Pay the price

One of our greatest frustrations here is the lack of takeout food. It's just not part of the culture, but there are times you really want to pick up the phone and have someone bring good food to your door. This is especially true when (like tonight) you get back from vacation and have no food in the house. Luckily, Gretchen remembered that we had a flyer from Cuisine Express, which delivers food for several local restaurants, including Lily's, which is a half-decent Thai restaurant. So we called and within the hour we were chowing on pad thai, pad see-ew and tom kha gai without ever leaving the house. The only problem? Guess how much it cost...nope, higher...a little higher...keep going. That's right, for two basic noodle dishes and one soup we paid a grand total of...70 francs, or $56. Granted, that included a 5 franc ($4) tip, which most folks here probably wouldn't do, but since the guy rode his bike up a big hill to get to our house and spoke perfect English, the American in me felt like I HAD to give a decent tip. But still, for comparison I looked at the menu for the Thai restaurant closest to our house back home, and the same exact order would have come to a grand total of $21...with tax and tip let's say a whopping $25. Half of what we paid here! And yet, would we do it again? I'm afraid we would. Supply and demand can be so cruel...

Capricious

I honestly wasn't sure what to make of Capri before our trip here. I'd read that it was terribly overcrowded and a haven for the rich and famous (not usually a big selling point), but I'd also heard that this is the best time of year to visit and that staying here is a much more pleasant experience than visiting for the day. I have to say, we LOVE it. Yeah, there are plenty of people who just ooze money, and there are lots of day-trippers clogging the narrow lanes, but the beauty is absolutely stunning, the weather is near perfect, and it's easy to avoid the crowds (which are only a fraction of the summer crush) and explore beautiful winding car-free streets with amazing views.

We started with a whirlwind...the train from Rome to Naples went very smoothly, the taxi from the Naples station to the marina was an adrenaline junkie's dream (and what little we saw of Naples from the taxi...wow--nothing like anything else we've seen in Italy, yet for some reason a part of me would like to possibly return someday and truly experience the chaos), the ferry to Capri was a breeze. We finally got to our hotel only to find out...that they didn't have our reservation. We usually have excellent travel karma and I'm usually good about confirming reservations, but in this case it turns out their computers crashed around the time we tried to confirm our reservation. Being near the point of exhaustion (me) and tears (Gretchen and Baby), I remembered that the JW Marriott had looked nice. A quick phone call and we were paying WAY more than we'd planned on, but for a large and decadently comfortable room in a much better location.

The bottom line: we wholeheartedly recommend Capri, but not for a day trip and not during high season. Late afternoons and evenings, when lots of tourists have left and locals come out en masse, are a great time to be out and about, and this time of year is really relaxing (at least during those moments when you don't have a hysterical baby...which, by the way is how you find yourself inside your hotel room blogging at 9:00pm in an island paradise).

My life, post-baby

Here's a warning to all potential parents out there: Your life will change dramatically if you have a baby!

Here we are in Rome. The weather is beautiful. There are spectacular sights everywhere, and we're surrounded by fabulous restaurants.

Last night, after Kirk had a pre-dinner meeting with some work colleagues, we took a short walk with Baby in the Bjorn, discussing our dinner options. I've been working really hard to establish a bedtime routine and an earlier bedtime (for Baby, not for me) and so we ultimately decided to just go back to the hotel and get her ready for bed.

A beautiful evening in Rome. We ordered room service. We sat in a dimly lit hotel room eating dinner (which wasn't even very good!) with conversations no louder than a whisper. This is our life now!

When we travel, I usually like to get an early start to the day. Morning tends to be my favorite time of the day, especially when exploring a new city. It's now 11:15 am, and Baby is taking a much needed nap, so we're still inside. I'm sitting at the computer in a dimly lit hotel room in Rome waiting for her to wake. Did I mention that it's currently 72 degrees outside with bright blue sunny skies?

As you can see, I'm still adjusting to my new life as a parent. I am no longer the boss.

Ciao, bella...

It's time to take our little one on the road again. She needs some more stamps in her passport. We're off this morning to sunny Italy. As of now, the forecast is for 75 and sunny throughout our time there! Kirk will be working over the next few days in Rome, so Baby and I will explore the city. I'm hoping to revisit some of the sights we saw earlier this year during our New Year's trip. Then, once Kirk finishes all his important business, we'll head south to the beautiful island of Capri. We've never been there before, but it sure looks beautiful! If nothing else, I will enjoy sitting on our hotel room balcony overlooking the ocean. That sure beats Basel! Arrivederci...

