Here There and Everywhere

Expat wanderer

Hotel Le Meridian N’Fis in Marrakesh

I can be a pain in the neck when I don’t get my way. When we booked, we had been told our room would be at the Sofitel Marrakech, and I was excited. When we got our final package, we found we were going to the Meridian N’Fis, not the same kind of hotel at all.

“Oh, but it is one of the finest rooms!” we were assured, and they explained that it just was too cumbersome to have some of the guests in one hotel and some in another. Umm. OK.

We hopped in a cab from the Jamaa El-Fna; it was easy. The cab ride cost a dollar. We could have walked, but we didn’t know where the hotel was, and it was maybe a mile away. Our guide had called and said we would be arriving separately (our guide, Antonio, was superb) so they were expecting us. They gave us an orientation, and showed us to our room.

 

Entrance to the hotel:

EntranceToMeridien

 

MeridienEntrance

 

Passage to our room:

EnRouteToOurRoom

 

Gardens and pool:

 

MeridienGardens

 

Gorgeous serene spa:

 

MeridienAlcove

 

Lovely seating areas:

MeridienSeatingArea

 

Hallway to bar, lounge and restaurant:

MeridienHallwayToDiningRoom

 

You can see, it is a lovely hotel, modern, clean, has some atmosphere. Here is our room. It is spacious, the bathroom is large, and we have our own sitting area with complimentary wine and fruit, and our own patio outside. It’s lovely.

MeridienRoom

 

MeridienOurPatio

 

MeridienBathroom

 

MeridianRoomSeatingArea

 

MirrorDetailinRoom

You can see it is very modern and very clean. We also discovered it is across from a mall, which, when we visited, reminded us greatly of Qatar and Kuwait, and we wondered if Gulf money was invested in creating the mall. It had a Carrefour, and many modern stores. It was fun wandering around with the Moroccan shoppers. The hotel is only a short distance from the oldest and newest shopping areas in town.

I tried to be a good sport. (I am betting AdventureMan would roll his eyes; I was quiet, and disappointed, and not very happy.) I would never stay here in a million years if I were not part of a group. It is western. It is Morocco-lite. I remember with great nostalgia the homey hotel we stayed in years ago, with its wonderful tiny restaurant and genuine food, tiled walls and beautifully worked wood and I wish we were staying somewhere “more Moroccan.”

The bed is wonderful. The bath is wonderful. The promised Wi-Fi is non-existent.

We had a “garden” view. I asked the conceirge where the rooms were that had the view of the Atlas mountains, and he said only a few rooms, at the top of the hotel had a view, and only on a very clear day. It must have been these rooms:

RoomsThatMightHaveViewofAtlas

The food in the dining room is pretty good. In fact, we ate pretty well. Breakfast featured one woman making thin, flaky Moroccan pastries, worth waiting in line for.

As we left the hotel for El Jadida, there were souvenir vendors at the bus. Our fellow travelers who had stayed with the group were a little shopping-starved, and these vendors did great business. The prices seemed reasonable, too, as shoppers snapped up silver bangles, earrings, clothing and shawls. As the buses began to pull out, the most popular vendor hopped on her motorcycle to head for the next stop. I admired her entrepreneurship.

 

P1110317

December 26, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Africa, Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Cultural, Customer Service, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Food, Gardens, Hotels, Morocco, Quality of Life Issues, Relationships, Restaurant | , , | Leave a comment

Dining in the Dar Es Salaam, Marrakech

Screen Shot 2015-12-26 at 9.36.47 AM

 

We have driven a couple hours to get from Casablanca to Marrakech, and the bus lets us off just a short walk from the restaurant, the Dar Es Salaam. I don’t believe this restaurant is open to the public; I believe this restaurant is a dedicated group-tours service restaurant.

I admire what they do. They have a lovely venue, it looks like it might have been one of the grand old homes in the city, or even an old mosque. It has elaborate decorations, and lovely spaces. Whatever it was at one time, it has been gutted, and turned into a restaurant that can seat and feed many many people in a very short amount of time.

P1110258

Those are not leftover bread crumbs on the table, they are rose petals to welcome groups.

