Sao Tome Weekend

I apologize for the inconsistency in my posting lately. Frankly, we haven't travelled as much in 2016 as we did in 2015 so I find that our day to day life is somewhat uneventful. However, this past Monday was May Day in Ghana so Dan had a three day weekend. This calls for a weekend getaway... Enter: Sao Tome and Principe. A small country of two islands in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Gabon.

We learned of Sao Tome back in October 2014 when we spent a weekend in Lisbon, Portugal. The board listed our flight's destination as Sao Tome so we thought we were at the wrong gate. Come to find out the flight from Lisbon to Sao Tome stops briefly in Accra... so there you have it. It's by far the cheapest flight we've booked while living in Africa and we booked a hotel in Sao Tome using points from the chain that we "lived in" while in Maputo, Mozambique last year. Such a deal!

Our flight left late afternoon on Friday, getting us into Sao Tome around 5pm. We actually buzzed the tower on the landing, which prompted a good Top Gun reference. Turns out the runway is not very long and we didn't come down at the right angle in order to be able to stop in time so Mr. Pilot had to pull back up, circle around and try again. Success on attempt number two, followed by immigration, a quick shuttle ride to the hotel and a sprint off the bus to check in before the masses. Our vacation was underway. We changed clothes and went down to the bar to watch some soccer and have an appetizer before dinner. There was a barbeque buffet at the hotel so we sat outside with the ocean breeze and had dinner and some Portuguese Douro wine, and then we cried in remembrance of what good wine tastes like. We got tired (actually I got tired) so we went to sleep at a reasonable hour after a long day of work and travel.

View from our room

Saturday morning, we woke up and went down for breakfast. Found some pool chairs on the ledge of the pool... the ones that when you sit down, your bum is actually in the water. Ah, yes, this is the life. Busted out our books, slathered on the sunscreen and just relaxed. A few hours later, we went in for a quick nap, showered, and decided to venture out for some lunch and a walk into town. We found a place that got good reviews, and the name Papa Figo has a soft spot in our hearts. Back in Maputo, we used to visit a tapas place called A Esquina. The first time we went, we ordered a nice bottle of red called Papa Figos. This became our wine of choice at the restaurant, which resulted in Dan being dubbed "Papa Figo" by the waiters.

We ordered one plate of "frango" (chicken), a "peixe grelhado" (grilled Joe Pesci.. wait, no, grilled fish) and beers and took a seat at an outdoor table. Lunch was tasty and after paying, we headed out for a post-lunch jaunt into town. Town was... disappointing. Surprisingly, nothing was open on a Saturday afternoon. We wandered for awhile, eventually gave up and took a different walking route back to the hotel.

For dinner, Dan had a crab salad appetizer and we both had some steak. After dinner, we sat outside for a bit and then walked to the "Beach Club", a nightclub/bar that is adjacent to the Pestana Sao Tome hotel. They had a nice outdoor patio, so we sat, listened to the waves, completely lost track of time... all the things you should do on a vacation.

Sunday morning, we reunited with our pool chairs and soaked up more of the Sao Tomean sun. The hotel granted us a late checkout, so we lounged until we needed to go get cleaned up and pack. After checking out, we found a table in front of a soccer match and ordered two prego no pao (steak sandwiches) and some white wine. After indulging in the last of our good beef and wine, we boarded the shuttle back to the airport for the flight home.

On Monday, I planned to work a half day... which somehow turned into a full day. Dan ran some errands for me and brought home some tasty lunch takeout. And just like that... the calendar flipped to May. 20 months down on this crazy adventure, 4 remaining...

Jambo Kenya - Nairobi Part 2

After Sarah collected us from Giraffe Manor, we took a drive out to a place called Kitengela glass. They make hand-blown glass pieces from recycled glass bottles. We received a quick demonstration from one of the craftsmen as he made a very pretty fruit bowl. It's amazing the simplicity of blowing air into hot glass to make everyday items. After the demonstration, we wandered the couple shops that they had on site.

Items made here are used for decor in many of the hotels and safari lodges around Nairobi and the Mara. Additionally, they are available for sale in those same places and other shops around town. As a result, the items for sale at this "warehouse" were offered at a wholesale discount of 30% off. I really wanted some sort of light fixture or chandelier-type thing. I had my "fun money" from the teddy bears I've recently made for people in Ghana, and I had a short list of items I was interested in procuring. We wandered around for awhile and I was having a hard time making a decision (shocker!... anyone who knows me knows I'm awful at this kind of stuff... I can't even pick a restaurant efficiently).

