Category: living abroad

Our first visitor in Mexico City

On By StevenIn airbnb, CDMX, living abroad, Mexico, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

Last week my daughter Abi came to stay for a few days. She spent the prior weekend in Mexico City for work and visiting with some friends. Once all the fun had ended, she came over to our place and stayed with us. She lives in London, so we don’t get to see her that often; the last time was in August when Sue and I went there to visit her for a few days.

Monday and Tuesday were work days, so we mostly sat in silence and stared at our respective computer screens. We did manage to go out to dinner on Monday night to Páramo, where Sue and I ate the other week. We wanted to do something pretty fast and pretty close, both of which it was. The food was once again, delicious, and after a dinner we headed to Freddo’s for ice cream. We knew of Freddo’s from Buenos Aires. The store in Mexico City was much smaller, but the ice cream was just as good.

Wednesday we strapped on our walking shoes and headed back to Bosque de Chapultepec. Abi and I wandered through the Museo Nacional de Antropología while Sue hung out in the park and took some photos. After the museum, Abi and I visited the Castillo de Chapultepec. Once again Sue wandered the park as we had just visited there a couple of weeks ago. It is interesting, but apart from a couple of murals, it isn’t really worth a second visit. 

On Friday, Abi and I had a tour of the Teotihuacan pyramids with Roberto from Cyrviaje Consultores De Viaje. (For those who do not speak Spanish, Consultores de viaje translates to travel consultants.) Sue and I went there last year and so she decided to pass on this trip too. (I suspect she was letting Abi and I get as much father/daughter time as possible. True, plus it was nice to have a few hours to myself.) Roberto picked up us at 7 a.m., so that we could get to the site before it got too hot. It’s about 30 miles north of the city, which meant that it would take about an hour to get there and nearly two hours to return. Mexico City traffic is just unbelievable.

We started at the south end of the site, near the Temple of the Feathered Serpent and walked the 2km north towards the Pyramid of the Sun. The pyramids are magnificent and there was much more to see this time as things continue to open after the Covid shutdowns. Roberto is a great tour guide, he had lots of information and at every turn seemed to have something interesting and relevant to say. He has traveled all over the world and when we weren’t talking about Teotihuacan, we were discussing where else we should visit, both inside and outside of Mexico. The entire story of the city is amazing and also very jarring: How could a civilization that could solve complex mathematical and engineering problems leave no written history and simply vanish with no trace? It is eerie.

Saturday we didn’t do very much of any note other have dinner at a Thai/Viet restaurant called Kiin that is literally (and I mean that in the literal sense) around the corner from our AirBnB. They have a website, but it’s just their menu, so I have linked to their Facebook page — sorry if you don’t have access to it. Sue and I have eaten there before and their food is fabulous, and appropriately spicy. Abi had a 6:30 a.m. flight on Sunday so she was up somewhere around 4 a.m., but her terrible father said goodbye before he went to sleep, just so he wouldn’t have a wake up before dawn to do that.

A week or so before Abi arrived Sue bought a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle based on a 1594 map of the world. She dumped out the pieces onto our dining table and has been diligently working on it. I don’t have the patience (nor the eyesight) for such things, so with the exception of maybe a dozen pieces, she has done all the work. I figured this was a good time to post a photo of how far she has progressed and will post more as the work continues.

The map from the cover of the jigsaw puzzle box
Progress to date (This is from yesterday! There’s been some more progress.)

European Castle in the Sky

On By StevenIn airbnb, art, living abroad, Mexico, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized4 Comments

Last weekend we decided to explore the city a bit. We started Saturday morning by going to the gym and following that, we ate desayuno (breakfast) at a little café down the street. We both had chilaquiles, which for those of you who don’t know, is basically breakfast nachos. Corn chips with salsa, and then some or all of the following: eggs, cheese, any sort of protein, refried beans, avocado and who knows what else. They are great, filling and the perfect food before our planned death march. Our goal was to walk over to the Bosque de Chapultepec which is a park in the middle of the city.  It is huge, about 1,700 acres and is filled with museums, a zoo, lakes, a botanical garden and many monuments to Mexico’s history. The last time we were here, we visited a very small portion of the Anthropology museum which is fabulous.

Today, our target was the Castillo de Chapultepec, which is the former home of the Spanish viceroys, Emperor Maximillian I, a number of the Presidents of Mexico and is now a history museum. Interestingly, the emperor only ruled for three years before being overthrown and executed.