P1110259

 

Dar Es Salaam empty

Tables were marked with signs indicating Smithsonian and/or Purple, and as soon as eight people were seated around a table, service began, first hot towels, then water and small appetizers/mezze. They were pretty good. Most were not heavily spiced.

Dar Es Salaam filling

DarEsSalaamTable

Appetizers were some kind of lentils, a beet salad, a mashed potato and pea combination, something maybe with a little lamb, and olives. The olives were delicious.

P1110256

DarEsSalaamDecoAndLight

 

 

 

P1110257

 

 

P1110260

They served a huge tajine with some kind of beef dish. It was well cooked, like beef and carrots, with little or no spices that I could detect. Nourishing. Filling.

The venue is spectacular. It is truly a fabulous environment in which to take a meal. The catering service has paid attention to detail, with rose petals on the table, good settings, enough water, good sweets at the end of the meal and hot mint tea poured with a flourish. The restrooms were clean and there were several. I admire the way they can serve so many people so quickly, get-them-in, get-them-out and give them a meal in which there is little to object to . . . unless you’ve had Moroccan cooking before, and like a little taste in your food. We like taste in our food.

We’ve been married and traveling together for so long now that we know we aren’t going to be able to stay with the group. We love Marrakech; we’ve been here before. The last time was with our son, about fifteen years ago, but not a lot has changed. Our group leader looks a little worried, until we explain that we know the city, we speak Arabic and French, we know the customs, and we can find our way to the hotel on our own when we are finished. We walk – we almost run – away before anyone else knows we are gone.

 

December 26, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Character, Cultural, Customer Service, Eating Out, Entertainment, ExPat Life, Food, Geography / Maps, Hot drinks, Morocco, Quality of Life Issues, Restaurant, Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

Bodega Mezquita in Cordoba, Spain

As soon as our guide finished talking, we quickly walked to the Bodega Mesquita and were greeted and seated within seconds 🙂 The menu was huge, but it also had photos to help us along. When we return to Seville from Cordoba, we are boarding our ship. We expect to stop in Cadiz, and have another opportunity for a dinner out, but eating in a country, in our experience, is a meaningful part of the whole experience, one we don’t want to miss!

 

BodegasMezquita

 

They bottle their own brand of oil and vinegar:

 

P1110094

When we got there, there were only a few people, but within minutes every seat was taken. This is the interior:

InteriorBodegaMezquita

 

We wanted to try real Spanish gazpacho; it was really good. AdventureMan says mine is better, but I think the taste was close. I like mine, too, but I was happy to taste REAL gazpacho and to find mine was not far off. We also had a mixed salad.

BodegaMezquitaGazpachoAndSalad

Then we had a pork steak of the region. Things came one by one, there were also some meatballs, but somehow we didn’t get a photo of those.

BodegaMezquitaSteak

By the time this little tuna steak arrived, we were stuffed. We had split the dishes, and thought it would be about right, but we ordered too much, and we also ran out of time. AdventureMan had to pay the bill while I used the (very clean) restroom, and we raced to try to find silver filigree jewelry in our ten minutes before the meeting up time, which was a hopeless thing to do. Oh well, I do have enough jewelry 🙂

BodegaMezquitaTuna

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Cross Cultural, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Restaurant, Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Cordoba, The Mezquita, and Sharing Sacred Spaces

(Yes, it is Christmas Eve, and my part of the preparations are all done. AdventureMan is cooking a duck for the family dinner tonight, the Gulf Coast jumbo shrimp is all cooked and shelled and de-veined, the Rotkohl spicing up the kitchen, the salads and side dishes ready to go. 🙂  I have time, oh, the great luxury of time, to write . . . )

When we lived in Amman, we often went to Syria. I went once with an archaeological group, visiting several sites in the bleak cold of the Syrian winter. One site I didn’t see a lot of hope for, the site of St. Simon the Stylite, a hermit who sat atop a pillar and was considered holy. In truth . . . I scoffed.

I scoffed until I reached that isolated hilltop, and saw the giant pillar, and felt how very cold it was as the icy wind blew. We were there two or three hours. I had to confront my unwillingness to believe and the fact that with every zinging atom in my body, I could feel that this was a sacred place. Saint Simon chose a weird sort of sacrificial life, but in God’s eyes, I suspect it mattered. I know visiting that site changed me, and changed my ideas about sacred spaces.

