Cape Coast

Before I get into Cape Coast I have poopy news! My flight to DC has been delayed by 13 hours! Barf. I hate it. I'm so sad I am not going home this evening. I was SO excited to go home. So now I am supposed to get home at 6:45 pm. I was to arrive in DC at 5:45am tomorrow.

Now to Cape Coast...

(Elmina Castle from the Road Leading to the Town of Elmina)

(Inside the Castle)

Yesterday I travelled to the University of Cape Coast to conduct a few interviews. We left the hotel at 6:30am. Like the rest of my trip, the interviews (that I scheduled at least three weeks ahead of time) were delayed rescheduled, blah, blah, blah.

(this is where they chained slaves for punishment in the Sun)

So instead of waiting for an hour and half (and what turned out to be longer) in a small, hot office where the air conditioning barely worked, the driver took me to Elmina Castle. Elimina is an old Castle that was a trading post erected by the Portuguese. It later turned into a castle where slaves were traded. The conditions were dispicable and unimaginable. The driver (Alex-who is the absolute best--he and Isaac) walked me around and told me a little bit about the Castle.

 (If you look closely it is ALL people. I'm not sure I have seen anything so crowded!)

Elmina is also an area where the fishermen come to unload their catches and sell their fish. It is so incredibly packed. The boats are all wooden. There were some expert carpenters making the boats on the beach. I wonder how long it would take to make one boat? Everything takes so long here. You see half built buildings deserted and you wonder when was the last time someone came to work on the building.

Anyhoo...we left late to return and I didn't get back to the hotel until close to 8pm. I had to still do work because I had my final out brief for two different projects I'm working on. So I stayed up late and got up early to try to finish my write-ups. It was a bit miserable but I guess worth it because today went fine.

I'm ready to go...not really because I haven't packed yet but I'm eating dinner in the hotel lobby of spiced chicken and jollof rice again. Keep your fingers crossed my dinner agrees with me.

I miss my family SO much!

Saturday at the Pool

Today is Saturday, March 24th and my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Ma! I went to bed last night at about 11pm and woke up this morning at 9:10am. That is the longest I have slept in a long, long time. I guess my body was really tired. I probably could have slept longer because the reason I got up was from a knock at my door to clean my room. I forgot to put the "do not disturb" sign on my door. Duh! I was actually glad she woke me up because I might have missed breakfast.

Breakfast for me was just a lot of bread products because my stomach has been hurting since about 8pm last night. I'm okay just ate something that didn't agree with me. I'm drinking lots of water so I don't get dehydrated if you know what I mean. Lunch was also a Clif Bar because I was nervous to eat anything else. I brought Clif and Luna bars to eat every day :)

This morning there was a bride and groom taking pictures around the hotel. It was neat. The bride was amazing in a typicaly wedding dress and the mom (I think) was dressed in this beautiful African Dress with a big, beautiful head piece. I wish I had my camera. I wanted to sneak a pic.:)

I went to the pool today and did a little reading and work. It was nice. The pool is really beautiful. Here is a pic (at Becs' request):

As I was sitting by the pool I was thinking how disappointing it was that there are no lizards here. At the last hotel I stayed at (La Palm) I saw several walking around the pool. Not to be out done by the La Palm lizards, a Labadi Beach lizard showed it's face as I was leaving the pool.

Tonight I have been invited to have dinner at a work colleague's house. She invited me over at 6pm and I plan to take a cab. Don't worry Ma, I asked the driver who has been taking me around during the work week if it was safe and he said "yes" and it should cost about $3.

My hotel has it's own private area on the beach as well. It's actually pretty nice. There is a bit more litter than I care to see but its not too bad and there are little sand colored crabs running around on the beach...like the ones we saw at Virginia Beach.

Tomorrow I plan to work more - maybe go to the pool and maybe tomorrow I will go to Global Mamas, the shop Rebecca recommended. Even if I don't go tomorrow I will definately go sometime next week. On Thursday, I am going to Cape Coast to visit staff at the University and I think there is a shop their too.

That's about it for Saturday. Still looking forward to getting home!

In Ghana (yes, again)

So my Ma asked if I would blog while I was away and I couldn't refuse. I know she is less interested in what I am doing than just wanting to know that I am safe. How could I refuse that?

