Okay, went ahead and signed us up at a different blog site, as this one is apparently blocked in China. Please check us out at http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Staci-and-Martin/
Wow, I can’t believe how quickly time is flying by! I have 3 days of work left. Three! I really am going to miss it there. I have been so fortunate to have jobs where I feel respected, empowered, listened to…and honestly enjoy my colleagues. I hope that I’m always that lucky. 
Our apartment is pretty darn empty. Couch, coffee table- sold. Bed- sold, I THINK- people on Craigslist are so flaky. We’ve moved quite a bit to Martin’s parents house, making our living room look bare. Sofia moved out, taking the TV with her- in addition to her having been one of our sources of entertainment. Martin’s done with work and slowly packing things up for us. I have a farewell lunch on Monday at work, my last day Tuesday, my last personal training session at 6pm on Tuesday and then Sofia drives us to the airport at 6am Wednesday to fly to Long Beach, CA! We’ll be in California for ten days with the entire immediate family on my side, which we both are so looking forward to. My brother Neal will be getting his PhD in Philosophy from UC Riverside, so we’ll be celebrating that & lounging at the pool at my parents timeshare in Palm Springs…can’t forget the trip to Anaheim so Amelia (niece) can go to Disneyland for her sixth birthday! What a spoiled kid…:) Martin and I have opted out of going to the actual park ($$!) but will enjoy the couple days in Anaheim with Neal and Anna.
When we return, we have five days to get out our place before I take off for yet another vacation- VEGAS! I’ll be going with my good friends Sofia, Jen and Nicole and am very excited to get some girl time in before leaving for a year.
For the month of July, we’ll be kind of bouncing around with a more or less permanent address in Bellevue, with Martin’s parents. I plan on being down with my parents & sister’s family in Portland from July 3rd-14th- gotta get some boating and niece/nephew time in! Hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze in lots of time with friends during that month as well.
Seattle has been having a HEAT WAVE as of late…sort of making me dread the warm temperatures I hear frequent Shenzhen…:)
Until next time!
16 days of work left for me. Less for Martin. August 2nd will be here before we know it, and we’ll be boarding a flight to San Fran and then to Bejing. I get so excited reading other participants blogs who are returning to teach for a second year- their experiences sound crazy and wonderful. I’m sure there will be moments where we wonder why the hell we picked up and moved to China…but it will be a time of our life never to be forgotten. We’ll make new friends, experience new cultures, grow individually and as a couple. I cannot wait.
These past few weeks have got me thinking about what I’ll miss in America, in Washington, in Seattle over the next year. Sure, I’ll miss some of the typical Western conveniences- maybe my blended coffee drinks, or cheez-its. But mostly I’ll miss the friends and family being so closeby. Every minute I spend with my girls here reminds me how lucky I am to have them in my life. I’ve laughed harder these past few days than I have in a really long time. I could tell endless stories about my niece and nephew, and am sad I won’t be able to hug and kiss them for the next year. It won’t be as easy to just pick up the phone and call my parents, or any of my family for that matter. We won’t be driving 15 minutes east on a work night to have dinner with Martin’s parents, or just relaxing on a Saturday at a park with them.
Thinking about leaving all these things is just helping me to appreciate them more, and savor every moment I do have with the amazing people in my life. I am more than ready for this new chapter of our life!
Here’s the link to more of our pictures:
Here is a link to some pictures of our first day in Paris. It is still a work in progress and needs to be tweeked, but you can find the Paris ones in there along with some from Seattle.
Wow… those Dublin burgers were very tasty!
Staci enjoyed the Pestorella burger, which of course was loaded with pesto, and I enjoyed a chorizo sausage burger that made me want to start using chorizo occasionally in my cooking.
Ahh, Guinness. We woke up early Saturday morning, leaving enough time to clean Melanie and Flo’s apartment and get breakfast so that we could head out to the airport. Flo had left us directions on how to take the metro to catch the “Les Cars France” to the airport- basically a shuttle. It was incredibly easy, and the last few days in Paris made us feel like we had become pros at the metro system. We got to CDG a good three hours before our flight and waited in an incredibly long line to check in. We then spent too much money on crappy food, because we hadn’t planned ahead and packed food- oh well. Where is a McDonalds in an airport when you need one?!
Our flight boarded at 3- we first all crowded onto a shuttle bus which then drove us to our plane. It was about an hour and forty minute flight to Dublin, and everything went fine. I had written down what bus to take to O’Connell Street and then how to walk to our hotel from there, all of which was also very easy. We found the Fleet Street Hotel and went to check in (it now being about 5pm, as Dublin is one hour behind Paris) only to find out that something was broken (we couldn’t understand what the H the guy said) and they had to put us in two single rooms rather than a double room. Welcome to your honeymoon, here are two twin beds on Valentine’s Day in rooms down the hall from each other! ☺ Um, AWESOME. Martin, of course, was perfectly calm about it and I laughed about the situation after getting out some much needed swearing. I got room 103, Martin took 107.