Today, I get to write about a visit to another sacred space, a space you can feel resonating from the moment you enter, the Mezquita.

*        *             *              *                *                   *                       *                    *                     *

It’s early breakfast for the Smithsonian group, and then we check our whisper guides and board our bus en route to Cordoba.

Traveling with a group is a novelty for us. It means using an alarm clock to be at scheduled breakfast and getting on a bus for a 2 hour drive. On our own, we wake when we wish – usually early, but not so early as with this group. We are not usually at a breakfast with a lot of people looking for food at the same time. We are not used to coffee makers that make one cup of coffee at a time while a 100 people line up for coffee. These are things that are not normal in our experience. We might find a local small store, pick up some water and some small snacks, and hit the road, stopping here and there to take a photo or just savor a view, have some water, soak in the fresh air. On the other hand, these bus drivers know where to go and there is no getting lost trying to find the right route out of town.

 

En route to Cordoba, most of the jet lagged Smithsonian group slept. Wide awake, I watched as acres and acres of olive groves and wind farms passed by. We saw an ancient fortification on the side of a hill that had a view to die for – 270 degrees plus of visibility.

It is raining once again as we arrive in Cordoba, but almost immediately it stops, and by the time our group has walked up the hill by the Mezquita, the sun is out and the day shows great promise. Cordoba is beautiful. Everywhere you look is some exquisite detail. Cordoba is a treat for the eyes.

 

Even the police are polite and helpful, directing tourists to where they need to go:

PoliceGiveDirectionsAtThe Mezquita

Art Nouveau bench:

CordobaArtNouveauBench

 

Flower pots on the stucco walls:

 

CordobaFlowerPots

 

Tourists coming up to The Mezquita:

P1110043

Masques in a local art shop:

 

CordobaMasks

 

Finely wrought silver filigree jewelry:

CordobaSilverJeweler

At one point, we had a choice: Do we go shopping or do we have lunch in a highly rated local place? I bet we could do both, and we opted for lunch – more on that to come. At the end of lunch, we had only ten minutes to shop and not enough time to get back to this wonderful shop. I won’t call it a regret; lunch was a wonderful experience . . . and I do love filigree, and this artisan had beautiful silver filigree . . .

CordobaSilverFiligreeEarrings

 

Ben Maimonaides, a Jewish scholar and ethicist, with wide influence. This was a continuing theme on the entire trip, that the interaction between Jew, Christian and Moslem in this period led to a great leap in ideas and artistry. The interaction was like pollination; science and the arts and mathematics and medicine bloomed.

I wonder if this is happening today, as Moslems, Jews and Christians study together in universities, to they interact and inspire one another? Is it possible that in spite of dire political headlines, under the radar, people are learning to cooperate and collaborate in the interest of a better world?

(Wikipedia: Aside from being revered by Jewish historians, Maimonides also figures very prominently in the history of Islamic and Arab sciences and is mentioned extensively in studies. Influenced by Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037), Averroes (1126–1198) and Al-Farabi (ca. 872–950/951), he in his turn influenced other prominent Arab and Muslim philosophers and scientists. He became a prominent philosopher and polymath in both the Jewish and Islamic worlds.

CordobaBenMaimonaides

Bulls everywhere, LOL

CordobaBull

An artistic courtyard

CordobaCourtyard

 

Love the little blue pots, and love the people who take care of them!

CordobaBluePot

After our walking tour of Cordoba central, we gather in the gardens while our guide goes to pick up our tickets to take us inside the Mezquita, built as a mosque, becoming a cathedral after 1492.

Did I mention we learned two major dates on this trip: 711, when Tariq crosses into Spain (Jebal Tariq . . . Gibraltar) and 1492? Americans know 1492 as the year “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred ninety two, but 1492 is the year that the Moslems were driven out of Spain, weeping at the loss of Andalusia, Al-Andalus.

When the Moslems were driven out of Cordoba, the huge, beautiful mosque, Al Mesquite, was not destroyed, but recycled, repurposed, space holy to one faith became holy to another. I love it that the original mosque, with its spectacular soaring arches and inspirational proportions, was recognized, and re-utilized. Holy space is holy space. We worship the same God. We saw the shrine to John the Baptist in the Grand Ummayad Mosque in Damascus; why should we not share holy spaces?