So I left DC yesterday Tuesday, March 20 at 11pm (EST) and arrived in Accra, Ghana at 2:30pm (Ghana time) on Wednesday, March 21. As most of you know we just arrived home on Sunday morning from a week long cruise in the Caribbean which was too fab! Yes, I am a little crazy. I will try to put some pictures on the blog of our trip when I get home. Anyhoo, I had enough miles to upgrade my ticket to business class which made my trip a bazillion times betters. There really aren't words to describe how much better business class is on an overnight 12 hour plane ride. It's just so much more civilized. I could actually recline to sleeping position and slept about 6 hours on the plane. I NEVER sleep on planes. I'm dreading the plane ride home because I don't have enough miles to upgrade on the way back. Boo, sad.

It's 90 degrees here and humid. They will start their rainy season in about a month. The hotel I'm staying at is nice but I haven't really got to explore yet because I have so much darn work to do. I ate dinner in my room: grilled spicy chicken with jollof rice and have been working since I got here. The power went out while I was eating for about 40 seconds and went off while I typing but this time it was out for about 20-30 minutes. Ugh! I hate that part.

I have to say...getting a little tired of the work trips, especially the international travel. Not sure what i'm going to do about that right now. My poor little guys were in tears when I left. I miss them so much too (and my big guy).

Here is my room:

 

Bathroom

 Room 1

 Room 2

It is a much, much nicer room than the hotel I stayed at last time.

Good night!

(Extended) Mother's Night Out

Thanks to Allan's generosity, Marcia and I enjoyed an extended Mother's night out. It was only Marcia's second time overnight without the children and it was my second or third night away not on business. On Saturday, we road the (Acela!) train to Philly arriving at about 2:00pm. We headed straight to hotel Sofitel (Bonjour!) where we were staying and while we were waiting to check in and waiting for our room to get ready we spent about 40 minutes with the hotel Concierge planning our trip. He arranged our dinner reservations, evening entertainment and spa treatment for the next day. He was the best!

After we checked into our room and tested our our super comfy beds, we did a little window shopping. We had a wonderful dinner at Sampan where we tried many different (not so small) modern Asian dishes. You are going to drop dead on the floor when you read this but one of my favorite dishes was the brussel sprouts. I know! I also loved the Papaya and Kobe beef salad and the lobster goyza.

After dinner we went to a play called Becky Shaw which was a 5 person cast show. The playwright is Gina Gionfriddo who is a producer/writer of Law and Order. It is a funny and serious story about a date set up and the date is a little wacky and sets in motion a number of events that the family then has to deal with. I have to admit that when I first sat down and the show started, I was expecting them to break into song. Musicals are the only shows I have seen recently. Also there was quite a bit of swearing in the show. I kept thinking "what's with the swearing?" and Marcia and I would keep looking at each other thinking "what with all the swearing?". I think it's because we both have this heightened hearing for swear words...whenever their is swearing on the TV or radio we change it so the kids don't hear and I haven't been to an adult play/musical for a really long time. After dinner and the play we went back to our hotel and had fresh, homemade ginger ale and an apple tartin with cinnamon ice cream in our hotel bar. Yum!

The next day we went to the Spa, Marcia got her hair cut and I got a facial. After that we did some more shopping and then had a fantastic late lunch at the Continental restaurant. It was delicious and probably the best meal we had. I had the veggie burger and french fries and Marcia had a corn, pablano and cheese omelet. For dessert we shared the "liquid" chocolate french toast which was totally to die for. After lunch we headed back to the train station for our 4:12 departure and we got into DC at about 5:45pm. It was a really nice and relaxing trip. We had such a great time.

While I was in Philly the boys went to see Princess and the Frog and ate dinner at McDonald's. They totally love it when I go away because they get to eat at McDonald's. The next day they were home most of the day because we were getting Direct TV installed. Sadly, our run of free cable has ended. Over the last year, the channels kept dropping and dropping. It was a good five year run!

Today we went over to Becs and Jake's house for a wonderful lunch of butternut squash lasagna, salad, baked ziti, roasted cauliflower and garlic bread and for dessert Bec's made the most delicious pumpkin chocolate bundt cake. It was such a wonderful meal and amazing company. Doris was with us and Kevin, Sarah and beautiful Liam. He (Liam of course) was so amazingly good the entire day we were with him. He sat quietly and content in his chair while we ate and he was happy to let us all play with him and hold him. He's a fantastic baby. (I'm going to try to add the cake and lasagna recipes on the sidebar of our blog too!)

