Category: travel

sleeping around

I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. I realized that I have been in and out of an alarming number of beds the past 10 days.

Two Thursdays ago I headed down to New York City for BlogHer. I stayed in a hotel with one friend the first night, and with another in another hotel the second. Then I headed home for one night before we went as a family to New Hampshire for a couple of nights. We got home so late on Tuesday night that I ended up sleeping in Phoebe’s bed with her. The next night was back to my own bed, and the following night we hit the road again to visit my in-laws, where we stayed for 3 nights. That makes 6 beds in 10 nights.

Our daycare was closed for vacation last week, which somewhat prompted the trip to New Hampshire. We had lots of fun visiting Storyland on Monday and Tuesday, a theme park that is geared towards younger kids. We even met up with some friends there. Wednesday I managed to get Phoebe off to preschool, and Theo and I mostly hung out and napped for the day until it was suddenly time to pick up Phoebe. On Thursday, Phoebe went into work with John, and Theo and I spent another day together doing largely nothing, while I tried to do laundry, get ready for the next trip, and squeeze in some emails. (Who are these stay-at-home parents who actually manage fun projects with the kids? I think they are myth to make me strive to behave better. Like Santa. But they don’t bring me chocolate.) And then we headed down to the in-laws, where John’s two sisters were also visiting for a celebration of John’s dad’s 84th birthday. The trips and visits were all lovely, but our schedules have been completely whackadoo. And I’m really zonked now.

So if you’ve wondered about the stretch of silence around here, it’s because I’ve been all over the place and haven’t had much time to myself. My “spare” moments have been eaten up largely by work stuff. I’m happy to say that I have managed to keep up with Project 365, though, so if you want to see some of what I’ve been up to, you can see some of it in my Flickr photo stream.

I’ve got more stuff to say (when do I not?), but will have to get to it later. (Yeah, “later.” We know what that means…) For now, I am hoping to get to my bed before I fall asleep here on the couch.

By the way, please check out the July Just Posts, which Holly and I finally got up today. I ended up throwing up my post in a hurry before packing up my laptop at my in-laws. I learned later that all the links were broken. (Throwing up a post, indeed…) The links are fixed now.

Worms are overrated.

The early bird catches the worm. But sometimes, the night owl catches the early bird for a tasty midnight snack.

For the past several years, after reading all sorts of hoopla and general excitement over BlogHer, the big annual blogging conference, I have really wanted to go. But the timing has never worked out for me to make the big trip. This year the conference is scheduled for New York City. That’s practically next door to me here in Massachusetts. I was sure I would go.

But then, as it usually does, life interfered. Other stuff distracted. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage the trip, so I put things off. By the time I got around to realizing that I really wanted to attend, the conference was sold out. I put my name on the waitlist, but months later I still heard nothing.

Then a couple of days ago, I really got a bee in my bonnet about going. So I decided to look into it, and found a message board of people who’d registered, but couldn’t attend, and were selling their tickets. I emailed a few people. In the end, I scored a ticket, and managed to get the registration transfered over to my name yesterday, the last possible day to do so.

I am going to BlogHer.

Take that, early birds.

The stack of 'business' cards I made to bring with me to BlogHer. (Calling cards? Blogging cards?)

(Of course, I am still trying to work out the details of where I’ll be staying. The early birds are all now peacefully slumbering in the knowledge that they have already figured out their travel plans. I squawk in their general direction.)

don’t it make my blue eyes red

I’m back home now, in case you were wondering. I had a wonderful visit out in California with my mother, sister, brother-in-law and two adorable nephews. It was great to spend time with all of them, and to be around to help out when an extra pair of hands was needed. My mother’s art show went very well, too.

I got to spend some good bonding time with my nephews. I’m totally smitten with both of them. Diego was pretty wary of me at first (who wants company around when feeling icky?), but we had some quality time together, and by the end of my stay, he even let me get a few snuggles in. My younger nephew, Mateo, is too cute for words. He’s about 17 months old (which is 5 months younger than Theo), and a very happy little guy. I can’t wait for the 4 cousins to get together again–the last time was when Mateo was just 7 weeks old.

I have found myself frequently wishing that Massachusetts and California could somehow be neighbors. Whose idea was it to put all those big states¹ in between?

