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Thursday, 08 May 2008

Oh how I miss Paris I am going through the hundreds of pics we took for the millionth time and laugh at all the memories that come flashing back. Granted, it’s been about 10 days since I’ve been back, but it’s nice to daydream from time to time. I’m finally back into the swing of things – jet lag was non existent upon my return, I’ve slowly eased back into the work routine (by working from home for the first two days I was back), the family spent good QT in BG this past weekend, wedding planning is back in effect, and G is back from his business travels. The next couple of weeks will be busy, with the onset of spring/summer parties, more wedding planning (less than 5 months to go!) as well as getting ready for the next trip – Cabo!

Paris w/J was fabulous! We were able to really enjoy our days there since we didn’t jam pack our schedule with too many tours/activities, which is very easy to do in the #1 tourist destination in the world. The weather was more than cooperative (didn’t rain til the last day, and it hit the 70’s on two days we were there!) so that was even more of a bonus. We both fess up to having terrible memories (hence the origin of this blog years ago), so we tried to capture as many of those moments through pictures. But first, here is a recap of our trip…

Friday - Arrived at CDG in the morning and found J at the train stop and we took the RER/Metro to our Hotel - Hotel Royal Cardinal. It was smaller than the pics on the website depict, but it was perfect for the two of us - plus, we were only planning to use the room for sleeping, not hanging out! We went on a bike tour of Paris with Fat Tire Bike Tours (highly recommended!). After cruising the streets for about 3.5 hours (with the Paris traffic!), we took a long stroll on the Champs de Mar towards the Eiffel Tower, and then to Troacadero to rest up before having dinner and shopping on Champs-Elyssees.
Saturday – The day of a million stairs. I swear. We spent the morning at Montmatre (still my favorite section of Paris!) We climbed the stairs to the Abssess metro stop (the deepest stop in the metro system – 100 m!), then climbed the stairs up and down from the Basilica du Sacre-Coeur. We watched the artists paint and sketch at Place du Tetre, went souvenir shopping, and took pics in front of Moulin Rouge. We went back to the Champs-Elyssees for more shopping and dinner. Ended off at the night picnicing at the Trocadero, admiring the Eiffel Tower and its sparkly lights over a bottle of wine (in a water bottle for easy transport! –ghetto, I know…)
Sunday – We visited Notre Dame, even though it was too packed to actually attend a service. After brunch and shopping around St. Michel, we went to take funny pics at the Peace Wall (near Ecole Militare), and went to climb the Eiffel Tower to see the sparkly lights up close. We spent a good 3-4 hours up top, enjoying the views and taking pics before we headed out to St. Germain and the Latin Quarter for dinner.

Monday – We spent the morning @ Musee de Louvre then went shopping at the famous Galleries Lafayette. Walked around St. Germain/Latin Quarter to finish up our shopping and to have dinner. Walked by Notre Dame to see it lit up at night before heading back to the hotel.

Tuesday – We took a quick stop at the Musee D'Orsay (it was closed on Monday!) to get our Monet fix before heading to the airport for our flight home...Au Revoir, Paris!

And THAT was a too quick of a recap, so here are our pics…

Pic of the week: Eiffel on my tippy toes…

Thursday, 24 April 2008

This last week has flown by and I haven’t had much time to update things as I’ve been all over the place. The rest of my week in Belgium was pretty productive. On Thursday night, I was really tired and wanted a quick dinner, so I went to a pancake house near the hotel. Presented with yet another Dutch-only menu, I ended up ordering banana pancakes with chocolate sauce and whipped crème. Yummy! I spent the rest of the night working and packing. Friday morning, headed to the office for a couple of hours and left right at lunch. Headed back to the Brussels airport and checked in really early for my flight. I spent some time at the airport stores and then reading a book over lunch at this American Diner at the airport. Here are my pics from Belgium from last year and this year.

I finally got on the plane to London around 5:30pm….I arrived at Heathrow around 6pm in the brand-new Terminal 5 (they’ve made a big deal about its opening over here, especially their shopping, which includes the first Tiffany's in Europe !?!). Got my luggage within seconds of clearing customs and arriving at the baggage reclaim area (poor thing got another scratch – I think this is going to be its last trip!) Hopped on the tube to head out to east London to meet with C. It was a long and tiring journey that took about 2 hours. The long part didn’t bother me as much as the tiring part did. Some of the tube stops did not have functioning lifts so I had to haul my luggage up and down quite a bit of stairs. Luckily, there were some nice gents that helped me out a handful of times. I finally made it to the stop where C was going to meet me and had him pull my luggage the rest of the way. I settled in, watched some tv and caught up before we headed to La Figa, an Italian joint in the area. Dinner was delicious and we closed the place out before heading back to C’s flat. I was tired from my traveling, so we just hung out, caught up some more, and crashed around 3am.

