannie, John, Vicky, Dave & Fran.

KFC at the pyramids. They are all over, too.

In the afternoon, there was an optional tour of Saqqara, the necropolis of the Old Kingdom. We opted not to go. It was very chilly and Maggi said that she went back and sat in the bus.

That night Larry, Maggi, Chuck and I went to the Mena House for dinner. This used to be a king's palace and was really interesting to see. Passant said that we could walk and that the guards at the gatehouse would help us cross the very very busy street. We could walk - but we were on our own for crossing. (An experience we may never forget!) The dinner was great and the restaurant was "Continental" so we all had none Middle Eastern food. We took a taxi back!

There was a wedding. I was all over trying to get a good picture of the bride:

The bride and her father were escorted down the staircase by a bagpiper and drummers.

The next morning we took the optional tour of Spiritual Cairo. Here is Passant in the front of an old church. We also visited a very old synagogue in this area.

Then we drove to a mosque in the Citadel:

The ceilings were spectacular:

Lunch time again. This pigeon was going to be someone's treat. (We didn't have pigeon - but I think that many of us would have paid a supplement to have it included!) When I took the picture the girl who was sitting underneath the cage looked at me like I was nuts - I thought that she was nuts, sitting under a bird cage.

After lunch we went to a traditional shopping bazaar. It was very crowded - but India was worse. You can see the street here.

That evening we had our farewell dinner aboard a restaurant boat on the Nile.

A lovely trip! There were no problems on the way home for us. Some of the others ran into bad weather and flight delays.

3/16 Tues & Abu Simbel & Camel Ride

2010-03-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

I almost had a disastrous day - no internet access! I finally went and played charades with the woman at the desk. She called the new employee who speaks English and we straightened it out. So here I am again. We are winding down now - Chuck and Brian are getting to go into the tunnel every day and I'm just amusing myself. I did bring some DVD's so am watching those also.

Passant told us to be on the bus at 5 am and to bring out pillows. Normally, we are in a small van and didn't see where we would be able to use pillows. Today was special, since Abu Simbel is 3 hours south of Aswan. We were in a big tour bus - just the 16 of us. We all spread out and went back to sleep since there is really nothing to see except desert.

We did see the sunrise:

The engineering feat of Abu Simbel is just incredible. I have seen pictures, but nothing prepares you for the sheer size of these temples. Abu Simbel was built for Pharaoh Ramses II and next door is a smaller temple for his queen, Nefertiti.

I had my picture taken holding the key to the door - big key - big door.

Another digression - this one on security. We have all heard the stories about the tourists that were killed here several years back. Also at Christmas time some Coptic Christians were killed. Both in Jordan and Egypt, we have had security police riding on the buses. The rule is that every group of more than 10 people has to have a guard. In Jordan, they were young men dressed in paramilitary garb, a blue camo jacket and beret and of course a gun. In Egypt, the guard is a young man dressed in a suit and tie - with a gun. I don't really know what they would do if we were attacked. I do know that I think about where would be a safe place to be if guns started blazing, because I am not sure how much training these guys have.

In Egypt there is also armed security at the sites. For instance at the top of the ridge at Abu Simbel:

I also saw them at the top of the Valley of the Kings, riding on camels at the pyramids and walking around with rifles at the pyramids. When we were in the Coptic area, the on the ground security was even more intense. Strangely, I didn't really feel any threat. None of these guys looked particularly serious at the time. Perhaps, if things were tense, they would have seemed different.

Looking past Queen N's to R's. The people look like ants.

On the way back to the bus, it was covered and shady. Looking back at a view of the lake formed by the dam. It goes into Sudan.

On the 3 hour ride back, we stopped to take pictures of the mirage. (I just thought that mirages played with your mind - I didn't realize that they could be photographed.)

Back at our hotel we rested in the afternoon. That evening was a tour of the Aswan Spice Market. Maggi & I bought galabeyas for the grandchildren. We are planning on having our own galabeya party when we get home. We were on our own for dinner that night, but Passant knew an Egyptian pizza parlor that was at the end of the market. We all decided that sounded like fun. We also got to see the celebration when Egypt won the Africa's Cup in soccer. (When there isn't any drinking the celebration is a whole lot safer.)

Egyptian pizza is made with filo dough. It has lots of good stuff inside including green olives.

Our final day in Aswan had the event that we had all been either looking forward to or dreading - the famous camel ride. Chuck and I had saved ourselves for this. In order to see St. Simeon's Monastery, it is required. Through the whole trip Dave kept asking Chuck if he was going to do it. I think that Dave was hoping that Chuck would chicken out and then he could keep him company!

To get to the monastery we rode the camels uphill for about 15 minutes. We had then chosen to ride cross country to the Nubian village, because riding a camel downhill is really unpleasant. Actually riding the camel for 45 minutes is pretty unpleasant, also. I wasn't sure that my legs would move when we finally got there.

I made a movie of John on the camel. He was the most experienced of us and makes it look easy. The most important thing is that you must lean back when the camel is getting the hind legs up and then quickly forward when it moves the front legs.

My camel guy put a rock for me to stand on so that I would be able to get on the camel's back. They are pretty tall, even when on the ground.

The first part of the trip wasn't too bad. We all made it to the monastery without much problem.

The camels rested while we had a nice tour of this ruin. At its height there were more than 900 monks. It also hosted travelers.

Then we were off cross country. We had to stop and pose for pictures. My camel guy handed me the rein while he took my picture. This made me nervous. My camel (Micky Mouse) seemed to be a bit of a trouble maker. He stretched his head around so that the mouth was very near my leg. He tried to move between 2 other camels so that I had to pull my legs in so they wouldn't get squished. Here he is neck wrestling with Chuck's camel:

Everyone was put in line for the photo session.

Here are Larry, Dave, me, John & Don:

Larry was loving this. He was taking pictures all the time. He even took them over his shoulder. Maggi on the other hand was not a happy camper. Her camel just got down on its own at the entrance to the Nubian town - I cannot believe how quickly she hopped off. She said that she would walk the rest of the way.

My method of getting off was to bring my left leg over the front saddle post and slide down. This worked really well at the monastery. At the Nubian village, my leg wouldn't move. My camel guy had to grab it and lift it over for me. Then I could slide down - but I wasn't sure about walking. Camel riding hurts in a whole different way than horseback riding!!

This camel footprint shows why camels are so good on sand:

We were happy to sit and relax while our Nubian host served us tea and told us about his life:

That's Linda, John, Penny, Don, Kathleen & Fran.

Nubian Living Room:

We took a boat back to a restaurant right on the Nile for lunch.

After our nap time, we went to the Nubian museum. This was another small one where the exhibits were really showcased. Chuck and I could spend much more time in a museum like this.

I thought this gold comb with the mother and baby giraffes was exquisite.

That night we went to an outdoor restaurant where we had grilled meat AGAIN.

3/15 Monday & Aswan day 1

2010-03-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

While I am blogging, I am also watching a live web cam on a hummingbird nest in Southern California. The eggs are just about to hatch. http://phoebeallens.com/

Update to the info about the hotel: The older lady and her husband own the hotel. The younger woman is her daughter-in-law and works in the dining room.

Since Sunday was a sunny day, Brian and I decided to take the lift to the top of the mountain and see what we could see. We waited until 11am hoping that the crowds would thin - but no such luck. 101 people fit on the car - and I think that is what we had.

This is the reason that Chuck did not come with us.

When we got to the top, we walked around a bit, took some pictures and then headed back down, since neither one of us had gloves or boots.

Brian

They make strange little snowmen here:

When we got down, we met Chuck and decided to "dine" at the sausage truck.

This time we chose the sausage of L'Aquila. They weren't as spicy as last week's. The ones on the right that are the most cooked are ours. Chuck and I share, so we get one sausage apiece.

Back to Egypt. We disembarked at Aswan. We will do some touring and then check in at the hotel.

Our first stop was the dam. We got to see them letting some water through, but since we were on top of the dam, there wasn't much more.

The great thing about Aswan, was that we took boats almost everywhere. OAT makes us put on our life jackets - not sure why, since we didn't wear them at Luxor. Maggi and Larry modeling theirs:

Rocks in the Nile. This was what caused the name "cataract" in the area.

Arriving at Philae Temple. This is the temple of Isis. Before the building of the high dam, this temple was flooded each year, it would have been completely submerged after the dam was built. So they built a coffer dam around it and moved it to a higher island.

Some pictures of the Temple:

After the temple, we got back in the boat and went to an island for an alfresco buffet lunch.

This was the path to the WC at the extreme end of the island. This island is owned by our hotel and has lots of fruit trees.