It's a girl!

Today I dressed our baby girl in a dress and tights for the first time. Is she cute or what?! Seriously, sometimes I feel like I'm dressing a doll! She doesn't look exactly thrilled to be in a dress, does she...

I got played

I don't like practical jokes. I don't like playing them on people, and I don't like when people play them on me. I never got into the whole "April Fool's Day" thing either, but perhaps it's time I join in, because now I've been fooled big time, and it's not even April!

A couple weeks ago I got an email from The Big Finn that went something like this: "Aren't you a Crest user? I just noticed they started selling it at Coop Gartenstadt!" Crest is our favorite American toothpaste and we've never been able to buy it in Switzerland. Up until now, we've had to stock up on every trip home, and sometimes we've had to ask visitors to bring us some from the US. Wow, I thought, now I can buy it in Basel!

So I finally made it out to Coop Gartenstadt this past Saturday. I used to be a regular Gartenstadt shopper, but that was pre-baby. Now, in my post-baby days, I do most of my shopping at whatever Coop I pass by while downtown running errands. The stroller now serves as my shopping cart, so I shop virtually every day, buying very little on each trip rather than stocking up with the car by driving to Gartenstadt. I should also add that you can get to Gartenstadt using public transportation, but from our house it takes a tram to a bus to another tram. Nonetheless, we ventured out on Saturday in search of the alleged Crest.

It was nowhere to be found. I walked up and down the aisles of that section several times, and never saw any Crest toothpaste. I even asked a Coop employee who was stocking shelves (in German, no less) if they had Crest toothpaste. After she said no, I told her (in German again) that a friend had told me a few weeks earlier that they had it there. She looked at me like I was crazy. I started thinking TBF was crazy, which wouldn't be that far off considering he previously steered me wrong leading me to believe you could buy Doritos in Basel!

One more walk through the aisles, I thought. All of a sudden, I saw it. Several boxes with the word "Crest" on it! But wait a minute... that's not toothpaste... those are condoms! Coop apparently carries Crest brand condoms! Oh, that sneaky Big Finn! He got me! I guess it's time for to start planning ahead for next April Fool's Day, wouldn't you say?

Tastes like scorpion

I had great plans to eat my way across Beijing, but the combination of urban sprawl and jet lag made me disinclined to spend my evenings trying to get across town, and as it turned the hotel had a fantastic Chinese restaurant so I tended to take the path of least resistance. But I did see some interesting things that I couldn't quite bring myself to try when I was out, including these skewers of scorpion and seahorses (they also had beetles and other things that I was probably better off not knowing):



And I don't know if this picture will be large enough to be readable (maybe if you click on the picture), but I loved the items on this menu:

Beijing

Aside from the foul air when I arrived (which became more of a light haze and cloud layer by the time I left), I liked Beijing even if it wasn't exactly what I expected. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought it would be more walkable and well-preserved, when in fact it's neither. It's a huge, sprawling city where walking anywhere along the huge boulevards (6 lanes in each direction) is exhausting and not necessarily pleasant. Plus, the combination of ugly communist-era architecture and massive new projects in recent years (and probably preparation for the Olympics in 2008) means that it's not the most attractive of cities. Still, there were some spectacular sights (even if the amount of time it took to get around the city meant it was hard to see everything) and some areas where you could catch a glimpse of older times. Usually when I have meetings I don't have much time for sightseeing, but this time I was only giving a short presentation and decided to take an extra day (for which I owe Gretchen big-time) to see the city, so I was able to get out a bit.

This is the Tiananmen Gate with the famous portrait of Mao at the entrance of the Forbidden City:



This is inside the Forbidden City (note to self: perhaps it's finally time to get around to watching "The Last Emperor"):



While the Forbidden City was amazing, it was so big that it was a bit overwhelming. I preferred the Temple of Heaven, most of which was actually a nice park. This is the largest building there, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests:



From there, I went over to Baiyun Guan, a peaceful Taoist temple where I seemed to be the only Westerner:



Then I walked around a neighborhood of hutongs, or narrow lanes lined with old/decrepit houses and shops. I started on a touristy street but wandered just a few minutes off the beaten path and felt like I was going back in time 50 years:



All in all, not too bad for a short trip, but I still missed the Great Wall (so much for my list of possible Wonders of the World), the Summer Palace, the lakes near the Forbidden City, and several other temples, so I guess I'll have to go back someday...

