Sweet water slide
On one of our best days in Mexico we made friends with another couple who had two kids close in age to ours. Their son was an excellent swimmer and after lots of beach time, we all headed to the pool. Once Ollie saw his friend go solo on the slide, he was up for it. Next thing you know, Ollie's going down head first. Then sideways. Then feet first, lying down! We practically had to drag him from the slide after more than an hour. The water slide was awesome and this video shows a bit of the fun.
Our Mexican vacation
Before we had kids, Jason and I did a fair amount of traveling. While we never ate cobra eyes or camped on the floor of a straw hut in a remote village someplace, I'd say we were more adventurous than the average American. We'd eat local food and try to explore the spirit of the place we visited. On our honeymoon to Mexico we made a point of driving the free roads, rather than the toll highway, because the free ones passed through small towns. The highway sped by everything.
Since we've had two kids, we've continued to travel with some success. Last year we had a so-so trip to Mexico and a great trip to France. This year we decided to return to Mexico again. Last year's difficulties stemmed from trying to eat out every meal with small kids on Mexico time (= waiting thirty minutes just for chips and salsa to arrive at table) and staying at a tiny hotel with no windows, only screens and a breakfast that took forty-five minutes to arrive. I got it in my head that if we stayed at a resort this year, things would be better.
Snacks!
We've never stayed at any kind of big resort hotel because frankly, there's nothing about being in another place when you stay at one. The uniformity that makes it comfortable and familiar obliterates any sense of what makes the destination unique. It was like going to Mexico without having to go to Mexico. For lots of people, this is ideal and I thought it was a trade-off I could make. I thought our room with windows would mean a better night's sleep for the kids. I thought three onsite restaurants -- kids eat free! -- would mean easier meal times. I thought multiple pools would give us something to do if the ocean was too rough to swim.
Can't complain about beach side drink delivery
But as we drove to the airpot in Cancun, we passed a little stand on the side of the road selling "cocos frios", cold coconuts, and I was suddenly so sad. We'd spent a week in Mexico and never once had tortillas served with our meals, never mind the kind of food being served at the roadside stand. The kids ate free for sure, but it was hot dogs and fish fingers and burgers. And aside from quesadillas at lunch, which is hardly real Mexican food, most of what we ate was basic American hotel fare. The ocean was so warm and lovely, and the pools were super fun. But we had round-robin of family sickness. And Minna decided after one meal that she would no longer sit in a high chair and screamed when we put her in it.
Last year at the end of our trip to Paris I wrote:
Traveling with kids is really great because everyone gets forced from their routine and you discover, "Hey, that routine wasn't so necessary after all!"
This year? Not so much. Of course the routine I like that we have at home is that Minna sits in her own seat at meals. And that my children don't eat junk "kids' food" at every (or any) meal. And that Ollie sleeps more than ten hours at night. I'm chalking this trip up to a "learning opportunity". For future trips, I know I'll do better when I can control some aspects of our meals, like if we rent an apartment and can cook. More importantly: if we're visiting a place, we need to experience it as fully as possible. If not, there's no upside to the disruption of travel, and no sense for me in going away.
Enjoying the beach
We went to Mexico last week, which I hope to write more about shortly. But for now, my favorite picture from our trip. I was sitting and reading, and when I looked up I saw this scene, grabbed my camera, and made a mad dash towards them to capture it. I got off one shot before Ollie stood up to walk towards the water.
The more things change the more they change
While poking around online (actually trying to confirm the spelling of Buttner's, an old department store on Nantucket) I came across this New York Times article from 1989, Changing, Unchanging Nantucket, bemoaning the changing island. It's quaint in its complaints about the transformation, with notes like "[T]he tariff for motor vehicles had gone to $66.50 from $47.50 each way." It's $380 now. And the development and traffic and loss of stores on Main Street he catalogs are nothing compared to what I witnessed this summer. The stores that replaced the stores he misses have been replaced again by new stores -- the Benetton is long gone! And yet it's true, the mores and beaches are still the same. "There have been changes, but Nantucket remains a very special place indeed." Indeed.