The WC and its attendant:

At this point, I will digress and talk about toilets in different countries. The middle east is the 3rd place I have been where you were not supposed to flush toilet paper. (Yes, even very soiled toilet paper!) This is the 1st place where the toilets have NOT SMELLED. At every bathroom there is someone who gives you toilet paper and/or towels in return for a tip. You are not really paying for what you are being given, you are paying for the fact that they clean the bathrooms almost constantly and empty the wastepaper baskets frequently. In China and in India, sometimes the smell was stomach churning and the bathroom itself wasn't really dirty.

Back to the trip. After checking in, resting, and eating at our hotel, we returned to Philae for the Sound and Light Show. Passant was at her best here. She got us to the island first, so they turned the lights on just as we approached the dock. It was fabulous - totally dark and then this:

We followed the S & L through the temple:

I took a little movie of the Sound and Light show. You can hear how wonderful the actors were. Maggi and I thought that we recognized Dame Judy Dench as Isis. We also thought that we heard Maggi Smith.

Passant told us that when we came back to the seats, to join her near the back. That way, we could be the first off the island, too. She held up her OAT sign so that we could see her. Sami (the other guide hadn't been as good at instructing his group, so they weren't as quick as we were. He said they knew, but they didn't!)

Back to the Hotel. We have to be on the bus at 5 am to go to Abu Simbel, so we hopped into bed right away.

3/13 Another Saturday rolls around

2010-03-13T07:25:00.000-08:00

In Italy, no one works at the Lab on Saturday - so I have Chuck and Brian to share my explorations. Chuck was dying to find the pizzeria that a guy from NY told him about. I was unwilling to try to find it in the dark, so we decided we would go for lunch. (1. We didn't know if it would be open for lunch. 2. We really didn't know if we could find it because it was a little off the beaten track.) If we couldn't find it, we could always go to the big mall, which everyone wanted to visit and where we could be sure there would be food.

Chuck had drawn a map from the Google site (you can see that he really wants to do this!) We went along and it turned out that a detour pushed us to where we wanted to go. The pizzeria opened at 12, so we were only 10 minutes early. It really was great pizza - better than the place that is closer. When we finished, I asked the hours and it turns out that they are open from 12 to 12 - so we could go earlier when there is still enough light to see the roads. Then since the detour was one way, we had to get directions back to the autostrada.

From the autostrada I knew how to get to the large mall. Chuck kept saying "Are we there yet?" He didn't believe that I had found it the first time. It is really far out of town. We all looked at the stores and then shopped at the supermarket. We found gifts for the kidlets for Easter and some tastes of Italy for the family and friends.

Both Brian and Chuck seemed to be tired after so exciting an experience, so we headed home. The heat would be coming on soon.

Now, we are back in the room. He is snoozing and I just took this opportunity to update. More tomorrow.

3/12 & River Hathor

2010-03-12T01:36:00.000-08:00

Today looks pretty nice, so I will go out in the afternoon. I will go down the road to buy gas, get more money and explore some of the markets that were closed the last time we were there. Big Whoop! I go out in the afternoon, because that is when the room gets really chilly. The heat doesn't come back on until 4.

Yesterday, I ate lunch in the hotel's dining room and took some pictures of my new friends.

The whole group sitting around the fire. I am now invited to sit with them until my food comes. Notice the guy on the right in the puffy jacket and watchcap. He never takes them off.

A close up of the refugee couple. She keeps talking to me, a mile a minute in Italian until someone stops her:

The fireplace:

The dining room:

The lunchtime waitress:

My lunch yesterday was ravioli with a mushroom filling and fresh asparagus in the sauce. I asked for a smaller portion, because at the rate I am going, I will be a blimp by the time we go home.

The breakfast room

The breakfast waiter (the only one who speaks any English in the whole hotel)

We are now cruising on the Nile. This was perfectly timed in the trip. We were all pretty tired after Luxor and the getting up at the crack of dawn itinerary. The River Hathor docks during the night, so we don't feel we are missing anything. (Also we really aren't traveling that far. We move from one small temple to the next and just relax.)

Our boat:

The view:

Maggi on the lower deck. Note the much larger ship in the background.

At the Temple of Horus, Passant told the tale of how the falcon-headed god Horus avenged the murder of his father Osiris by killing Seth.

The actors in the play:

Don was Osiris, Passant - Seth, Fran - Isis (wife of Osiris & mother of Horus) & Chuck - Horus.

Chuck by a statue of Horus:

Back on the ship after lunch, we had the cooking lesson. Everyone who came helped chop and stir. Here's Maggi taking a turn:

The finished product - Okra & tomato stew:

We ate it at dinner and received a copy of the recipe in our handout.

That night we had a "Galabeya" party. Galabeyas are the robes that are worn by everyone. We had very decorative ones (which we had purchased in Luxor) but there were plain ones worn by all of the workmen that we saw. You wear regular clothes underneath. Perhaps they keep these clothes cleaner? Here's Larry, Maggi & John.

I thought that this was going to be the height of silliness, but we all had a good time. We danced, and played games. One game was a variation of musical chairs, but with spoons. We walked around a table with spoons on it and when the music stopped the person who hadn't grabbed one was out. Another game was wrap a mummy. I had to wrap toilet paper around Chuck. The rest of the group voted on the best mummy - we didn't win.

The next day we visited Kom Ombo Temple. This one was so close to the Nile that we just walked off the ship to visit it.

Passant tried to find places for us to sit down while she told us about what we were about to see:

John, Linda & Chuck

Chuck and I in the oracle's hideout:

That afternoon we took a "Felucca" (traditional Egyptian sailboat) to a Botanical Garden on an island. Unfortunately, there wasn't any wind - so they attached our sailboat to a motor boat and pulled us along.

That night we had our farewell dinner in the ship's dining room and then a Nubian show in the lounge. The show featured a whirling dervish. These guys can spin forever. This guy went about 10 minutes. The guy at the hotel in Luxor must have done 20. I got dizzy just watching them.

More spinning

During our time on the ship, they showed Death on the Nile and Cleopatra on the TVs in our cabins. We were too tired to watch.

That night we docked in Aswan, but stayed on the ship.

3/11 Its snowing again

2010-03-11T02:04:00.000-08:00

It is really a good thing that I did the laundry yesterday. I could have waited another couple of days, but today is another day in the hotel room. The snow is really coming down. It had just started when we got up this morning, but 3 hours later, the cars are covered.

Chuck and Brian are working in the tunnel today (really a cave next to the tunnel, but they have to drive through to the other side and then come half way back to access it.) A shuttle runs everyone in. I am really happy about the shuttle, because I hate tunnels. They make me very uncomfortable. (So yesterday's adventure that required 8 tunnel journeys wasn't good.) The good thing is that they will be out for lunch, so will see how the weather is doing.

The really old lady keeps trying to talk to me. She asked if Brian was our son. (Brian is Chinese!) I showed her the pictures that I carry in my purse, so she could see Alec, Jef and the kids. Then the desk lady wanted to see too. They both agreed that I have a beautiful family.

Back to Egypt.

Day 2 in Luxor we had to be up and breakfasted and across the river shortly after sunrise. We had to get to the Valley of the Kings before the crowds. This is a good policy and when the weather is warmer really good for people's health.

As you can see - desolate is not nearly descriptive enough. This was one of the places that we couldn't take pictures, so if you really want to see what some of the tombs look like go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Kings

Each day different tombs are open, so that none get too much tourist activity. Somehow, I was able to overcome my tunnel aversion, but when the lights went out I was glad that I could see the exit. Maggi and I were together and we stopped where we were until they came on again, just to be on the safe side.

Leaving the Valley of the Kings was like running a gauntlet of salespeople. I have perfected a technique of not making eye contact (thank you India & China) and keeping moving that lets me move through them, but Dave seemed to be a magnet. He did buy a lot of stuff, but even when he didn't want anything they were attracted to him like flies to honey. The bad part of this is that sometimes I would like to just look at something but do not dare.

We moved on to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

Our group picture:

We couldn't go inside but there is a lot of stuff to see in the colonnades. I don't think that I realized how colorful they must have been. We think of all of these buildings and statues as just being natural stone, but they were all painted.

We stopped by a gold shop, but once again, I didn't buy anything. Somehow I don't really see me wearing a gold cartouche.

We ate lunch at the hotel and rested, then went for the Luxor by night carriage ride.

We started at the Luxor Museum (another no pic place.) This was small with each item carefully displayed, so the viewing experience was very different than that at the Cairo museum. Don was thrilled to see the mummy of Ramesses I, which had been in a museum in his hometown when he was growing up. It was like meeting an old friend!

The carriage ride went through the back streets of Luxor, through a market, and past many places where the alley of Sphinx were being excavated.