Saturday morning, I was able to sleep in a bit before we headed out for a late breakfast (around noon?) at a local café. Then we headed to the tube and ended up in Notting Hill. I wanted to revisit the market and grab some lunch at a fish&chips joint that I visited back in 2002….We lazily walked around Portabello Road, grabbed some lunch at George’s before heading back towards C’s flat. It was a nice peaceful and mostly non-toursity afternoon, which was a nice change of paste. C and I were discussing how nice it is to travel to cities more than once so you can actually slow down a bit and soak up the local culture. Lucky for me, this was my third trip to London, so all my touristy pics were taken years ago….(Touristy Pics from London: Part 1 and Part 2).

After a short, but much needed afternoon nap, we headed out to El Camino for dinner, a yummy Spanish restaurant. P joined us towards the end of the dinner, and we all chatted for an hour or so before C and I headed out for more drinks at a local pub. After having a pint and listening to some bad 80’s music, we headed back to the flat around 3am….and packed my stuff before crashing. I was up on Sunday morning around 7am to catch my taxi to the airport, where I met up with my co-worker and his wife and baby. We got into the rental car around noon and headed to a suburb of London called Aylesbury, where we were staying for the work week.
Driving is a bit crazy in the UK Everything is reversed and I really don’t think I can trick my mind to thinking the left side is the “right side” of the road. Lucky for me, my coworker was here to drive, and I was the navigator. We made it around the city and to/from work every day mostly unscathed, but the times in the car were probably the most stressful part of my day J The workweek flew by, since our work days were pretty busy filled with meetings and trying to manage the team back in the US at the same time. The nights ran long with exploring the town and finding some restaurants for dinner - Indian, Chinese, Thai, and proper English meals were on the menu for the week.

So now, I’m finally really to go to bed and get ready to head out to Paris tomorrow and meet J at the airport. Overall, I’m extremely happy with the work portion of the trip, and all that we’ve accomplished out here, and now that it is over, the vacation can truly begin! Here are the pics from London and Aylesbury this past week.

Next entry will be from the City of Light (or as soon as I get home)! Have a great weekend!!!

Wednesday, 16 April 2008

I’m on a diet. Not that kind of diet, but still a diet nonetheless. My new ‘European’ diet consists of fries and mayo (as mentioned previously) as well as a couple chocolate filled croissants for breakfast and carbonated iced tea with my dinner. I chocolate-filled croissants (especially those that are fresh from the oven from a patisserie!), and I love me some iced tea. However, they only have bubbly iced tea (with gas) vs. the flat kind we have the States. I’m not normally a fan of carbonated beverages (other than beer of course), but I guess if I want my iced tea, I don’t have a choice.

I’ve had a wide variety of cuisines over the last couple of days out here in Maaseik. One downfall of not being able to read Dutch menus at the restaurants is that what you think your order isn’t always what shows up on a plate in front of you. Monday night I hit a French bistro called Le Bouchon and ordered something that was a long Dutch word followed by the word “stroganoff”. I thought I’d get some sort of beef/steak with a creamy mushroom sauce with egg noodles, maybe? Next thing I know, pretty white plate with a skewer stuffed with thick juicy cubes of grilled pork (with paprika?) on a bed of grilled vegetables with a side of fries and mayo. Hmmmmm. Not what I expected, but it was delicious!

I stumbled upon another restaurant after an adventure at the supermarket on Tuesday afternoon. It was called Senor Sanchos. The name alone intrigued me, so I had to go in. It was a cozy place, with an old saloon type of feel, claiming to serve “south American” cuisine. The most familiar thing on the menu to me was “fajitas” so I order that (not to mention the chef recommended it). In my mind, I thought I’d get a sizzling platter with some green/red peppers and some slices of steak and a side of guacamole, but I ended up with a pretty white platter with two huge marinated strip steaks sitting on a bed of grilled vegetables. Did I forget to mention the fries and mayo that it came with?

Tonight’s dinner was more predictable than the rest. I found a Thai restaurant down the block from the hotel (strange to see one in Belgium!) but I went there and ordered the Pad Thai, which was awesome! I skipped on the bubbly tea today (I have a feeling it’s been affecting my jet lag).