Aidan and Leo love Becs and Jake's house because they are super nice, let the boys play Wii and because they have two cats, Reggie and Dewey. The loved watching Reggie jump in and out of the cat window/door, they also loved playing with him and his toys!, and they thought it was super cool that Reggie likes to play with (real) mice. They were mesmerized by the (real) mouse split in half in the front yard. Gruesome, I know, but boys like that kind of stuff. Leo was funny and got some toilet paper to pick up a dead bug for Becs and he used toilet paper to get a stink bug for her too! Bugs and mice how cool!

Bugs and Bats

So I am ready to go back to Jakarta to the comforts of the Grand Hyatt. I am constantly tired, dirty, sweaty, sun burned, puzzled by the toilet situation, sick of bugs and thirsty. Yesterday was the day to end all of days we were constantly on the go talking to people here and there through an interpreter. It was exhausting. We ended our day with dinner at a restaurant on the sea which would ordinarily be beautiful and a lovely experience but instead the restaurant was covered in stink bugs.

They were miniature versions of the stink bugs we have in DC but there were thousands of them. They were landing on our clothes, in our hair, smacking in our face, and landing in our food and on our table. It just got exhausting. At that point I was done with Aceh and ready to leave. As wonderful as the lime and pineapple juice was, and the fresh shrimp and fish and of course the company, the dinner was not pleasant because of the contant bug attack. They are harmless bugs but incredibly annoying. I don't do bugs well.

Alternatively, yesterday I had a fruit called rambutan (check it out Aidan and Leo it has a fun outter cover) which was delicious though the shells were a bit covered with ants which was annoying. Also I had my first fresh coconut, cut directly from a tree and opened with a machete. It was good, surprisingly tart, and it seemed like it had a bubble like a weak seltzer. I also had this delicious and amazing honey bread which melted in my mouth.

Also Aidan and Leo I saw a Fruit Bat today, actually I saw lots of them flying in the sky. They are huge and look to be the size of a crow. I took a picture but in the picture they look only like a speck. There must have been 10 of them flying around. I couldn't believe I saw it. Remember Aidan when we were looking in your bat book and we saw the fruit bat and I made you quickly turn the page because it was so ugly and big? That was it!!!

Today we have more meetings, visit one more school, and then we head to the airport to go back to jakarta.

I had some pictures but I am down in the breakfast area and they are up in my room. I will share them with you soon. It's too hot already at 7am to want to go back up to my room.

Aidan and Leo: your last surprise before I get home is somewhere in the house. I will give you one hint: it is upstairs in mommy and daddy's room. You can search all over our room to find it! I hope you love it and I can't wait to see you in a few days.

I'm missing you so much. Love you all day! Love you to the fartherest star in the sky and back.

Mommy

Banda Ache

A view from the top of a barge that landed about 2 miles aways from the water.

A beautiful Mosque in the center of the city.

I don't have a lot of time because my computer is running out of power but just wanted to let everyone know that I am now in Banda Aceh. We made it safely yesterday (it's a 2.5 hour flight from Jakarta), went to our hotel, went shopping a bit, and then had meetings all afternoon. After work some one from the Save the Children Office took us around to see some of the wreckage and impact from the Tsunami that occured the day after Christmas in 2004. There are no words to decribe what we see here today. It is unbelievable the impact the Tsunami had here (it was the closest place to the epicenter) and yet people from here speak about how amazed they were with all of the help that came to this area after the Tsunami. It's hard to imagine the toll that it has taken on people mentally. The person taking us around said that it was still hard to see it all.

The area is beautiful. There are big mountains, some 10,000-12,000 feet, right on the water, and with lots of palm trees. It is not covered in cheap tourist stores like Bali and it is has a busy, vibrant downtown.

A veiw of homes that were destroyed by the Tsunami that were never

claimed or never rebuilt.

A large ship that landed on tops of homes. The Mayor bought this land and is turning it into a memorial or museum.

The other half of the ship on top of a home.

We leave here tomorrow to return to Jakarta. It feels like we have been here for months rather than a week and a half. I am definately ready to go home.

Love you all!

Bali and Happy Halloween

Sunset view from the hotel bar "sunset bar" at about 6pm


View of the beach from the hotel (10am)

View from my balcony

We went to the airport on Friday for our flight to Bali leaving at 6:15pm. The flight was delayed by about two hours which totally stunk because Bali is also 1 hour ahead of Jakarta time and 12 hours ahead of DC time. So, I didn't end up getting to the hotel until after 11pm. We had some issues with the taxi but in the end didn't fight the $7 extra cab far. It was too late to bargain or fight. Friday was an exhausting day. We spent all day at two centers that work with children (street children and children at high risk of working in exploitive labor). We meet the center staff, parents and students. It was inspiring, fun, interesting, totally hot and utterly exhausting. You can imagine how annoyed, tired, and dirty I was when I arrived.

