Travel For Two

Proud to be an American

Posted on November 6th, 2008 by g.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

This is not a political blog. And we are not much for politics. But electing the President of the United States is big news followed all around the world. Especially this year. As Americans living abroad, we have been able to watch this election from a unique vantage point and it has been fascinating in many ways.

We have been surprised by the interest in this election around the world. As early as March when we visited Morocco, locals asked us about Obama and chanted “Yes we can” upon learning that we were Americans. This was even before Obama was selected as a candidate.

Just last month, many Tanzanians we met were excited about Obama and made point to mention it. The people of Stonetown in Zanzibar even organized a full scale campaign dedicating the “Obama Tree” to the cause.

And across Europe and in our daily lives we regularly encountered enthusiasm and optimism about Obama. Even my development team in Costa Rica was excited about the prospect of Obama’s victory.

And now that the prospect is reality, the world’s response has been jubilation. It dominated headlines and filled multiple spreads in the papers here in London. They reported on celebrations here and around the world from France to Kenya to Japan. A friend from K’s MBA program wrote us an e-mail the next morning from Tunisia describing people dancing in the streets on news of Obama’s victory.

Obama will soon become the “leader of the free world” and the citizens of the world seem pleased. This is good for America. With this vote, we have voted for change. We have taken the first step in turning things around. I am hopeful for what Obama can do for America both at home and abroad. I am hopeful that he will be able to regain the trust, respect and admiration from around the world. I am hopeful that he will be able to preserve and restore our deteriorating freedoms. He has a good start — he has shown the world that the American Dream is still alive.

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Creative Cooking…

Posted on October 30th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

So, tonight G and I decided we’d like apple pie. And it’s cold outside–so going out was not an option.

Putting one and two together, we decided to make our own apple pies. Though this may seem simple to start, for us in our London flat anything outside of reheating can be…well…interesting. You probably remember that we moved abroad in 6 suitcases, and they weren’t even mammoth size. So, we had to be selective about which of our cooking gear would come along.

So the prospect of making apple pie sans a pie dish, rolling pin, pastry mat, proper dough cutters and a ricer was a bit daunting. So, we had to be creative

Enter a wine bottle (ie the rolling pin), the weighing bowl (the circle cutter–albeit large), a glass cutting board (the pastry mat) and a fork (the ricer). The results taste good…though they are less beautiful than our usual standard. But no damage that a little ice cream can’t cover:)

Now, how to explain to G why dishwashing duty requires washing a bottle of Merlot…I’m teasing, of course he knows because he helped (he’s SO good).

So, for those curious on how our life has changed on two incomes this last year, rest assured that our simple life is still going strong. No TV. No Microwave. No Mixer (though G feels strongly that he should count :)). No Dishwasher. No Food Processor. No vacuum. Not to mention that our china, silver and platter selection was left behind. On the upside, we feel very fortunate to have a small washer/dryer that takes 4 hours per cycle and we did break down and buy a Blender.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. All the stuff we don’t have would probably cost a combined total of 300GBP. We could just buy it instead of posting about it–but the fact is we neither have the space nor the want for all that Stuff.

We kind of prefer things this way…with Stuff comes responsibility. Hopefully that doesn’t make us irresponsible, hmmm

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It’s Snowing in London!

Posted on October 28th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

That’s right…today marks our first snow of the season. This means that we’ll have had almost exactly 6 months between snow storms. I didn’t pick the best day to wear flats sans hose–my tootsies felt it, but the bright spot is that my gym has a sky light in the stretch room. I was able to watch the snowflakes collect on the roof while I did my leg lift routine.

Is it snowing where you are?

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Dream Come True

Posted on October 26th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

I HATE shopping. I always have. I would love to walk into a store with TONS of manikins dressed in perfectly accessorized outfits. Then, I could just point to the ones I like, be measured and walk out with my outfits. I wouldn’t need to think about how to pair things up. Brilliant!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t dress like Betty Suarez on Ugly Betty…yet. But I’m certainly not a fashionista. For YEARS I have wanted a personal shopper. I don’t like to shop.

Recently my dream came true. G took good notes and has treated me to a session with the experts. They’ll come in for a wardrobe assessment next weekend. They’ll look through my closet and make suggestions on how I can put things together to make new outfits. They’ll also help me to make a shopping list of staple items that would help round out my wardrobe and make recommendations on stores that cut appropriately for my shape and size (apparently the cuts vary widely by store).

Then, the following Saturday they’ll come back again and go out with me to shop for the items on the list. Very excited.

Provided it goes well, I think G may also have a session of his own. We BOTH hate shopping. I can’t wait.

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Flattered? I guess?

Posted on October 25th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

Tonight, I inadvertently Googled ‘Travelfortwo.net’. To my surprise, someone had referenced our blog recently and hence, their post popped to the top. Here’s what they had to say:

Crazy Jealous
Posted on October 13, 2008 by Ashley
Today, my friend K sent me a link to the blog of someone she knows. All I can say is, I hate them.

http://travelfortwo.net/

I want that life.

