adventure to the US

Greg and I went back to the US over Christmas. It had been a year and a half since I was last there. I was wondering if things would seem really different, or if everything would just feel familiar. I think if I had driven a car, that would have felt really strange, but I didn't, so no need to even talk about it.

Here are some things I do feel the need to talk about.

On the flight over, as they were giving people beverages, I asked if they had ginger ale. The response I got was, "No, I'm sorry. But if you want… I can mix you up something." At this point my curiosity is peaked. Am I about to get a treasure chest?! He immediately continues, "Sometimes people like to mix Sprite and Coke, and the Coke sort of makes it taste like ginger ale." Is this guy being serious, because that sounds disgusting. So I decline, and opt for Sprite without any mix-ins, which actually turned out to be 7-Up. And now, fifteen days later, I'm still kicking my non-adventurous self for not just going for it. How could I have passed on an opportunity like that?

Here is another thing. How did I never notice how many people in NH have vanity license plates? They are hugely abundant. And watch out for the one that had 'poodl' in it, because they cut us off twice in one day.

I also had not had so many conversations with strangers in a long time. Previously, I would compare New Englanders to Mid-westerners and consider the New Englanders to be quite reserved. They are the kind of people who are friendly only after you know them. Although… no. That is totally wrong. Chatty chatty people.

Then on the flight back my luggage got lost. One of my biggest regrets was that all of the chocolate I purchased had gone in my checked bag and none in my carry-on. So I went home without my suitcase, with hopes that they would call me within 24 hours to say all was well. And they did! I was really happy about that, and also really happy that I know the Swedish word 'baggage,' while spelled the same, is actually pronounced sort of like the b'gosh of Oshkosh b'gosh.

bonjour

Here is the view from the balcony of our hotel room in France. The photo is of low quality, so I'll go ahead and describe what we are seeing here. Rain. It has been raining on and off since yesterday afternoon, but that is fine by me. Also pictured is our sea view and the lighthouse. Yesterday before it started raining Greg and I got to take a nice walk to enjoy the sea views, and I took many photos which I hope to share soon.

Our travels here were fun, because we flew to Paris and then took a high-speed train to the south of France. Our train was delayed though, so we missed a connection and had to wait for a later train. At the train station we got in the line at the taxi stand in order to try to get to our hotel before midnight, but there seemed to be very very few taxis coming. Eventually a bus came, which was the exact one we needed (and I was so glad I had written down which one would get us close to the hotel, and that Greg had gotten directions to walk from the bus stop to the hotel). We were feeling so good to be on our last leg of the journey, and then the bus stopped to pick up a pack of at least 20 young people who were very drunk and very slow about paying for tickets and stamping the tickets. Finally we got to get off, and while navigating the sidewalks and trying to get around many ambling people who would not get out of our way, I was fairly convinced I hated this place.

After a wonderfully long night of sleep, I woke up to see my sea view, and I definitely do not hate this place. :)

Fun fact #1: The past two mornings at breakfast we have been sitting nearby groups of people speaking Swedish.

Fun fact #2: Salted caramel ice cream can be purchased less than 50 meters from our hotel.

Fun fact #3: There is a chocolate museum in this city, but here is the dilemma: If I was going to spend some money, would it be worth it to go to a chocolate museum or better to just spend it directly on chocolate?

CO

So, I have had all sorts of traveling delays, as you may or may not know. Here is my adventure from the latest delay. So due to a lot of unfortunate things, I ended up staying in a hotel on saturday night in Milwaukee so that I could fly out early sunday morning. There was probably going to be snow in the morning, but I was just going to go for it, and hope for the best.

So I'm hanging out in my hotel room. Getting caught up on sending emails. Watching some weird movies on the tv. Giving myself a haircut with my new scissors (not the sewing ones!). All sorts of highly important and entertaining things. I finally went to sleep, only to wake up at 1am with a horrible headache. Normally I don't get really horrible headaches, so I didn't know what to think of that. Also, I was feeling pretty horrible and did not even want to get up to rummage around for some ibuprofen. So I guess I was lying awake for over an hour. At some point in there I remembered this story I had just heard about a friend whose house had very high and very unsafe levels of carbon monoxide. So I got a little panicky and was sure I was going to die from CO poisoning in this hotel in Milwaukee. That was enough motivation to get me out of bed in order to open the window. I also got some ibuprofen. Two hours later I woke up, with my headache gone and my room absolutely freezing.