I took the red-eye back home on Thursday night, arriving Friday morning. I don’t know why I ever expect to get anything like a reasonable amount of sleep on those flights. The flight from West to East Coast is barely over 5 hours, and it’s not like you can actually easily sleep the whole 5 hours. (Well, not without fairly extreme measures.) I think I managed at most 2 hours. My flight arrived around 7:00, and I’m quite sure my eyes were nice and red. After getting some breakfast at the airport to kill a bit of time (despite my stomach’s insistance that 4 am was no time for breakfast), I took an airport bus out to near John’s office where he was able to meet me. (I’d taken the train in to work and the airport on my way out, but the train schedule didn’t mesh well with John’s work schedule for Friday for him to pick me up at the train station.) I then spent several hours hanging out zombie-like in John’s office, and even curled up in a ball on his office floor getting a couple more hours of sleep.

It was also wonderful to be reunited with Phoebe and Theo, of course, later that afternoon. John dropped me off at home, and then picked them up from their daycare and preschool to bring home to me. I got tackled in the best sort of way.

The last few days have been a blur as I’ve struggled to re-adjust to this time zone.

And now I’m heading into another work crunch time. There’s another conference coming up in just over 2 weeks, and my research group has a poster in it. I haven’t committed to going to the conference myself, and so I don’t have to go. However, it’s a conference I’d really like to go to, as it looks like a fantastic program. The trouble is, it’s in Albuquerque, which is awkward to reach from Boston. (There are no non-stops, and the schedules are tricky. There might be another red-eye involved.³) Plus it would mean leaving John alone with the kids again–for the third time in three months. Ack! Is that considered spouse abuse? Right now, I’m feeling just too tired to take on another big trip, but perhaps in the next few days I’ll feel differently.

In any case, I have a lot of work to do for the poster for the conference, and other work-related projects involving staring at my computer. Eye strain, here I come!⁴

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¹ Big red states.²

² Red like my sad weepy eyes.

³ Here I am, talking about all this flying around the country, and you probably are wondering about my stated goals of trying to cut down on my petroleum habit. Yes, I realize that I have a problem. But I’m also still working on my plans to address the problem, and the post wherein I will bore you with those details.

⁴ I figured I should keep up the red-eyed theme.

visiting UNESCO World Heritage sites

What do Casa Batlló (a funky modernist house designed by Gaudí in the early 1900s) and the Pantheon (a Roman temple built in 126 AD) have in common?¹ They are both listed among UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The World Heritage List includes 890 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.

Having been provoked to investigate the question by a comment on my last post, I found myself going further down the rabbit hole to look carefully through the list. I observed that I have visited far more such sites than I had realized.

Those places listed were among the most memorable places–dramatic, intriguing, charming or downright awe-inspiring– that I have been to in my life. I would gladly return to any of them.

What’s more, many of the places that are on my mental list of places to visit before I die are on that list: the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, the pyramids of Egypt, to name a few. Still other places I recognized from the travel tales and photos of my mother and grandmother–places I would love to visit as well.

All of these things have made me realize what an incredible resource this list is. I now have it in my head that in the years to come, I will expressly make efforts to visit more sites on the list. I’m going to consider this a grand checklist of wonders of the world.

Below I have listed the sites that I have been to so far. I count that I have visited 24 sites in 9 countries.

How about you? Have you been to any World Heritage sites? Are there places on the list that you long to visit?

UNESCO Word Heritage Sites I have visited²

United States

  • Mesa Verde National Park: This was one of our regular haunts of summer camping trips with my grandmother and sister.
  • Grand Canyon National Park: I went there on a separate camping trip with just my grandmother, when I was a teenager. (I can’t remember the year.)

Japan: I visited Japan in 2004. I went to a conference in Nara, and stayed a few days in Kyoto as well. (I want to go back.)


Heian Shrine in Kyoto.


The giant Buddha in Nara.

Brazil: I visited these sites in 1991, during my semester abroad as an undergrad.

United Kingdom

  • Tower of London: I know I went there when I was 9 years old, but have little memory. I also revisited the Tower in 2005 with John.
  • City of Bath: visited in 2005


At the Roman Baths in Bath.

France: I lived in France for 2 years, though they weren’t consecutive years. The first was in 1980, the second in 1988. Some of the sites here were visited during the first year, some the second. More recently, I visited Paris and Versailles in 2007.


A view of the Seine showing Notre Dame.