The castle is at the top of (you guessed it) Chapultepec Hill (really a rock formation) that was sacred to the Aztecs and one of the last places in Mexico City to be conquered. Of course, it’s up on a hill with an excellent vantage point.

I know you’re wondering what’s up with all the Chapultepecs, but you’re in luck because I’m about to tell you. Chapultepec means “at the grasshopper hill” in Náhuatl, a group of languages that includes Aztec and is still spoken by about 1.7 million people, mostly in Central Mexico. Nice that the hill, park and castle get an indigenous name since one of its claims to fame is that it is the only castle in North America to have housed royalty.

It is a beautiful building with gardens on multiple levels, lots of open space and beautiful architecture and furnishings. While we wandered in the upper gardens we found a quartet playing classical music, so we sat and listened for a while.

Just a little classical music to raise the culture level

After a couple of hours in the park, we walked back through the city to our apartment. We always enjoy walking in cities, and Mexico City is one of the more interesting ones. There are lots of interesting buildings to look at, cool little shops and many, many, many street vendors selling everything from tacos to toys.  We always talk about eating that the street vendors, but have not yet found the time to do so. Our path took us across a couple of other parks, which seem to dot the urban landscape, and they were all filled with people enjoying the beautiful weather.

Once we were home, we put our feet up, complained about how much they hurt from walking 10 miles, and then promptly started to plan on where to walk for dinner. Last week we attempted to find a restaurant called Páramo (sorry the link is to Google maps, because the restaurant has a Facebook page, and I don’t know if everyone has an account); however, when we found the address, it was occupied by a restaurant called El Parnita. We were a bit confused but figured, “What the hell?” and ate there. The food was good and we had a very nice meal. However, this weekend we were determined to find the right place. After reviewing the address more carefully, we realized that Páramo was upstairs behind an unmarked black door. This time we had no trouble finding it, and it was well worth it. We waited at the bar for about 20 minutes, and were then seated next to the couple who ad also been seated next to us at the bar. They, too, were Americans (although she is bilingual — I’m jealous!) and we struck up a nice conversation. The food and drinks were great, and we had a really enjoyable evening.

Sunday, we decided to take it easy by riding bicycles to fancy grocery store about 3 miles away. We have signed up for the rental bike program that the city runs (it is called Ecobici) and there is a bike stand just down the street from us. The way it works is that you scan the bike using an app, the bike unlocks, you ride it to your destination and then return it at one of their bike stands. Sue had used them before, but this was my first time, and lo and behold, I managed to screw it up. I scanned the bike, it didn’t seem to unlock, so I tried another one, but kept getting an error. Then someone else came by and took a bike. After a while (and trying another bike stand), I realized that my app was telling me I had a bike. We ran back to the bike stand but it was gone. It seems that the other person somehow got my bike from the stand and went off with it.

I am proud of myself because there was an Ecobici worker there moving bikes and I was able to communicate with him what the problem was and find out the answer, which, unfortunately was that we had to wait for the bike to be returned.

That caused two issues.  First, I couldn’t get another bike so our plans were shot. Second, if the bike wasn’t returned, I was on the hook for it. I would have to report it stolen and fight with Ecobici about it. Using the app, I reported what had happened and waited. In the meantime, we decided to walk to Mercado Medellín, our local open stall market, to do some shopping. Just about the time we finished (and after many nervous checks of the app), whoever had the bike parked it back at a stand, and my app unlocked. Whew! We went home dropped our fresh produce and headed back out to the bikes to try again. I managed not to screw it up this time, and off we went to City Market. We did our non-produce shopping there and grabbed a cab home.

Géisers for Geezers

On By StevenIn Chile, hiking, living abroad, Relationships, South America, Travel, Uncategorized2 Comments

Saturday we once again started late. This time, our tour started at 2:30pm and we headed to the salt flats about 30 minutes outside of San Pedro. Our first stop was Laguna Cejar, a saltwater pond. The name laguna translates to lagoon, which to me (and Merriam Webster), is “a shallow sound, channel, or pond near or communicating with a larger body of water.” This was a small body of water, not near or connecting to anything else and fed by underground springs. [Late update – I asked my Spanish teacher how you would say small lake (and showed her the picture). She said laguna. So, I am shocked to tell you that google translate, may be wrong!] We arrived at the laguna and changed into our bathing suits, because, like the Dead Sea, you when you get in the water, you float. The temperature was hovering in the low 30s Celsius (about 90˚F) and so the cool water felt wonderful. Sue and I both kept our hats (and sunglasses) on for the dip and we all (us, hats and sunglasses) came out encrusted with salt. The park had showers (no soap or shampoo allowed) so we had a quick rinse and got changed back into our clothes.