Children in a center for street children singing and playing guitar

However, once the taxi (finally) dropped me off I was in completely beautiful surroundings. My hotel is fabulous. When I got to the front desk they offered me a refreshing lime drink, the offered me a lower price than I had expected, and they upgrade me to a better room. Now I have the room one down from the presidential suite. Not bad! Plus they gave me free laundry service for 5 pieces which I was totally excited about (sad but true).

Breakfast area

My room is great. I have two bathrooms, a nice king bed, a living room and a dining area. I have an enormous balcony and wish my family were here so we could stay in Bali forever. I showered and slept well and got up on Saturday morning at about 8am. I went to breakfast and had an amazing breakfast with the best Mango, loads of other fruit and guava juice. Some of the fruit I had never scene before and it was quiet fun! After breakfast, I went to the beach and sat on the beach for a few hours and swam in the Indian Ocean. I never thought I would swim in the Indian Ocean. After hanging out on the beach I went to the hotel pool and stayed for a couple more hours, had some lunch and a dip in the pool. The sun is so hot here. I got burned. I have to stay out of the sun tomorrow. After the pool I went to the spa and had coconut scub, flower bath, and balinese massage. It was so fantastic. I went to my room and just vegged out on my bed so relaxed and calm.

Swimming pool

Another sunset view

Not wanting to miss the sunset I forced myself out of bed (at 5pm) and went to the sunset bar. I had a Bintang Beer and watched the sunset. It was quiet romantic, missing Jason and the boys but absolutely beautiful. When I asked for a table the waiter said, "Are you alone?" like what's wrong with you. I proudly said "yes" and we talked for a bit. I finished my beer and now I am sitting in the hotel's cafe that has free wireless and watching soccer on ESPN. I am debating going shopping this evening but to be perfectly honest I think I am just going to go back to my room, lay in bed, and read. I am reading the last book in the twilight series. hoo-hah!

Tomorrow, I have another appointment for the spa (you really can't beat it), then I think I will hang at the pool a bit and then shower, check out of my room at 2pm and then maybe do a little shopping. The spas are great here. They are not cheap at the nice hotels like mine but quite a bit cheaper than at home. You can go to some smaller places and get a massage for like 5 bucks but that's not very convenient and I don't know how much I trust the cleanliness with those places. I'm sure it's great but whatever.

Sadly, our flight leaves at 8pm to go back to Jakarta. After that we head three days to Aceh in the northern part of the island. I may not have internet connect there but let's see.

Happy Halloween Aidan and Leo. I hope you have a good time trick or treating. Save some candy for me and the good candy! Not just the kind you don't like. I can't wait to see snake eyes and buzz lightyear holma!

Miss you and love you lots. On Monday, Grandma Joan and Grandpa Russ come to visit you. They will be so excited to see you! I hope you have lots fun. See if Grandpa Russ can help you learn how to ride your bike, Aidan without the training wheels! Leo be sure to show Grandma Joan your collection of bats.

Love,

Momma

Thursday: Meetings Inspiring

Can you guess where I am? Keep reading...

Today we had more meetings. This email will be quick because I have to pack for Bali. We are leaving straight from our site visits tomorrow. There is a slight change in plans for Bali. I was planning on travelling with someone but as it turns out we have different expectations for our trip. She is looking for cheap $12/night villa and I am looking for Spa and Luxury (D and Becs keep it to yourself). We are flying together but then splitting up. C'est la Vie.

Today we had meetings to disucss our project. These are three girls who were rescued by our projects from trafficking. They have amazing stories and happily they are going to middle school now. They are all beautiful. The picture below is of a young man who was working as a child in the footware industry in the early 2000's. He was working in dark, dusy and hazardous conditions and he is now at the University. He is also an artist and a writer. He was doodling a beautiful drawing on a piece of paper and I asked him if I could keep it and he said "yes". It was significant to me because he was doodling the name of my office. They are all really special kids.