Germany

  • Völklingen Ironworks: John, Phoebe and I headed here as an excursion from Saarbrücken, during our stay there for a conference in 2007. It was an amazing place, and I would love to return there with more time to explore and photograph. (I posted some photos from that trip before.)


The Völklingen Ironworks as seen from the train station in Völklingen.

Switzerland

  • Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch*: I’m not sure whether or not to count this one. I visited Switzerland with my mother on our European trip of 1984, but I don’t remember exactly where we went. I do know we saw some Alps, though…

Italy: I have been to Italy two times. The first time was in 1984, on a trip around Europe by train with my mother. We visited Florence and Venice. The second time was in 1988, when I travelled with a high school friend. We went to Rome and Florence by bus (from France), and stopped in Pisa as well.

Spain
My trip to Spain was just this past September (2009). (I want to go back.)


Columns in the Park Güell in Barcelona.


Details from inside Alcázar in Sevilla.

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¹ Aside from being 2 of Sally’s favorite buildings on earth, that is.

² Places marked by an asterisk are those where either I have not been to every monument within a listing, or where I am not certain whether the particular location I visited falls within a region listed.³

³ I haven’t been to the Historic Centre of Brugge, but I did just recently see the movie In Bruges, which makes me feel a bit like I’ve been there. (Or at least like I’d like to go there…)

images: These are photos I took on various trips since 2004. One of these days I hope to unearth and scan photos from my trips before the days of digital cameras…

curved (PhotoHunt)

This week’s PhotoHunt theme is “curved.” Curves are amply represented in my photo library, but what came to mind in particular were some sights we saw on our recent trip to Barcelona. Namely, works by Antoni Gaudí, an architect known for (among other things) an avoidance of using straight lines.

On our last full day in Barcelona, prompted by strong recommendations from azahar and Sally, we paid a visit to Casa Battló, a house full of plenty of curved lines. Windows, doors and even walls showed plenty of curves. This was my favorite photo I took there.

I’ll hopefully get around to posting more photos from that visit soon, as well as others from our trip to Spain. (I know, I know, I keep saying that.)

For other people throwing us some curves, stop by tnchick.

Sevilla Tapas tour

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Three glasses of Manzanilla sherry being poured at El Riconcillo, the oldest bar in Sevilla.

I’ve been meaning to share some more stories and photos from our trip to Spain, which was (shockingly) now over a month ago. I have largely given up on sharing a detailed chronlogical account of the trip, so I’ll dive in here.

In Sevilla, my mother and I had the fantastic opportunity to go on a tapas tour with azahar, Sevilla blogger extraordinaire of casa az and Sevilla Tapas. (Yes, you should be jealous. It was an absolutely fantastic evening: the company, the sights and the food could not have been better.)

To make you even more jealous, I thought I’d share with some highlights of our evening. With photos.

We met up with az around 9:30 p.m. on a Friday, after I got Theo settled in for bed. (John was kind enough to be the one to stay home with Phoebe and Theo.) We arranged to meet at a little park near our apartment, which was bustling with folks heading out for dinner, and then walked through Sevilla’s maze of streets and alleys to our destinations. We went to 3 very different places for tapas, each with a distinct charm and menu.

Our first stop was El Rinconcillo, which az tells us is the oldest bar in Sevilla. I loved the decor of the place, which was dominated by dark woods, patterned tiles, and shelves well-stocked with bottles. (Not to mention hanging hams.) We stood at the bar.

Our second stop was Modesto, a more modern, bustling bar-restaurant with friendly waiters and lots of outside tables. (We sat inside at the bar, though.)

Our third and finally stop was La Sal, a charming and elegant small restaurant specializing in fresh seafood dishes. We sat inside at a table by the window.

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Peering in through the wide open window of El Rinconcillo from the sidewalk.

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The bartenders wrote the tabs on the bar in chalk. They’d cross out the numbers once the tab was settled.

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My glass of sparkling water at Modesto.

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Some olives and az’s beer, and a really big bowl of really big capers.

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The Land Squid.

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One of the waiters at Modesto gave us red carnations. Az put one in her hair.

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Tuna tataki at La Sal. I think the stuff on top was something leeky. The sardines, which az cut in 3 for us to share, are in the background.

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The very yummy goat cheese salad with carefully halved (not roasted) tomatoes.

