Morocco, Malta and the Mediterranean: Another Great Adventure
We thought we were done with cruising (this happens a lot) when suddenly this trip popped up on Viking’s new itineraries. We waited only two days, and called to reserve. The cabin area we want was already almost sold out! We got the last cabin, not the normal cabin we reserve, and felt lucky to get it. I checked the cabin catagories; the ship was almost entirely sold out.
Algiers. Malta. Ajaccio. Places we had never been before. It got our hearts racing.
We tried something new; for Barcelona, we booked a tour through Viator to visit the hillside Monastery of Monserrat. For Tunis, where we lived so many years ago, we booked through Tours for Locals, so that we could have a personalized visit to see things that mattered to us. We paid in advance – like more than a year in advance.
We are cautious with our money, so this was a little scary for us. Booking private tours in expensive. Between booking and implementing, a lot can happen. And what if the guides don’t show up??? What is your fallback? By faith, we bit that bullet and it worked out great for us.
It was also a long trip with 23 days total and various climates, so I did not believe I could do it with a carry-on. I used a bigger suitcase, again, by faith, and checked it. We never had a problem, and I was thankful to have a variety of clothing appropriate to the cultures and climate.
This trip took place from mid-November to early December. Today, AdventureMan asked me how I wanted to spend the weekend, and I said “I want to write up the trip for the blog.” In between getting home and now, I had to get Christmas decorations up, bake Christmas dishes, do Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day brunch, deal with having norovirus (me, just before Christmas), deal with AdventureMan having norovirus (shortly after Christmas, and with AdventureMan getting a papercut that turned into a severe infection with heavy duty antibiotics. Take Christmas down. Oh, and jury duty. And welcome the New Year with friends.
We are just now getting back to normal. At the end of this month, we start a major bath reconstruction that will disrupt us for six to eight weeks. Now is the time 😊.
“I Think She’s a Liar!”
AdventureMan has just come back from running errands and he has some tales to tell. One of his adventures has to do with meeting a woman a little older than him.
“No matter what I said, she’d been there, done that,” he said. “Like we talked about war experience, and I told her I fought in VietNam. She just nodded and said “I lost two husbands fighting in VietNam.”
“We talked about travel in Africa, and as it turns out, she had been everywhere. She’s travelled all the places we’ve been. I think she’s a liar.”
We’ve all run into them – the lunatics who make themselves big by lying.
And then I stopped, caught by a thought. This blog. My own experiences, roaming the world and then settling down in a small Southern city. It sounds wild. Unbelievable.
I have a friend who once told me “Isn’t it wonderful God blessed us with our different kind of lives? I never wanted to travel, and I love that I got to grow up in a small Southern town where I knew everyone.”
She was right. The thought of living all my life in one place makes me choke; I feel strangled. And living here, I am careful not to talk too much about all the places we have lived, and all the places we have visited. I am careful not to talk about the risks we have taken and the adventures we have had. I got the life I was created to live, and it might sound incredible to others.
It brought me up short. I think of people reading this blog and wondering how it can all be true. I read entries from years ago and I can hardly believe it myself! And I believe it’s entirely possible that people might think I am exaggerating or elaborating.
I shrug my shoulders. Yes, I want to have credibility. No, I am not to concerned with whether people believe me or not. And it is interesting to me to be given a sudden shift in perspective. I know how I see myself, and then, in an instant, I see how I might be perceived in another way.
18 Years as Intlxpatr
18 years as Intlxpatr, and who knew I’d still be blogging? I remember the combination of terror and excitement with which I began – and the kindness of the bloggers in Kuwait who welcomed me in, and what great discussions we had. Mostly I remember how much I learned from those early years. I had begun thinking there were things I wanted to remember; I had no idea I would be learning so much, and changing my own perspectives in response. For that, I thank God for giving me the courage to start, and the commitment to persevere.
I’m not the same person now as when I started. What I love is that I am surrounded by people within 20 years on either side of my age who are also changing, evolving, thinking about the bigger things and focusing, too, on the greatness of the small things.