(Martin would like to point out that Staci was eager to attempt to sleep in the same bed together, and while demonstrating how easy it would be, Staci violently fell off the bed, which immediately gave Martin confirmation to sleep apart for the night).
We headed out to find some dinner. Being Valentine’s Day, most restaurants were either packed with singles listening to loud live music or barfy couples eating fancy food by candelight. We opted for a calm pub named Fitzgeralds right near our hotel and enjoyed shepherds pie & fish & chips along with a pint of Guinness and Kilkenny. Yum, yum! After dinner, we stopped at a convenience store and bought Baileys, some candy and yes, I chose a bag of chips with the flavor “Firecracker Lobster”. Who knows why I chose those ones- they were the weirdest flavor. Of course I hated them, and Martin ended up eating them all after getting a good laugh out of the fact that I chose lobster flavored chips. We relaxed in the hotel for awhile and then went back out to try to find a cinema we had heard about to see an Irish film, but couldn’t find it. Instead we figured we’d get some more beer, since that’s always a good option in Dublin.
On our way to a pub, we saw this guy push an old man violently, and since the old man was with a big group of friends, they all reacted and luckily, there were police right there. The police ran after the guy and tackled him to the ground, as he was pushing more people- for what reason, we have no idea. Sweet, police action within our first few hours in this country! ☺ We each had a pint of Guinness at a nearby pub before retreating back to our hotel room for the night. Martin even tucked me in before heading off to his own twin bed in his lonely room.
This morning we packed up all our stuff again, as the hotel staff will move our belongings into a double room when it’s ready today. We just took a walk through part of Trinity College’s campus and are now at a coffee shop called “Insomnia” enjoying coffee, muffins and wifi. Today’s plan is to just wander around, see some sights and do some shopping. Tomorrow we’ll hit up the Guinness Storehouse and hopefully the Kilmainham Gaol. Much love to all!
(actually, the internet did not work at the coffee shop, so now at 1:35, we are at a burger joint, hopefully getting internet access)
Well, we have been quite lazy in this whole blogging thing the last few days– or, in reality, we’ve been so busy enjoying ourselves that writing about it has been the last thing on our minds! Flo’s dad lives in the Caribbean, so Melanie left on Thursday morning to head there and Flo left Friday morning- they will be there for about ten days on vacation themselves. They were once again amazing in letting us continue to stay at their apartment in their absence! Let’s see…a quick recap of three last three days…
Wednesday: You saw some pictures, but Martin and I spent the day alone down by the Eiffel Tower taking some amazing pics. The weather was PERFECT. We enjoyed some nutella and coconut crepes (I could seriously eat those every day). After picture taking, we walked down and found the famous ‘Rue Cler’- a street with an open market that all tourist guides say to go down. Well, after our own French tour guide had shown us some of the lesser-known market areas, we can’t say that Rue Cler was all that impressive. Sure, it’s near the Eiffel Tower, but it’s nothing special otherwise. We did however enjoy a delicious meal at “Cafe Du Marche” on that road, a recommendation from our friends Chris and Amy (thanks!). In the evening, we headed back toward the river, as Flo and Melanie had surprised us with tickets to go on a boat cruise on the Seine. It was GORGEOUS. We even ended up buying one of the cheesy pictures they took of us on board when we got off– felt a bit like Disneyland in that regard, but we figured why not…it’s a cute pic and a good thing to bring back to remember the trip by! We then came home and enjoyed another delicious meal cooked by Flo…we’re getting very spoiled.
Thursday we navigated the RER train system to Versailles, about 40 minutes outside Paris. Can I live there? It’s ridiculously extravagant! In true American fashion, we might have eaten lunch at McDonalds. I know, I know. But c’mon, I really wanted to see what french chicken nuggets tasted like! And, given that we met at McDonalds, it was only appropriate. Flo was aghast at us…as he also was when we tried to eat our eclairs that morning with a fork. Us americans are so unsophisticated! You’re supposed to eat them with a spoon, FYI.
Friday we were truly on our own. We slept in, Martin got us breakfast from the nearby bakery and then we headed off to have another stroll down the famous Champs-Élysées avenue. We went in the biggest Sephora I’ve ever seen, made another stop at Starbucks and then found our way to H&M (a clothing store that recently came to the U.S…but let me tell you, Europe H&M is WAY better). We ended the day strolling around Montmartre for the second time and taking more gorgeous pics. On the way home, we stopped at the market for some groceries and enjoyed a delicious meal of pasta with ‘pesto rosso’ sauce– a sauce that Debi and Ben introduced me to when I was in Germany with them…and we cannot find it anywhere in the states. I could eat it every day also. OMG.
