Looking Forward

I had some setbacks this week, getting sick, a little bad news in the graduate application process...but still trying to look forward. Thought I would post this pic from our vacation in Spain...gonna conquer it all! (I hope...)

Tick Tock.

I've been passing the time on my couch trying to get over a bad cold...sorry for the lack of posts, my recuperation hasn't been very snapshot worthy ;)

On Haiti

Just over ten years ago I had the opportunity to travel to Haiti with a group of people from our Diocese in Milwaukee. As a junior in high school, you can imagine it was difficult to anticipate what the country would be like. Everything about Haiti was nothing like the world I lived (or still live) in was like. As I am sure you know, it is hard at this point not to, Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and there was great evidence to that all around.

On the other hand, I remember in Haiti there being many wonderful people - happy people and lively people. We spent time in Port au Prince and in a smaller town about a five hour drive south called Jeannette. In Port au Prince we visited a school and an orphanage - the orphanage remaining particularly clear in my mind. I remember that in this orphanage there were many children, small and very young and many sick. I can't remember how much time we were there that day, although I can tell you it didn't seem like enough. We played with the kids a little, helped feed some of the babies, and I found myself amazed. I remember distinctly that many of them were crying, crying and the moment you picked one up - they would stop crying. It makes me sad now to wonder what happened to that orphanage in Port au Prince, and what will happen for all of the people there. People talk of hope for a recovery, and I wonder to myself - what will they recover to? I hope that through this awful disaster a new beginning will give Haiti a new promise. Maybe now with the help of the world community it can be built up in a more sustainable, more livable way. I am deeply and continually grateful to have had the chance to go to Haiti. My visit there has at least given me a greater sense of how awful the current situation there now is. If I could go again, I would.

I know it's been said a million times in the last week, but please donate towards the relief efforts in Haiti: Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders are just two of the reputable agencies that are helping.

I've posted some of my pics from our trip in 1999 below. I'm only regretting that it took this massive tragedy to prompt me to pull them out of storage.

At the school in Jeannette.


This is one of my favorite photos from our trip. While we were in Jeannette we had a steady entourage of the village children that stuck by us. They were so animated and happy. They held our hands as we walked around and were always wanting to play. This picture is of my older sister Mariam near the school house with a group of the kids.


This is a photo with Mariam and a girl named Bri that came along on the trip as well.


This is such a great photo - this kid in the front getting ready to box...


I was looking at this photo and I remember the little boy in the blue pants being one of my favorite kids. I think he had some developmental delays - and he was also the sweetest little kid.


This was by the giant cistern in the village of Jeannette. It was used to gather the rainwater for use in the homes.


This is a photo of the school/church yard. You can read about St. Marc's here.


A couple of photos taken while walking around the rural village. In the bottom one you can see the group that followed us around. This is half because we were strangers, and half because they knew we were bringing supplies around to the houses.



Photos in and around Port au Prince:










There are a few more photos on my flickr stream as well.

I end this post with the hope that many other people share - that Haiti will be able to rebuild and come away from this disaster with a stronger country than they had before. I know it will take decades, but I am sure it can be done...

A sunrise over the valley...

The Great London Escapade!

It all started here, Gare du Nord in Paris. Felipe and I managed to pull ourselves out of bed at 7:00am (give us a break - it was vacation!) to drag the luggage in the freezing cold to the station. From Gare du Nord we took the Eurostar train to London. Traveling at almost 200 miles per hour, we arrived in London just after 10:00am and were met at the train station by Xavier who had graciously come to pick us up on his day off.

Xavier suggested that we take a walk across Blackheath towards Greenwich Park, home of the the Royal Observatory, the National Maritime Museum, and the prime meridian. It was a beautiful park, one that I am sure is even more enjoyable in the summertime.

After walking through the park we took a boat on the Thames into the city of London, getting off at Westminster. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring this area of the city. We had lunch at a pub called the Red Lion which was located near the Houses of Parliament and Wesminster Abbey.




We had lunch and got a couple of drinks - mine a Strongbow (much better than the bottled stuff you get here in the states) and Felipe a Guinness.

The food was good, not great but not bad, and the scene was nice - plus it was well located.

After eating and walking around the area, we crossed the bridge over to the other side of the river. It seems that we chose a good time to come to London, tourist-wise that is, because we went to get tickets to go on the London Eye and there wasn't a line or wait for either ticket purchases or for getting on the Eye. We were up there just in time for the sun to be going down - and the views over the City were amazing.