I finally asked Dan if anything appealed to him and he said, let's get three of these and two of those and we can do a cluster thing, hanging them at different heights. Done. So we retrieved the hanging lanterns, and I picked out some gifts while Dan selected a pitcher and decanter. The guy calculated everything up and gave us the discount and in total it came to about $180. Seriously? For custom, handmade, original pieces?! Sold! They packaged everything incredibly well and we were on the road again.

We stopped at a cute little sandwich place for lunch and then headed into the city center of Nairobi to attempt to find our hotel. Sarah isn't terribly familiar with downtown as traffic is usually a mess and she avoids it like the plague. She teaches 2nd grade at an international school in Nairobi and is almost finished with her third year. In June, she will pack up and move back to Florida. We met at University of Florida and have been sharing East Africa vs. West Africa stories for awhile. Since we knew she would be on her way out soon, we figured it was a good reason to get a visit to Nairobi on the schedule.

After arriving at the hotel, we walked to the Masai Market, a market of "artisans", (read as: people hocking stuff they haven't actually created), and shouting at you because your white and likely to buy stuff. I had a very detailed list of the items that I wanted to buy (cough, thank you, Pinterest). Sarah and I briefly discussed numbers on the way over because everything is negotiable. Once I had an idea of what the price should be, or even what I was willing to pay, then I felt okay diving in. There's a lot of people yelling to get your attention "sister! come look at my things!" A guy told Sarah he was Obama's cousin. It's a hoot just to listen to the things people say to get your attention.

I knew I wanted two beaded Masai collars that I want to frame and hang on the wall back in the US. I had a vague idea of what I wanted but had a hard time finding two I liked from the same person. Finally, we found some Masai women in the middle of the market who were surrounded by beaded jewelry. I found two that I liked and eventually got her to agree to cut her price in half. The other item I wanted was a couple shukas. Shukas are blankets of varying thickness that the Masai people usually wear draped over their shoulders or as a quasi-toga. They come in all different colors but red is considered traditional. I liked the idea of them as park blankets or even outdoor blankets back in the US on a chilly evening. I got two lightweight ones and one heavier one for about $22.

 The shukas we purchased and a photo of Masai warriors wearing shukas (credit)

After the market visit, we went our separate ways and got some rest. Sarah picked us back up in the evening and took us to one of her favorite restaurants for dinner. The food was good and the air was a little cool; a welcome change from the heat and humidity of Accra. Afterwards we said our goodbyes and Dan and I walked to a nearby pub for a nightcap before going to bed.

Sunday was much less eventful. Slept in, worked out, I got a massage, we had some lunch, etc. The highlight of Sunday was dinner. We'd been informed by a number of people (Kenyan, tourist, websites, etc) that the place to go is Carnivore. It's a sort of Brazilian churrascuria-type place with all you can eat meat. You get a little flag on your table and as long as the flag is upright, a constant flow of servers continue to come by carrying skewers of different grilled meats. When you admit defeat, you set your flag down on its side to signal the servers that they don't need to come by anymore. Carnivore is also famous for a drink called the dawa. It's sort of a twist on a mojito. It's vodka and lime and soda water with honey on a stick. You stir the honey stick in the beverage which sweetens it up like the sugar in a mojito (no mint though). So we enjoyed our drinks and our meat, which included the normal beef, chicken, pork, lamb and turkey, as well as some more obscure things like crocodile and ostrich. It was a fun way to end our trip.

A very early wake up call on Monday, and we were off to the airport to head back to Accra. Until next time, Kenya! Asante! (Thank you in Swahili)

Birthday Festivities

Last week was a whirlwind of celebrations. I am so grateful for our amazing friends here in Ghana and feel blessed to have crossed paths with such lovely people. Thursday was my 31st birthday and was a day of well-wishes, finished off with a tasty dinner out at an Italian restaurant with Dan. Towards the end of our meal, the sky opened up and dumped rain for several hours. We made a run for it to get a taxi home and slept soundly to the sounds of the rain. That rain may have flooded a bedroom overnight but, we will let that slide.

Friday, after work, a group of us got together at a new place called Kona Bar and Grill in Osu. We had a going away party for one of Dan's coworkers. Janni was on a 6 month exchange program from Copenhagen, Denmark. She has now gone home but it was a nice last night for all of us to get together. It was a surreal moment in the car to look around and realize none of the 5 of us in the car would still be in Ghana by the end of the year: Janni back to Denmark, Gabby back to Kenya, Veronica back to Uganda and Dan and me back to the States. All in all, it was a nice night with good music and good company.