One of the big changes in my life came with being diagnosed with diabetes ten years ago, losing, over the course of ten years, forty pounds and finding again how much I enjoyed swimming. I was once a competitive swimmer; I quit at 16, I just didn’t like being so focused on winning. It spoiled swimming for me. Now, I can’t wait; I get in the pool and just chug along until I’ve done two miles, three days a week. On the days I am not swimming, I miss swimming!
My blood sugar and A1C are NORMAL! I feel twenty years younger!
So today I welcome you in for some healthy and delicious snacks. (Yes! Chocolate is healthy!) All good things in moderation.
My healthy favorite, a blueberry smoothie!
Not boring fruit! Exciting presentation.
Charcuterie!
Veggies for the strong and courageous!
Oranges!
Small amounts of something delicious – you get to choose!
Chocolate to top us off, good healthy chocolate.
I appreciate your stopping my to help me celebrate. Thank you for your support these many years.
On A Mission: Target Eifel Tower
In preparation for this trip, we had several family meetings to put together activities and priorities. Each one of us came up with one “Must” (mine was wandering in the Marais – Mission Accomplished!) so that we had some focus. My granddaughter, N, wanted to go to the top of the Eifel Tower.
We started working on access to the tower months before we departed Pensacola. Tickets were not available. Ticket scalpers had begun scooping up access tickets early in the game and selling them for exaggerated prices. This made life uncomfortable for tours and guides and independent tourists. N’s mother and I would check the official website often, with no luck.
N’s mother is a determined woman – and she lived in a Paris suburb where she taught English for a year, how is that for bold? She determined that accessing the tower would be the number one goal on Day One. Once the family had rested, showered and dressed, they took off to find out what access possibilities looked like on the ground.
They learned it is all luck, but that there are some times when access is likelier than other times. Meanwhile, they had a wonderful adventure and found a Kebab restaurant they all loved.
AdventureMan and I also found a restaurant we loved, Chez Barbara, just a short walk from our hotel. We loved it so much we ate there twice. As an aside, usually I take great notes to help me write up these trips, but when I went to look at my notes, the only notes I had were the Menu from Chez Barbara!
Chez Barbara
47 Rue Washington
75008 Paris France
Menu at Chez Barbara
ENTRÉES
Escargots – 6 pièces 10.00€
Croustillant de chèvre sur salade 8.00€
Carpaccio de bœuf fromage dur et câpres 10.00€
Melon et Jambon Serrano 10.00€
Burrata sauce pesto tomates 10.00€
PLATS
Croque Mr frites ou salades 13.00€
Croque Mme frites ou salades 14.00€
Burger ‘Chez Barbara’ frites 17.00€
Salade italienne 16.00€
Salade, tomates, artichauts, burrata, jambon sec
Salade de croustillant de chèvre chaud 16.00€
Fish & chips 19.00€
Mi-cuit de thon au sésame et purée 19.00€
Bœuf bourguignon (Black Angus) purée de pommes de terre 19.00€
Cuisse de canard confit purée de pdt 19.00€
Tartare de bœuf frites & salade 19.00€
Entrecôte grillée sauce au poivre frites 22.00€
DESSERTS
Crème brulée 8.00€
Tarte tatin, crème fraîche ou glace vanille 8.00€
Fondant au chocolat crème anglaise 7.00€
Baba au rhum 9.00€
SNACK
Tapenade des olives 6.00€
Grissini et Jambon Serrano 7.00€
Assiette de frites 5.00€
Assiette de charcuteries 12.00€
Assiette de fromage 9.00€
Croque Mr frites 13.00€l
I share this with you so you can see the prices, which we found quite reasonable. Wines, beer, and liquors also seemed reasonable – this is downtown Paris, a block from the Champs Elysees’.