A place I'd rather not be

I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of this, but it was a little dark and, frankly, it would have been an odd place to take a picture, but at one point I ducked into a public restroom in Beijing and above every urinal there was an advertisement for the "Dong Da Hospital for Anus and Intestine Disease" (evidently their target demographic favors public restrooms). I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find anything on the web about it, but through the miracle of Google I found one of the actual ads--and it's even my favorite, the one with the chicks hatching. WTF?!?

[FOLLOW-UP: Gretchen pointed out that the title of the photo includes "foreskin", which can be explained by the site where I found the picture (although it still doesn't explain what an anus and intestine hospital has to do with foreskins)...]

Brush with fame

Compared to places like LA or New York or even DC, Basel isn't a place where you encounter many celebrities. Or maybe you do (Roger Federer, after all, is from around here) and you just don't realise it because you don't know who the real Swiss celebrities actually are. But anyway, today I think I came about as close as I ever will to real celebrity here.

In the lounge in Frankfurt on the way back from Beijing, I noticed a bunch of tennis players hanging out (the big bags of tennis racquets gave it away). I didn't think much of it until I noticed that the same group was boarding the bus to the plane. I was trying to figure out why a bunch of tennis players would be flying to Basel when I noticed several of them chatting up an American near me who looked familiar...since I used to follow tennis, I realised it was Brad Gilbert (former player, current coach), who was there with the guy he's now coaching. And based on their conversations, I figured out that the players were all from Argentina. Well, it finally occurred to me that it must be time for the big Swiss Indoors tournament. As it turns out, some of these guys are actually in the top 25 in the world (including the two who sat in front of me, at least one of whom I'm convinced is the one that had stanky gas, which is no fun in the confined and stale air on a plane, let me tell you). OK, so as brushes with fame go, that's admittedly pretty lame, but by Basel standards I thought it wasn't half bad.

(The one observation I would make is that whenever I've seen or met athletes in the past, they've always been much bigger in person than they appeared from a distance--one time I saw a couple of the smallest guys on the Duke basketball team at a local restaurant and they absolutely towered over everyone in the place. These guys? Not so much. Most of them were more like my size, only skinnier and obviously in much better shape. Oh, and the other thing--I guess that makes two observations, not one--is that they looked like your average schlumpy/scruffy twentysomethings--really, if they weren't carrying tennis racquets you wouldn't have had the slightest clue who they were. It was a complete bling-free zone.)

News of the day

When I'm traveling--especially if I don't have formal dinners at night--I tend to get my International Herald Tribune fix (I can't justify the cost of buying it daily in Basel, so I just get the weekend edition). In that regard, two articles jumped out at me the last couple of days. First, I don't expect your average American to understand the difference between Sunnis and Shiites (after all, how many can actually explain the differences between Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians?), but I'd like to think people responsible for foreign policy would, you know, have at least a bit of a clue. Uh, no. Geez. Second, and on a much lighter note I read this today and had to laugh about the existence of a sandwich consisting of french fries, butter and vinegar--I mean, we eat some fattening food in the States but that's as bad as anything deep-fried that you'd find at your average State Fair.

Missing the action

So I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Beijing coming down with a cold (what's up with me getting sick when I travel these days?), and when I dialed into my work network the following message came up:

"Please be aware that Feyenoord football club are playing in Basel today. Basel police have issued a warning that there is increased potential for trouble throughout the day around the central train station (Bahnhof SBB) and Steinenvorstadt area."

Good times tonight! I wonder if it will be like the near-riot I saw a couple of years ago when the same team came to town...

Tummy time!

It's supposed to be a good thing to have babies play on their tummies. The hard thing is finding a good time to do it. You have to do it when baby is happy, not too tired, and hasn't just eaten. That's next to impossible! Even though she hadn't eaten in an hour, today's round of tummy time was followed by a big spit-up. Ah, what an exciting life we lead!

Black lung

So I thought the air quality in Kuala Lumpur was bad, but Beijing is really off the scale. You can't see more than a few blocks in any direction, and as if my own eyes (and lungs) weren't enough to convince me it was bad, according to the Weather Channel these are the current conditions in Beijing:

My Prince Charming

My Mom used to say to me: "You had to kiss a lot of frogs before you found your prince!" She was right! Thankfully, I found my Prince Charming and all the frogs are long forgotten. Eight years ago today, on October 17, 1998, I married my prince (AKA Kirk) on a rainy, fall day in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. It was without a doubt the best day of my life. Some people say the day your child is born is the best day of your life, and that may be the case for me at some point, but as of now the process of labor and delivery is still too fresh in my memory. I prefer the wedding memories in which no pain and exhaustion were involved. I had so much fun at our wedding. It was a huge party, just for us, and we were surrounded with people we love. Best of all, I married a wonderful, loving, witty, smart, handsome man. I feel so lucky to be his wife.