Our meetings were being held at another government office and they had the same kind of toilet I wrote about earlier. This time I took a picture. I had to use the bathroom so I tried it out. I am just no good at this. It was disgusting and a mess and I won't say anymore about that! You squat down and pee in that hole and then use the water in the bucket to flush it down. The whole floor is wet and messy. Uck!

After our meetings ended at about 5pm today we went back to the office with the driver. We decided to go out to dinner with a colleague and on our way he stopped off at Obama's elementary school. It was great. There is a plaque right outside the building, you can see it on the left. The school is beautiful and really well kept for the visitors/tourists I'm sure. In one of the classrooms I peaked in they had a huge movie sized poster of Obama right in the middle of the class. It was really fun.

Bec's this is for Jake. He will be happy to know that Chili's is in Jakarta. Isn't that crazy. They are also really BIG on dunkin donuts. The shops are EVERY WHERE. I think they have more dunkin donuts than Boston. They also have oddly KFC and Tony Roma's. Wierd right?

Surprise: Aidan and Leo

Hi Aidan and Leo. I have hidden a surprise for you in the house. You have to follow these directions to find your surprise: Good Luck, and Have Fun.

Start: Stand in the middle of the kitchen with your pinky finger on the freezer door handle.
1) Walk to the living room and look under the couch. Not there?
2) Walk down stairs to the basement
3) Go into the bedroom in the basement
4) Stand in front of the mirrors
5) Turn around 3 times
6) Run upstairs to mommy and daddy's room
7) Look in Daddy's dresser to find your surprise

I hope you love it.

I love and miss you so much!

Wednesday: Down Pour

This morning I got up at 6am and went to the gym. They have an awesome gym with individual TVs for every machine. I did the eliptical machine for 30 minutes and then went to the whirpool which is only luke warm and then into the steam room which was hot, hot, hot!

We had a breakfast meeting this morning at 9am and then we left for a meeting in Bandung at noon. We thought it would take no more than two hours but the traffick here sucks so we got there an hour later which was fine. We had no role in the meeting and just went to hear what other were doing on trafficking. Bandung is a bit up in the mountains and we had a down pour. We were drive in the back roads trying to find the hotel that was hosting the meeting and water was gushing down the road like an active river. Imagine a DC rain storm with 3 more feet of water. I thought our car was totally going to get stuck. We were in a small SUV so the water came up to my car door. A little car had water half way up the door and some people were riding on motorcycles soaked and stuck! It was crazy. I was a little nervous we would get stuck and I would have to get out in the gushing river but we didn't and once we got to the hotel the rain stopped. On our way from Jakarta to Bandung we saw a lot of tea plantations and rubber trees. It was interesting.

The meeting was fine. We had dinner at the hotel of the meeting with some colleagues and drove home at 8pm. We arrived back at the hotel at 10:30pm. It was a long day so I am off to take my nyquil read some breaking down and catch some zzzz's..... We bought our tickets to Bali today and now we just have to figure out where we want to stay.

Love you all.

Tuesday: More Meetings

This morning I went down to breakfast at 7:00am. After taking some Nyquil I slept great and woke about at about 6:00am. I promised I would take a picture of these beautiful juices. They thought I was crazy but it is such a beautiful rainbow of colors. I had my usual american breakfast of coffee, juice, eggs, toast but today I tried a few indonesia dishes. One was noodles with eggs, carrots and cabbage. The other was fried rice. It is so weird (to me) to eat these foods at breakfast. I'm hoping at some time I become a little more adventurous and have the Udon noodle soup for breakfast!

Orange, watermelon, honey dew, pineapple and cucumber juices.

View from the ILO offices on the 22nd floor.

We left at 8:00am for our meeting at 9am. We didn't want to be late and figured it would take 30 minutes to get there at the most. We were going to the same place as yesterday but we didn't really pay attention yesterday to where we went because we travelled with a person we work with who lives in Indonesia. We had an address from an invitation we received and we did not realize it had changed. So we went to the wrong building. When we got inside they didn't speak English so they found someone in the Ministry that did. She told us they have another building and we needed to take a taxi there (our taxi driver left already). So she took us to the street hailed a taxi and she gave hime directions. She was so NICE and KIND! Finally we arrived to the right building 45 minutes later and 25 minutes late! But as it turned out everyone was slow today and the meeting had not even started. I was to present first so it was a bit of a stress but the presentation went fine. My presentation had to be translated into Bahasa Indonesia (which is the local language) and that was interesting. The meeting went fairly well and after my presentation I didn't feel like I wanted to hide under a rock and never come out.