Paris recap
Somehow Paris got suddenly hectic and I got tired and didn't have time to write anymore about our adventures so this is a final Paris recap post, probably in not particular order, with photos.
Ollie pretty much went to a playground every day and by the end of the trip I'd overhear him trying to speak French to the kids he was playing with. The last day in a playground in the Place des Voges some girls were playing some kind of tag game. They'd say something, I don't recall what, and tag each other. Ollie observed for a bit, then ran up to one girl, tagged her and said a close approximation of whatever they'd been saying. Then he ran off while I stood there kind of stunned. A few more weeks and that kid would be speaking French!
At one snack break Minna drank her first milkshake. She was sitting in my father's lap when she suddenly reached for his shake, pulled it towards her and then put her little mouth around the straw! Who knew she could do that?!
I ate steak tartare twice after never having it before in my life. I'd always thought it was just plain ground beef, but it's not, it's seasoned with mustard and capers and onions and it was so yummy. I'm craving it again and I think I'm going to have to make it myself here at home soon. We also ate a lot of macarons. Ollie's favorite was "brown", or chocolate, and he's very keen to make them at home.
I bought confit de petales de rose, a rose petal jelly, but haven't tried it yet. There are always such interesting jellies and jams, I just had to get a new one to try.
Ollie and I went on a carousel at the Tuileries. He wasn't so keen on it at first, so I rode along behind him and my father stood next to him. But after it was done he was converted and stayed on for a second ride. Hopefully he'll remember what fun it was the next time we see one.
Did I mention that Ollie is a running maniac? And that he probably ran half the time we were out on the streets? The nice thing is that each curb cut in Paris had a little bumpy mat in front of it, so he knew just where to stop at every corner.
And I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting, like how both kids were so good when we went out to eat. And how Ollie can climb really high on all kinds of equipment at the playground. And how traveling with kids is really great because everyone gets forced from their routine and you discover, "Hey, that routine wasn't so necessary after all!" And how fast it goes once you get there, after months of anticipation and talking about the trip with Ollie, suddenly it's over and we're home and all we have are our memories and photos of France 2010.
Day Three in Paris
Highlights include the Toy boats at the Jardin du Luxembourg. And the whole Jardin itself, so beautiful today as it finally warmed up and the sun shone while we were there. We also visited the Grande Epicerie De Paris where I got some rose petal jelly and fleur de sel from Madagascar, because a girl can never have enough salt!
Ollie very much wanted an ice cream, even passing up a big macaron at the Grande Epicerie saying he'd rather wait for ice cream. And wait he did, because when we got back to the ice cream spot we'd seen on our walk, it took 10 minutes before the guy was available to scoop Ollie's vanilla cone. And only 5 minutes later, as he was rounding a corner, a girl coming by on her razor scooter collided with him. He didn't get knocked down, and he valiantly held onto his cone. Alas the impact broke the top half off and all the ice cream ended up on the sidewalk! I almost cried, but he held it together and ate the cone as we walked home.
Toy boats at the Jardin du Luxembourg
Every visit to Paris, I watched little kids play with wooden sailboats in the duck pond at the Jardin du Luxembourg. Today Ollie and I rented our own little "fish boat" and spent an hour chasing it around the pond. It crashed into another boat and got entangled near the duck house. It heeled way over on its side and soaked the deck (no scuppers!). Once someone else pushed it away from the edge before Ollie got there with his long stick to give it a nudge.
Oh and that long stick! Ollie was a danger running everywhere with it, getting it stuck in the edge of a grate and almost pole vaulting into the air. But by the end he'd learned to keep it under control and was pretty good at getting his boat turned around and back into the big sea.
I can't recommend this enough if you've got kids in Paris. 2 Euros for 30 minutes of sheer pleasure in one of the most beautiful gardens anywhere. Every day in summer. Wed, Sat & Sun rest of the year. We got there around 11 AM and there were plenty of boats to choose from. When we passed back through in the afternoon around 3 PM, all the boats were sailing.