And now for some random wedding memories...

--Two nights before our wedding, Kirk and I went out on the town with a bunch of our friends, including a few of our out-of-town guests who had never before experienced Wisconsin hospitality. We drank beer and ate fried cheese curds and danced polkas to an accordian at the Essen Haus, a Madison institution. I still laugh when I think about a certain New York friend of ours (who happens to also be a reader of this blog) who at first refused to drink beer out of the community "boot" that was being passed around the table. In the end, we all drank from the boot! When in Rome...

--You know how the wedding night is supposed to be so romantic? All I remember is that by the time Kirk and I got to our hotel room around midnight I was STARVING and all I wanted to do was order a pizza. Note to all newleyweds: Have your caterers pack you a doggie bag for the hotel. On top of that, Kirk's attempt to carry me across the threshold was unfortunately ruined when he instead slammed my elbow into the door frame of the hotel room. Yes, it was very romantic.

--We had the world's worst DJ. His name was Jens or Hans or something Scandanavian. On our first meeting (after we had already signed the contract), he told us he likes to start wedding receptions with Footloose, because "it really gets the crowd going". Sorry, no, this is 1998, not 1988. We ended up buying a bunch of CDs so that he would play the music we wanted.

--After getting my hair done on the morning of the wedding, a bunch of my girlfriends joined me at my parents house for a huge carry-out Mexican lunch from Pasquals. Meanwhile, Kirk was apparently trying to keep down a piece of toast from IHOP. And so the story continues today... Him: Nervous stomach. Me: Gut of Steel.

--Our Pastor got Kirk's name wrong during the vows. It went something like this: "Repeat after me: I, Gretchen, take you, Thomas..." And I said: "I, Gretchen, take you, Kirk..." And everyone laughed. Kirk's first name is actually Thomas (Kirk is his middle name), so it wasn't that wrong, but still, I wasn't going to call him Thomas.

--Apparently, the Pastor had just come from a couples workshop (he was a counseling Pastor for the church) where they had had some intense discussions about the Myers-Briggs test. Our Pastor found it really amusing that Kirk and I are opposite in so many ways ("One of you is an extrovert, one of you is an introvert...") and he decided to work Myers-Briggs into his sermon. Oh no, all I could think about was a woman I used to work with on Capitol Hill (P Browne) who analyzed everyone according to Myers-Briggs. ESTP, INFJ, all that stuff.

--One of my favorite moments of the day was when I surprised my Dad with a very nontraditional father-daughter dance: "If you want to be a Badger", which is a polka-type song that they sing at Badger games in Wisconsin. He used to sing it to me as a little girl.

--My nephew, Connor, was 5 at the time and he was our ring bearer. At one point after the ceremony, when we were all still mingling at the church, he walked up to a friend of ours (who happened to be known as a bit of a gassy one) and said "Hey, you're the GASMAN!" We have no idea how he came up with it, but Kirk and I still laugh about it today. A couple minutes later, Connor walked up to another of the groomsmen and said "Hey, are you gonna be at that party later?" as if he were 16. What a boy he was/is.

--I wish I could show you a picture of my dress. It was frilly and poofy and I loved it. I wanted to feel like a princess and I did. The best secret about my dress was that it was an absolute bargain and it fit me right off the rack. Lots of my friends were spending thousands of dollars on their dresses and mine was only $99 at the Jessica McClintock warehouse store in San Francisco! To top it off, my Mom made me a priceless headpiece that I will treasure forever.

So many happy memories. And so many more to come with my Prince Charming and our beautiful baby daughter.

8 years ago tonight...

...was our rehearsal dinner. (Yes, our anniversary is tomorrow, although I'm leaving for Beijing so it won't exactly be a major celebration.)

Anyway, so 8 years ago tonight we were in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin, preparing for the Big Day. Since we had lots of friends in town and Gretchen's parents loved to entertain, we decided that rather than having our rehearsal dinner in a hotel banquet room or at a country club, we would instead invite all of our out-of-town friends over to her family's house for a good Wisconsin-style party: grilled bratwurst, a keg of local beer, pitchers of her Dad's old-fashioneds, and ice cream from the UW Dairy Store. A good time seemed to be had by all (which we know in part because some friends told us later that they didn't actually remember much of the evening). Our memories are even fonder in retrospect because Gretchen's Dad was having such a good time hosting, and we only found out later that he was losing his eyesight but didn't want to let it spoil his good time--in a lot of ways it was one of the last times we saw him in top form before he got so sick. Our parents all seemed happy, come to think of it.