Saturday was a lazy afternoon on my part. Dan, however, woke up and began preparing a birthday cake for me. A few weeks ago, I showed him a photo of a birthday cake shaped like the Death Star from Star Wars. He said "I could totally make that". I politely accepted his challenge and he spent the entire afternoon baking a cake and mixing frosting from scratch. His efforts were truly impressive. The final product was delicious, though maybe slightly lacking in the aesthetics department. It's the thought that counts and I greatly appreciate the thought and the effort... and the multiple sugar rushes that occurred over the weekend.

Saturday evening, Hannah and Robin came down to spend a few days with us. We were going out to dinner that night except for one small problem: the water pump was broken. They turned off the water at about 3:30pm and water was not restored until 9am the following day. Hannah, Robin and I decided to take our pre-dinner showers in the pool since we had no running water. I have to say we all looked pretty good despite maybe a slight waft of chlorine.

There were 10 of us at dinner (left to right in the photo below): Veronica, Selasi, Joe, Sharon, Dan, me, Robin, Rosemary, Gabby and Hannah. The food and drinks were delicious and the conversation was also very enjoyable. We left the restaurant around 11:30 and all headed home after being out the night before and a long Saturday in the kitchen on Dan's part.

Sunday was a day full of movies and lounging. The four of us got up and had breakfast, played volleyball in the pool, took naps and relaxed. It was a very nice birthday weekend filled with quality time with some of my favorite people.

2nd Annual Valentine's Day Fort-Build

Valentine's Day weekend was surprisingly busy, despite not having any concrete plans ahead of time. Friday night, Dan and I went to dinner with Robin. It was his last night here in Accra before going back to the UK for a few weeks. They are currently in the process of moving up to Akosombo so the house here is pretty much empty and certainly without food.

We went to a South African restaurant that is in a hotel/apartment complex that looked new. The menu was pretty robust for a "hotel restaurant". We got some chicken and seafood skewers to share as starters and a bottle of wine. For mains, Robin got short ribs, Dan got the pork chop and I had a steak. Few places here have steak, and even fewer have good South African beef so I figured I'd give it a shot. My steak was actually really good, the best I've had in Ghana for sure. The guys seemed lukewarm about their choices. Robin's ribs were not braised the way we would have expected short ribs to be, so he gave the chef a hard time (which he always gets a kick out of doing).

Saturday morning, we lounged around the house. Francis, the head security guy, had been bugging me about washing our windows. I held him off for awhile with the good ol' "it's harmattan, let's wait til April" spiel, but he was growing impatient. As I'm certain he needed extra money, and we genuinely like him the most of the staff, we said ok. We did, however, choose to limit his access to just the living room and kitchen. We rarely open the windows in any of the bedrooms anyway.

He came at 10:05 (impressively punctual for a Ghanaian) and got started. When he finished with the patio, I was really grateful. Mostly because I had been dreading cleaning the deck after harmattan and trying to de-dust our patio furniture and the grill. He did all of that and washed the screens/sliding glass doors. We had agreed on 75ghs but we were so blown away by the job he did that we gave him 100 (which is still only $25, to keep things in perspective). I might have him do it again in August right before the patio furniture gets packed onto the shipping container.

Saturday afternoon was spent by the pool, with a side of naps. We got cleaned up and went to our favorite restaurant, Bistro 22, for Valentine's Day dinner. They had red lights throughout the restaurant with silk flower petals and heart confetti on the tables. There was a live band playing "love tunes" on a guitar, saxophone and a strangely high-pitched male vocalist. We ate a lot, enjoyed playing a mildly successful version of Name That Tune and got carrot cake to go. Came home and watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith whilst fork-fighting over the slice of cake.

Sunday was equally as relaxing (read as: lazy) while we watched a triple-header of soccer games. Last Valentine's Day, we were living in Mozambique. To refresh your memory... or mine, since I don't recall whether this story was told at the time... Dan offered to plan the activities for the day. When we left the hotel it was humid and over 100 degrees and felt like a sauna. By 4pm the sky turned black and was about to dump. We stopped off at the store for snacks and gave up on dinner reservations. Good thing we did because it was hurricane-worthy. Cars were stuck in the flooded streets, rain was blowing sideways, it was crazy. We took the mattresses and couch cushions onto the floor and built a fort of bedsheets and blankets, created a makeshift charcuterie plate and watched movies.

It was such a spontaneous but fun night that we decided to make it a tradition. So, this year was the 2nd annual fort-build-movie-watching Valentine's Day. We put together some snacks, built a fort with the sofa cushions and dining chairs and climbed in. We watched Bridge of Spies with Tom Hanks and then cleaned up and crashed. Still fun the second time around so I suspect it will continue.