After Laguna Cejar, we visited Laguna Tebinquiche, a small, very salty lake with a very unique ecosystem. The hard environmental conditions including high solar irradiation, extreme temperature differences between day and night, high salt, and arsenic content (related to the volcanic activity nearby), make the lagoon a very difficult place to live. Some of the things that live in the lake are closely related to the earliest types of single and multicellular organisms that lived on Earth. Flamingos are often found at the lake feeding on brine shrimp, but when we were there where none. (Our guide said that most of the brine shrimp were gone and the flamingos had moved on in search of nourishment.)

Ignore us and look at the stars. That is the milky way on the top left with the southern cross at the bottom of the milky way

We returned to the hotel at about 7:30, had a quick meal and got ready for our “evening” activities.  The Atacama Desert is very high and the thin air, lack of light pollution and clear skies make it ideal for observing the sky. Overlooking Laguna Tebinquiche is the Atacama Large Millimeter Array observatory.  We did not go there. Instead, we booked a 10pm to midnight star gazing tour that was about 30 minutes outside of town. However, this tour, like so many other things in Chile work on Standard Chilean time. So, our scheduled 9:30 pick up was actually closer to 10:15 and our 10 p.m. start turned out to be just about 11 p.m. The “tour” consisted of three parts. First, a 30-minute introduction to stars, how they form, live and die. René, the “tour guide” described nebulas (nebulae?), various types of stars and some of the things we needed to look for in the night sky. It was quite interesting and tied in nicely to what we were going to see both with naked eyes and with the telescopes.  Next, he pointed out various stars, constellations, and described how the path of the sun is tracked against the arc of the planets across the sky. (He also talked about the difference between navigating in the northern and southern hemispheres and how it was done. PLUS, we got to see the best constellation: Gemini!) To me, this was the most beautiful part of the evening as we able to see the entirety of the sky. It was simply amazing, and I cannot adequately describe (how often do I say this or something like this) how awe inspiring it is. For the third part, they had two telescopes set up and we were able to see nebulae (I am pretty sure it is nebulae, but maybe not, in which case just pretend that I wrote nebulas), a binary star, stars from various constellations and Mars (Yes, I know it is a planet). (The nebula looked like a tarantula – if you used your imagination, which all sky gazing requires.) All in, it was an amazing evening that ended at just about 2 a.m.

Luckily for us, we had decided that we would take it easy on Sunday and hang out at the hotel pool.

Only kidding, if you don’t know us already, we don’t do lounging very well, so when we planned this weekend, we scheduled a morning tour of the El Tatio geysers. The pickup time for the tour was 5:30 a.m. Just about 3 hours after we put our heads down, the F#%$^@$# alarm told us to get our ancient carcasses out of bed and find the nearest coffee. Not our happiest moment. The geysers (which in Spanish is spelled géisers and pronounced geezers, which is an English term for old people), are about 90 minutes directly north of San Pedro on a series of small, mostly (well, at least somewhat) paved roads. They are also at about 4,320 meters (14,170 feet) above sea level. Have we mentioned that Sue gets altitude sickness? I attribute it to the fact that her brain, unlike mine, needs oxygen to function (mine simply bypasses the need to function). She wears a patch that contains scopolamine and it generally works really well. However at this altitude, it seemed be losing the battle even after augmenting it with chewed coca leaves and some coca tea (I think these helped, because I started to feel better afterwards). Like always she was a trooper, even when she turned many different shades of gray. The area is a field of geysers, some of which run continuously like a fountain and others are intermittent. Sorry, but once again, like I seem to say so often, nature is just unbelievable.

After wandering through the geyser fields for an hour or so, we piled back in the van and started the return trip. Along the way we saw various types of waterfowl, vicuña (which are related to guanacos, our favorite from Patagonia) and wild donkeys. We stopped at a small lake and saw lots of flamingos, which are actually animals, not just plastic lawn ornaments for Florida homeowners.  At one point I asked our tour guide about the weather and he mentioned that they were just about to enter the rainy season. The season lasted from the last week of January until mid-February and they might get rain. Wow.