What drew us to Chez Barbara was the menu – very down to earth French foods – and then the atmosphere. This was not a snooty restaurant. It was a local restaurant. In the outside seating area, a local sports team was meeting (heavy on beer and french fries) and a girl met up with a man who looked like her father, and they had a plate of french fries and a plate of cold cuts, which they shared, and several glasses of wine. A friendly Australian who worked as a day laborer offered to translate but we told him we were OK, and thanked him for his offer. There was a television and a small bar.
It was also another very hot evening, and we were jet-lagging. We split an Italian salad and a Beouf Bourguignon, and we drank a red Bordeaux. It was a great evening.
Police presence was heavy. As we ate (again, the windows to the street collapsed to the side, we were entirely part of the outdoors) several police cars came by nee-ner, nee-ner, and on the way back to the hotel we saw a person being ticketed for stopping. It was a chauffeur, waiting for a family dining at Cafe’ de Paris.
True confession: AdventureMan was very angry with me for photographing the police in action. He was right. I was probably not supposed to do that. Sometimes I take unnecessary risks. Don’t do what I do!
We linked up with our family who were eager to get to bed, get a good night’s sleep, and AdventureMan made plans for the next day to hike up to the top of the Arch with the grands while Mom and Dad sought to get those elusive tickets to climb the tower.
Seventeen Years as Intlxpatr
I don’t blog as often these days – who knew retirement would be so busy? I’ve now lost 40 pounds in retirement – did I mention I was diagnosed diabetic about ten years ago? I started with water aerobics, and when COVID hit, went bach to swimming. We learned to swim in Alaska, when we were very young. Everyone had boats, and every kid learned to swim, even though we had life jackets. The pool where we learned to swim, Evergreen Park, doesn’t even have that old glacier-river fed swimming pool anymore. Yes. It was cold. It didn’t matter. We loved swimming.
Now I am swimming three days a week, 2 miles a day. I love getting up early in the morning and hitting the pool early. I love the quiet of lap swimming and the noise of my pool buddies. It’s a great way to start the day.
I found this great Blogaversary cake honoring those early days in Alaska – won’t you have a piece? There’s another, if you don’t want to mar the beauty of this one.
Being an Alaskan has profoundly influenced who I am; it gave me a spirit of adventure and exploration. We spent a couple years in Seattle, and then moved to Germany with our lively parents, who took us everywhere during the 10 years they lived there.
We lived in Heidelberg. We had our high school proms and graduation in the Heidelberg Castle. We would jump on a train and go to Paris, or Berlin, or Amsterdam. It was an extraordinary adventure.
I met AdventureMan when my sister married in the Heidelberg Castle. We’re heading back later this year to visit some of the cities we were unable to visit during the long years of the Cold War, when there was a wall and a curtain that kept us all divided.
All those early years, they didn’t have “blogging.” It wasn’t until I got to Doha that I discovered blogs, and not until I got to Kuwait that I took the plunge and started this blog. I was terrified. The blogging scene could be rough, and people writing anonymous comments could be brutal. An expat who offended a high official could be sent home, and I didn’t want my husband to suffer for my mistake.
As it turned out, while it was important to tread carefully, blogging opened up a whole new world to me, and I met some really special people who helped me see things in new ways. Blogging changed my life. It gave me a voice, even if it was a timid one. The longer I blogged, the more confident I became – thanks to my fellow bloggers and friends who encouraged me.
So, to honor you, I do this annual virtual party, and invite all of you to enjoy these astounding cakes that people with vision create. I celebrate them, too, and their wondrous talent.
I appreciate the years of friendship and support you have given me. I thank you for reading about my travels and adventures, and for sharing my joys and woes. Thank you, thank you.
Four Corners: Hiking and Petroglyphs
I used to be such a good blogger. I’d take a trip, or have an interesting experience, and I would sit right down and write all about it. It took me a couple months to write up the Barcelona to Abu Dhabi Trip and now – it is August, and I am just now getting to May in Colorado. The focus of this trip is family and hiking, and the map is below:
We love flying into Denver; my niece, Little Diamond (now Professor Little Diamond 😊 ) lives there with her twins and husband-soon-to-be. More and more we choose to rent with Hertz; they have a special relationship with our insurance company and we get good deals. This time, we rolled in and they said “pick any car in this row” so we chose a beautiful cadet blue Suburu Forester.