Day One in Paris
I can't decide if this picture of Ollie:
Or this one of Minna:
is a better memory of our first day in Paris. Either way, I love them both because both show the kids out and about at restaurants being really well behaved! Ollie waited so patiently for his chocolat chaud and only spilled a small amount of it over the course of many pourings of melted chocolate and steamed milk into his cup. And Minna was so hungry by the time we got to this restaurant but she gobbled her yogurt and smiled and was so pleasant. A miracle! Of course now that I've written about it we'll never have a decent meal out again. But at least we had Day One in Paris!
For those wanting to keep up from home, I've got a France 2010 Flickr set that I'll add to as our trip progresses. There are a few more from the other day, including Ollie's first swan. Though honestly, if you've seen a swan before, it's probably not that thrilling.
I've been drinking Nescafe Espresso on this trip and what I'm wondering is: how do they make that instant crema?! It's really authentic looking. Though not authentic enough to make "artte lart", which is what Ollie calls latte art. I will enjoy a proper cafe creme in Paris, but right now, being the first one up in the house and enjoying the babyless silence, this isn't too bad at all.
Our European Vacation
Our first full day in France near the Swiss border, we tried to go to CERN but it was closed so we drove to Annecy instead. I can't tell you too much about it because we ate crepes and then ran around in the park. Ollie found several treasures, including two feathers of undetermined bird origin and one pine cone. The weather has been uncooperative so far and though we've been told we're surrounded by snow covered Alps and Mont Blanc, there's been no sightings of anything more than verdant foothills. I've got more pictures to upload, including Ollie's first swan viewing and some French cows -- big hits both -- but the connection is a bit slow here. As you'd expect, cheese has been fantastic, bread excellent, and every morning we've had pain au chocolat for breakfast.
Tomorrow it's the TGV on to Paris and hopefully some warmer weather. If Ollie weren't having a blast here playing with all the new toys, I think he'd be excited for the train trip. But right now all he wants to do is play with a fork lift toy that says, "Back it up!" then beeps and reverses across the room. Oh France!
Driving in Mexico
Everyone tells you (by which I mean "everyone" who is writing guidebooks and "telling" me by my reading of their guidebooks) how hairy it is to drive in Mexico. But in general the Yucatán isn't as bad as some other areas I've driven around in the country. Everywhere you drive you need to be on the lookout for a tope (pronounced "tow-pay"), or speed bump. In general you find them on the outskirts of towns and on the main drags through them. They come in various shapes and sizes, some consisting of little round metal dots, others raised platforms of concrete. Some times they're quite wide if they're doubling as a sort of pedestrian walk-way. But my favorite were some homemade-looking ones we spotted, especially along the Boca Paila Road south of Tulum. They were just several thick pieces of rope laying across the road in a clump. Whenever we spotted one, I could not resist referring to them as ropes ("row-pay") because, see, they were topes made of rope. Ha ha, get it? Good times like these were numerous on our honeymoon.
A bit of Maya history
While in Mexico, I'm hoping to do some traveling around to various historic sites. The Yucatan peninsula is filled with ruins and temples of the Maya civilization. When I lived near Mexico City I visited some Aztec/Toltec/Olmec ruins, but I've never been to this area of Mexico before, so I'm looking foward to it. The Wikipedia link above has a ton of information about the Maya, including this section about their Pyramids and temples. Between visiting such sites, some colonial cities, hanging on the beach, and sleeping, it should be a pretty busy visit.
Off on my honeymoon
I'm off on my honeymoon for a couple weeks, so posting will be limited to a small number of items I've scheduled in advance. Nothing major, though honestly this site hasn't seen major amounts of posting in some time! Hopefully that will change after the honeymoon. In the meantime, enjoy yourselves and I'll see you in a few with some travel tales and pictures. Hopefully.
My year in travel
Following Jason's example and call to action with his The year in cities, I present my Year in Cities. Not surprisingly, it's a lot like his!
Etna, NH*
New York, NY*
Boston, MA*
Munich, Germany
San Diego, CA
Paris, France
San Francisco, CA
Orange, MA*
Blarney, Ireland
Ballylickey, Ireland
Waterville, Ireland
Dingle, Ireland
Ennis, Ireland
Nantucket, MA*
Woodstock, VT
Middlebury, VT
Rochester, VT
Las Vegas, NV
Waitsfield, VT*
Hong Kong*
Bangkok, Thailand
Saigon, Vietnam
Wow! Six countries, not including the US, and six states. Of the countries, four I'd never visited before (Ireland and the Asian countries). Of the states, I'd been to all before. Here's to even more countries and states in 2007!