We returned to the hotel just after 1 p.m. had some lunch (I tried cochayuyo, which we mentioned in an earlier blog and it was delicious! It tasted of the sea) and waited for transport back to the airport in Calama (about 75 minutes away), then after a couple of hours wait, our flight back to Santiago and onward to our AirBnB. We arrived home just after 11 p.m., the end of an amazing and wondrous weekend. We were, to put it kindly, just a bit tired. 😉

Before I finish: This is a naked and unabashed plug for Wikipedia. For those of you who regularly read our scrawls, you know that we often link to Wikipedia articles. It is a free, non-profit encyclopedia that is entirely funded by donations. There are no advertisements or paywalls and while it isn’t a research tool (yes, kids in high school and college, I am looking at you), it does have a massive amount of information for those of us who just like to learn stuff. If you can manage, please help them.

A traditional Thanksgiving?

On By StevenIn airbnb, Argentina, buenos Aires, living abroad, Relationships, South America, Travel, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the U.S., so my work was closed. Sue and I decided that since we had been back in Buenos Aires for three whole days, it was important for us to leave again – no more accurately, we decided that since we had a free day, we would head to Uruguay. There is a little town called Colonia del Sacramento just across the river Uruguay from Buenos Aries and there are ferries that run back and forth every hour or so. Sue got us tickets for a 10:30 a.m. outward bound ferry and an 18:00 (6 p.m.) ferry back.

As many of you might remember, Sue gets terribly seasick, just looking at the water. She has scopolamine patches that really help her but have the side effect of making her terribly thirsty. She put on her patch the night before and in the morning we headed for the ferry. We sat out in the sunshine at the back of the boat and enjoyed the breeze and the rays. It has turned quite warm here and ride to Colonia took an hour and a half, and was very enjoyable.

We disembarked and walked around the town. We were expecting a cute little tourist town, with colorful buildings and a nice little central square. It was quite disappointing. First, the town is fairly run down, I guess the pandemic has taken its toll. Second, many of the places were closed, we suspect because Uruguay was playing in the world cup that morning. We made of the best of what was there, wandering through the town and walking along the river. Sometime around 2 o’clock we sat down and had lunch on the terrace of a little restaurant that overlooked the river.

After lunch we wandered some more, but by 4 p.m. we were done, and headed back to the ferry terminal to await our return trip. Once again we sat outside in the back of the ferry and enjoyed the breeze and sunshine. We both agreed that the best part of the trip was the boat ride. We cleared immigration in Argentina for the fourth and final time during this trip and headed back the AirBnB.

We had a quick change and headed out for dinner. We were meeting Marco at 9 p.m. at La Cabrera, one of Buenos Aires’ best steak restaurants. I believe the total count of vegetarian entrées on the menu was two. One was pasta, the other was grilled vegetables – and that may have been a side dish, not a real entrée. Not surprisingly, Marco and I each had a huge hunk of meat, while Sue had grilled vegetables. The food, wine and desserts were all great and finished up the meal right about on schedule – three hours after we sat down.

My yummy steak on the left – Sue’s boring delicious veggies on the right

Today, we took a bit of time and made reservations for a weekend trip to the Atacama desert in Chile. It looks amazing and is the driest non-polar desert in the world. We will write more about that once it gets closer.

This coming weekend is our last in Buenos Aries before we head to Patagonia so we are going to pack a lot in.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the U.S.

Iguazu Falls – the video

On By StevenIn Argentina, Brazil, living abroad, Relationships, South America, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

The enormity of Iguazu Falls is mind boggling and our “expedition” was broken into four parts, the lower trail, the boat ride, the upper trail and the Brazilian side. I have attempted to capture a taste of what it was like on video. I was using my GoPro, which I had not picked up in about 4 years, so to say my camera skills are rusty would be assume I had any skills at all.  Add to that my editing skills are significantly worse than my camera skills, so please don’t expect too much, but enjoy.

A map of the Argentine side for reference. The yellow is the lower trail; the orange is the upper trail; the blue is the boat ride; the red, which the Devil’s Throat bridge, was washed away by the flood.