Each carriage contained 2 people:

Our driver kept purchasing food tastes. The 1st was a bean thing which I accepted and had in my mouth, when I suddenly realized that I was courting a bad case of tourista!. Ack, Ack! I swallowed one bean and warned Chuck not to eat any more. This was frustrating for the driver, because he was trying for a nice tip. He finally hopped off and picked a flower for me - the horse kept moving, but we were in a line of carriages. I was wondering if I was going to have to start driving the carriage, if we left him too far behind. We did reward his efforts with a tip. OAT warns us, that taking a carriage or camel ride by oneself can be unsafe. The driver takes you to the middle of nowhere and requires a huge bribe to bring you back.

Our ride ended at a market where we had a light dinner of falafal on pita. They had a hookah for people to try. Passant called it "the hubbly bubbly". Maggi smokes so she was willing to volunteer:

Our last day in Luxor started waaaaay before dawn for Larry & me. We were doing the hot air balloon ride. Maggi & Chuck don't like heights, so they happily passed and stayed in bed.

We were awakened very early (on the early days there is a wake up call arranged by OAT). Had coffee and breakfast sweet on a little boat while crossing the Nile in the dark and then bussed to the balloon take off point.

It was barely light when they inflated the balloons and loaded us all on. There were 20 tourists in each balloon basket (in 4 sections). Before we lifted, we had lessons in assuming the landing positions. We had to crouch down while clinging to the side of the basket. Basically I was sitting on Dave's lap. The pilot said that there were 3 possibilities for the landing. 1) perfectly smooth-the Egyptian one. 2) bouncing several times. 3) being dragged in the basket. We were to hold on until told otherwise. On that cheerful note, we took off. We were the first, which made Larry very happy.

Notice the abrupt change from green to brown. The effect of the Nile is still there.

We were up in time to see the sunrise.

I think that Larry grinned like this the whole trip.

We could see our ground crew following us along the roads. At one point they all got out of the truck, but the pilot called down to them and we all moved on. Finally, he heaved a line off the side, which they used to pull us in. Notice that there is a fairly narrow road and a field which is about 6 feet lower than the road.

The guys pulled us in for a fabulous Egyptian landing. We set down and they swarmed all over the basket and we never moved.

The balloon trip was outstanding - we went up and down - sometimes just skimming over the sugar cane. We could see the people in the houses and they waved and shouted hello. I was really glad that I did this and Chuck was just as glad that he didn't.

We all went back to the hotel and had breakfast. Then we went to the Luxor Temple.

An obelisk:

The statue of a scarab:

We went to a market to get ingredients for an okra dish that we would learn how to make while on our Nile cruise.

Our bus was divided into 2 teams with different stuff to get. We had a list with how much we needed and what a fair price would be. I was elected team leader. Do you think it was because I'm the bossy one?? I also had experience in bargaining and open air markets. It turned out that our team consisted of ringers, because Don & Penny also had a lot of experience with this. We had to buy 4 ingredients, so I divided the team up into groups of 2, so everyone could do some bargaining and dealing. When they had settled on the price, I gave them the money. We did better than the other group. We got our stuff for less than the suggested price.

Here's Don with some merchants. (These guys probably do this several times a week. They must all think it is hysterical. When we got off the bus, they were all calling "okra".)

Chuck & Penny walking in the market:

The "grocery store"

We moved on to the River Hathor, our home for the next 3 nights. This was a small boat that only had 16 guest cabins. The 2 groups joined up for this. It was lovely and peaceful with so few people. The cabins were on 2 levels. Larry & Maggi were across the hall from us on the lower level. This was a little cheaper and we had checked to make sure that we would have all the same amenities. The only difference was an extra flight of stairs. The next level up had more cabins, the main desk and the dining room. Up another flight of stairs was a large lounge with bar and a "library" with gift shop. The library consisted of 1 shelf of books that people had left behind. On that same level was an open deck with tables and chairs where the cooking demonstration took place and where a lighter lunch was served. At the very top was a half deck with more chairs, a very small swimming pool, and some exercise equipment.

3/10 Laundry day

2010-03-10T07:03:00.001-08:00

Every day brings new excitement. Yesterday, I made the guys come home early because the snow was sticking to the roads and I didn't want a replay of the slippery trip. It was still snowing when we went to bed, so I decided we would be a little later leaving in the morning - to make sure that the roads were going to be clear.

All went well and I decided that today would be the day that I tried to find the laundromat. I did wait till 11:45 so that the fog on the highway would lift. 3 tunnels and 2 exits on the autostrada and I was able to follow the directions that the chambermaid had given me. I found what she was talking about - but it was a dry cleaners not a laundromat. I was very sad - but not without hope. Next door was the British Institute - where they give English lessons. I went in and asked if they spoke English - but of course. The head came out because she was English and could communicate better.

I explained my problem. This wasn't a problem for her - she has a machine. But in the spirit of womanhood pulling together, she went on line and searched for one. I had the card for another, but it was in the center of town where everything has been destroyed and didn't have a phone # that could possibly have reached them in a different location. She found one that was at a shopping mall. (Hooray - a 2fer!) She gave sketchy directions and I was off. I couldn't find it, but had passed a huge post office, so went back to mail my postcards and ask for more directions. Since I was much closer, they gave me directions that fixed my mistake and this time I was successful. (I also found a bigger mall next door, which I can explore another day.)

The self service laundromat was right inside the door where I entered. 2 machines were empty, so while I was reading the instructions, the lady that runs it (along with tailoring) came out of her office and walked me through the whole procedure. I chose to wash with the coldest water 35c because that would be the shortest/cheapest wash. I tend to choose cold anyway, because there is less chance of permanent damage. She showed me that I had 37 minutes to wait, so I went and explored the rest of the mall. It had a dept. store, supermarket, housewares market, several clothing stores, children's shops and a small cafeteria and a place that did drinks, coffee and sandwiches. I did really check out the sewing shop that had some yarn - none that I was interested in and the ladies room.

Back to the wash and into the dryer. The lady's husband came out to help me with that. I chose medium and it went in 6 minute cycles - so I sat and read my kindle and restarted it for the next time. The second time I took out the dry stuff and consolidated the things that just needed a little more and then the power went off in the whole mall. Oh dear, Oh dirty words! I folded up my dry stuff while waiting and then read some more. Finally after 20 minutes the power came back on and I quickly started the last drying. SUCCESS.

Since it was now 3 pm, I decided to head for home. Retraced my route (I thought) but when I went through a long tunnel, knew I had made a mistake. Luckily, at the end of the tunnel there were a lot of good road signs - one directing me back through the tunnel to the autostrada. With no more excitement, I made it home to start this blog.

Now for the Egypt adventures. The best part of the trip for Chuck may be that he doesn't have to carry any suitcases. When we got to the airport in Amman, the luggage was unloaded, everyone checked to make sure that their's was there, and then it was moved for us. When we arrived in Cairo, the bags are taken off the belt and again we all checked and they moved it out to the bus. The first night in Cairo we stayed at a hotel really near the airport. We are only in Cairo 1 night at this end of the trip, so we didn't go too far. It was quite late when we got there, so after meeting Passant our new guide and getting our room key, Chuck & I decided to just go to bed.

Passant is a lovely young woman, and an extremely knowledgeable guide. She has a degree in Egyptology, so there were a lot of sort of technical things about the hieroglyphics that she could explain and of course she really knew about the history.

The first day in Cairo, we met the rest of our group and toured the Cairo museum. It is filled with stuff, stuff and more stuff. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures. This was a recurring theme in Egypt. There were a lot of places where pics were forbidden. At the museum, they even forbid cameras. Another good thing about the tour was that we could leave anything that we wanted on the bus, so we didn't have to lug lots of things with us.

We did have a little excitement - two of our members got lost. They turned the wrong way coming out of the ladies room and then really couldn't find us. Passant told us to stay in a section and she went and found them. This was the only time that people got lost or were late back to a meeting place on the whole trip!

The most fabulous thing at this museum is the King Tut exhibit. If you were fortunate enough to see it when it traveled to the states, you still missed a great deal. The best part was that it wasn't crowded, so it was possible to really see the things.

After the museum, we went for lunch (there was Valet parking at this restaurant - because Cairo is really crowded and parking would be a problem.) Guess what? The food is Egypt is just like the food in Jordan.

Then we had a little ride through the city and back to the airport to fly to Luxor.

Our hotel was right on the Nile and had an inner courtyard that had restaurants around it and a "folkloric" show in the center every night.

We still haven't figured out where the girls in little girl pink dresses and the giant pink bunny dancing came in, but it was good for a laugh.