Some last thoughts about the restaurants in Maaseik….I really love dining out and trying new restaurants. And, as a frequent traveler, I try and stay away from the franchise/chain restaurant and really enjoy the small mom-and-pop type of establishments in each of the towns I visit. The restaurants here in Maaseik are all independent, family-run types of restaurants with their own unique spin on the cuisine they represent. They usually sit 20 or 30 customers at most. The best part of the whole dining out experience is the fact that for the last 2 out of 4 dinners, the person who took my order then whipped on an apron and went to the back and cooked my food. He then served it to me, checked to see how the food tasted, and later wrote up my bill and handed it to me. Both times, it was just the chef and I at the restaurant! Talk about personalized service…..anyway, one more dinner tomorrow night in Maaseik before heading to London….

The last two nights have been bad in terms of jet lag. I hope tonight’s the night where I can sleep through the night! Good night!

Monday, 14 April 2008

Jet lag really, really, really, really sucks (yes, that much). I was tossing and turning from 11:30pm to 5:00am (Belgium time), so I am completely drained. I have a headache from being so tired, not to mention my brain is mush. I have some chocolate and tea to help keep me up until my taxi comes and picks me up from work at 5pm (I’m writing this during my lunch hour).

It all started because I wasn’t able to sleep for very long during the 8 hour flight from Chicago to Brussels on Saturday evening. The flight took off around 5pm (30 minutes late), and I was 2/3 of the way through a book, Make Him Look Good, so I ended up getting caught up in the book and finished it about 2 hours into the flight (funny book! in the new genre dubbed "chica lit") Then, I tried listening to some music and going to bed, but I couldn’t find a comfortable position to sleep in – I think I kept hitting the guy sitting next to me. I woke up mid-flight and ended up watching most of the movie National Treasure, which took me right to breakfast and landing.

Once we landed (7am Belgium time), I went through passport control, claimed my baggage and exchanged some USD for euros (can the exchange rate get any worse?). I met my taxi driver and he escorted me to his black Benzo in the garage (all the taxis I’ve ridden here in Belgium are black Mercedes Benz’s). About an hour and a half later, we arrived at my hotel in Maaseik (I was able to nap for 10 -15 mins at a time during that ride…) I checked in to the hotel, had the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant, and went up to my room. I did my normal ritual upon check-in – turned on all the lights and tv (for some noise), checked out the Hotel Guidebook for all the important info, unpacked my toiletries and some clothing. Then, I crashed. I slept from 11am – 5pm (couldn’t get my body up any sooner than that), and then called home to see how things were going. I finally got the energy to freshen up and head out for dinner around 6pm.

The town of Maaseik is about 24,000 in population, so it is pretty small. I really can’t complain about the location because the small town has everything you can possibly need within a couple of blocks. In the main square alone, there are close to 15 restaurants that all face the interior of the square, all with outdoor seating (there were people sitting outside in the 40+ degree weather here!) Last August when I was here last, I ate at a different restaurant every day, which covered about 7 different restaurants in the square. There are still many restaurants in the town that I haven’t eaten at, so I am going to try to not repeat any restaurants this time around. After walking around the square, I headed down the side streets and ended up eating dinner around the corner from my hotel at a Greek restaurant, Minos.

One thing that I love about dining in Europe (at least in the countries that I’ve visited) is that the meals are very leisurely, and can take a quite a bit of time if you want it to. It seems as if in the States, there is always something to do, somewhere to go after dinner, or the wait staff is constantly ushering you to the next course so they can turn the tables and make more tips. In Europe, you need to ask the waiter for the check at the end of the meal. In other words, if you don’t ask, you don’t get it, so you can be sitting there for quite a while after you actually finish your food and just sit and relax. They don’t rush you out of the restaurant, which allows you to really enjoy the company, the ambience, people watch, and take your time eating. I first learned how to make my dinners alone last from 1.5 – 2 hours last August. I brought guidebooks, and other leisure books to read to keep me busy during dinner, and used the rest of the time to people watch and soak in the afternoon sun. It was very calming and relaxing. A big reason for the leisurely pace during your meals, at least here in Belgium, is that the wait staff is compensated pretty well, a service charge is already included in the prices, so you don’t need to tip extra. Rule of thumb (for Belgium at least) is to round up to the nearest Euro and add a couple if you had exemplary service.

Another European oddity that I ran across last summer was that they love to serve their fries with mayo. G had a field day in Maaseik and Amsterdam ordering big bowls of fries (or cones of fries) smothered with mayo on top. I’m sure it’s not the healthiest thing in the world, but it was very tasty. So, last night, at this Greek restaurant, Minos, the menu was entirely in Dutch, and the only thing I recognized of course, was “gyros”. I had a Greek salad, lamb gyros, and fries with mayo (not sure what happened to the pita bread though…). It was delicious and filling --- I made dinner last about 1 h and 45 minutes on my own. Afterwards, I went to the convenience store next to my hotel to pick up some afternoon snacks for the work week.