We had about 8 minutes to eat lunch before we raced off to another meeting. This time we (directionally challenged) got to take the ILO car to the ILO offices so we didn't get lost. Again, the presentation went fairly well (no hiding) and the meeting was really worth while and interesting. I was sure if yesterday's meeting was worth us attending but today I thought was interesting and great.

View of housing area out of ILO 22nd floor offices.

After we left the ILO we walked down the street lined with trees (vertical line of trees) to our hotel. It was an interesting walk through a neighborhood. There was lots of little food stands. I'm extremely skeptical about the food in these stands so I have never had anything. There was also lots of garbage every where, dirt and dust. Some of the homes on these streets were actually pretty beautiful thought with stained glass windows. While we were walking there was a call to prayer and people were walking, bicycling, and motorbiking to the mosque.

When we got back to the hotel, I went for a dip in the pool sorry for the night time picture. There were bats flying low to the water which kind of creeped me out so I didn't stay in the water too long. After that I went to the hot pool and then the sauna. I showered in the gym and came back up to my room and decided to stay in. I feel exhausted. So I order room service and am going to read, relax and watch Thomas Crowne Affair in bed. Tomorrow we have a breakfast meeting and then we have rented a car to travel to Bandung for a meeting.

You may not get a post from me tomorrow but let's see.

Love you!

A night time view of the pool.

Monday Meetings

This is a view at 7am from the hotel lounge.

Well today is Monday. I have to work.

We spent the day at a Minstry. They kindly agreed to host the meeting. The night before I went to bed at 12:30am and woke up at 2:30am wide awake(because remember according to my body it is about 2:30 in the afternoon). My alarm went off at 5:30 right before I started to dose off. I literally think that I got 2 hours and 10 minutes of sleep last night. I was exhausted at the meetings today. They asked me at the last minute if I would like to speak. Would I like to speak? Of course not! but I did. I think my voice quivered. I hate that. It looks so amateurish but I'm trying not to dwell on it. I have to give two presentations tomorrow. I hate it but I suppose if I were trying to see bright side, it does give me more experience which certainly can't hurt.

Just one quick comment about toilets. I promise to sneak a picture tomorrow. In the government office they have 3 stalls: one stall with a toilet and a bucket of water with a ladle, one stall where you stand up and crouch to pee with a bucket of water and a ladle, and one shower area. I can't imagine anyone showering. All of these with NO toilet paper. I guess its bring your own (byotp). I couldn't do the stand up one I just don't have good aim to not pee all over my clothes. I ended up going to the first stall with toilet and ladling water down until the toilet "flushed". Also there was a toilet in the meeting room with a toilet seat and toilet paper which I used a couple times during the day but it just seemed so weird peeing in the meeting room which is why I looked for other toilets. In the afternoon I tried this toilet but I'm not sure people know exactly how to use a toilet with a toilet seat because they had taken this shower hose thing and sprayed the whole toilet and the toilet paper. It was so gross. Apparently, the stand up toilets are just "what they do". Even with all the money they would choose a stand up toilet. Whatever!

So after work, I went down to the Spa for a pedicure. It was great. Here is a picture. Afterwards, I went to the pool - OMG! The pool is awesome. I am so going there tomorrow. Aidan and Leo, you would LOVE it. It is ginormica with a fountain, fake rocks, trees, etc. I didn't have my camera but I will take a picture tomorrow. The pool is amazing.

Cool color right? I never get anything but pink. I'm all crazy!

I have to study my presentation so I am off to bed.

Love and miss you guys!

Insanely long flight: Arrive Jakarta

Depart: Washington DC 6:00am Friday

Arrive: JFK 7:05am

Depart: JFK 10:05am

Arrive: Honk Kong 2:05 pm Saturday

Depart: Hong Kong 4:00pm

Arrive: Jakarta 7:40pm

I left our house on Friday morning at 3:50am: an obscenely early time. I am travelling with a colleague and meet her at the gate at about 4:50am after checking in and going through security. We left for JFK airport on a small, small, small plane that only had 3 seats across. I hate those planes. We got a little breakfast and coffee and got on another airplane headed to Honk Kong. The plane was terribly crowded with lots and lots of screaming babies. The pilot announced that the flight time would be 15 hours and 40 minutes. Are you freaking kidding me???? How could anyone possibly survive on an airplane for that long?

