Home is where my bed is

Guatemala (October)
Guatemala City
Where I am staying

Nicaragua (November)
San Jorge (Staying at the Hotel California)
Rivas
Laguna de Apoyo (staying at Norome Villas)
Granada, Masaya
San Juan del Sur (Hotel Casablanca)

Mexico (December)
Playa del Carmen - beach beach beach!!
We are staying at the Villas Sacbe

As you can imagine, lots of frustrated people were told they didn’t have a seat on the plane, and they started offering free tickets as incentives to stay. Since I had got up at 4am to make this flight, I was not about to give up my seat, so I am not sure what happened.

When we got to the airport, we felt smug since we already had our boarding passes and figured we’d skip the line. No such luck. United’s check-in system at BWI was incredibly poorly thought out:
1. Whether you had a boarding pass or not, you had to stand in the same line – we were just dropping off our bags but had to wait for people checking in, making chances…
2. Everyone with an electronic ticket, which seems to be most people these days, had to check in using the kiosks. I have seen this in other airlines as well and it makes no sense! Some people take so long, or have no experience using a machine like that, so they end up needing an agent anyway! Some older folks tried to go to the paper ticket only line, but were told they couldn’t.

Needless to say, “just dropping off our bags” took a lot longer than planned… The flight itself was fine, but as usual it was impossible to get a pillow. What’s up with that? I guess I need to bring one myself…

Oh, I almost forgot my last beef with United! They announce a meal service on all flights longer than 5 hours. BWI-LAX is scheduled to take 5 hrs, 26 min. As far as I can see, that is longer than five hours. Same thing going back – the scheduled time is 5 hours, 8 minutes. However, when you are in the air, they announce that there is no meal service because the actual flying time is 4 hours, 55 minutes. What?!?!?! It is the airlines that make it look like the flights are longer, to prevent being marked as delayed, but they should at least go after the hours they themselves post on their website!!!!! It is not that I am crazy about an airplane sandwich, but something would have been nice. The snack packs they sell do not constitute a meal in my book. The four choices are just different versions of stuff that’s really bad for you: “Would you like the salty, the sweet, or the fatty junkfood?”

I am happy to say that my next three trips do not involve United Airlines…

I had applied for the job, so it wasn't like it was a complete shock when the employer showed interest, but I didn't expect everything to happen so fast: I applied shortly before the Tuesday deadline, and on Friday I was contacted about an interview! I did a phone interview the following Wednesday, and after a one hour interview they called me back (literally two minutes after we hung up) to ask if I could come to Italy for an interview in less than two weeks. And they wanted an answer ASAP! I told them I needed the day to find out whether I could take time off. I didn't really know what to do so I spoke to some senior people in my organization and got some really good advice. By the end of the day I knew the right thing to do would be to withdraw - even though I was very excited about the prospect of a free trip to Italy! Then again, that would not leave a nice impression if I had no intentions of taking the job... Now, two weeks later, I feel better and while I was sad the day it happened, I am glad to say I have moved on. Maybe some time in the future I will have the chance to apply for something in Italy again.

Writing this, I realized that I have become a fast traveler!! Will I get kicked off Slow Travel? Then again, I will say that when I go on longer trips, I definitely stay in one place. To me, bliss is to stay at the same tiny place in Nicaragua for weeks and weeks, or spending a year in Bologna... So hopefully I can still call myself a Slow Traveler!

In early October I spent a lovely long weekend on California's central coast. You can read about it in the trip report I wrote for Slow Travel. Click here to access the report.

Below you can see a picture from Hearst Castle, one of the places we visited.

Tomorrow I am embaring on some REAL slow travel: I am going from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Southampton, UK. I have recently started working in the maritime industry and I will travel with one of our vessels to see the core product of the industry. It is a very large vessel that transports cars and other rolling equipment. I am very excited and I hope to get some good insight into the loading and unloading process and of course what life onboard is like. We will arrive in Southampton on Tuesday. So we are spending several days on what would take two hours on a plane. It will be interesting! I am bringing my laptop with some movies along with a book or two just in case things get too slow... And some sea sickness pills, just in case! I promise to write more when I come back.