 

CordobaChurch

Cathedral Cordoba

This is what you see immediately upon entering the Mezquita – a gorgeous kind of meshrabiyya covering the windows, patterning the light as it enters, keeping the harsh heat out and shrinking light in star like patterns across the floor.

CordobaMezquiteMeshrabiyya

 

The interior of this mosque/cathedral takes my breath away. It was crowded with tourists, but it just swallowed them up and maintained its sacred integrity. We could wander off and still hear our guide, thanks to this whisper-technology, where we all had headphones and our guide could broadcast. This was a place where I needed to wander off and experience it on my own, but felt some responsibility not to get too far afield from the group. I didn’t want to be a pain in the neck for the guide. And I also didn’t want to be a part of the group within this structure. It’s a problem.

Just look at these spaces:

CordobaMezquiteInterior

I’ve always had a thing about light fixtures, LOL, I probably should own a lamp show except I would only stock what I like and I would have a hard time selling anything in the shop. Guess it’s just a good thing for me to admire light fixtures and not to have to manage them.

CordobaMezquiteLightFixture

The beautiful Mihrab (points you in the direction of worship in a mosque) from the original mosque:

CordobaMezquiteMihrab

The Christian altar built in a structure added to the original mosque:

CordobaAltar

With a piece depicting King Ferdinand holding a globe:

CordobaMezquiteFerdinand

CordobaMezquiteTower

 

As the tour ended, our tour guide warned us that we had only an hour and a half for lunch, so not to go to a restaurant, just find something quick, or shop, and BE BACK ON THE MEETING PLACE AT TWO!

We had seen a restaurant we wanted to try, so raced to it. We hate being rushed, and part of the fun of traveling is trying new kinds of food in new places!

 

P1110106

 

P1110099

 

SanRafael

 

P1110104

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Blogging, Cross Cultural, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Faith, Family Issues, Quality of Life Issues, Survival, Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Aladdin; Back to our Roots in Seville

We have discovered this tour group stuff isn’t so bad as long as we have time and opportunity to go off on our own, stroll the cities, find delicious places to stop and eat  . . .

 

But this evening is the Smithsonian gathering, where we all meet one another, and it is a lot of fun. The group is from all over the US, and is full of people about our own age who love travel and love to learn about the countries they are visiting. They have all lived such interesting and varied lives.  There are little appetizers, mostly the famous Seville ham, sliced into transparently thin slices, and cheeses and olives. The wine if flowing freely. We all introduce ourselves, visit a little, and then it is over.

 

We never thought we would want to eat again, after our lovely lunch at Al Tobaso, but decide we need a little something so we won’t be awake at four in the morning, starving. Just down the street from our hotel, we see just the place. We are hungry for something light, and here is Aladdin, with it’s menu of Arabic “tapas,” so we order grape leaves, hummus, baba ghannoush and felafel. It is fresh, and delicious, and we drink it with mint tea in beautiful Moroccan tea glasses, in preparation for our departure, tomorrow, for Cadiz and the voyage to Casablanca.

AladdinSign

 

AladdinOnStreet

 

AladdinInterior

 

AladdinTeaGlass

 

We slept well!

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Food, Hot drinks, Living Conditions, Travel | , , , | Leave a comment

El Tobaso in Seville, Spain

Two of our guides had mentioned Al Tobaso, and now that we are warm and dry, the sun is out and we have taken a serious nap, we are ready for a late Spanish lunch. We head for Al Tobaso, which is not far from our hotel, and are shown to a table.

The waiter if friendly, without being over-friendly, and brings us menus which we can’t really understand, but isn’t that part of why you go to a foreign country? You have to take a risk now and then, right? AdventureMan orders one selection from the daily menu, and I order another. He orders red wine, and I order water. We plan on taking a long walk, and if I drink wine with my lunch, I probably won’t, LOL.