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I liked the way this wine rack glowed, but felt a bit awkward about taking a picture of it while there were people sitting at the table in front of it. Happily, we stayed so late (enjoying the food and conversation) that we were the last ones there!

Az also posted about this night, though in a more timely manner! In case you missed her post back in September, check it out: “girls night out.”

If you want to be tormented by photos and descriptions of delicious food about daily, you might want to follow Sevilla Tapas on twitter. (Or join the Facebook fan page.)

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This post is trying to pass itself off as a Monday Mission. The assignment for this week was to write a post in the form of a menu. I actually did such a task once before about 2 years ago, and you should totally go read what I wrote before, because I re-read it, and I cracked myself up. (“cereal: it’s what’s for dinner“) Also, go check out the other Monday Missions at Painted Maypole. The illustrious Painted herself has a brilliantly creative menu posted that I would have liked to have written myself!

Spanish toast

A Spanish toast: una tostada con mantequilla y marmelada
A Spanish toast: una tostada con mantequilla y marmelada

Our trip to Spain was full of adventures. We traveled by train, by bus, by air, by boat and by foot and had one rather scary taxi ride. We saw historic landmarks and breathtaking scenery, an ancient palace and some masterpieces of modern architecture, and many more things that I’ll hopefully tell you about soon. Among my favorite memories of the trip, however, are the calm moments we had just enjoying sitting still for a little meal.

In Sevilla, we stayed in an apartment located in a little pedestrian square. A perk of this particular place was that the owner also owned the little bar/cafe down in the square, and breakfast was included in the nightly rate. (I’m ever-so-grateful to az, who helped us pick this place, from among a dizzying array of apartment options.)

Breakfast was served from 7 a.m. till noon. After the first rather stressful morning (during which we found that it didn’t work too well to actually have breakfast downstairs due to the difficulties of wrangling small children out the door before their breakfast, combined with the rush of people breakfasting at the hour of the day coinciding with our ability to get the small children out the door), we found that it was very pleasant to sit outside for a late-morning snack.

The included desayuno consisted of a beverage (such as coffee or cola cao, the Spanish version of hot cocoa), plus fresh squeezed orange juice, and a “tostada.” The tostada was a toasted mini-baguette, which we could get with various toppings. A couple of times, I had my tostada with tomato and olive oil, a popular and tasty Spanish breakfast. Mostly, though, we would get mantequilla y marmelada (butter and jam). The toast was always fresh and hot, and the butter was so sweet and tasty that I rarely added jam. The coffee was excellent, as was the orange juice.

A view of the cafe tables set up in the square.
A view of the cafe tables set up in the square.
The square was shaded by orange trees.
The square was shaded by little orange trees.
The window where we'd order and collect our breakfast. We did, however, need to be cautious as we walked from the cafe window to the tables, as you never knew when a moped might drive along the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
The window where we'd order and collect our breakfast. We did, however, need to be cautious as we walked from the cafe window to the tables, as you never knew when a moped might drive along the sidewalk in front of the cafe.
Phoebe and Theo.
Phoebe and Theo.
Phoebe enjoys the last drops of her hot chocolate.
Phoebe enjoys the last drops of her hot chocolate.
Theo enjoys his crust of bread.
Theo enjoys his crust of bread.

Here’s a little movie of Phoebe and Theo down at the cafe. I warn you that nothing much happens in the movie, but it captures a bit of one of those pleasant mornings.

If I could, I’d go back there in a heartbeat. I’d raise my glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice in a toast:

To the pleasures of a tasty mid-morning snack, sitting in a little outdoor cafe, in a little square, on a beautiful day, in a charming old Spanish city.

(Actually, I probably wouldn’t actually say all of that. But this post was inspired by this week’s Monday Mission, which was to post in the style of a toast. I chose to post about toast.)

tired

Remember how I said I hoped to get some recaps and photos from my trip posted soon, and get back to visiting blogs? Well, as it turns out, I underestimated how entirely tired I would be.

In addition to seriously underestimating the impact of jetlag, I’d also underestimated how stressed I would feel coming back to the pressure of home and work responsibilities. Not that our trip was relaxing, mind you. In fact, we were too busy for me to even think about all the work I wasn’t doing on the trip, and all the other random crap we hadn’t gotten done before our departure. It was a kind of decompression to be away from it all, and taxed with merely the day-by-day, and sometimes hour-by-hour, stress of making our way around on very tired feet and getting ourselves fed all the while wrangling two very tired little kiddos.