All good Slow Travelers like to talk about when they did some really slow traveling, whether it be walking, biking, or just staying in the same place for a really long time. At the same time, we mostly use planes to take us to our destination, although we like to take it slow once we are actually there. I just came back from a trip where the mode of transportation was real slow as well; I traveled on a car carrier ship from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Southampton, UK, via Zeebrugge, Belgium. I have just started working in the maritime industry and part of the introduction to the company was to travel with one of the vessels to gain a greater understanding of the core product of the business. My colleague Maria and I boarded MV Toronto in Gothenburg on the afternoon of Saturday, July 7. We were to stay on until arrival in Southampton the following Tuesday. Not a terribly long trip but hopefully enough to learn something about life aboard the ship and the work both on sea and in the ports.

We were warmly received upon arrival in a rainy and gray Gothenburg. An enormous, red ship spread out before us and while I knew that this was a particularly large ship (she is only two years old) I was stilled flabbergasted. The crew looked happy to see us and it seemed that everyone had been informed that two women would be joining them for a few days! Two crewmembers carried our bags upstairs and introduced us to the administration officer, Junne. One of his many duties is to welcome visitors, guests, and officials who come aboard for various reasons. We filled out some paperwork and he made copies of our passports, before introducing us to the captain, the chief engineer, and other officers. There are 24 officers and crewmembers on this ship, all from the Philippines.

Tomorrow I head for Bruges, Belgium, for work. I have never visited Belgium so I am really excited. I will stay in Bruges until Friday and then entertain myself for 24 hours in Brussels before going home.

I haven't been a good traveler and done a lot of research, but I hope to have some free time in the evenings to explore. I have learned that Bruges is a beautiful cobblestoned town of about 120,000 people, with very well preserved medieval architecture. I also now that the Belgians like to eat Moules Frites! And that the beer and chocolate is supposed to be great... But I will definitely research a little bit more, both tomorrow and when I get there.

Au revoir!

I have been sooo slow to post something about my trip to Belgium in September. As it was for work, I didn't have much free time but I did enjoy one very nice afternoon in Brugge as well as a day in Brussels. Brugge was very beautiful but to me seemed a little too perfect, almost! Everything was so clean and nice but I didn't find the town to be very bustling or energetic, and at night it was quite dead, something that locals confirmed was true. But we had some great meals with the group from work, and I had a lovely Italian dinner by myself in an Italian restaurant called La Romagna. It is run by a guy from Rimini and I had a great time chatting with him in Italian. He is the president of the local Inter Milan fan club so he goes to Milan all the time to watch the games! I thought that was really funny. Good thing Ryan Air takes him there for cheap!

In Brugge we stayed at the Crowne Plaza which I thought was excellent. The breakfast was great, lunch a little less so but that was OK because they had such great desserts!

In Brussels I stayed at the Warwick Barsley Hotel and it was quite nice. I got it for very cheap on hotels.com but I would never have payed full price to stay there, it was just too traditional and there really was nothing special to the room.

Brussels was beautiful and I enjoyed walking around the cobble stoned streets at night. The next day I shopped and sightseeinged before meeting friends for lunch. I quite liked my 24 hours in Brussels!

Sunday afternoon I left for Mexico City on a business trip. It is my second time in Mexico, but since my first trip was to Playa del Carmen in Quintana Roo, which is as touristy as it gets (although still better than Cancun!) I almost feel like it is my first real trip to Mexico. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have much time to explore the city, but since I am here for two weeks I do hope to see some stuff over the weekend.

I am staying at the Camino Real Santa Fe, in the business district of Santa Fe, which is also where the office is located. It seems like all the big foreign companies have offices here, so far I have seen signs for Ericsson, Nokia, DHL, and many others.