Hmmm….I suppose we should be flattered? We do enjoy our life. But, lately I’ve been a bit less enthusiastic about it than before. So, I thought it’s worth posting about so that you–our friends–are privileged with a more balanced view. We tend to talk about the rosy stuff because we don’t want friends and family back home to worry. But I don’t want folks to step away with an stacked view of the tradeoffs of the life we live.

London’s not new any more. It rains one out of two days. It’s always grey (even mid-summer). We’ve been here for 2 years now and we’ve done most things at least once and we’ve exhausted most of the easy weekend destinations. Our thirst for travel has started to subside. And, hence, we realize now that we actually spend time in London that we need more friends For the first two years here, we focused on making the most of our time–traveling all about and never sitting still because our initial plan was to leave after 12-24 months. Then, we regrouped and decided not to head home just yet and to adopt a more long-term focus.

But, recently my dad had a major accident on the farm. He walked away with a broken jaw and a bruised ego. He was very lucky. But then, a couple weeks ago (on the heels of my dad’s accident) my uncle died. There are friends and family back in the States that we haven’t seen in YEARS–we keep in touch through email, googlechat, blogs and postcards–somehow your margarita tailgates for VT games seem way more fun. Picking up and living so far away comes with tradeoffs. And it’s not always as glamourous and fun as it may seem.

So, I guess the purpose of my post is the balance the scales a bit. The grass on your side of the fence also looks quite green from where we sit. Hmmm…if only we could be fit without exercise, magically find a 3 bedroom house in Belsize on sale for £1, adopt your cutie tykes and forgo the need for drawn out pregnancies, have the cutest puppy on earth, have our stock portfolio returned to pre-recession levels AND keep the pleasantries of our current life constant…now that would be something worth envying

This said, we like our life. We’ll keep it. And hope this post finds you happy with the balance you strike in your life as well.

3 comments.

Smiley Happy People

Posted on October 19th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Africa, Travel.

Finally, the last animals we’ll report on-Tanzanians and ourselves.

One of the highlights of a trip to Tanzania is interacting with the locals. The people there are friendly, happy and smiley. They go out of their way to help you and are optimistic and comitted to driving their economy forward. And even the villagers who are very near the bottom of the economic ladder are proud and helpful rather than adopting a ‘begging’ stance.

On our first day in Tanzania, we had a local guide us through a nearby village. Children came out to greet us as we walked about. They spoke to us as best as they could in English. And those who couldn’t speak English simply lingered about us, smiling, soaking us in. There was the young, handsome high schooler committed to achieving his dream of becoming a doctor. Three little kids for a hillside hut with fancy dresses, but dirty faces. There were kids playing with wheels and sticks. And the group who excitedly shared a leopard tortoise with us as we passed. There were also the ladies grinding their corn at the local, commonary mill. And the ladies tending their vegetable gardens and accompanying stands to sell their goods. There were also moms selling fish cooked fresh while you wait. As well as little ones chasing chickens.

Really, walking about harkened back to the days of my parent’s childhood in America. Bathrooms were outdoors. Pleasures were simple. And neighbors stuck by one another to make it through. The chickens ran wild and the children came home REALLY dirty. You had to work hard and most walked to school as cars were hard to come by and gas was impossible to afford.

There are a few things, however, that make things different. 20% of Tanzania’s city population is estimated to suffer from HIV or Aids with approximately 10% of the country’s total population suffering as a whole. And a portion of the population’s beliefs support and encourage casual intimacy from an early age. If for nothing else, these two factors could make growing up so Smiley and Happy a challenge.

This said though, as emerging economies go, Tanzania is quite refined. The roads are generally good (much better than India’s!), most families (other than Tribal ones) appear to live in block houses with tin roofs (definitely a step up from India’s tarp slums) and while the plumbing’s primitive, it doesn’t appear to be exposed (not the case in Beijing or Shanghai).

Perhaps, though, our recent experiences in China, Morroco and India have dulled our perception of extreme poverty. Or, perhaps, it’s simply that we now see the scenes of dirty children, hay and water carried by cart or bicycle along the roads, or ramshackle huts serving as convenience stores through different glasses these days as it’s not our first go? But regardless, I continue to grow and realize that in many ways the people in emerging economies leading simple lives have an advantage over those of us in workaday mindset. Their stress levels are low. Their focus is on their family and their larger community. And they help one another out when they’re down instead of pointing fingers. And their kids get dirty–really dirty. And isn’t that what childhood should be about? Who wouldn’t want a childhood framed by chasing turtles and minnows and climbing trees–to be followed by helping in the garden and chatting with the neighborhood kids at the village mill. We, in more Western cultures, often stress so much about ensuring that our houses are perfect, cars and blemish free, children are clean in pressed white dresses with ribbons in their hair and we forget to have simple, carefree fun. Especially kids.