The lower trail

The boat ride

The upper trail

The Brazilian side

Sometimes, it’s the simple things

On By SusanIn buenos Aires, living abroad, South America, Travel2 Comments

Before I go any further with this post, I want to emphasize that we feel that we are about the luckiest people on Earth. We are living our best life and no matter what the challenges, it’s really all just part of the fun.

So, when I tell you that we went to four different stores to buy aluminum foil, you will know that while it was a bit frustrating (especially since it was getting on lunchtime and Steven had a meeting coming up), it is also a funny story that gets added to our repertoire. Why is aluminum foil only found at the Carrefour? Not even the Carrefour Express? Maybe because North Americans and Europeans use foil, but not Argentinians? Who knows? Anyway, we bought two rolls, so there!

Today’s adventure involved Steven sending me out to buy meat. Ummm, soy vegetariana! I couldn’t find the place we originally went to, so I chose a different carnicería. The problem with that was, the meat didn’t look exactly the same and my limited Spanish really didn’t allow me to explain what I wanted the meat for (Sue! all you need to say is….Yo quiero el carne para mi esposo!). So, I pointed at something that looked like what Steven had already bought. This time, however, the meat was still in a giant hunk the butcher wanted to know how thick I wanted it. OK, yucky. I tried once again to match the slab Steven had at home so they would cook evenly. We still don’t know what the cut of meat is, but after Steven eats it, he’ll report.

I did fine at the farmacia y frutería, but at the wine shop, I had NO IDEA what the woman was saying. I just ended up telling her that I think I can speak Spanish, but I really can’t. Maybe if she had told me a story about Peppa la Cerda, I would have understood.

The issue with learning a language (aside from the plain difficulty) is that I always push myself into trying to speak in situations that are above my ability and then I feel incompetent. Yes, I know I am not, but I want to be fluent NOW!

And, speaking of learning Spanish: No me creo muy muy. Learn what that means with my friend Kenta!

Una otra cosa

Laundry! Ayayay. Here’s a word of advice: If the directions on the machine say, “Don’t put in more than 10 kilos,” you should listen. Nothing terrible happened, but 10 kilos is not a lot of laundry especially compared to the size of the tub. Also, jeans are heavy. And “air dry” means the machine is just going to spin some more. Maybe you want to stay close to a new washing machine just in case. Finally, ask the very lovely cleaner to leave you a drying rack from the secret, locked “limpiadoras solo” closet in the apartment.

Yes, friends, this is what our daily life is like. Going to the store and not understanding what we are buying and how much it costs, not being able to figure out the appliances (at least the stove is straight forward), and generally getting lost trying to do the simple things in life. This weekend, we are off to Iguazu Falls.

Un nuevo continente, país y ciudad

On By StevenIn airbnb, buenos Aires, living abroad, Relationships, South America, Travel, Uncategorized7 Comments

Today we arrived in Buenos Aires. It is the first time either of us has been to South America and the first day of about seven months away.

Sue took this one in the morning…

We flew from Miami on Saturday night – our flight left at 11:15 p.m. and arrived in Buenos Aires at 9 a.m. The flight was really easy, in part because American Airlines offered a last-minute cheap upgrade to business class. We have never flown business class before, and for an overnight flight, the lay flat seats were really useful. We both slept quite a bit and arrived reasonably rested. I decided I love business class, but Steven told me not to get used to it. Spoil sport.

A colleague of a former colleague of mine is a native of Buenos Aires and was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and take us to our apartment.  He and his wife found us as we wandered into the international terminal lobby and whisked us to our new digs. They both speak excellent English and one of us (the other one) speaks passable Spanish. It never ceases to amaze me how kind strangers are. This is a young couple with whom we have only a passing connection, but they went of their way to pick us up at the airport, sent us a ton of material on what to do in the city and would not leave until we were safely in the apartment. Our new friends are Marco and Barbara.

We quickly unpacked our stuff, checked the internet speed (100mb!), had a little nap to recharge our batteries and then headed out to get the lay of the land. Martin, the manager from the apartment agency gave us some ideas about where to find things and we headed out to find a grocery store. We wandered a few blocks, found a few small stores, picked up some staples for dinner and, more importantly, coffee for the morning. It was surprisingly difficult to find coffee here as everyone here drink a type of tea called Yerba Mate. We haven’t tried it yet, but when we do, we will include a review. I am pretty sure I had some bad American version of it and did not like it, but I am game to try again.