After getting off the Eye we walked around a bit more before heading back to Blackheath to have a lovely lunch with Becky and Xavier at a great little Argentinean Steakhouse.

One more shot before the sun set entirely:


The next day we slept in a little and headed towards the city center around 10am. This time we hopped on the tourist bus (the Original London Tour) and took that around Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street, St. Paul's Cathedral, and London Bridge. I have to say, I thought taking a tourist bus for the short visit that we had in London would be a good idea (even though I generally try to avoid them), and it turns out my first instinct is right. We even found out later that our bus touring company didn't operate at night - an important detail that I did not previously see. Anyway, I digress. After getting off around London Bridge at Tooley Street we walked over towards More London where Felipe's new job has their London Office. He had lunch with his new co-workers and I headed off in search of Shepard's pie, which I had decided to have at least once while in town.

I didn't find Shepard's pie, even after going in to a "Pie and Ale" house, which oddly only had a vegetarian version made with Quorn? weird. I ended up at a small pub, probably would be considered a bit of a dive here in the states, but precisely what I was looking for. The Shipwrights Arms was perfect, uncrowded and I got a good cottage pie, the beef equivalent of shepard's pie.


After lunch I met up with Felipe again and we walked around the river front surrounding the Tower Bridge area. It offered a lot of really nice views.

(well actually this picture was taken from the boat the day before).







After that we took the tube to Oxford Circus to meet an old co-worker of Felipe's for coffee. We ended up walking around Soho and stopping at an a little coffee shop around Regent Street. It was after coffee that we discovered that our bus tours didn't run at night...kind of a bummer to say the least! Instead we saw Piccadilly Circus, not really that exciting, and went to a couple of shops. We went to a few book stores and then to Fortnum & Mason, which has an amazing food hall - a grocery store-like place very similar to my favorite in Paris - Le Grand Epicerie. We did a little shopping there, but to tell you the truth I could have done a LOT of shopping there.

Just before we went in to some of the shops we got a text from Becky that London was expecting a crazy amount of snow and that the London public transit didn't work well. The advice was - if it starts snowing we should head back. As soon as we left Fortnum & Mason it was snowing, so we hopped on the first train back to Blackheath. By the time we got off it had stopped snowing, there wasn't really much on the ground either, and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Blackheath.

We got back to Xavier and Becky's house and discussed strategy for the next day. The snow was to continue through the night and all through the next morning. Well, we woke up the next morning to snow, about an inch and a half I suppose, but just enough to make travel complicated, as London is not used to having snow. Our flight was supposed to leave London at 6:00pm, so originally we had planned to finish some sightseeing that day. No such luck. Gatwick airport was closed, all day, and the flights canceled. This began our adventure to find the best way to make it back to Barcelona. Surely our 6:00pm flight would be canceled as well and we would have to try to fly out the next day, but even that wasn't a guarantee given the weather was supposed to continue.

After agonizing a bit around our options we came down to three options. One - wait in London, and try and get a direct flight the next day. This was risky, if we could not get a flight or if our flight was canceled again we would risk not making it back to Barcelona in time for our flight back to the US. Two - we could take the Eurostar to Paris and try and get a flight that night from Paris. And three - take the Eurostar to Paris and then another overnight train from Paris to Barcelona. To err on the safe side we decided to go with option three - it had the least possible chance of cancellations and delays. So at 10:45am Xavier graciously gave us another ride to the train station, and we hopped on the Eurostar for Paris.


On the Eurostar, with that morning's headline.


Here is the snowy countryside.

We made it through the Chunnel okay (fortunately without the problems the service had experience weeks earlier). After arriving to Gare du Nord, we took the subway to Gare d'Austerlitz where we had four hours to wait before our train would depart for Barcelona. This time was spent buying food to have as a "picnic" dinner on the train, sitting in a McDonald's near the station (there were no heated seating areas in the station, not even free standing heaters like Gare du Nord).