This morning we’re packing and cleaning and heading off to the airport to catch our afternoon flight to Dublin, where we will be until Tuesday. Martin just got back from the bakery where he tried to order a raspberry tarte, didn’t look in the bag till he got back here and just realized he was given a loaf of bread! Oh well.
Happy Valentines Day to all…enjoy today, whatever meaning it may take for you! You know me, rather than thinking of it as the Hallmark holiday, I take it as an opportunity to think about “V-Day”, or ending violence against women day. Go see the Vagina Monologues!
Love to all.
We woke up late (again) and it’s time to head out to Versailles for the day. I’ll leave you with some pictures to sum up our day yesterday and then Martin will write a blog later…
Ahh, we love Paris…and we love sleeping. We have both slept about nine-ten hours every night we’ve been here. Jet-lag is still apparent (I woke up at 4am and stayed awake until 6am yesterday) but we are no longer feeling disoriented and I think part of sleeping so much is simply because we are on VACATION!
We started off Tuesday by Martin and Flo going out to the bakery, grocery store, post office and picking up some dry cleaning. They brought back croissants and pain aux raisin (um, delicious!) so we had that for breakfast with, of course, coffee. After getting ready for the day, we headed out into another rainy day and hopped on the metro. I really cannot get over how beautiful Paris is. All the buildings are simply amazing; our architecture seems so boring now in comparison. We spent the majority of the day in the Quartier Latin.
We saw Notre Dame, visited the famous ‘Shakespeare and Company Bookstore, explored the Marais district, ate the best falafel in Paris, saw the Place de Bastille and enjoyed two cafe stops. It is interesting to see how Paris has dealt with the no smoking inside restaurants law, passed in 07. Many cafes now extend farther into the sidewalk with covered areas and many big space heaters. Everyone who wants to smoke crowds around the ‘outside’ tables under these heaters to smoke and still enjoy their meal.
Notre Dame was incredible. I feel like I’m saying the same words over and over here, but I really mean them- Paris is incredible, amazing, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, beautiful. There is such a sense of history and pride in every building it seems and you can just feel the love radiate from this city. It’s people and lifestyle are intense but wonderful. Flo and Melanie both say that while they love Paris now, they plan to move back to South France in the longer term- Paris is more a fun place to visit, but the quality of life here is too crazy for them to stay forever.
Flo left us once again to go run errands around 4pm so Martin and I walked around the area near Notre Dame some more and purchased some books at the amazing bookstore (Neal, you would have been in love). Our feet were incredibly sore (we’ve been walking about 6-7 miles each day) so we finally decided to catch the Metro home. Bad idea to take the Metro at the same time the rest of Paris is getting off work- rush hour exists here too! There’s no saying ‘Pardon’ and getting let through- you just shove your way on that Metro and are squished for however many stops you are on there. We had to switch trains at one point to make it home, but we did it once again by ourselves, something we were very proud of– thank goodness we had Flo explain everything to us before he left us!
Once arriving back at the apartment, we changed and the four of us headed out to a typical French restaurant called “Le Gavroche”. Melanie and Florent had not been there before but had heard it was very good, and because Martin’s parents so kindly gave us money with the words “This is specifically for taking them out to dinner!!”, we figured we had to try it. It was, again, incredible. We’ll have to have Flo write down the names of the foods we enjoyed, but everything was delicious. It was so helpful to have someone there to translate the menu, suggest things for us AND order! Although we would still have a good time being here without having Flo and Melanie here, it obviously makes for that much better of an experience. There’s less chance of ordering something we really won’t like & makes the language barrier almost non-existent. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, appetizers and then chicken dishes with cream sauce & pommes frites! Mmm. For dessert we had chocolate eclairs- I think Martin should have gotten his own, because I could eat those things every single day. So delish.
After dinner, Melanie headed home to sleep (she had to get up at 5am today and travel 1.5 hours to Germany by plane for a work presentation) and we headed out to two of Flo’s favorite bars by their apartment. They both had very comfortable, funky atmospheres and we enjoyed some very good wine, again at Flo’s recommendation. Martin and I both exclaimed last night that coming back to Seattle will be hard- food and drink will not be half as delicious anymore!
We all came home and passed out around 1am. Now it is about 11am on Wednesday and we have only been up for an hour. Flo and Martin are headed out to once again get us some breakfast from a bakery- can’t wait!
More later- I’m sure Martin will have things to add that I forgot! We’ll leave you with a picture from dinner tonight.