The SE Asia high low
I don't usually think of things in terms of "best" and "worst." Actually, that's untrue. I often say "best" or "worst" but I don't really mean it; everything's "best" with me whenever I have any regard for anything, prone as I am to exaggeration. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I usually don't do any kind of comparative judgment and actually mean it. But Mr. Noodlepie asked us during lunch one day in Saigon about some of the highs and lows of our trip, and I've been thinking about it ever since.
So now that I'm back, I thought I'd give a little high-low summary:
HONG KONG
Low: The crab dinner at the Shanghainese restaurant. I think it also qualifies as the low point of the entire trip for me.
High: Our visit to the Big Buddha on Lantau Island at the Po Lin Monastery, eating yummy salt and pepper shrimp on our trip to the outlying island of Cheung Chau.
BANGKOK
Low: A Friday walk to Chinatown. Most guidebooks and people will tell you that Bangkok isn't really a walking city, but we're stout walkers and we endeavored to walk as much as possible. One day that was nearly my undoing as we walked (for what seemed like forever) along exhaust-choked avenues filled with racing cars. At every intersection we had to deal with crossing the smoggy street with no crosswalks or in many cases street lights. By the time we reached our destination, I was ready to call it quits and head to the air-conditioned breathability of our hotel room.
High: A tie between our visit to Jim Thompson House and our Thai cooking class. Also high: the food in Bangkok, from street to fanciest hotel, it was amazing and delicious and I wish I had some right now! Bangkok was my favorite of the three cities we visited, and the cooking class probably was the highlight of the entire trip for me.
SAIGON
Low: There was no particular low in Saigon, though when Jason hit his head, "into a metal box hanging off of a pole" that was not so great.
High: Our day in the Mekong was really nice. Also all the yummy French food. Saigon didn't have the highs or lows of the other two cities. Perhaps I was more in the travel groove? Or perhaps I was more out of the travel groove and ready to come home? Not sure. I didn't enjoy Saigon quite as much as I'd expected to, though I have a feeling I'd like visiting the Vietnamese countryside, and some smaller cities like Hue. I would like to return and find out.
All in all, a good first trip to Asia. I look forward to going back another time, once the four-movie-watching looooooongness of the fifteen+ hour plane rides have faded from memory.
Home again home again
After nearly twenty-four hours of flying, we made it back. About half-way through the flight, Asia already seemed like another lifetime ago. Perhaps it was because I watched four movies on the plane (Bewitched, War of the Worlds, Cinderella Man, and Hustle & Flow) and slept a bunch as well. Hopefully a few more posts on the trip will trickle in and I need to go through my pictures as well. And now that I'm back on a routine with the writing here, I hope to keep it up. Ha, right. We'll see. Anyway, it's nice to be back home. I'm looking forward to eating a good old cheeseburger and fries.
There is such a thing as too much of a good thing
For our Thanksgiving the other evening, we headed to Le Bordeaux in Ho Chi Minh Ville (I love that ville, all the French restaurants say that on their menu) for a special dinner. Once our taxi driver actually located the restaurant, things were very nice, if a bit more than I'd anticipated.
We started with a Champagne aperitif and enjoyed some kind of crab amuse in a spoon with dill and a mayonnaise-life creaminess holding the chunks of firm crab together. For my appetizer, I ordered a "Foie Gras Three Ways" (which Jason, ha ha ha, called "ménage à foie"). There was a slice of terrine, a poached sliver, and then a crisply seared chunk. Each was nearly the size of a typical order of foie gras, so when they put the plate down before me, I was both overjoyed and a bit overwhelmed. It was a lot of foie, but it was delicious! My favorite was the seared piece. It had a wonderful crust on the outside but was cooked just enough so that the interior maintained its firm texture. It was the least transformed or adulterated of the three preparations and so its true flavor was most evident. And being a liver lover, I appreciate that!