Finally, while my feet felt like frozen bricks, we were able to board our train. It was a "train hotel", and in the end I think it is my most enjoyable way to travel. Felipe and I had "first class" tickets (I think four euro cheaper than the coach tickets when we purchased), and so we had a cabin to ourselves. It wasn't huge, but it was much more spacious than if we were seated in a regular car. There were two seats, two beds that folded down, a sink, a closet, and you could lock the door. The trip was great - it was private, no one around to play their headphones too loud, you could control the heating and the lights, it was so quiet, and easy to sleep on the beds. And lest I forget one of the more enjoyable parts - no check in, no long security lines, and hardly any tired employees to deal with...so nice!







We had our breakfast in the restaurant car in the morning (it was included with the ticket), and arrived to Barcelona at 8:30am. It was a good choice too for us to leave the UK when we did. We learned a couple hours after arriving in Barcelona that all flights were still canceled and additionally they had suspended all Eurostar service again due to the weather. If we had waited to the next day we definitely would have missed our flight to New York. Overall I consider ourselves to be quite lucky!

In the end, I really enjoyed visiting with Xavier and Becky, and I really enjoyed London, but I think the next time I will go will be in warmer weather ;)

A Drink at Le Dôme Café

Today we had a lovely visit with our friends Laurence, Sylvain and Ruben. Arrived to their apartment around 1pm and enjoyed catching up - next time we come...settlers!

After our afternoon visit we went to Montparnasse, and had a drink at Le Dôme Café. This is one of the original cafés in Montparnasse, opened in 1898. It was the perfect spot to have a drink and sit for a short while before going to dinner.



It had a beautiful interior and was actually pretty quiet (I think there were many people traveling today - so fewer eating out). They had these fantastic mirrors with etchings on them (see below)


I would definitely recommend it for a drink, and from what I gather, it had one Michelin star in the restaurant (separated from the cafe) - so the food should be good as well!

Le Dôme Café
109 bd. Montparnasse, Paris, 75014
+ 33 (0) 1 43 35 25 81
Closest Métro: Vavin

After Le Dôme Café, we met Sebas for dinner at Crêperie de Josselin
. This is a very nice crêperie with a very traditional selection. We each ordered a savory and a sweet crepe, mine being a spinach, cheese, egg and bacon wheat crepe with a dessert of nutella and whipped cream crepe.

Our waiter was a character - gave me a bit of a hard time that I did not finish entirely my savory crepe and saying he wouldn't bring me a second! But it was all in good humor and eventually I got my sweet one! Sorry, no pics...was kind of tired tonight!

Crêperie de Josselin
67, Rue du Montparnasse, 75014 Paris
+33 08 99 237 101

Mmmm....Paris

Felipe and I arrived to Paris on Friday evening, and have been non-stop since then! But oh, the wonderful company (Sebas and Marcos) and the yummy food we've had.

Friday night our friend Sebas, with excellent foresight, booked dinner at Brasserie Lipp in Saint Germain des prés.


I had a super super yummy Poulet formier rôti.


And of course there was dessert. We each ordered one and shared...Chocolate eclair, tart tatin and a mont blanc (kind of like a hazelnut cream - similar to marzipan in texture - over a whipped cream).




It was a delicious dinner, and a highly recommendable restaurant. It was pretty busy, so we were lucky to have had the reservation (but this might have also been because it was the 1st of January).

151 Boulevard St-Germain
75006 Paris
+33-1-45-48-53-91

Yesterday was also a very delicious day....In the morning, we made a special trip to the Champs Élysée to go to Ladurée.

They are well known for their macaroons, but also have an abundance of of wonderful pastries.

The Macaroons...

I got two excellent pastries (unfortunately my camera batteries died just before and so I was forced to photo them on my iPhone - bummer)

The Beautiful box they come in.


mmmm....Blackcurrant-Violet "Religieuse", choux pastry, blackcurrant & violet flavoured confectioner’s custard. Oh man, this was delicious!!! The other is a pistachio Eclair, also fantastic.

I wish I could have tried everything there...so good!

75 Avenue des Champs Elysées
Paris 75008
+33-1-4075-0875

Then lunch...we went to Le Relais de l'Entrecôte. This is a very nice, very simple restaurant. They have one thing on the menu - steak l'Entrecôte (it's a certain cut) with pommes frite (See below). Well in reality, they do have a variety of drinks and desserts, but only one main.

The steak was perfect, the sauce was delicious and the fries excellent. And they bring you seconds! They've just opened a location in New York City, which has received favorable reviews...I may have to go there.

101, boulevard du Montparnasse
Paris 75006
+33 1 46 33 82 82