I went back to the hotel, ordered internet access (18 Euro for 24 hours!) and then ironed my work clothes for the week (I figured I’d get it done all at once, versus having to iron every morning….I’m lazy). I went online, checked some email, and before I knew it, it was 11pm. I “went to bed”, but pretty much tossed and turned the whole night till about 5am while watching recaps of the London Marathon, CNN, Different Strokes, and some Kevin Bacon movie (what a random bunch of shows to pick from!). I really hope I can crash early tonight. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks if I don’t get this jet lag under control….good thing I brought some Tylenol PM with me!

Sunday, 13 April 2008

Mad chaos. That pretty much sums up the last two weeks since my last entry. It was a mad dash to get everything done by the time I got on the plane yesterday, and for the most part, I think I left things in a good state. I’ll try to sum up the major highlights for the last two weeks.

I found out in late March that my wedding dress came in 3 months earlier than expected, so I went on a spree to find the perfect shoes. On the 27^th, I met some coworkers for a happy hour Shoe Diva event at Macy’s on State (drinks and apps served!) Other than the free liquor, I had no luck there, so Jo and I headed over to the James C. boutique in Lincoln Park to try on a pair of shoes that I had seen advertised in the Chicago Social Wedding Mag. I picked up a pair at the JC salon (not the one I originally wanted, but another fabulous shoe that he had) – how easy was that? After we picked up the shoes, we ate at Aloha Eats, right across the street (yummy Hawaiian food with generous portions!) Later that weekend, we attended a family party for my cousin’s graduation and then I headed to BB for my sister’s MK debut party. It was a successful party, and I went home with lots of goodies! I also came down with a cold over that weekend, so I spent the first couple of days of the following week working from home. The following weekend was a quiet one; my sis met me at Priscilla of Boston for my first fitting. Afterwards, I met up with G and we ran errands for my trip.

This last week was spent in the OB office to take care of administrative stuff. Most of the week was pretty productive work-wise. Wednesday, G and I got together for dinner and to run more errands for my trip at Woodfield. Thursday night, I drove to the city to meet up with my cousin for dinner, who was in town from Cali. Friday was a crazy day since some last minute changes to my schedule had me on the following goose chase: Meeting in OB in the morning, drove up to Morton Grove to drop off my car, took the Metra to the Downtown office, to a client presentation a few blocks away, took the Metra back up to MG to meet up with G, got into G’s car to drive to my p’s house in BG for a quick dinner/change of clothes, then to St. Mary’s for a pre-cana meeting, back to the city for a round (or two) of drinks with J and Co. @ Central in Wrigleyville, back to Skokie to pick up my car, and then back to BG to finish packing and sleep. Phew. I was not able to visit GNC in the hospital due to pre-cana, but congrats to GNC for the arrival of their healthy baby boy! Welcome baby G! I can’t wait to meet him when I get back!

Saturday morning, I finally finished packing, and made it to the airport in time for my 4:30pm flight to Brussels. So here I am (now Sunday night, 10pm), jet-lagged, but settled in the Hotel Van Eyck in Maaseik, Belgium. It’s my second visit to this hotel, and it is as charming and cozy as I remember it to be. I have 5 nights here before heading to the UK for more work there for another week. I have a coworker meeting me in London on Sunday so I’ll have company next week. Yay!

Everytime I head overseas, I get in this reflective/introspective mood…maybe it is because I am thousands of miles from my loved ones, which reminds me how huge this world can be at times (I often forget that!). Or, maybe it is eating dinners alone (at least for this first week), and observing the “European” way of doing things (i.e. taking 2 hours for dinner? Serving fries with mayo?) All this time to myself allows me to take a new look/perspective on my life “over there” (back at home) and helps me cherish and appreciate how lucky I really am – not only for the fact that I get to travel the world and experience wonderful things (whether it be for business or pleasure), but also, that I have so much to come home to. Seeing that this is only day 1, the next 16 days seem like long time to be away from my loved ones, but I’m sure that the time will fly by. In the mean time, I’ll try to soak in all the wonderful aspects of this hotel, this wonderful city, and get a lot of work done in the mean time

My hope is that I update this page frequently while I'm out here...so stay tuned!

Pic of the week: Pic of the town square of Maaseik, taken last August during my last trip here.