The weather yesterday was very pleasant, it was probably 65 or so during the day, but COLD at night! Thanks to the altitude, I guess, Santa Fe is one of the higher neighborhoods in the city, at 2650 meters (8700 feet.) I have to admit the altitude have affected me some, I got a headache just about an hour after arriving on Sunday and yesterday, especially in the morning, I felt slightly tipsy! I also noticed that any real activity , such as a fast walk or taking the stairs, made me a little winded and made my head hurt a little. I have been told to take it easy and drink lots of water, which is what I did. I guess it helps that I am doing research and working on a study, so I can just sit quietly in front of the computer all day!

Wednesday is the feast day of the Virgen de Guadalupe, Patron Saint of the Americas and of course extremely important here in Mexico. Laztimosamente, the office is open… :) But I have been told that even if we did have the day off it would probably be too difficult to get anywhere, the crowds and the traffic are just enormous on that day.

I no longer feel tipsy which is a good thing! I have been told that you do get drunk faster here, so I will watch myself tomorrow at the office Christmas party…

I got an idea of the vastness of Mexico City yesterday, when I went to meet a former colleague for dinner. The traffic is just as bad as its reputation. It took over 75 minutes to get to the restaurant – and only 15 minutes to go back later in the night. My other friend says that the distances and the traffic is one of the biggest differences in living here – in DC you can walk, take the metro, take a bus and meet someone on short notice. Here, meeting someone after work, unless they live very close by, is extremely difficult. I think the traffic here would really get to me, as the pedestrian that I am. It annoys me to no end that there is no concept of cars stopping for pedestrians – you really just have to wait until there are no cars! Guatemala City is like that too, but it is so much smaller it just doesn’t feel as bad. I could write a book of laments on how Mexican and Central American cities are turning into bad copies of horrible American non-cities… The car culture is completely taking over and there is so little consideration to pedestrians. It used to amaze me that World Bank road loans in Guatemala often lacked provisions for pedestrians and bikers – why are we subsidizing the rich and their cars, while hurting the poor and the environment at once, by not encouraging walking and biking? Why do we buy into the idea that progress and increased income means car ownership?

OK time to go to bed before I get too wound up!! I was all calm after tasty roomservice of tacos dorados and an on demand movie, Stomp the Yard – but now I got myself angry by writing about cars!

Yesterday (Saturday) was my only real day off here in Mexico City and I decided to take a tour that included the Basilica of the Virgen de Guadalupe, and the Teotihuacan Pyramides. I was very exited to see more of the area! I took a taxi to a downtown hotel where the tour would start. I was under the impression that it was a bus tour, but it was just a driver, a couple from Costa Rica, and me! It actually worked out quite well, since we had many stops it would have been very time consuming with a larger group. As the good Norwegian I was, I was there about half an hour early, while the Ticos showed up fifteen minutes late. Oh well, we got along great so it didn't really matter.

The Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe was our first stop and it was both impressive and moving. People were still arriving for their pilgrimages (the Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe was December 12) and all parts of the complex were packed. The Basilica is the "new church" and the Cathedral is the old shrine. The Basilica is very modern and very nice. It was packed with people and for the first time this week I felt that I saw a real mix of Mexicans, not just the ones that work in the business district.

We then headed towards Teotihuacan and the pyramids, about 40 kilometers outside of the city. As this was a tour, there was also a stop at a small silver factory where they also make things out of obsidian – and they showed us how pulque, mescal and tequila are made. I felt a little bit pressured to buy something but in the end I was happy with the silver bracelet I bought, they really had beautiful things.

The pyramids were very impressive and I enjoyed the explanations from the guide. Apparently the teotihuacanos had sewage systems and even inside toilets! They also favored water births in a special bath tub… Teotihuacan was a large settlement by 150 BC, but after a fire in 650 AD the civilization quickly declined and remained as ruins during the time of the Aztecs and the Conquista. Excavation and reconstruction started in the early 1900s. We climbed the 65 meter high Pyramid of the Sun, which was really tiring! We also visited several temples and it was impressive to see what was left of the original murals. It also felt great to get out of the city.

Pyramid of the Sun:

The food here is AWESOME! I knew that what we eat in the rest of the world call Mexican food was not the real thing (the Santa Maria taco dinners favored by Norwegian families come to mind, or the overly cheesy, greaseladen plates of US Mexican restaurants) but I didn't really know how different it is. The food here is very tasty, and more often than not, not too complicated - and by that I don't mean that it can't be complicated to make, but that the flavors are allowed to speak for themselves.