I’m certainly happy living in my white London tower in a nice clean, pressed, white dress. But, I have to say that those bygone days of my childhood on the farm–chasing minnows and getting dirty–really dirty–were pretty grand. And just as it’s hard to make your way to college from small town Tanzania, the same was once true (if not still true) of small town America. These kids have a chance.

Now–for our favourite people. We were fortunate on this trip to have G’s parents along with us…and we have to give them credit for being low stress, high fun travel partners. We had a great time together catching up since we don’t see one another often and I believe the trip was made better by their presence. We’re very fortunate that they love and support us in our choice to move abroad–and that our love for travel (with their recent retirement) coincides. Thank you Allan & Virginia for traveling half way around the world to hang out with us! And we count ourselves lucky that we spent two lovely weeks together and parted while still smiling

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The Great Cupcake Parade

Posted on October 19th, 2008 by k.
Categories: Living Abroad - Life in London.

…well almost.

There was an article in the paper this week that struck my fancy. They ranked all the cupcakes in London and gave a list of the top 8 establishments. With this in mind, I proposed that G and I fast so that we could venture out for a Cupcake Parade Saturday in order to give the best a ranking of our own.

With this in mind, we constructed a map and an itinerary for our day. First up, Primrose Bakery in Chalk Farm. Next, Peyton & Byrne at Euston Square. Then, Outsider’s Tart in Leicester Square to be followed by Konditor & Cook on Shafesbury and finally over for a couple others in Kensington before heading up to Kilburn for the final sample. And the eighth, called Treacle in Tower Hamlets, would have to wait until our next trip out to Columbia Road Flower Market to pick up orchids (a usual haunt).

So at 1pm this afternoon, we set out. We walked to Primrose Bakery from our flat–it’s right by a restaurant where we met our friend Krista and her boyfriend when they visited this year so it was easy to find. the cute logo imprinted on the shop’s window had a bird atop a cupcake saying ’sweet sweet’–so inviting. And those of you who know me welll know that I LOVE mosaic tile. Hence, their mosaic tile welcome mat made a favourable impression. Upon stepping inside, I was transported back in time. The glowing laminate table tops, and sunshine coloured vinyl chairs harkened back to days gone by…to cupcakes in grandmothers’ kitchens around the world. And the smell…heaven!. Not to mention the fresh flowers on the tables. And the drawers. Not trays…but DRAWERS of cupcakes also make an impression.

So. G and I ordered a couple of the recommended vanilla cupcakes and were immediately struck by the vibrant colours. They were decorated with beautifully formed contrasting icing flowers, as well. But how would the cupcakes rate on our flavour, texture and overall ranks?

The vanilla cupcake didn’t have much flavour And while the cupcakes were GORGEOUS, the cake texture was a bit crumbly and the frosting was just a tad too sweet by G’s palette (though I liked the frosting myself). But overall, I would have to say that the cupcakes would probably rank 2.5/5 on my scale with the aesthetics of the cake as well as the cafe allowing them the most points.

Next up? Peyton & Byrne at Euston Square. Unfortunately, this shop didn’t have the street presence that Primrose did. Tucked within a Museum Square (ironically housed inside a local Medical Museum), the big stone facade threw us. But finally once we were inside, the cupcakes were in plain sight.

Though there were lots of varieties, we opted for the recommended Coconut/Raspberry cupcakes. There was clearly as much frosting as cake. And tucked between the two layers was a bit of raspberry jam. While the ambience wouldn’t fare well against the Primrose Bakery, the cupcake was much better. The aesthetic of the cakes was more mature and perhaps less appealing. But, the cake was moist and solid and pleasantly flavoured with vanilla. And the touch of raspberry was a nice compliment to the coconut and vanilla flavours. Our only complaint was the sugar rush that followed thanks to all that frosting. But, overall we’d have to give the cupcake a 4/5 rank. It was very good.

Next, we moved South to Leicester Square and the name of our next haunt became more understandable once we realized it was in the gay club district. The Outsider Tart is run by two Americans, but is tucked in the basement of a gay bar. Upon entering the bar to ask where we could find the cupcakes, the bartender delivered the bad news that there was no one in to take us to see the cakes. Imagine our surprise. So….we moved on to the next shop on the list.

Konditor and Cook has heavenly things in the window within the location by my (K) office at London Bridge/Borough Market. So, we were excited to check out their Shaftesbury Avenue location. But unfortunately, it closed! But by this time, the sugar from the first two shops had kicked in and we were both feeling a bit ill. That’s right. We hit our limit after 1.5 cupcakes for K and 2.5 cupcakes for G. Who would have thought? Serious sugar shock.

So, since our Cupcake Parade derailed mid-course, we’ve decided that once our aversion to cupcakes subsides, we’ll resurrect the parade one location at a time.

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