The official exchange rate
The blue exchange rate

One of the interesting (at least for me, being a money guy) is that there are two exchange rates for the Argentine peso. The official rate is about 150 Argentine pesos to 1 U.S. dollar. The unofficial, or blue, rate is roughly double that and it is so common that the rates are published in the newspaper. The way it works is that if you are accessing the banking system either through an ATM or through a credit card you receive the official rate. If you have U.S. dollars you can exchange them at a cambio (imagine the currency exchanges you see at an international airport) or on the street for the blue rate. If we exchange our dollars for pesos at the blue rate, the prices fall by half for us. Western Union will send dollars at the blue rate and so on Monday we are going to try that and see how it works. I will update this later and let you know how it goes.

Later in the afternoon, we headed out for a walk. There are a series of large parks in our neighborhood, so we took a walk around them. To give you some idea of distance on the map, from our place to the Museo Nacional de Belles Artes is about one kilometer. We walked all around the parks and in the park across from the Cementerio de la Recoleta (where Eva Peron is buried, but we have saved Dead Person Bingo for another day) there was a large arts and crafts fair that we walked through, but of course did not buy anything.

Monday is also a national holiday in Argentina. It is the Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity. The link is to a Wikipedia article which is in Spanish, but given my brilliant understanding of español (and chrome’s auto translate feature), I have found that that it commemorates when people from Western Europe first arrived on the continent. I got all excited about the respect for cultural diversity thing until I realized they just meant white Europeans. Oh well.

Monday

So here is the update on using Western Union….I transferred $300 and received 91,080 Argentine pesos. The Western Union office is quite conveniently inside a Carrefour grocery store. Carrefour is a large French-based grocery chain, and we often shopped in them when we were in France and Italy. We even found one in Morocco when we were there in 2017, but that was before we were blogging. The process is very easy. Western Union gave me a code number when I sent the funds. I presented that and my passport to the agent, confirmed my phone number and gave him my address in Buenos Aires and he handed me the pesos.  

On confusing thing is that the symbol for the peso is the same as the one for the dollar, so when we look at prices, we naturally think of dollars, but the price is actually 1/300 of that price. Since we were there, we also did some shopping at the Carrefour and bought some wine that was $1,092 – in my head – in reality US$3.64. It was one of the most expensive wines on the shelf…and it was US$3. Our wine from last night was about 400 pesos, about US$1.30. Overall, the prices in the grocery store seemed reasonable at the official exchange rate, but at the blue rate, it was all very inexpensive.

London – the second weekend

On By StevenIn airbnb, art, living abroad, london, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

We were lucky enough to have two weekends in London and we packed the second one as full as we could. On Friday night, Abi, Laurens, Sue & I went to London’s Chinatown for a relatively early dinner at Joy King Lau. We ordered about 10 different dishes all of which were yummy and managed to finish all of them. After dinner we had reservations at the Comedy Store for an evening of stand up. They had seven comedians, an MC, the other four shown on the poster and then two more who did short sets of about 10 minutes each. They were all very good and we had a great time. After the show, Sue and I grabbed a cab back to the AirBnB driven by a very funny and talkative cab driver name Josie. 

Saturday, Sue and I went on a nice little stroll from Hackney to Highgate (circa 4 miles). Our destination, was, of course, Highgate Cemetery. We stopped on the way at the Lord Palmerston pub for a real British pub lunch. Sue had fish and chips and a cider while I had a Caesar salad (ok, not really British pub lunch, but I was still full from dinner the night before) and a pint of beer. We sat outside in the sunshine (yes really, there was sunshine) and watched the world go by. 

After lunch we headed for the cemetery to play our favorite game – Dead Person Bingo. The cemetery has two sections, East and West. We started with the west section and found Michael Faraday, Alexander Litvinenko and George Michael (real name Georgios Panayioto). Unfortunately we missed Beryl Bainbridge and Bob Hoskins, but oh well, you can’t see them all. In the East section we found Karl Marx (really impossible to miss), Malcolm McLaren and Douglas Adams (Don’t Panic!). All in all a very successful dead person’s bingo day.