AlTobaso

The waiter brings us a plate of delicious green olives, spicy and garlicky. YUMMM. And then, oh no, here comes a “flamenco” guitar player, and I put that in quotes because he sings the same thing pretty much over and over, and we recognize some words, “Bye, Baby, Bye”. He is at another table, one with lots of people, but there is no avoiding him, eventually he heads our way. In the meantime a man has come, and we think he is asking for money, but he gives the same speech at every table, no variation, and no one gives him anything. When the guitar player comes, AdventureMan gives him some change because at least he provided something, even if it was really, really bad.

green olives

When our main courses come, they look almost identical, but not. I have spinach and garbonzos, but what a difference from last night, these are spiced! We love our main courses, but we have no idea, still, what we are eating.

DailyMenu

dailyMenu2

We just can’t eat this much, and it is OK, we are happy. We wonder if my husband’s wine is included or extra, and then a platter of meat and cheese arrives, the meat looks and tastes like prosciutto, but we didn’t order this so we start getting concerned because we are afraid we will be charged for food we didn’t order. Then another plate, with two different kinds of salami arrives, and we don’t touch it.

SALAMIS

And then the bill arrives, and nothing is extra, it is all included. We just need to have a little more faith 🙂 The entire time we were in Spain, we were amazed at the quality of the food and the reasonable prices. We would go back to Al Tobaso in a heartbeat, but we need to learn a little more Spanish. The waiter has been so kind to us, and we are those ignoramuses who haven’t a clue. Lack of language skills kept us from asking about the meat and cheese and salamis, which either were included, or he was giving us because lunch hour was ending and he had some leftovers. Our lack of Spanish caused us to fear that which we didn’t understand. So unnecessary.

November 18, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Cultural, Customer Service, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Restaurant, Travel | , , | 2 Comments

Arrival in Sevilla, Spain

Except for that moment on our way to the airport, everything was smooth as glass. That moment? As we are in the taxi on the way to the airport, I am thinking how wonderfully lightly I am traveling and suddenly, by the grace of God, remember my carry-on bag, carefully packed, sitting in my room. We quickly turn the taxi around, go back and pick up my bag, and from there on, all goes smoothly.

Connecting in Charles de Gualle airport used to be a lot of fun. So many shops, so much time. Not now. There may be shops, but customs and security are a nightmare, and the new airport configuration boggles the mind. There was one bored, tired, annoyed looking Frenchman for lines of travelers as we arrived, and while we were close to the front of the line, it took forever.

Our trip back was worse; we had a tight connection. Entry was worse, lines and lines of desperate travelers, too few processors. Then we had to try to find E: M 32. It was a maze. I am normally pretty good with navigation, but CDG isn’t any fun, there is no logic, there is no assistance, no explanatory signage. We got to E, then had to find M, then had to get on a shuttle bus to somewhere else; it is purely horrible.

And I suppose it is the price you pay to fly Air France, which we love. Flying Air France is like a step back in time, where flight attendants were plentiful and gracious. We had slide-down-flat seats, great for sleeping, and good meals. We had hot washcloths and good coffee. It was worth every penny.

Our arrival in Malaga was our real introduction to group travel. Meeting us were Maria and Antonio, two consummate professionals who were greeting all the people coming in for this cruise/trip. First, we learned that there were several groups on board, in fact, just about everyone arriving was a member of some group or another. We were with Smithsonian, but others were with alumni groups, or affiliated in other ways. Once everyone on their list was checked off, we strolled to the bus, which required that the heavily laden would need the elevators. They led the group to one elevator, but AdventureMan and I spotted another elevator on the other side, and took that one.

The drive to Seville was 2 and a half hours. Many slept. It was a sunny day with some clouds, so mostly I watched the olive tree groves and the bull signs drift by, happy to be traveling in Spain.

Screen Shot 2015-11-13 at 8.52.11 AM

We were so impressed with the process at the hotel when we arrived; there were envelopes with the names of arriving passengers and their keys. It was all done for us, no registering, just straight to our rooms. We were happy to see we had a room in the rear of the hotel. Good firm beds and very quiet. Our our bathroom window, we had a view of a nearby church steeple, and the full moon 🙂

P1100915

The bar at the Fernando III was a lively place, and a gathering place for locals and hotel patrons:

FernandoBar

The breakfast hall had a large buffet but only two one-cup-at-a-time coffeemakers, which was a real bottleneck. If I were not traveling with a group and were staying in this hotel, I would not be happy, as most of the tables had signs on them designating different groups. There were not many for independent travelers, but then again, most of us in the group had early start dates as our tour groups gathered, and the independent travelers could eat at a more leisurely time:

FernandoBreakfastHall

The very best part of this hotel, as you can see in the screen shot above, is that it had a great location. We could walk anywhere, and we did. We walked and walked.