For my main course, I had a magret de canard with an orange sauce that was sort of marmaladey. And what did I spy atop the beautiful fanned presentation of tasty duck breast? Mon dieu! It was another chunk of crispy seared foie gras! It was delicious, but by the end of the meal (I could only eat half of the duck, and the owner came to ask if everything was OK with the duck when they saw how much I sent back to the kitchen!) I couldn't help but wonder: is there such a thing as too much foie gras?
I love foie gras but it's so rich. Moreover, it's so special. For me it's a few-times-a-year indulgence, and something I really look forward to. Each bite is a nibble of magic. Eating that much at once caused some of its magic to diminish, as if I'd exceeded the foie gras limit. Because I believe for everything, even the yummiest most delicious amazing foods, there is a limit. Six oysters is perfect for me. 18 would not be. Two glass of Champagne is about enough. Three or four glasses and something is lost. A nice chunk of foie gras is just right, and I don't need three.
It reminds me of Thomas Keller's philosophy and the diminishing returns one gets upon successive bites of the same food. The tongue fails to distinguish; the Champagne's bubbles blur or a BBQ pork's tang recedes. Eventually it's just another sip of liquid or bite of liver. And I don't ever want to feel that jaded about anything I eat, be it foie gras or liverwurst. There's a magic that happens when we put tasty food in our mouths, and I don't intend to lose it.
It was in many respects the perfect Thanksgiving dinner: I was stuffed, yet appreciative of what I had. I was thankful for being able to make this trip to Asia; thankful for being able to eat such great food not only on Thanksgiving, but during the entire adventure; and thankful for being able to share it, not just with Jason, but with everyone reading along at home.
Good bye Saigon
That's it for Saigon, and it seems to have gone very quickly! But we've had our final Vietnamese iced coffee and fresh orange juice, and a final breakfast baguette. And now we're on our way to the airport and Hong Kong. A bien tot, Saigon...
A day in the Mekong
Yesterday we escaped the throngs of motorbikes and people in Saigon and headed down to the Mekong Delta for a day trip. Normally we don't go in for any tours or that sort of thing when we travel, preferring to make our own arrangements or just winging our exploration, but with our Vietnamese lacking, and our time limited, we turned to the professionals at Exotissimo Travel. They arranged a day trip to Ben Tre Province, including a car and driver and an English-speaking guide.
After pick-up at our hotel in Saigon, we drove about an hour and a half to Tien Giang, where we learned about our upcoming day's adventures on the big Ben Tre Boat Trip Map. We boarded our boat for ride across the river and over to a coconut handicraft village, where we saw people making souvenirs for tourists out of coconut shells. After a look-see around the place, and a lesson in the utility of coconut, we hopped into a little horse drawn cart and headed to a bee farm.
At the bee farm we enjoyed a snack of tasty tropical fruits and sampled tea with fresh honey. And after much encouragement by our guide, we tried some sticky rice wine, mixed with a bit of honey and kumquat juice. It was potent, to say the least. I can't imagine drinking more than the two sips we "enjoyed" at the farm.
After that, we boarded very small boats and headed up a little tributary for what was the nicest part of the tour. Tall palm fronds surrounded us on both sides as we our guides paddled up the narrow muddy river. Occasionally we'd pass people cutting down leafy stalks for roofing and loading them in their long boats. I could have stayed on that boat for a long time.
But then it was off to the coconut candy factory, where we witnessed a small family production of a sweet and tasty treat. And then it was back into our bigger boat again and we headed to lunch. At a nice restaurant beside the river we had elephant ear fish. Rolled in rice paper with noodles and greens, and dipped into a peanuty sauce, it was pretty tasty. But I have to say, the presentation of that scary fish on the table, with its teeth hanging out and its eyes staring at us, was not the most appetizing. We finished up, and then it was back to the boat, back to the dock, back to the car, and two hours later, back in Saigon. A nice tour, and one that whetted my appetite to see more of the Vietnamese countryside. It would have been nice to spend several days in the area, and to be able to get further away from the tourist sites and visit regular villages and daily life.
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