As the night came to a close with me smoking cigars on the deck with friends, we bade each other good night knowing the next time we saw each other would be when the door was opened the next afternoon for her to walk down the aisle. We spent the remaining time before our nuptials in our own usual ways--Gretchen hanging out with her girlfriends and eating a big lunch while getting ready, and me mostly spending time alone with my thoughts and feeling too sick to even eat a bite of toast (despite Gretchen asking friends to make sure I ate). But we got through the ceremony without a hitch despite it being unseasonably warm and damp (not a good combination when you haven't eaten all day) and the pastor getting my name wrong during the vows, and danced the night away at the reception. Even the Padres losing the first game of the World Series to the Yankees that night couldn't put a damper on the party.

And now, 8 years later, here we are living overseas with a 16-week old baby--who could have known the twists and turns our lives would take?! But it's been a great 8 years, and while I wish I didn't have to spend our anniversary night on a red-eye flight, I'll at least raise my glass to Gretchen at 30,000 feet and think happily about the good times to come before reclining my seat, slipping on eyeshades and my iPod and trying to catch a couple of hours of sleep!



(Sorry no wedding pictures, but those were our pre-digital days and we don't have a scanner...)

So bad it's good

I can't believe I got through life (especially the part of my life that took place during the 1970s) without ever having seen this, but after seeing it recommended here (#16), I'm now thoroughly hooked. Perhaps the best bad video of all time?

Go Bucky!

It's fall, and that means one thing... it's football season! As you can see, we're ALL Badger fans in this household!



For any of you who are confused, we're talking about American football, not soccer. And if you're really confused, Bucky Badger is Wisconsin's mascot. I love Bucky!

Catch a whiff

When most supermarkets here close (6:00pm or 7:00pm), one of the only options left is to go to the train station, where stores stay open until at least 10:00pm. So, it's not uncommon to find myself at the Coop next to the station on the way home from work.

One of the irritating quirks of this particular market is that not only is it small and crowded, but they also have the bread right at the entrance to the main part of the store, and since half of the people are coming in specifically to buy bread, this creates a choke point. Last night I noticed it was especially slow getting in. Why? Because a large lady was standing in front of the shelves of bread, forcing everyone to squeeze around her single file. And what was she doing that required her to slow the entire store? Picking up each loaf of bread one by one...sniffing them...and putting them back on the shelf. I'm sorry, but IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS THIS ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR?!? And for the record, by the time I had squeezed past her, found the items I was looking for, paid for them and was leaving, she was still sniffing away. It's times like this that I really regret not having a camera phone...

I heart Swiss French lady

One of the little oddities of my travels is that despite traveling to all sorts of places in recent years, I've never once had to get a visa in my passport prior to leaving. Until now, that is--I need a visa for my trip to Beijing next week.

Which explains how I found myself waiting in line at the Chinese embassy in Bern yesterday. (I had already been once a couple of weeks ago, but they told me it would take a week and I was leaving for Mexico so I had to come back this week instead...and then go back again next Monday. Three trips to Bern--good fun. By the same token, having seen the hoops that people have to go through to get into the US embassy, I realise that complaining about anyone else's bureaucracy would be the pot calling the kettle black.)

Anyway, a woman ahead of me had like 25 passports that needed visas and there was only one clerk working, so by the time she finished (at least a half-hour) the room was pretty full of fellow visa-seekers. Interestingly, most seemed to be French speakers, which I knew because they would all say "bonjour" when they entered, and everyone would respond with "bonjour" in kind. (IMHO, a comparable group of Swiss Germans would endure the wait in silence. But I digress.)

So finally Slow Woman With Many Passports (her Native American name, no doubt) finished, and a bike messenger moved from the back of the room to the front of the line to ask for a signature. Turns out he had a visa application, which the clerk started to process. You could feel the tension in the room as everyone realised that this Bike Weasel was bypassing the line, but I for one am not comfortable enough with the language to protest, plus this is a culture where waiting in lines is anathema. So I was very pleasantly surprised when one of the Swiss French (French Swiss?) women behind me marched right to the front and gave the clerk and Bike Weasel a loud earful about how we'd all been waiting a long time...at least that's what I'm assuming, because all of a sudden the clerk told Bike Weasel he'd have to wait until everyone else was finished. Et voila, the mood instantly lifted and we all smiled and/or nodded at Swiss French lady, and I even whispered a "Merci". Take that, Bike Weasel, you piece of merde! Ha! And to you, Swiss French lady, I raise a toast...