I can think of nothing better than a piece of meat (arrachera, cecina, alhambre) in a tortilla, with just a little salsa and lime. Delicious! Or the amazing flavor of mole... Or a well-prepared flan... I know that Mexican cuicine is very regional and I hope to explore more of the country and thus more of the amazing food.

Below is a photo of what I ate at the company Christmas party. Riquissimo!

I spent Sunday morning with a friend exploring the Zocalo (the main square) and the historical center. The highlights included the Diego Rivera murals in the Palacio Nacional, the Aztec ruins (Templo Mayor), and of course the general hustle and bustle of people enjoying their Sunday.

The photos probably speak for themselves...

Dancers:

The murals:

Christmas decorations!

Today is my last day here and I am scrambling to finish! I will definitely not be done with the project but a lot of it can be done from back in Baltimore as well. I have enjoyed my stay very much and I am sad to leave. My colleagues here are wonderful and I will miss going to lunch with them! I also absolutely love staying in hotels so I will miss the nice Camino Real...

OK time to wrap up! A few more hours in the office, then pack up two weeks of clothes and stuff, and then off to the aiport for a 5pm flight.

I leave you with a photo of the nativity scene outside of the Basilica de la Virgen de Guadalupe - Merry Christmas to everyone!!

I flew to Nashville last night (on Southwest, weird) to visit my friend and colleague who is working in Smyrna for four months. We have had a great day visiting the cute town of Franklin, the tiny village of Leiper's Fork, and dinner in Hillsboro Village in Nashville.

I will write more tomorrow but I wanted to get in a post today as well! We took lots of pictures of beautiful, old southern houses in Franklin - and it was almost sad to return to Smyrna which is honestly nothing but huge stores, chain restaurants, and enourmous parking lots...

Here's a photo - more to come!

Beautiful house in Franklin, TN:

I just got back from Tennessee, we are half an hour from midnight, and I am posting only to post! Oh well. If I had been forward-thinking like many of my Slow Trav blogger colleagues, I would have lined up something before I left, but I am keeping it real time... I did write a long piece on the plane but I want to post that tomorrow with photos.

This was my first time flying with Southwest and I guess I was pretty happy, except that on my outbound flight I had a middle seat, which for a claustrophobe like me is not my favorite thing. And I wonder if they really save time by doing the boarding without assigned seats? I guess they do since they continue doing it. And bonus: I met some Italians in the boarding area that I chatted with while waiting for the flight.

Just a little taste of my mini-trip report: Me swinging in Sewanee on the campus of the University of the South, a gorgeous place.

I arrived in Nashville Friday night and my friend picked me up and took me to her apartment in Smyrna. Smyrna, is well, not the coolest place around. Apparently, 20 years ago there was nothing here; now it is a suburban sprawl of chain restaurants, big stores, and non-descript apartment complexes. Not my favorite landscape! However, we ended up having a great weekend and saw some really pretty parts of Tennessee.

I am continuing my mini-trip report from my weekend in and around Nashville, Tennesse.

On Sunday we decided that something different was in order and we headed to Sewanee and the University of the South. I thought my Spanish friend should see a nice college campus before she goes back to Europe, and according to Moon (the Handbook, not the crazy guy), the University of the South has one of the prettiest, if not the prettiest, campuses of the South. (Plus the directions were real easy, we only had to turn twice – a major plus considering our Saturday adventures!) The university is owned by the Episcopal Church and has celebrated its 150th anniversary recently (the anniversary of its founding, that is – it has been operating continuously since 1868.) The architecture is mainly Gothic and most buildings are faced with local stone.

Having lived four years in Georgia, I have seen a fair number of Civil War battlefields. And while I am very interested in history, I just don't get battlefields. (Maybe if I went to Normandie or something it would be different, I don't know.) Too me, it is really just grass. Even if they put a cannon there. I do enjoy visiting museums and houses in connection with battlefields, like the Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee, but the fields themselves? I am sorry...