We left the Highgate via the overground trains (which Sue has dubbed the overtube) on our way to meet up with Abi & Laurens to celebrate Laurens’ birthday. We met them and a bunch of their friends at a canalside bar called Crate Brewery. A good time was had by all. When the sun started to go down, Sue & I decided to have Indian food for dinner at Bengal Village on Brick Lane. The food was delicious a great end to a really enjoyable day.

Sunday, Sue and I walked down to Borough Market just to see what was there. Broadway Market, which we visited last weekend, was all prepared and ready to eat food, Borough Market had a much greater mix of prepared and grocery foods. The walk there took us past a few of the buildings that worked in when I lived in London, back during the 1980s, which made me a bit nostalgic. After walking through the market we decided to have lunch at the Anchor Pub, which has been open since 1615. I used to work around the corner from it, and when I lived in London, I would often go there for lunch. After a nice lunch, we had some time to kill until me were meeting Abi & Laurens, so we continued down the south side of the Thames to Tate Modern Museum. We wandered around looking at the installations for about an hour, and to be truthful, I just don’t get it. I think I am going to give up on modern art museums, I just don’t understand why the pieces that they are showing are good art. Some are interesting to look at, but what makes them great art? After being thoroughly bewildered by the Tate, we walked back to meet Abi and Laurens for a drink and then headed back to our AirBnB. Back to back 10 mile days, my legs were tired.

Monday was a bank holiday in Great Britain, called August Bank Holiday (pretty clever huh?).  Unfortunately, we had to work, because none of our clients are British. Sue and I did yoga in the morning (as if my legs didn’t hurt enough) and we met Abi & Laurens for dinner our last dinner in the UK at a Jamaican place called Ma Petite Jamaica. The food was good and we had a nice, if a little melancholy time, knowing that this was our last night together for a while.

Steven neglects to mention that Sue went on a 4-mile walk on the Regents Canal to Camden Market. The walk was the goal, not the market. In fact, the market, which is pretty famous, has every type of food you could want and plenty of knickknacks, leather goods, souvenir junk, and jewelry. If you don’t mind crowds, it’s a fun visit. That’s where I found Amy Winehouse. It used to be a haven for punks and goths, but like everywhere else, it just seemed touristy and hipstery.

Just some random photos of London courtesy of Sue:

Tuesday morning, we took the Chunnel to Paris and Wednesday morning we flew back to Chicago.

The Chicago skyline from the window of our plane – the color is due to the tinting on the window:

Ground Control to Major Tom

On By StevenIn airbnb, living abroad, Paris, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized1 Comment

This was our last weekend for this trip to Paris as we are heading to London next Saturday. Friday night we decided to try a Mexican restaurant near Montmarte cemetery in the 18th arrondissement.  The place had good reviews on Google but we are quite disappointed. The food was at best mediocre, the drinks were watery and the service was poor. Oh well, sometimes these things don’t work out. We decided on a whim to walk the 3 miles home. It was quite warm but the walk west into the setting sun was wonderful.

Saturday the temperatures were in the 90s Fahrenheit (about 34˚ C). We started the day by meeting a classmate from Sue’s time at Alliance Française and her partner for brunch. They chose the Maison Sauvage, which happens to be our local watering hole. We sat in the sunshine and had an enjoyable brunch.I really enjoyed seeing Lin again and meeting Jean Baptiste. They are very sweet. They recommended a museum called Musee Jacquemart Andre. After a short(ish) relax after brunch we put our walking shoes back on and walked over the museum. It is in a private mansion built by Edouard André and his wife Nélie. Mssr. André  was the only child of a very wealthy banking family during the Second Empire period (1852–70) and he and his wife spent their entire adult lives collecting art. The house and the art was amazing. One of the interesting things was that the reception rooms were quite grand, but the private chambers were relatively modest.

After we done wandering in the museum, we headed over the Parc Monceau and just sat on a bench and watched the world go by. The park was full of people enjoying the warm weather and hanging out in the park. Or perhaps they were sitting in the park because it cooler than sitting in their un-air conditioned apartments. Either way, it was very enjoyable. I like Parc Monceau because it’s not a tourist attraction. For the most part, it’s just Parisians hanging out. When the sun started to set we walked back to our apartment.