Chinese food in Germany

I took Baby on her first trip across the border to Germany today! She was part of a ladies-who-lunch group who met for a special meal of Dim Sum at a Chinese restaurant. I know... when you think of Germany, you think Dim Sum, right? Anyway, the woman who organized the lunch knows the owner of this restaurant and he prepared a special menu for her friends (that's us). It was very good and a welcome change from Swiss cuisine. As usual, Baby was the social butterfly and loved being passed around to be held by all the ladies.

Unfortunately, because the authorities don't often ask for your passport at the border crossings, Baby does not yet have a German stamp in her passport to add to her collection which so far includes Spain and the Netherlands. Italy is next for her!

As you can see, it's another beautiful fall day in Basel. The sun is shining and maybe I should have Baby wearing some sunglasses!

A plug and an avocado

Jon Stewart in excellent form on the Daily Show...

Quality television

Right now Gretchen is watching what may be the best television show of all time: "Bauer sucht Frau" (roughly translated as "farmer seeks woman"). Ladies, I present your handsome bachelors. I'm telling you, even in German this is must-see TV...

Tastes like Chichén

It's no secret that I can be prone to Angst when traveling in circumstances that are beyond my control (which, come to think of it, is most of the time, but never mind). So I thought I deserved major brownie points for an excursion I squeezed in on Monday morning before my meetings began that afternoon. I decided it would be a pity to be so close to Chichén Itzá and not see it, so I rented a car and headed out there. Five minutes into the drive, as I was trying to navigate the chaotic city roads, I was thinking two things: (1) I'm definitely not in Basel anymore; and (2) am I insane? Maybe it helped that I've driven in Mexico before, but I somehow managed to keep my composure and find my way out of town, to Chichén Itzá and back into town with both the car and myself in one piece.

As for Chichén Itzá itself, it was pretty impressive but I probably should have hired a guide because I didn't really understand half of what I was looking at. Plus, I knew I had to get back in time for the start of my meetings, and it was so hot and humid that I was soaked from head to toe from the minute I arrived, so I kind of gave it short shrift. All things considered, though, it was well worth the trip and, truth be told, the chaotic driving around the city ended up being one of the most fun parts of the trip (I just wish I would have been able to take some pictures of colorful roadside Mexico).

Long week

After many long hours of flying each way, a tiring week of work, and a fun little bug that wiped me out for a couple of days, it's a welcome treat to be back home to see my girlz (you miss so much when you go away for a week at this age--all of a sudden she's using her hands, which she wasn't doing before...and that's just Gretchen!) and exchange the humidity of the tropics for a crisp, clear, dry fall day. I really only had maybe a half-day to see Merida, but my limited impression was that it seemed like a pleasant enough city.

Things that suck

#1 - Spending all day in bed with a fever and stomachache in a hotel room in Mexico...

#2 - ...with no English-language TV stations for distraction, and the Padres losing game 2 of their playoff series.

#3 - See #1 and #2

(Knock on wood, I think I'm feeling better this morning and so should be healthy enough to fly home this afternoon...)

A girl after my own heart

Who needs toys when you have a Mom who likes to buy pretty beads in every foreign city she visits? These are from Granada, purchased on our recent trip to Spain. Please note that there are real baby toys in the background of this picture as well.

I miss my girls

You know, it's all good that I get to go see places like Chichen Itza, but what really makes me happy is when I find pictures like this in my email (yes, our room is a mess...so sue us):

Mixed blessing?

After getting to watch my Chargers lose a tough game in the final minute the other day, this afternoon I came back from my meetings and found that the Padres' opening playoff game against the Cardinals (in Spanish, of course) was on TV...the only problem being, they're already losing 5-0. I suppose I should just be happy that I get to see them at all, but is it too much to ask to get to see them win?!?

Fútbol americano

Omigosh is this exciting...I came back to the hotel to eat lunch and escape the heat after walking around Merida this morning and what happens to be on TV? The San Diego Chargers game against the Baltimore Ravens! Not only do I almost never get to watch football, but even on those extremely rare occasions when I do (usually if I'm traveling), it's never the Chargers. So what if it's in Spanish? I know how I'm spending my afternoon...