After an evening of family fun, we headed out early next morning for Montrose, CO, and took a beautiful drive with snow and the early signs of Spring through Ute territory. You’ll see a map of all of that later – it’s astounding.
We’re having a lot of fun with the Subaru; it drives great but we are having to get used to the motor turning off every time we stop. It starts up quickly enough when we press the gas, but it is unnerving at first. I also was confused about what the temperature was; it went through wild fluctuations until I discovered that what I thought was the temperature gauge was in fact the miles-per-hour reading.
It’s a mixed kind of day for our first drive, lots of sunshine, but also enough clouds to give us some drama, once even a brief snowstorm, and stunning contrasts between late winter and the first signs of Spring as we roll along. All in all, it’s a glorious day.
We arrive in Gunnison at lunch time – a great Western Town.
We chose the W Cafe because, as you can see on the sign, this is where the locals eat. It’s Mother’s Day and we got here just in time before the after-church crowd arrives. I asked the cashier if I could take her photo. I thought the owner of this cafe showed genius. All the waitresses were local. They were all pretty, and they all knew all the people who came in. No wonder this is where the locals eat! The food was pretty good, too. We didn’t expect a lot of salad and/or vegetables out here in hiking country, but to our surprise, we were able to find them with almost every meal.
We head on from Gunnison to Montrose, where we have reservations at a B&B. The scenery makes a dramatic change.
These are the Collegiate Mountains.
Sweet Sixteen: Intlxpatr Celebrates Blogging
Welcome friends, to a virtual celebration of 16 years of blogging as Intlxpatr. Where we are living now, in the deep South, the pineapple is a symbol of welcome. You are welcome here.
Old friends have asked if we miss “the life.” Yes. We do. And we have a new life, a life we never dreamed would be so happy. We live just blocks away from our son and his wife, and our two grandchildren. My son and his wife are in the prime of life, working, busy, and trying to keep up with a jarring pace of life.
We are called in frequently. In the summers, we help drive to and from daily camps, and we often have the grandkids in the afternoons. School started in August; on Sundays, we coordinate with Mom and Dad on which days they will need us for which drop-offs or pick-ups, or appointments, or – well, we stay flexible. And we stay busy. And being so closely connected gives us purpose and joy.
I also have joy in this new life having rediscovered my love of the water. I am swimming 2 miles three days a week. Well, most weeks. I have buddies at the pool, and sometimes I spend too much time catching up, and then I have to scramble to get my laps in. I tell myself it isn’t about the numbers, it’s about living a good life. A good life needs good friends. Thank YOU for being with me on this journey.
We are about to take our first trip overseas since our Bordeaux trip in 2019. We will be going back for brief visits, mostly to places we have been before. Yes. We will be taking you along. As with so many of our trips, there are often times where, even in this day and age, we are without access to reliable internet, but we manage ☺️.
COVID has been a long slog. As you may know, I lost my Mother, early in the epidemic. She lived in Seattle and was one of the earliest victims. The grief I experienced hit me hard; I became touchy and angry, I didn’t love the things I loved, and it took me a long time to get through the uncomfortable process of grieving. Every year, in October, I make my Mom’s famous chocolate fruit cakes. In September (yesterday) I made her wonderful Autumn Plum Cake (pflaumekuchen).
And because, as we age, we are increasingly aware of fitness, and the need to eat the right foods, I will include something fabulous and healthy:
Yes, another first on Intlxpatr, LOL.
And because I firmly believe it is wise to drink less, I prefer to drink less of a really good wine.
A toast! To living well, my friends, whatever that might look like in your life. Bonne fete!
The Paradox of Cool
Months ago, after yet another trip out West, a friend asked me if Portland was as “hip” as its reputation. I didn’t know what to say. Yes, Portland is hip.