Our first night we were not very hungry, but we knew we would be (in the middle of the night) and that we needed to eat something to get our tummies on local schedule. We found a nearby restaurant, El Cordobes, and while the service was surly and a couple of the dishes mediocre, our main courses were delicious. I had wanted to try the spinach and garbonzos; they were all right. But when the shrimp, sizzling in garlic sauce arrived, oh WOW. AdventureMan had the paella, which was also very very good. We were sitting at a table on a sidewalk in Seville, watching a rugby game for which other tables were cheering and hollaring, drinking good beer, listening to the church bells and life is sweet.

ElCordobaRestView

GarbanzosSpinach

Paella

On the way back to the hotel we take a walk in the Santa Cruz barrio and get totally lost, wandering on the narrow little streets, full of flowers, shops, tiny grocery stores, restaurants, bars and tapas bars, stores with flamenco dresses, stores with spices, stores for the locals and stores for the tourists. By the time we were back at the hotel, we were ready for bed, and I had my first no-effort day with more than 10,000 steps. I didn’t even have to try, woooo hoo!

P1100910

November 13, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Arts & Handicrafts, Beauty, Character, Cross Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Experiment, Hotels, Paris, Restaurant, Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Quick trip to The Big Easy

On the road by six to make our appointment, every now and then things go just right and you can’t forget to be thankful. The process worked, and I should have my new passport . . . tomorrow! It is such good news I can hardly believe that things could go so smoothly.

And we have time for a really fun stroll through the nearby French Quarter, a drive through the Garden District and lunch at the Abyssinian Cafe; New Orleans has the nearest Ethiopian food to Pensacola.

One Cable Place, where the Westin Hotel shares space with offices in the tower, including the Passport Agency 🙂
P1100871

One of the Bevolo custom gaslight making workshops:
P1100878

P1100870

I was tempted, but where would I wear it?
P1100874

P1100876

The Cafe Abyssinia at 3511 Magazine, tucked back behind a shoe repair shop. It has a parking lot for outdoor parking, and outdoor seating for this most comfortable time of the year . . .

CafeAbyssiniaBehindShoeShop

CafeAbyssinia Exteropr

We would drive to New Orleans just to eat this feast – Doro Wat, a Vegetarian assortment, Lamb Tibs and a basked of freshly made injera. Heaven on earth.
CafeAbyssiniaDoroWatLambTibs

And back in Pensacola in time to make my late afternoon meeting! Life is sweet!

October 14, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Bureaucracy, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Local Lore, Pensacola, Quality of Life Issues, Restaurant, Road Trips, Travel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Quick Trip to NOLA

passport

AdventureMan and I are planners. We are headed out on a great adventure, and the first thing I did was pull my shiny new passport out of it’s place, put it on my desk and work on other things. Actually, I was looking for something else when I pulled the passport out, and still had it in my hand as I searched for the wallet I couldn’t find, and as I was looking, I thought “this is stupid, I could put the passport down and lose it” so I took it back and put it back on the desk.

Then followed a morning of trying to figure out which bags would be the best combination for this trip, what to take as carry-ons, what to take for a handbag, what to use as baggage, what clothing, what needs washing, let’s go ahead and change the beds while we are doing laundry, and oh, my hair needs washing and at ten a.m. I realized I didn’t know where my passport was. It wasn’t on the desk. For six hours I hunted everyplace I had been, like, just how stupid to you have to be to lose your passport in your own home?

I spent another six hours the next day, and then last night made an appointment in New Orleans, the nearest passport agency, to get an emergency expedited replacement. I keep thinking that once we get the new passport, the old one is sure to show up, isn’t that the way things go? On the other hand, I can’t afford to count on finding it when I won’t be able to go on the trip if I don’t have a passport.