The plane I was on (Cathay Pacific) had over 100 movies! I watched 5 movies: angels and demons (ok), the proposal (really good), the hangover (good but a little dark), and some other movie but can't remember it was from the "recent hits" list of movies. I also watched a few episodes of friends. I ate 3 meals worth of airline food-ugh!! I slept maybe 2 hours and that is generous.

Once we arrived in Hong Kong, I had a cappuccino at starbucks in the airport and then I got on another 4 hour flight to jakarta. I know you are thinking to yourself "how did she get on another plane?" Believe me, I was thinking the same thing myself.

When we arrived in Jakarta someone was waiting for us and took us to the hotel. We are staying in a great hotel. Here are a couple of pictures.

The main entrance to to the hotel

The view out of my room. I am on the 14th floor.

My bathroom. I have a separate bathtub, shower and toilet.

My bedroom. Sorry about the mess. I didn't feel like picking up to take a picture.

When we arrived at the hotel, I took a fantastic hot shower, called home, unpacked my suitcase and went to bed. I requested a wake up call at 9:30am. I slept fabulously and didn't wake up until the phone rang. I went downstairs to the delicious breakfast. They had beautiful juices, cucumber, pineapple, watermelon, honeydew melon, and orange. It is a beautiful rainbow of colors...I'll take a picture tomorrow. For breakfast they had american, european and traditional breakfast with udon noodles, fried rice, dumplings and other food we would typically eat for dinner. I had an omelet, croissant and cheese and watermelon and pineapple juice and cappuccino.

After breakfast, we took a taxi to find a shopping center. We arrived at an indoor mall but that didn't look any different from our malls. They had nine west shoes, perfumes and soaps like you would find in american malls. On the third floor though we found this fantastic market with lots of handicrafts. They have this coffee (kopi luwak) that is supposed to be a delicacy. It is made from feeding coffee beans to a cat like animal and they poop it out and they use that to grind the beans. No kidding. It is poop coffee and it is $150 for a small little container (like a quarter of a pound, maybe less). I found a few really fun things, we had coffee (normal coffee) and then we decided to take a bus to another part of town. The bus was an adventure but we did great.

The other part of town was really poor, dirty and there was not much to do so we decided to get a snack (dumplings and lumpia), a beer (bintang) and water. After walking around that area a little I felt like I had spent three years sucking down exhaust, smoke and pollution. It was terrible. We took a taxi back to the hotel. To be honest there is not a lot to see in Jakarta. Indonesia is supposed to be (and I am sure it is) a beautiful country with amazing snorkling, volcano areas, white sandy beachers, birds of paradise, komodo drangons and beautiful hiking areas. It's just that Jakarta has really nothing to see.

At the hotel I had a hot stone massage, went shopping the amazing mall connected to our hotel and then came back around 9pm, ordered room service and here I am.

Tomorrow we have a meeting at 7am? Who planned that?!?! not me, believe me!

Seattle Trip: Seattle Mariners and Safeco Field

View of downtown Seattle and Safeco Field

Just a quick current time update: it's 8:25pm and the boys are in the bathtub. I am sitting outside the bathroom trying to get in a quick blog post. It has been incredibly hard getting back to east coast time and going to and funtioning at work. Aidan and Leo are still sleeping in until after 8am (unheard of!) and Jason and I are still exhausted at 6am. I am finding it almost impossible to get to work and it has proved equally impossible to want to be at work, do any work or function at work. I guess I still have vacation and Seattle on the mind. When will it end?

Now on to the vacation memories...

Did I mention that I spent the first week of vacation sick? The first day that I actually felt better was Sunday when we met Heidi, Patrick and Laurel for a fun day. We went over to their house and had fantastic breakast/brunch full on with a Patrick-inspired and delicious brunch dish, french toast, fruit and coffee. After brunch we all packed up (seven of us) in the gi-normous van and headed down to Safeco Field for the Mariners vs. Indians game. Jason and I (or the boys) had never been to the stadium so it was a particular treat for us. I was a bit worried about going to the game because did I mention it was horrendously hot in Seattle the ENTIRE time we were there. I was worried about the kids sitting in the hot sun all afternoon and getting hot and cranky but it did not happen.