Our first day in Luxor was "Experience a day in the Life of Egypt". Here is Passant escorting us to the ferry boat that would take us across the Nile.

Normally, the tour goes to an elementary school, but this was the holiday so we missed it. I know that Maggi and I were disappointed and I think that some of the rest of the people were too.

We went to a Handicrafts school and showroom. A woman from Turkey runs it with her husband. She has taught the women in the village to do bead-work and embroidery that they can do at home. This is for sale at the shop and they are starting up an on-line store. The things are really lovely and it is a good source of income for these families. Every class has been filled to overflowing and she trains students to be teachers of others.

A beaded purse:

The workers:

Next we went to a rural farm. I have a feeling that this is very much the way that people have lived for hundreds of years. The family was transfered to this area when the dam was built. We sat in an outside area and were served tea and bread. The bread was freshly baked in an outside oven (much like the pueblo indians of NM.)

Our host told us about his family and their life. He had made the pilgrimage to Mecca with his mother, so on the wall was drawn the black building and the boat (which is how they got there.)

He showed us their fields and irrigation system:

Inside the house he demonstrated spinning and grinding corn. I took a turn at the corn grinding and it takes a very very very long time to grind enough for the bread!

The animals live in building attached to the house and they are brought in through the living room at night.

We had a group picture out by the camels: The little girl in the center is our host's daughter. She had on a really cute lace dress and tights that were just like Branwen's (my 4 year old granddaughter.)

After lunch we went back to our hotel for a rest. (The Egypt part of the tour seemed to be arranged this way - stuff in the morning, rest in the afternoon, stuff in the evening.)

We arrived at the Temple of Karnak in the late afternoon and then were there for when they turned on the lights. We got to see it both ways which was really interesting.

There is an alley of Sphinx that runs between the Temple of Karnak and the Luxor Temple. They are still excavating it.

Daylight

Night

We stopped at a Papyrus shop where we had a demonstration of how the paper is made (I found some growing in my neighborhood - I may demonstrate for the kids when they study Egypt.)

They had a lot of really nice looking things - but nothing that I needed or wanted, until I discovered that they had bookmarks with the hieroglyphic alphabet and that they would write a name phonetically on the back. Gifts for Calder and Branwen.

That evening we had dinner at the hotel with our welcoming drink. We could also watch the "floor show".

3/9 Continues

2010-03-09T04:44:00.000-08:00

I just had a short break for lunch. They have a set menu in the hotel. Today was Risotto with a smidgen of sea food and then meat, potatoes & spinach. I just had the 1st course and could only eat 2/3 of the portion. The others who were there had the whole thing. (They are refugees from the earthquake and have been living here since. Supposedly, they still have 2 months to go. There is a really old lady who tried to have a conversation with me at breakfast. Finally, the youngest man of the group, came and got her while explaining that I didn't speak Italian.)

Wadi Rum

If you saw Lawrence of Arabia, you saw our next visit. We were all quoting, "To Aqaba". (You remember - all the guys on camels with their arms raised and pointing and screaming.)

This was Maggi's favorite visit of the trip. I didn't like climbing in and out of the back of a pickup truck. We decided that her extra two inches was a real advantage. At some points, I had several people pushing as I tried to stand on the bumper.

The scenery is glorious - like an ocean of red sand.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom - named after Lawrence's book.

Racing pickups:

Dave, Chuck & Larry to give you an idea of scale:

Chuck and I (I am including lots of pictures of me - since I am normally not in them.)

Petroglyphs:

It had clearly rained a lot in Jordan, since the desert still had puddles:

That little tiny greenish blob in the center of the photo is a real live scarab.

A closeup:

There are camels available for riding everywhere we go. Chuck and I are saving ourselves for the one in Egypt.

Inside a Bedouin tent, our guides gave an explanation of their life.

That's one of our group waaaay out there:

Another Bedouin camp site:

Lawrence of Arabia (He wasn't really as good looking as Peter O'Toole.)

After Wadi Rum, we drove to Amman to the airport. It was a little sad to say good-by to Mohammed, but on to the adventure in Egypt.

3/9 "Neve" again More on Jordan

2010-03-09T02:42:00.000-08:00

My plan for today was to scope out the laundromat. But when we woke up it was snowing again. It had stopped by the time I dropped off the guys (warning them that if the weather was bad I was going to pick them up earlier. I didn't was a repeat of the last slippery trip.)

I decided to wait until about noon to see how if it had really stopped. (At 11:30 really coming down again. Guess I'm here again for the day.)

Back to the trip:

We left Amman and drove by the King's highway to Petra:

If you look carefully, you can see the River Jordan just above the road in the upper middle of the picture.

We stopped at the mosaic city of Madaba, where they have a fabulous mosaic map of the Holy Land with all of the important sites. It dates from about 570 AD. This is the Jerusalem section:

We also stopped at a mosaic workshop to see how they are made (and also to buy.) One nice thing about OAT is that they don't push the shopping. We stop at places that they recommend, but don't feel that we are locked in until we purchase. (You can tell I've had some unfortunate experiences along these lines. In India it was terrible. We would have a short visit somewhere and then a loooong visit at a "factory/store".

We also stopped at Mt. Nebo. This is supposedly the burial site of Moses and overlooks the Dead Sea and in the far distance Jerusalem.

There were also some fabulous mosaic floors on display. I made a mosaic once, for an art class in college. (The famous fish that my father made into a table. When you see it, you know that he loved me - because it wasn't worth the effort!) I can really appreciate the work and talent that goes into all of these.)

We spent the night in a hotel in Petra so that we could get an early start for our visit.

Petra is an incredible place. Buildings are carved out of the rock. For those of you who saw the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with Sean Connery, when they come through the narrow narrow crevice to the "Treasure House", that is Petra.

It was built as a holy place and is completely hidden from above. There was a trade route close by. Until recently, another tribe had taken over the area as a place to live. The government decided to make it a tourist attraction and moved the tribe to a modern village close by, but they have the rights for all the concessions of horses rides, camel rides and souvenir selling. I think the whole group is employed. Small cute children are dressed in native costume and know the exchange rate for every currency known. They looked to be about the ages of my grandchildren. (6 1/2 & 4) When you see them, you realize that our children are so protected and are not expected to contribute to the family income.

I chose to ride a horse to the entrance to the crevice. This was part of the tour - but I held off making the decision until I saw that it was really more like a pony ride. Someone leads each horse. My horse's name was Lena:

That's Vicky just behind Lena.

The souvenir shop had examples of frankincense & myrrh. The frankincense looks sort of like amber and the myrrh is a ground berry in a very intense red.

Then we started walking through the Siq (Shaft).

It has narrow areas, wider areas, and if it rains it is very dangerous, because the water rushes through it. Several years ago a group of tourists were killed. They had to evacuate people just after we arrived in Jordan. We were lucky and had a beautiful day.

The early people created water channels:

As we got closer we had a glimpse of the end:

Almost there:

Finally, the "Treasure House." It really was a temple completely carved in the rock. There is damage to the upper levels caused by people taking potshots at it.

Looking from the steps of the Treasure House, you can see the narrow slit we came through.

After the temple area, the valley spreads out. There is more Greco-Roman in that area:

This amphitheater was carved out of the rock. There were also more caves where people had lived. Prior to 1985 all of the tribe-people were born in one of these caves:

At the end of the valley was a Crowne Plaza Restaurant where we had lunch:

That's Chuck, Joan, Larry, Maggi, Linda & John:

The salads:

Grilled meats and great freshly made falafals:

After lunch, Larry climbed up to the Monastery. 850 steps up - I don't think so. Maggi, Chuck and I wandered back and joined others of our group at a local hotel for a beer.

It was a really big day. Chuck was so tired he skipped dinner and went to bed.

Petra is on the BBC's list of 40 must see places in the world and it is possible to ride a carriage through the Siq and a camel to the restaurant. (But I must warn you that those are hard, too.)

For more about Petra see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra

Monday 3/8 Still exploring

2010-03-08T03:54:00.000-08:00

Sunday was another sunny beautiful day. The area at our hotel is like an anthill - it is swarming with skiers and snowboarders and their cars and buses. They are parked halfway down the mountain.

The sausage truck came yesterday and stayed in the same spot overnight. We decided to try this for lunch since it smelled delicious. The guy was grilling sausages and meat skewers. Chuck and I shared a sandwich (since it was two links and huge pieces of bread.) We ate while standing around the grill. (I was trying to keep warm since I really didn't bring a warm enough jacket.)

After lunch we decided to try to find an ATM. I had asked at the desk and the clerk thought that there was one 2 towns down the road. Brian came along for the ride which was a good thing since he was better at spotting signs.