And now we’re back to the pressures of our regular chaotic home and life, among which are dealing with various home and car issues. Such as a car tire with a slow leak that had been getting progressively worse. For the weeks leading up to the trip, we’d had to pump up the tire 2 or 3 times a day. It would get totally flat within maybe 8 hours. With the hecticness of work before the trip, we just couldn’t fit the time and even brief carlessness into our schedules. So upon returning, the rear tire was still leaking and lurking, rearing its ugly total flatness almost every time I needed to dash out the door to get the kids to daycare, or rush back from work to pick them up. (Mind you, we did really get some good use out of our portable air compressor tire pump.)

I’m happy to say that our car now has new tires. 4 new tires, as it turns out. The tires hold their pressure beautifully, which greatly relieves one pressure in my daily schedule. And we had a lovely Saturday evening out together as a family at a mall eating mediocre food and buying fuzzy pajamas while the car got tired. (Phoebe was very happy that she got to meet some mechanics. She is a big fan of mechanics. She even will tell you as much, given the chance.)

Since I didn’t get any photos of the tire in its flatness, I thought perhaps I could instead share photos of tiredness from our trip.

Phoebe at dinner on our first night in Barcelona, after 16+ hours of travel followed by refusal to nap.
Phoebe at dinner on our first night in Barcelona, after 16+ hours of travel followed by refusal to nap.

Phoebe often got tired from all the walking, and so would hitch a ride on John's shoulders. This is by the river in Sevilla.
Phoebe often got tired from all the walking, and so would hitch a ride on John's shoulders. This is by the river in Sevilla.

She asked to be carried *a lot*.
She asked to be carried *a lot*.

Theo, on the other hand, got to ride in the stroller most of the time. Here he is, admiring the streets of Sevilla.
Theo, on the other hand, got to ride in the stroller most of the time. Here he is, admiring the streets of Sevilla.

Here he is at a street cafe in Barcelona.
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Here he is at the top of Montjuïc in Barcelona.
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His cheeks got to know the buckles of the stroller well.
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And on many occasion, Theo just got tired of being stuck in the stroller.

Theo tiring of the gardens of Alcazar in Sevilla.
Theo tiring of the gardens of Alcazar in Sevilla.

Okay, it’s getting on towards midnight now, and I have a long day of commuting and work ahead. Yes, this post is odd and rambly. But what can I say? I’m tired.

re-entry

Phoebe peers through a gate at Alcazar in Sevilla.
Phoebe peers through a gate at Alcazar in Sevilla.

Hello? Is this thing on?

I’m back from Spain! We flew in late Monday afternoon, got back home by 6:30 p.m. Which doesn’t sound too late, except that we felt like it was after midnight due to the 6 hour time difference. Not to mention (well, yes, I guess I do mention) that it was 17 hours door to door. With a baby. And a three-year-old. Following a late night of packing. Then yesterday I drove my mother back to the airport and returned the rental car (I’ll explain later), then took the train back with Theo. In all, another 6 or so hours of travel. With a baby. So it still felt like a travel day.

And here I am today, totally wiped out, but still trying to get back into things. Trying to catch up with work stuff that I’ve missed, sort out house stuff that was left undone, get my thoughts organized, and make a stab at getting my photos together. I have literally (and I do mean literally) about 2000 photos from the trip on my computer. I have so much I want to (and plan to) share about the trip. For now, the micro summary: the trip was wonderful!

If you are hungry for more details, I hope to serve them up soon. Meanwhile, I’m happy to be able to tantalize you with some appetizers from azahar, who put up a couple of posts featuring our visit to Sevilla: girls night out and mmmm…. (However, I must warn you that if you are actually hungry, you might want to get a bite to eat before paying a visit to casa az; the food photos are likely to torment you otherwise.)

As for reading blogs, I’m a little afraid to look at my feed reader. I’m sure it is full to overflowing. I know that many advocate the “mark all as read option,” but I always worry that I will miss something major. (Have I missed something major?) I hope to have a bit of time to get back online tonight, but for now I think I need to take a nap. I intend to start Theo’s sleep training in earnest tonight, and all intentions will be overridden if I fall asleep again while putting him to bed.