Ichiro Jersey Day at Safeco Field

Heidi and Patrick worked some magic and got us these fantastic seats on the 300 level, above first base and in the shade. Awesome! The tickets could not have been better. We felt like we were part of the game but it was not hot at all and we actually had a fantastic breeze. At one point Aidan actually said he was "cold". I don't think he ever said that again during our entire trip. We walked around the stadium, had some snacks (the food at stadiums these days is crazy) and enjoyed a day at the Park. We had such a great time! Aidan, however, descretely (not!) pouted the whole game (day?) because he missed his cousin and could not bear to be away from him for more than a couple hours. He could have been at Disneyland and he would have pouted because he was not with Ethan.

After we enjoyed the game (the Mariners majorly lost) we went back to H & P's house and Laurel and Leo played outside in the little pool and with the little sprinkler and bubbles. Leo loved spraying the hose, any where and every where and Laurel loved dumping the bubbles on the deck and cleaning the deck.

Laurel cleaning the deck with spilled bubbles

We ended our great day by having dinner and milk shakes at Dicks Drive-In. It was yummy! I had not been to Dick's since probably college over 15 years ago. We had Dick's burgers, fries and ice cream/milk shakes. We at in the gi-normous van again and the kids got to play around in the back. It felt like the old days when we used to travel around in the "ship of fools"--good times.

Leo playing with hose

Cousins Chillin' in Seattle

C-Force

From the moment we walked in the door of Auntie Heather's house Aidan and Ethan were the best of friends. They hung together just about every moment of every day. The only time we saw the boys was when they got hungry or when they wanted something to drink. They jumped on the trampoline, played Wii, swam in the pool together, played legos, watched TV and movies (including Sponge Bob-we have a rule at home: no Sponge Bob cartoons except at Crow's house--or Auntie H's), slumber partied it up, played little Star Wars guys, caught bugs, dug up rocks, and so many, many other things only kids can think of. The "big guys" and the "little guys" as they became known to everyone, played so well together. Aidan and Ethan included Leo and Riley in most of their games and the four of them played and laughed. Only occasionally did the "big guys" ask for "alone time". The wanted "alone time" in the trampoline so that they could jump as much and as high as the wanted to and they wanted "alone time" in the swimming pool so they could splash and jump around in the pool as much as they wanted.

Leo, Ethan and Jason's legs in the pool

Aidan and Ethan swimming and playing

When the four of them were jumping in the trampoline it was so much fun to watch. They jumped, made up games where the little guys chased and attacked the big guys. Brothers on brothers (Leo chasing Aidan/Riley chasing Ethan) and cousins on cousins (Leo chasing cousin Ethan and Riley chasing cousin Aidan). They played a game invented by Uncle Jason that including placing coins on the trampoline and jumping and scrambling to collect the coins. Even Pa and Grandpa Russ jumped on the trampoline. Grandpa Russ did a flip! The often went from the swimming pool straight to the trampoline. For the first few days, they went non-stop from activity to activity and game to game. They were exhausted by the end of the day but they were happy.

Leo: out like a light

After a few days of not seeing very much of Aidan, I started to miss him and occasionally went to find him just to give him a hug. On the other hand, I really felt like he was growing and becoming more independent and it was a great thing to see. Leo's favorite part of Auntie Heather's house was the two kitties, Leia and Raven. They are beautiful kitties and they are very well behaved and very good with kids. Leo spent his days following them around and when he disappeared and was no where to be found we always knew we could find him upstairs in Heather's room or her bathroom where the kitties like to lay in the two sinks.

Best Buds!

The first couple of days of our trip we we hardly went any where and we did not do too much because I arrived sick. I started to feel like I was coming down with something on Saturday or Sunday before our trip. I ended up having a work-related training on the Saturday before we left and I just think in planning and preparing for the trip I was run down. I don't take vacation very often; it had been March 2008 since the last time we travelled to Seattle. I was so disappointed to spend my first week of vacation sick. We arrived on a Tuesday and since I was not feeling any better by the Friday I decided to visit a doctor. He gave me some meds and over the next couple of days I started to feel much, much better. The first time I literally made it outside Heather's house was that Friday when I went to the doctor and afterwards Heidi had so kindly met me and we had a DQ blizzard and talked for a couple of hours. It was great to get meds, get out of the house, and especially to see Heidi.

During the first few days of being home we visited with family and got a chance to see Grandpa Russ and Grandma Joan, Pa and Crow and Oma and Opa. We had BBQ's, pizza and enchiladas. Although I was feeling under the weather and probably not very social we had great meals, fun visits, and the kids got a kick out of hanging with their grandparents.

Did I mention Grandpa Russ is the Dog Barber Whisper? Teddy got a shave to beat the heat!