Down the road we went. In France the little villages have their business area right on the main road. This doesn't seem true in Italy - unless, they don't really have any businesses - which might be the problem. Nothing at the 1st town, nothing at the 2nd. The 3rd town seemed to be a little bigger, so we followed signs to the supermarket, the flower shop, the butcher, all to no avail. Then Brian spotted a sign for a bank. Hooray! Success at last! We got some money and really checked out the area so that I would be able to find it again.

Feeling quite successful, we continued on to see what else was around - not much. We were also on the lookout for a laundromat. We didn't find one yesterday, but today I asked another clerk at the desk and the chambermaid. Between the 2 of them, they thought of one that they knew I could find. They first described the route. It is 2 exits down the autoroute, but very easy to find once there. The chambermaid drew a little map, so she could be sure that I was getting the finer points of the directions. You can tell that things are tough here, if I can be so excited about being able to find a laundromat.

Today, after dropping the guys off, I'm just staying in. It is even colder and I needed to wash my hair. One problem with the room, is that they only turn the heat on from about 6 to 9 am and from 4 to 9 pm. It is getting a little chilly in here. Only 11 more days.

Back to Jordan

Day 2 was our worst day for weather. It was rainy and cold. We started at the ruins of Jerash. This is extremely well preserved Greco-Roman site.

Hadrian's gate. Yes, this is the same Hadrian who has the wall separating England and Scotland. He was a busy boy who really got around.

Normally, Larry was the mountain goat who was at the top of stuff before the rest of us - I can't believe that I was above the others.

The natural lawnmowers:

I told you there would be more amphitheaters:

This one had entertainment.

Now, I have heard a lot of bagpipes in my life - I took 9 years of Highland dancing lessons - but this was hard even for me!

We had another buffet lunch, but first saw flat-bread being baked on stones in a "pizza" oven.

The food was very tasty. Normally, grilled meats, vegetables, varieties of hummus and salads. The only problem was that it was very much the same meal after meal.

After lunch we visited a Saracen's castle at Ajlun. Who knew that Crusaders and Saracens built the same kinds of castles?

The weather was deteriorating - so this may or may not be Galilee in the distance.

While in Amman, we were happy to be able to visit one of Chuck's former grad students. We remembered him fondly from our days in Los Alamos, NM. He invited us for dinner and sent a car to pick the 4 of us up at the hotel. (This did make Mohammed a little nervous - he took the phone # of where we would be and made sure that we had his number, too. The guides want to make sure that no one gets lost!)

It was great to see him again and catch up on his career. He is in charge of the new atomic energy plant that is being built - Chuck was very proud of him.

Abdul's living room was even bigger than our home visit's. It basically covered all of the ground floor with a small kitchen and powder room. Upstairs is where the family lives with bedrooms, bathrooms, TV room, and another kitchen.

Abdul's wife, Esme, made a "small" dinner that would have fed the entire group from the night before. This also was a casserole, but had several kinds of meat and 2 kinds of grains. We all ate until we were stuffed, but didn't even make a dent.

This is part of the section we were sitting in - there were 4 more like it and one in a more "casual" decor.

Every table was filled with collectibles:

The powder room fixtures were black with turquoise and gold inlay.

Abdul drove us back to the hotel with a small detour past the university.

Saturday March 6, Exploring the area

2010-03-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

After lunch the roads were clear so Chuck and I went out for a drive. (Once reason that the roads were clear was that every skier and snowboarder in the area has come here to go up the mountain. They are parked all over the place. Italians park wherever they want to in whatever manner they choose.)

We took the back road to L'Aquila. It was supposed to bring us into the southern end of the town near the bus terminal. Just as we were getting close, there was a major detour - we had no idea where we were, but stopped at the train station. Up to this point, I didn't know there was a train station. Everything was closed except the snack bar. People were helpful and one woman spoke good English. When we explained that we really wanted to find the bus station (for possible trips to Rome), she basically said, "You can't get there from here." Because of the major earthquake, much of the town is under construction. She gave us directions to a circle and said to ask from there.

We drove around, missed signs, made u-turns, made mistake after mistake because the signage is small and sudden and suddenly found ourselves at the bus terminal. Just because we were in the part that was for buses only was a minor detail. Escaped from that section and stopped in the car parking garage. Then we could find any signs for the ticket area. Turns out that the whole bus terminal is under construction also. There were hand written signs that didn't really point anywhere. By this time Chuck was practically berserk. He is much more afraid of getting lost than I am. (Probably because he has absolutely no sense of direction.) We finally found the ticket window (which is in a temporary trailer) but they had no information. I don't think that I will be making day trips to Rome.

Found our way back to the car and started off again. For some reason or other that I cannot determine, I am the driver this trip. Chuck is not a good navigator - he busily reads the map, but doesn't look out for the signs. He wanted to try to find a restaurant and sent me up a road that suddenly ended in a traffic barrier. Another 92 point turn. Back and around to the terminal and around and then burst free of the town. Missed the entrance to the auto-route (tiny little sign that only said Roma, so I was afraid to take it. Detoured back and finally with a great sigh of relief on the road back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, the skiers were beginning to leave, so it was a great traffic jam of cars trying to get out of the very small lot. We found a place and went to rest in the room. I felt stressed the rest of the day.

We went to the hotel dining room with Brian for dinner. I just had tortellini in broth, C&B share a gnocci in cheese sauce and then C had sauage and B breaded lamb chop.

I think that our next trip to L'Aquila will consist of parking the car on the edge of the town and walking around to get our bearings.

Now, something about our trip to Jordan.

As I said before, Chuck and I have never taken a tour. In fact, we have rarely taken a trip that didn't have something to do with physics. Normally, we go to a conference and then add on a trip.

Our friends Maggi and Larry went to Italy last year and decided that they had about one last big trip in them. They decided that Egypt and Jordan was the one. They asked if we wanted to go along. We signed up for an OAT tour. This stands for Overseas Adventure Travel and seems to be for the "active older adult". Several of my friends had used this company for other places and recommended them highly.

We started with a realllllllly long flight. LAX - JFK - Cairo (wait in airport 5 hours) - Amman. We met several of our fellow travelers in the Cairo airport while we waited. I was so brain dead at the end, that I barely remember the arrival except for the fact that it was pouring. Everyone we met in Amman thanked us for bringing the rain.

Each OAT tour only has 16 people. For Jordan, we had two groups of 10. Each group had its own leader and bus. We all stayed in the same hotels and were basically covering the same ground, so we did get to know each other.

Our leader was Mohammed

He was a really nice guy and a very good leader. One of the things that was really noticeable was that he was really charming - not only to us, but to everyone we met...the tea seller at a castle, the kids selling postcards, the guys at the rest stops.

Our first day consisted of sightseeing in Amman:

Maggi & Larry at the Citadel (It was much chillier than we expected. We were going to desert country, no?)

A section of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

All of us at the amphitheater:

The romans really like to build amphitheaters. You will see a bunch of them.

We walked through downtown Amman on our way back to the bus.

A minaret shop. These are used on the tops of the minarets and also on gravestones:

A butcher shop complete with sheep's heads:

We drove to the Dead Sea for lunch and a little look around. There is a reason it is called the Dead Sea - it is desolate. It was also cold. There was one person floating - so we could see the effect:

John and Dave decided to wade:

I dipped my fingers in. It was very slimy feeling and very hard to get off. Purel didn't do it. I had to go into the WC and really wash my hands.

That night we all went to a "home hosted dinner". Normally, each group goes separately, but there was some problem, so all twenty of us went to the same house. (This is fairly incredible - but the Jordanians seem to all have a large room that is used for big groups.) We all sat around and the host and his family told us about their lives. These people would be considered upper middle class. They are college graduates and speak English well.

The dinner was a casserole of chicken and rice, salad, pita bread with hummus and dessert. Since Jordan is a Muslem country, we had water, juice or soda to drink. OAT suggests that the guest bring little presents to the hosts. We had an assortment of stuff. One really clever thought was someone from Philadelphia brought a little souvenir book because Amman had been called Philadelphia. I had found tote bags with windows for pictures and replaced one of them with a postcard of LA.

Fell into bed so that we would be ready for the next day.

I'm Back

2010-03-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Hi to all,

It has been a long time since my last post - you only need so much of my minutia. There have been new things happening. Chuck and I took a trip to Egypt. This was our very first tour and we were worried about the enforced togetherness with so many strangers. It turned out to be a wonderful experience. I didn't blog on that trip because we didn't have good internet and we were kept soooo busy that I really didn't have time.

Right now, we are in Gran Sasso, Italy with good access and I must admit more than enough time. So this series of entries will be about both trips. It will be a little confusing but I think that you all can follow the thread.