I’ve been thinking about “hip” and “cool” ever since.
I know what cool is to me. I’ve seen it. Cool was the Episcopal and Anglican priests I met serving overseas; Tunis, Jordan, Doha, and Kuwait – priests who lived their faiths with joy and confidence, and priests who also loved their Moslem brothers and sisters.
In my own neighborhood, cool is the two retired civil servants who love to cook, and who organize a weekly dinner for the homeless, also providing to the best of their ability for other needs; toiletries, clothing, insect repellent, water to go, toys for the homeless children. They are committed to their work, and their joy in what they do attracts others who serve with them. In their own quiet way, they have created acceptance for their same-sex marriage, just by being exactly who they are: people who care about others.
Cool was ambassadors in the foreign countries in which we served, those accused of going a little bit native, those who were open to learning other ways of thinking and valuing cultures in addition to the one they represented, those who were less concerned with dignity than with creating understanding and brotherhood between our cultures.
Cool was the Kuwaiti bloggers who initiated me into the art and craft, and who often led the way with their courageous evaluations of their own society and societal follies. I learned so much from them. And from Kuwaiti quilters, who welcomed fellow crafters from many traditions, and created space for us to learn from one another.
The paradox of cool, to me, is that it comes to those who do not seek it. The paradox of cool is that if you want to be it, you exclude yourself from it. Cool comes from within, from knowing who you are, from an inner clarity as to what your purpose of existence might be, and from a willingness to risk and to explore.
So I would like to ask – how do YOU define cool? Who do you think is cool? Help me widen my perspective.
Intlxpatr Celebrates 15 Years of Blogging
How could I miss my own blogaversary?
Fifteen Years! Whoda thunk it?
Remember when we all got started? 2005? 2006? I was reading blogs like Waiter Rant, Jewaira’s Boutique, Hilaliyya, Fonzi – and the lively Kuwait blogging scene inspired me to take a chance.
I’m not a big risk taker. My style is more uner-the-radar. The Kuwait bloggers welcomed me in, provided lively and stimulating feedback, we encouraged one another and we never looked back.
All these years later, I’m astonished to find I am still blogging. I remember a lengthy conversation in one of the comments sections about why we blog. I am still convinced that we blog because . . . that is what we are wired to do. We cannot other.
So really, I have an excuse for missing the exact day – September 6th – of my blog’s beginning.
I’ve been traveling. I bought a new computer, and you know those steep learning curves . . . I learned that when you buy a new computer, you no longer have compatible card readers with which to upload your photographs. If I’ve taken a photo with my iPhone, I can AirDrop it to my photo files, but anything taken with a camera to a SanDisk is just (pardon my language) SOL.
I also discovered that my good friends at Amazon don’t always tell me the truth about compatibility, so even though I bought an Apple gizmo that promised me to work with my new computer, it did not; it never even had the possibility. Go figure.
As a hint to what is coming, instead of Champagne, or Vouvray, or Sancerre, or a fine Bordeaux, this year we are going to have some refreshing, delicious Flathead Cherry Juice.
Thank you for coming by, thank you for your faithfulness and support these fifteen years and thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for reading, and for commenting, whether online or behind the scenes. Thank you for following. You, and our conversations, are what keep me going. Many thanks.
I Stand Corrected
Today is the coldest day we have had in Pensacola this winter. As we headed out for early church, the temperature was 30 degrees F., there was frost on our roof and the bird bath had a skin of ice on it. “A good day not to exercise,” I said to myself. After church, I spent a couple hours prepping for dinner and making up my oatmeal mix for a couple weeks to come, as I am running low. (Separate blog entry 🙂 )
I’m an early person. If I am going to get it done, I need to get it done early in the day. By five at night, when I need to be thinking about dinner, I just don’t care. I know, I know, I am a bad woman to admit to such a thing, but trust me, I am legion. I’ve learned to think about dinner early in the day, and to prep.