To illustrate my point, here are a couple of shots:

Edited to add: For a hilarious take on the phenomenon of reenactments, there is a really funny book called "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War" that I will highly recommend.

I wanted to finish up my Tennessee postings with some photos from the Carter House, a farm that ended up in the line of fire during the Civil War and that now serves as a museum. The Battle of Franklin took place in November 1864 and was one of the bloodiest of the war. It was one of the few night battles of the war and one of the smallest battlefields. Almost two thousand men died. The Carter House was under attack but the family survived by barricading themselves in the basement; however, one son, had been part of the confederate army and died two days after the battle from his injuries. The bullet holes are still clearly visible in the main house, the office, the kitchen house, and the storage house.

I think the guided tour was very good, it was balanced and focused as much on the family’s life as on the events of the war. For instance, it was interesting to learn that they dug a basement and put the kitchen there so that they could take advantage of the cooler temperatures below. Most houses in the area did not have basements, but this spot offered a layer of soft topsoil that made it easier to dig one. Also, the family built a separate kitchen house to prevent fires - most housefires at the time originated in the kitchen, and often engulfed entire houses.

The main house:

In my last entry I wrote a list of where I have lived, and in the comment section, Sandra of A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With ... Too Much Luggage asked: "But now the nosy question: can you say which placed you loved the most?!"

No, I really can't! I love them all, but they of course mean different things to me. Norway is my home, where I am from, where my family is, so of course it is very important to me. I also I am a big fan of many of the things Norwegians take for granted but many other people don't have: Easy access to nature, both sea, forests, and mountains; social safety nets for our residents; less focus on cars and more on healthy living...

It is Friday night and I don't have much time! I want to post a photo I took in April 2004, when I traveled with some friends to Matera and Aliano in Basilicata. Aliano is the village where Carlo Levi was exiled as a political prisoner and where he wrote his famous book Cristo si e fermato a Eboli (Christ stopped at Eboli.) I love that book and it was an amazing experience to visit the village. This is the first photo we took, as we rolled into town in our Fiat Punto. I love this photo, even though there is some reflection of the car window. For some reason I often get so sad when I see old men (I have been like that since forever; my mom and sister joke that they shouldn't take me on vacation because I break down when I see sad looking old men) but these guys looked like they were having a nice afternoon.

You can read more about my trip in my trip report. Here is a little piece of it:

As we drove into the small piazza, I thought we had driven into the 1950s. The benches were occupied by old men, while women wearing black dresses and scarves on their heads were watching from the doorways. A hunched-over woman was leading a donkey loaded with produce up a narrow alley. Everyone stared as we pulled into the square and got out of the car; it was quite clear that it was very rare that a Fiat with three (foreign) girls came to town!

Here's another photo from the Italian South showing a very nice tradition: the Pasquetta picnic. Pasquetta is the Monday after Easter Sunday and as in many European countries, it is a holiday in Italy. Italians often say "Natale con i tuoi, Pascua con chi vuoi", meaning that Christmas should be spent with your family while you can chose who to spend Easter with - which usually means spending it with friends, having a picnic or doing something else outdoors. For Easter 2004 I traveled with two friends to Basilicata and Puglia, spending Easter Sunday and Monday (i.e. Pasquetta) with other friends in Vieste. Since it was April we thought it would be warmer by then but it was freezing! We had a wonderful Easter lunch at Luca's house, with more food than we could ever eat (I passed out for three hours afterwards.) For Pasquetta, we headed to the countryside outside of Vieste, where Antonio runs an agriturismo restaurant. It was still closed for the winter so we got to open it up and have a Pasquetta barbecue with wonderful meats, sausages, vegetables, and of course delicious Easter treats.

Quote from New York Times:

“Natale con i tuoi, Pasqua con chi vuoi,” is the Italian saying: “Christmas with family, Easter with whomever you choose;” and on Pasquetta, Easter Monday, there is an implied corollary for those holed up in larger cities: “Grab that ‘whomever’ and get out of town.” For Pasquetta, the idea is “gite fuori porta,” to go outside of the city.