First: Gran Sasso is a mountain range about 150 km east of Rome. There is a tunnel through the mountain with a physics lab grafted on to it. (The story goes that the Italian government wanted to build the tunnel to help the economy of the area east of the mountain range. The Italian physicists said, "Since you are spendening a gazillion lira to do this, why not spend 100 million more and have a great physics facility too?" So, this is why we are here - Chuck is working in the tunnel.

We are traveling with a Chinese grad student named Brian. He made all of the travel arrangements while we were on our Egypt trip.

We had the normal very long flight LAX - Philadelphia - Rome. We all had aisle seats which really helped. Chuck and I both had an empty next to us. (Sometimes we just live right!)

We picked up our car at the airport and Chuck wanted me to drive. It has been a long time since he drove stick shift and he didn't want to embarrass himself jerking away from the rental place. We had showers on the way, but once we left Rome there was almost no traffic.

We are staying at a hotel up the mountain from the lab. One of the buildings used to be the base of the chair lift. Now, it is a dining room.

The first day we walked around and saw the lift, and the 2 other restaurants in the area. I was trying to stay awake until after dinner.

The plan is that I take Chuck and Brian to the lab and then get to explore on my own for the day. Day 1 showed the first problem with the plan.

It had started to snow during the night. We scraped the car and took off. After dropping the guys, I checked out the 2 towns further on down the mountain. One of them had a pharmacy. The other had nothing. I tried following a sign up a hill, but ended up at a dead end and had to turn around. Remember the 3 point turn? This was about a 12 pt.

Since the weather was deteriorating, I went back to the hotel where I had a lovely lunch:

Italian Mac 'n Cheese. The waitress just brought this - no menu, so I suppose that it was a set lunch. Then there was a meat choice - but I passed. The waitress needed me to have something more which turned out to be some vegetables.

These were baked with a few breadcrumbs.

Very please with my lunch, I returned to the room. I learned a new Italian word today: Neve. It means snow. It neve'd alllllll day. C & B were in the tunnel and didn't realize how bad it was getting. They didn't call until 5pm.

I almost couldn't get out of the parking lot. They met me at the gate because their co-worker said that I might have a hard time getting up the hills in the lab.

Getting back to the hotel was really bad. The car has a light that goes on when the tires don't have traction - it was on a lot. I was thanking my lucky stars that no one else was on the road. Just then 2 cars appeared and we started sliding into their lane. I was able to get us back where we belonged in time to go by them.

We walked to the hotel next door for dinner. It was still snowing.

This morning was lovely - many people are arriving to ski and snowboard - but we won't be going anyplace until the roads are clear!!

Merry Christmas to all.

2009-12-25T18:47:00.001-08:00

Myspace 2.0 layouts

I don't know how this is going to work - it is just an experiment.

Oct 27 Mon Trip to Chengde

2008-10-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

The custom here is to reward people with a trip. Our trip is to Chengde which was a Summer Palace in the mountains for the Qings. They were Manchus and it reminded them of their homeland. It is about 3 hours Northeast of Beijing. Xianglei was our accompanying person. He had never been there before, so it was a good opportunity for him.

Xianglei arrived with the car and driver at 7 am, and off we went. The driver is an important part of these trips, because he has been there before and knows the ropes. When we got there we were met by a prearranged guide. She explained stuff to Xianglei, and then he translated for us. When we discovered that the signs did a good job we headed for them and read the stuff for ourselves. This made it much easier on everyone.

The palace is divided into 3 sections. 1. The actual palace part:

2. The Mountains. This was a shuttle ride. We took off like a bat out of hell and went screaming up a mountain. At the top, we all unloaded and climbed up to the highest point in the park. The rest of our group were friggin' mountain goats. We had a hard time keeping up. They also seemed to know where they were supposed to go. There were several stops. One included a musical interlude, by people in the costumes of the Qings. (Notice the shoes with the high posts - this made the feet seem to be as small as the bound feet. The Qings didn't do that.)

3. The Lakes. This was a calmer ride. We were the only ones in the shuttle. It did still involve some climbing on some very rough rocky trails. The rocks were supposed to be steps, but were very uneven.

We were able to get really close to a mother deer and her baby. I was surprise at how close she let us come.

After this we went to lunch. The driver knew just the place and I think he helped order, too. In China it is the norm to have the driver have lunch with you.

We had cabbage cooked in milk
Lamb with cilantro and cumin
Venison with peppers
And a soup.

After lunch we went to yet another temple.

The really interesting thing at this one was that the monks were chanting while beating drums, clanging cymbals and blowing horns (two types.) (If I had to be in this room with all of the noise, I would have a splitting headache in about 2 minutes.)

We all agreed that we could skip the two other temples in Chengde, which would be more of the same. We wanted to get back to Beijing (and the good roads) before it got fully dark. We did make it. We got back home at 7:10.

Since we had had a large lunch and it was getting late we decided to go to the 24 hour place across the street for just a small dinner:

Yup. That's what we had.

Oct 26 Sun Back to the Pandas & Boatride

2008-10-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

The weather is still glorious. We decided to take the boat ride that goes from the zoo to the Summer Palace.

First, at the zoo we had to visit our friends the pandas again. They were feeding the little guys bamboo. (Chuck is convinced that we have our timings down pat.)

Then we went to find the boat. It was a little hard to tell if we were in the right place, but were shoved in the correct direction. The ride took about an hour and is a pleasant glide through a nice canal. On the way we came to a lock. Instead of riding through the lock, we all got out and transferred to another boat. (I guess the original boat goes back for the next load.

At the Summer Palace, one could buy an entry or just go someplace else. Our ticket included the Summer Palace. We had been there before, but enjoyed walking around and looking at things again.

For dinner we went back to WaHaHa. This was the restaurant that we had been to with Yuan and Xiaoyan. We had a coupon for 100 RMB off, so of course we had to use it.
We started with the little fishies again.

Golden shrimp were coated with a delicious hard crust.
This rib dish was spectacular:

The meat was sliced off the bone. Underneath there was a cooked cabbage with peanuts & hot peppers. We demolished the dish.

They said that these were mustard greens - I think not, but they were tasty anyway.

For dessert we had these "Japanese plum balls"

It was mochi around a soft marshmallow around a filling.

Oct 25 Sat. Lama Temple with Ken

2008-10-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday, my blouses were supposed to be finished, so after breakfast, we went to the campus tailor to pick them up. Not ready so early - come back later. I showed him on the calendar that we would be back the next day at the same early time. That seemed to be OK.

Just as we were finished that exercise, I received a call on my cell phone. It was from someone who insisted in speaking Chinese. A lot of Chinese. I kept saying in English that I didn't understand. I finally said, "Cashmere?" Cashmere, cashmere, cashmere came the reply. It was the sweater shop. Since the only word that we had in common was cashmere, we decided to go there and see what was going on. There were two possibilities. 1. Chuck's sweater was finished early. 2. There was a problem with Chuck's sweater. Either way visiting the shop seemed like a good idea.

The good news was that the sweater was ready. Chuck and the ladies.

Views of the shop:
Then we went to meet Ken. He was going to show us the Lama Temple with a Guinness book of World Record"s Statue and a much quieter Confucius Temple. Then we were meeting a friend of his at a restaurant in his neighborhood. (His neighborhood is a whole street of only restaurants.) Chuck is a little envious.

Views of the day.

For dinner we had pork balls rolled in rice.
chicken casserole:

mushrooms and baby bok choy
spicy beans
fish cooked in oil (also spicy)

And sesame balls for dessert. (They weren't as good as the ones we get in L. A.)

The cab drivers have a hard time finding our hotel. Getting home from the Military Museum, I had to call the hotel on my cell and have them give him directions.

Tonight's made a mistake and gave us back 10 RMB from the bill - very honest.

Oct 24 Friday Moving Day

2008-10-28T07:11:00.001-07:00

Today was moving day. I was getting tired of living in the same place and having to walk 30 minutes when we couldn't get a taxi on campus, so when there was a little problem with the hotel being full, I said that we should move out.

We moved a few blocks away to the Jade Palace. We had stayed here the last time that we were in Beijing. It is large and luxurious, with more services.

Remember this view. If the pollution gets bad again, I'll take the same view so you can see the difference.

For lunch we went back to the mall

and had the Tappen (sp?) restaurant. Shades of Benni Hana!

The difference is that the guy just cooks, he doesn't do any tricks.

Then we went to the Military Museum. It is a little strange. Lots and lots of tanks and planes, all with signs saying made in China.
We enjoyed walking around the part that showed the ancient wars.