Somewhere Sue found an article about a place called Ground Control, which is sort of like an indoor/outdoor food court with some boutique shops in the 11th arrondissement right near Gare du Lyon. One of the food stands is run by refugees and they focus on food from their particular homeland. It sounded interesting when Sue described it, so we decided to walk the 5 miles (8Km or so) along the river to it on Sunday. Once again the weather was in the 90s (about 34˚ C), but there was a nice breeze blowing and it was somewhat overcast. The walk was great and we were certainly hungry when we arrived. Sue had a gazpacho that was a thick green soup and reminded me of pureed avocado (at least it looked like that) and a deep fried vegetable dish. I had Caribbean bbq chicken with coconut rice. Once again, we sat in the sunshine and enjoyed the atmosphere. We decided to take the Metro either because it was a really long tiring walk there and I … I mean we…couldn’t face a walk back, or it was supposed to rain soon. You decide the more likely reason.

Another fabulous weekend in Paris.

Planning time

On By StevenIn airbnb, living abroad, Relationships, South America, Travel1 Comment

I have a new spreadsheet, I am so excited! We are now planning our next trip; seven months in South and Central America. We will be leaving in early October and expect to be back in early May. Our plan is to stay for six plus weeks in each place as that seems to give us time to settle in, get used to the place and find a routine. If we had more time (or fewer places we want to see) we would probably stay longer. Even at seven months, we are finding we do not have enough time to visit everywhere we want to go.

Happiness is a good spreadsheet

Our plan is actually starting at the end of June, when we decamp from Baltimore. It looks like this:

July – We are heading back to Chicago for one of the two months when you can reasonably hope that there won’t be snow to visit Sue’s family and all our Midwest-based friends.  We are driving the (hopefully?) trusty 2006 Saab.

August – Our friend, Paul, from Paris, has asked us to cat sit for three weeks. Poor Seuss needs us, and we are not the kind of people to leave a cat without his favorite cat sitters. 😉. After Paul returns, we are going to take the train through the Chunnel and visit my daughter Abi, and perhaps (if we are deemed worthy) meet her boyfriend. We expect to spend about a week there, and I am sure we will be playing Dead Person Bingo at all the cool cemeteries and, of course, at Westminster Abbey. We are thinking we might visit Winnie the Pooh’s head and a few other odd museums if we have time. But mostly we are there to see Abi.

September – Our return flight is back to Chicago where we will pick up the (hopefully still working) Saab and drive to Washington, DC where we will be staying for the month.  We will spend more time visiting with my son, our daughter-in-law and, of course, the grandbaby. We are also trying to decide if we like DC or the environs to settle there once we are done with our travels.

Buenos Aires

October and November we will be in Buenos Aires. We are once again hoping that the (perhaps still running) Saab will get us down to Florida, where we are storing the car for the duration of our trip. During our time in Argentina, we are planning to head to Brazil and meet my very intrepid mother who has decided that she is going to visit my Brazilian brother (short version of a long story is that Vitor was an exchange student in high school and lived with us, so he qualifies as family) and his family. It is her 85th birthday and I am just amazed at her bravery at making this trip. A special thanks to my sister, Judie, and Vitor’s daughter, Alice, who have agreed to play Passepartout to her Phineas Fogg.  We also intend to visit Iguazu Falls, the wine region around Mendoza and perhaps cross over into Uruguay for a visit to Montevideo.

Santiago’s skyline

December and January – We plan to take a couple of weeks and go wandering in Patagonia. We will update with an itinerary once we have figured that out. The remainder of December and all of January we expect to spend in Santiago, Chile. That too is far enough out that we haven’t really wrapped our brains around what we will do with our time there, although I am pretty sure that we are going to spend a moment or two (or even more?) in the Chilean wine country.

I can’t believe they named a bean after this city!

February and most of March we will be in Peru. Once again it is pretty far out to have a firm plan in place, although we are in the process of booking a trip to Machu Picchu. Sue would prefer the four-day hike on the Inca trail. I would prefer to stay alive. So we have compromised and have found a trip that does a one-day hike and then you go on a train for the rest of the way. We are also thinking about going to Lake Titicaca, but have heard mixed reviews. If anyone has any thoughts on it, please let us know.

Mexico City – the final stop on this trip (unless we change our minds).

For our final stop, which will be for part of March and then all of April, we will return to Mexico City. We haven’t even thought about our plans for that yet. But we do have just a little bit of time.

I am hoping all my Spanish lessons will lead to my ability to have at least a first-grade level conversation with someone, somewhere on our travels!