But it’s Sunday, and it’s cold (yes, yes, I am rationalizing) and I swam three days last week and I have all my prep done so I make an executive decision to give myself a break today. And no sooner had I given myself permission to sit myself down than AccuWeather alerted me to an article about the importance of exercising in cold weather, which I will share with you now:
What you need to know about ‘brown fat’ and exercising in the cold
By Amanda Schmidt, AccuWeather staff writer & Kevin Byrne, AccuWeather staff writer Copied
AccuWeather’s Dexter Henry talked to a veteran fitness instructor and the creator of Fit N’ Play Mama about ways you can stay active this holiday season.
The shift to colder, winter weather often makes us feel lethargic and deters our motivation to go outside.
But before you pull over the blankets or curl up by the fire to watch your favorite show, you should consider the potential benefits of cold-weather workouts.
Aside from helping to ease fears of potential winter weight gain, exercising outdoors in colder weather has numerous health benefits.
New York City native Alec Barab gets in a morning run in the snow on 12th Ave. in Denver’s historic district on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)
While many avoid the cold, outdoor winter workouts are a great way to take in small doses of sunlight. The sunlight can help to improve mood and help with vitamin D intake, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).
Winter exercise boosts immunity during cold and flu season. A few minutes a day can help prevent simple bacterial and viral infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Shivering, a mechanism to produce heat, also burns a significant amount of calories. Studies have shown that people expend five times more energy when shivering, compared to when they are resting.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE ACCUWEATHER APP
Regardless of exercise, studies have shown that being outside in cold weather can transform white fat, specifically belly and thigh fat, into calorie-burning beige or brown fat.
Brown fat’s purpose is to burn calories to generate heat. Brown fat is often referred to as the “good” fat because it helps to burn rather than store calories. It is typically found in areas around the neck and kidneys.
AccuWeather National Weather Reporter Dexter Henry recently sat down with Nataliya Galifianakis, a clinical assistant professor of biology at New York University to learn more about how brown fat is beneficial during the winter.
NYU Clinical Assistant Professor Nataliya Galifianakis explains the effects of exercising in cold weather and how that generates brown fat in the human body. (AccuWeather)
“Brown fat can actually create heat,” Galifianakis told Henry. “Brown fat cells instead of using calories to make energy, it uses calories to produce heat.”
One of the signals for the activation of brown fat is exercise, Galifianakis said.
In addition to making new brown fat because a human body exercises, the generation of brown fat is also increased because someone is exercising in the cold weather, she explained.
“Brown fat could be activated by cold,” Galifianakis said. “Chronic cold exposure activates your brown fat cells.”
A 2014 study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, showed people have more genetic markers for brown fat in the winter than during the warmer months. This could signal slightly more calorie burn in the winter as the body insulates itself.
“Browning fat tissue would be an excellent defense against obesity. It would result in the body burning extra calories rather than converting them into additional fat tissue,” study author Dr. Philip A. Kern said in a release.
People run in the snow across the Williamsburg Bridge, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
While the cold weather may deter some from outdoor physical activity, working out in the cold has several advantages over warmer weather workouts.
There is no heat and humidity to deal with in colder weather. Winter’s chill might even make you feel awake and invigorated, according to the AHA.
In the cold, your body can regulate its temperature a little better. This means you can often exercise farther or longer; therefore, you can potentially burn even more calories, according to AHA.
Exercising in extreme temperatures, hot or cold, has shown the ability to enhance endurance and mental edge. However, it is important to be aware of the potential risks and proper safety precautions before venturing out.
+++++++++++++++
So me again. I stand corrected. I know I need to go out for a swift walk, and shiver in the cold, burn that brown fat! And here I sit, in my toasty warm house, watching Fareed Zacharia and chatting with you . . . . Most days I exercise early, and it actually gives me more energy; I accomplish more during the day when I exercise early. If I miss that first-thing-in-the-morning slot, it’s a lot harder to get to it later. I’m thinking about it.
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