That night we hosted a big dinner for the students and the members of the faculty that had been so helpful to us. Of course, we were back at the campus hotel. It was the easiest for the students to get to.

I was dignified and didn't take pictures.

Oct 23 Thurs. Quiet day

2008-10-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

Since we are having real computer problems, I went with Chuck to his office so that I could help him get set up with the computer there. (The Internet works the same way, but the first few pages are in Chinese. You really need to be familiar with the layout to make it work properly.)

The weather is getting colder. The trees are changing color.

Last night it rained and today is very windy so many of the leaves are getting blown off the trees.

This morning there were an army of people out sweeping the leaves into piles.

The good part about all of this is that the pollution has been reduced again - notice how blue the sky is.

While we were in Chuck's office, some music started playing. The same song over and over again. Chuck said that it happened every day. It turned out that it was a flag team practicing.

They weren't very good.

On the way back to the room, I spotted another bride. This one was really cold - it was only 57 degrees.

We had dinner at the hotel. It is Chuck's last class. I think that teaching 4 nights a week has been a little tiring for him.

Different stuff that we had tonight:

Pork casserole and garlic ribs

Oct 22 Wed. A modern mall

2008-10-23T04:16:00.001-07:00

Our metro line (13) connects with Line 2 at an enormous modern mall. This is the stop where you have to go outside to get to the other line. It turns out that Line 4 is being constructed and will also have a station here.

This is a route that we go by in a taxi, so I had also been intrigued by the building.

It is very recognizable with 3 large glass arches. The mall is in all 3 arches and the spaces in between. It has 6 floors and a fast food court in the basement. (Each floor also has food. The Chinese believe that there should always be something to eat close by.) Notice how gray the sky is - pollution!

Anyone who has been to a mall in America would feel right at home. There seems to be about the same mix of shops. There is always an Esprit and a United Colors of Benetton, and many little stands in the aisles selling cheaper items.

The most interesting thing in the fast food court was the hot pot place.

First you picked the foods that you wanted. Portions were on sticks and I presume priced per stick. After you had the stuff on your plate, you paid and gave it to the cooker person.

She put all of your stick items in one of the little baskets and when it was done, dumped it onto your plate. (I think that each row had a different cooking liquid - some spicy, some not.) Then you could add some of the dipping sauces to the mix.

Back in our room I discovered that we are still cut off from internet connection with the USA. The only thing I can access is the blogger site and google. If I search for news on google I can access their news headlines, but none of the articles.

We do seem to have a lot of dignitaries around. The front of the hotel has lots of big black cars with drivers.

At dinner there was a buffet for the help. The big wigs were in another dining room. The help ate in shifts. First the soldiers came in, then the policemen, then finally a group that looked like our secret service guys in suits with the little twisty ear thing.

We had our normal:

This looked like the cuttle fish but was something else.

baby bok choy
beef with little potatoes (STEW!)
While Chuck was at his class it poured. I didn't hear a thing in our room. It is really well sound proofed to the outside - but not to the hallway.

I think that the guys across the hall were getting beer deliveries. They kept knocking on his door. They knocked on mine too - but went away when I talked to them through the door. In the mornings we can hear every one's showers and the doors slamming all down the hall.

By the time Chuck walked home, the rain had stopped, but it was very windy and there were lots of puddles.

We had a cup of tea and relaxed before bed.

Oct 21 Hong Qiao Pearl Market

2008-10-23T03:36:00.000-07:00

A day on my own. I convinced Chuck that he is a big boy and should be able to get back to the hotel on his own after breakfast. He whinged a little trying to convince me that I was sooooo much better at it than he was. Since he has never done it, of course I am better at it. But he hadn't brought any maps... I told him that I would show the cab driver where he wanted to go and then he could sit in the front seat and point. (the Chinese feel it is more egalitarian to ride in the front seat with the driver, and it is easier to point where you want to go.)

I hopped on the metro and was on my way. It takes about an hour to get there. I had been to this market before - it is 4 floors of small booths of shopping chaos. The 3rd and 4th floors are pearls and other jewelry. The 1st and 2nd floor have clothes, suitcases, souvenirs and the 1st floor also has phones, watches and other electronics.

Everyone is trying to get your attention. On the 4th floor, it is quieter and quite elegant. A salesgirl came over to help me. She asked where I was from and both she and another girl admired my red raincoat. (It wasn't raining, but the coat was the right weight and has deep pockets, so I don't have to have my purse or fanny pack.) Red is an auspicious color in China. My salesgirl did say that women her mother and grandmother's age would never have such a coat. I was much to be admired because I did. She then asked what age people retire in the US. She was horrified to hear that it was 65. Even for women? Here they retire at 50 (and then raise their grandchildren, because the mommies are working.) I explained that I had retired the 1st time to raise my child and then went back to work for awhile. She thought it was quite wonderful that I was able to do this.

I didn't buy anything and went down a floor. Ladyladyladylady, you want pearl, you want jade, what you want, I got. Look ladyladyladylady!! The good thing is that there are many customers, so it is quite easy to look and move on. I have developed this quite well now. The trick is to not let them engage you in any kind of conversation. "No, thank you," is too much conversation, because it gives them an in.

I did buy some stuff. Bargaining is now my game. The real trick to this is to not really care if you get the item. As you are walking away, the price can really drop.

After I finished the main building, I discovered that there is also a Toy City and another Pearl building now. The other pearl building was harder because there were many fewer customers. I don't know why, because it looked like all the same stuff to me. Now, when they were crying "Ladyladyladylady", I was the only lady around. They did have a lovely clean handicapped toilet so I was happy.

The air is getting pretty thick again. It is hard to see anything any distance away.

Dinner at our hotel again.

We had the cuttle fish again and turkey wings with 3 dipping sauces:

and asparagus

Problems in China

2008-10-22T03:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know what is going on here, but the blog is my only access to the internet. I cannot access either my yahoo mail or my UCLA mail. I can google, but cannot access most of the stuff that comes up. It is as though I am cut off from the USA.

If anyone needs to reach me, I can access the comments on the blog. This is really, really, weird.

Oct 20 Yarn shopping

2008-10-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

Xiaoyan is going to have a baby in the spring. She and Yuan are going to be married, but they are having a hard time getting her a visa. So, to cheer her up a little, I invited her to go to a yarn store that I had heard about. I said that we could pick out some yarn and I would knit something for her baby. She seemed quite excited by the idea.

I had found out about this shop, which is called Wool Spinning City, from the China knitters group on Ravelry. (Those of you who don't knit can ignore that last bit. It makes perfect sense to the knitters.) It is outside of Beijing, but not terribly far from where we are.

Yuan had written the address in Chinese for me. It turned out that when he googled it, a group of Chinese knitters was also discussing it. It seems to be quite famous here in Beijing.

Chuck and I invited Xiaoyan for lunch before we went. Since we had leftovers, we insisted that we could keep them in our little fridge and then she could take them home. (Yuan is in Shanghai for 3 days so she can have some already prepared tasty food.

Wool Spinning City is everything that it is cracked up to be. 3 floors of little shops selling yarn and fabric. On the roof is the sign in English! We started on the top floor and worked our way down. It is overwhelming, because I really have no idea of the brands and most of the labels only have Chinese. So I can tell that it is 75% something and 25% something else, but we don't seem to be able to find out what.

Most of the yarn shops look like this:
I decided that my best bet would be to really look at the places which were crowded and had lots of Chinese ladies buying.

We found a nice feeling yarn - but the colors were bad. No problem, they had 24 colors but no chart - someone went somewhere and brought back boxes.

We chose UCLA blue and yellow. Since she doesn't know yet what it is, we thought that this would be a good choice for either sex.

This yarn came in boxes 500 grams for 36 RMB. But I had seen some that came in handled plastic bags with zippers, so we went back to that store and found some that was OK. Xiaoyan explained to the lady that I really wanted a zipper bag, so she threw in an extra one. (The smiling lady in the blue sweater was my benefactress.)

After we saw all 3 floors, we visited the outside market. Didn't see anything that we needed there, so caught a taxi home.

Xiaoyan picked up her food boxes and agreed that we had a really fun afternoon.

Still eating 4 dinners a week in the hotel because of Chuck's class. We are beginning to go back to our favorites.

Venison with chestnuts and broccoli.

Calf riblets with spaghetti. (This one was a new one and a little strange. The spaghetti was tepid.)
Spicy green beans:

Chuck went off to teach and I had a nice time with my feet up reading. He came home about 9:30, we had a cup of tea, watched a little TV and went to bed.

Oct 19 Sun National Art Museum

2008-10-21T04:22:00.001-07:00

Every time we leave the hotel room, we discover things that we didn't know were happening. We spotted the Beijing Marathon from a metro platform when we were changing trains.