I’ve been beating myself up. I can’t believe this has happened to me, but every now and then, things like this happen to everyone. It’s not like death, or war, or famine, or those brave refugees just trying to find a safe place where no bullets are flying and no one is trying to tell them that the way they practice their religion is just not right. It’s a luxury, but one I need if we’re going to do this trip.

So instead of mocking me, or making me feel worse, AdventureMan reminds me that there is an Ethiopian restaurant in New Orleans, not too far from the passport agency, and we might as well laisser les bon temps rouler while we are in the fair city. We’ll get up really early, be on time for our appointment, have a nice lunch and a leisurely drive back to Pensacola. He always knows how to turn a negative into a positive.

And pretty cool that we can take a day trip to New Orleans, take care of business, have a nice lunch and be back home for dinner.

October 12, 2015 Posted by | Adventure, Africa, Arts & Handicrafts, Bureaucracy, Cultural, Eating Out, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Living Conditions, Morocco, Quality of Life Issues, Relationships, Restaurant, Road Trips, Travel | , , | Leave a comment

Breakfast at the Ruby Slipper in Pensacola

When you are heading for the early service (AdventureMan calls it Episcopal Church Express) a lot can happen at the last minute. Write the check for stewardship. OOps, it’s raining, where is the umbrella? But it might not last long, where are my sunglasses?

We hurried, hoping to slide in under the wire, before the procession, when my friend stopped me at the door.

“There’s a new restaurant you will love! It opens early!”

“Where is it?” Restaurants that are open early on Sunday mornings are sparse. They exist, and they are full.

“It’s called Ruby Slipper, and it’s just down the street at Palafox and Main” she told me, and we scrambled to our pew before the procession started.

After church, we thought we’d give it a try. Was not hard to find – the streets are empty, and then there are all these cars parked, and there is Ruby Slipper.

I love the name. When I see sparkly shoes, I smile. Judy Garland searched for those shoes to take her back home to Kansas when she was eager to leave Oz. The name reflects how happy the restaurant was to re-open in New Orleans after the great flood and devastation following Hurricane Katrina. Ruby Slipper has four restaurants in New Orleans, and now this one in Pensacola. We are arriving on Day 2 of it’s opening.

00RubySlipperPalafoxMain

00RubySlipperWall

I’m surprised – and delighted – to see how big it is, how spacious. For all the cars, there are four separate seating areas, one outside, one just inside where the coffee bar is, one large seating area and then one more private area in the back. We are greeted at the door, and shown to a table. Service is cheerful, and enthusiastic, and everyone looks very happy to be working at the Ruby Slipper.

The menu is extensive. It’s just two sides of one sheet of paper, but so many choices that sound SO good. We know we will have to come back several times. It takes us a while to choose what we want today. I had thought to go with the ‘signature dish’ Eggs Cochon, but it seemed so rich.

00RubySlipperPickUp

AdventureMan ordered the Costa Rican breakfast, which he loved. Eggs on beans and rice, and very tasty. Enough for two people. Easily.

00CostaRicanBreakfastAnd Bacon

I ordered the Smoked Salmon Bennie, and it, too, was enough for two people. It also had very good smoked salmon, the hearty kind, like you can sometimes find canned in Alaska at the specialty stores. Oh YUMMM.

00SmokedSalmonBennie

We are greatly impressed. When we arrived here, Palafox was quiet. Not much was going on, and when night fell, nothing was going on. An amazingly generous couple ‘not from around here’ has made an enormous difference, investing in downtown Pensacola, buying derelict buildings and polishing them up, putting in cute little restaurants and boutiques and specialty stores. Someone put in an Al Fresco dining area. Someone else started up a monthly Gallery Night, which brings huge crowds to downtown one Friday night each month. All it took was a little vision, and soon Palafox, the main artery in downtown Pensacola, was voted one of the best main streets in the United States. Woooo HOOOO on generosity, and a little vision and investment.

Ruby Slipper has a great location and a varied menu. We wish them well, and welcome them to downtown Pensacola, where they brightened a rainy, dark and dreary Sunday morning.

July 5, 2015 Posted by | Community, Cultural, Customer Service, Eating Out, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Restaurant | 1 Comment