We stopped at a quiet spot on the street to talk to Alec and the kinder in L. A. We do miss them. In one month, they change so much. They had been to the UCLA football game, Philippe's for dinner and then to Jo-Ann's Fabrics to pick up some stuff for the Halloween costumes.

We walked on to the National Art Museum. This one specializes in late 20th and early 21st century stuff.

They had a special exhibit of the history of Max Mara coats. I loved it.

Another special exhibit of Manolo Valdes, a young Spanish artist.

After walking around for awhile we needed a tea break. It is really quite lovely to be served the tea in little pots that get replenished with hot water many times. So much nicer than a tea bag in a cup.

After the museum, we walked up to Baihai park. (For my 3rd visit this time.) At least I didn't have to climb up to the top of the white pagoda.

A cutie having her picture taken.

We are very lucky getting taxis at all times except when we are going for dinner. We had no trouble getting back to the hotel, but again had our 1/2 hour walk to the restaurant.

We had heard about a "fusion restaurant" and wanted to try it. Instead we ended up in a hot pot place because we were on the wrong floor. Not a problem, we had a good dinner and will go to the other one next time.

Each of us had our individual hot pot. (Before this we have always had one big pot.)

We had an assortment of meat and fish balls. They are very hard to get out of the hot pot with chop sticks - the little suckers kept escaping and sliding away. We finally asked for spoons.

An assortment of vegetables and an assortment of meat.

We also had an assortment of dipping sauces. We both liked the sesame paste with cashews and coriander best.

Finished with oranges for dessert.

Had no trouble getting a taxi home!

Oct 18 Sat QianMen & Natural History Museum

2008-10-21T03:43:00.000-07:00

When I was in Beijing 4 years ago, QianMen, the street that runs north and south just below Tiananmen Square was a lively shopping district. It was rather seedy, but had a lot of shops including a very nice yarn store.

The street was gentrified for the Olympics and is now very pretting and clean, but the only shops that are open are the Famous Duck Restaurant, another restaurant, the post office and the public toilets. The buildings have been redone in the classic Beijing style of grey brick and red and gold trim.

The duck restaurant always had a line.

We always planned to walk down this street and continue to the Natural History Museum. Chuck kept asking me if I was sure we were going the right way. It was nice to see the triceratops to confirm that we had done it correctly.

The museum had a nice blend of bones:

And reconstrution. The first dino nest was found in China.

There always seems to be a play area in the places that will appeal to children. This kid didn't seem really happy to be riding the dino.

I did a movie of him too. (I was almost willing to pay for some kid to ride this thing, but this child happened first.

This little girl was doing a sand painting:

Several kids were fishing:

And this was whack the moles:

This little boy was giving a tour of the dino exhibit. When he was finished, his dad took him aside and they talked about what he had done.

Besides the dino section, there were several floors of other Natural History museum stuff. The different here is that people get into the dioramas and pose with the animals. There is only a little rope fence between people and exhibit, so children are lifted in and encouraged to touch, kiss, ride the stuffed animals, etc.

We took a cab back and then went to Yan for dinner.

We started with fried mushrooms. (Much like onion rings!)

beef in dry pan
an assortment of grilled fish:

And green stuffed balls that tasted a lot like the sesame balls that we get at dim sum.

We were very pleased with another day in Beijing

Oct 17 Fri. Shopping and Temple of Heaven

2008-10-20T01:14:00.000-07:00

Chuck has Friday, Saturday and Sunday to go exploring with me, so I try to do things on those days that he will enjoy.

He had a lovely cashmere sweater made in Shanghai and wants to get another. I had found a shop and he chose his color and they measured him (several times) and then measured his sweater and finally took our deposit. We pick it up the day before we leave.

Then we walked over to Wangfujing, which is the major shopping street. I had found a really nice upscale food court in a high end department store.

I have been joking that the Chinese beds are a sheet on a marble slab. I was flabbergasted to find out that I was actually right. This is a bed made with glass bricks.

This one is the marble slab. These were very expensive and I think had a heating element in them.

We had dim sum for lunch and then went across the street for Hagen Daz for dessert.

Our next stop was the Temple of Heaven Park. The emperor made sacrifices here for good harvest. There was a very elaborate ceremony which involved many buildings and thousands of courtiers watching.

This was the "long corridor". Each of these clumps of people was a card game with on lookers. They all had bags of snacks with them.

Chuck and I actually came in from the East gate instead of the South gate where the emperor would have started. So we were looking at things in reverse order.

This is the Hall of Prayer for good harvests:
This was the building with memorial tablets. We decided that we didn't need to stand in a huge line, pressed together with our new best friends to catch a glimpse of something which we didn't understand.
This was the circular mound altar. If you stand on the raised stone in the center and speak the acoustics make it sound as if you are speaking to heaven.

On the way out were 2 rows of drums made of flowers with the Olympic icons on them.

The marathon blue line came through here, too.

We had invited Yuan and Xiaoyan for dinner. (With our usual thing - they chose the restaurant and the food and we paid.)

They chose one called WaHaHa that had food from Xiaoyan's home area in the southern part of China. She is pregnant and has a hard time finding food that is appealing. Tastes of home are good and she really ate quite a bit.

We started with little fried fishies:

and pickled daicon radish.
Then we had salad,
peas with mushrooms,

meat inside the fried wrappers,

spare ribs with sticky rice in the foil package:

duck cooked in a different style,
gifilte fish soup?
sweet and sour fish,
and watermelon, apples and tomatoes for dessert.

We were given a coupon for 100 RMB off on our next visit. (And I can guarantee that there will be another visit.)

We had walked to the restaurant (30 minutes) because at dinner time taxis are impossible to find on campus, but we took a taxi home.

Oct 16 Thurs. Catching up

2008-10-19T20:27:00.001-07:00

Today was another day of exploring the area. First, I had spotted an outside market from the metro platform. It was several lanes of cloths, socks, pj's and warm jackets. Even though the weather is lovely, you can tell by what people are buying that it is going to get cold.

I laughed when I saw this guy. It reminded me of all of the demonstrators at the L. A. County Fair. I could have translated his spiel even without knowing any Chinese.

I had my hair cut with the "dry shampoo". They were quite excited at the shop when I pulled out my little notebook with words they could understand written in it. The dry shampoo part wasn't as good as Hefei. They didn't do the shoulder and back massage, but the cut was nice.

I tried to make reservations at another hotel - but they were full too. The only thing that they had available was their most expensive room - and that was very expensive.

Found 2 couples posing for pictures. I tried to have this girl hold up her skirt, because she had jeans and sneakers underneath, but no one understood what I wanted.

This couple was waiting their turn.

The leaves on the ginko trees are turning. In the daytime it is high 70's, but at night it goes down to 40's.

Loved the irony of the "Parking Place for automobiles".

Didn't go in the Avon store - but from the outside it looked like they had all the stuff.

The dining room was too crowded, so we had to order room service. We had ground meat stir fried with asparagus.

Pigeon cooked in Soy sauce.

and celery cooked with lotus leaves.

Chuck went off to teach his class and I returned the plates to the dining room. By that time there was lots of room, but with Chuck's class starting at 7:15, we have to eat at 5:30.

When he comes home, we have a cup of tea. Our room came equipped with an electric tea kettle.

We watch a little TV and read and then off to bed.

Oct 15 Wed Wal-Mart & cashmere shop

2008-10-16T04:29:00.001-07:00

Feeling much better, I started exploring again. Chuck was a little taken aback when I said that I wouldn't be eating lunch with him. He really couldn't deal with getting back to the hotel on his own after breakfast, so I took pity on him and escorted him back. I kept the taxi and off I went.

This tour group was posing in front of the gate that is Tsinghua's symbol. I loved their jackets. The taxi driver obligingly slowed down so I could snap it. (There is always someone taking pictures in front of this gate. They really get in the way of traffic.)

Here we are at Wal-Mart. It is only 1 metro stop away.

I love to wander in stores and come across weird things. Do you think that a pillow will not only remove liver heat but also improve your sight?

These were pottery casseroles filled with stuff to cook at home. They were only about 16 RMB (less than $2.50.)
They had a mountain of dragon fruit.
On to the cashmere shop. I didn't take pictures, but will go back. Chuck thinks that he would like another sweater and supposedly they do this. They also sell all kinds of yarn.

Took this picture from the ladies room of a department store. It shows a courtyard house.

I am not sure if this was a bride and groom in one of their costumes, or if it was a ballroom dance couple. The photographer invited me to take some pictures. They were right outside of our hotel.

For dinner we had baby cuttlefish with shallots.

Pork ribs and baked bread
and celery with lotus