Things have calmed down a lot on this end now that the weddings and things have passed. I expect the next couple of weeks to be pretty uneventful... which is just fine. :)

Jollof Training... or Parent Training?

Last Saturday, we went to Dorothy's for the day. Back in November, when Dorothy was in the US for training, she went to Costco and ordered a ton of stuff for her and another coworker here. It was sea freighted over here for a flat rate and had just arrived that week. One of the items in the shipment was an electric kid's car. Dorothy invited us over so Dan could put the car together and she could teach me how to make jollof.

Her driver came to pick us up and we went over to Tema. When we arrived, the kids were ready to "help". And by help, I mean, make it incredibly difficult for Dan to put together this car. The first issue we ran into was that the screws provided with the car were too small. The heads just fell straight through the predrilled holes. So new screws needed to be procured, then he was able to get started. Dorothy and I were in the kitchen listening to shouts of "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! I can help!" and "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! Can we drive the car now?!" He was very patient whilst having to constantly remove one child or another from the vehicle and hide the car's decals on top of the fridge.

 

 

While he wrangled the three crazies, I was attempting to take notes on jollof. I thought this would be pretty straightforward since jollof is a Ghanaian dish and Dorothy hasn't been here all that long. So I figured she would have just learned from scratch within the last 10 years or so and would have a real recipe. False... wrong on all fronts. 1. Jollof is also made in Cameroon, so Dorothy has been making it for as long as she can remember. 2. There is no recipe. 3. Dorothy cooks like my Grandma Maria...dash of this, scoop of that, no measurements... just autopilot.

So I tried to scribble down the ingredients, although I admit I have no idea what the correct proportions of these things are. Essentially, you make a stew with stock, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, spices, etc. Once the stew has been prepared and has thickened, you add in the rice. The rice cooks in the stew and absorbs it, making it a little red in color (from the tomatoes and tomato paste) and as spicy as you wish... It's very spicy in Ghana, which is fine with us. Once the rice cooked, we added in some diced carrots and green bell peppers.

In between stages of jollof cooking, I went to try to help Dan with the car. Maame Esi (pronounced like Mamisi) is 7 and genuinely wanted to help. She would get a screwdriver and wait for me to place the part and screw in the screws as far as she could. Ethan and Nathan (twin boys) are 4 and just were in a battle for who was going to drive the car first. Dan had to keep removing one or the other from the driver's seat. At one point, Nathan started pushing the car from behind.

Eventually, we finished the car and Dan broke the news to the clan that the car needed to charge... for twenty hours. This was not well received. They coped with this disaster and the 6 of us sat down for some early dinner. We ate and the grown ups had some wine. Dorothy packed us up some of the jollof and coleslaw to take home. We horsed around with the kids for awhile and then said goodbye to the clan and were driven back home.

Back in Ghana

The last two weeks have gone by pretty quickly, now that we are back in Ghana and caught up on laundry from the holidays. Hard to believe it's 2016 and our assignment will be over this year. We've been watching NFL playoffs, chuckling that there's only two more weeks of NFL watching from abroad. We will welcome a reasonable football-watching-timezone with open arms.

The weekends have been busy since we returned. Two weekends ago, we met Hannah and Robin on Friday night for dinner at a new (to us) place called Le Must (photo at left - credit). The food was decent and the ambiance was nice. It was quiet and we were the only people for awhile since people tend to eat late here. It was a good environment to catch up since we hadn't seen each other since before the holidays. On Saturday, there was a party at the tax partner, George's, house. He lives pretty far away from us and the party was supposed to start at 3. We decided we would leave the house at 3:45 which got us there around 4:30/4:45. We were the second people there. LOL.

Dan was giving directions to our taxi driver and he said "turn right here" and the driver said "are you sure?". Clearly, even he didn't believe we could be in the correct neighborhood, but alas, there was a big house and three Mercedeses in front. The house is beautiful but it's definitely the nicest place in the area (which is kind of the middle of nowhere). Come to find out it's basically the midway point between the village where George grew up and the office, which was the appeal of the location. There was a TON of food: soup, chicken, beef, three kinds of rice, grilled chicken, kebabs, and an entire roasted pig. By 7 or 8, most of the tax department was there and there was dancing and laughing and very loud music courtesy of the DJ who didn't seem to understand our many requests to dial it down. Various neighborhood folk kept trying to enter the party or get some food and George and his son had to keep escorting people back out the gate. It was good to see all of Dan's coworkers, especially my favorites, who I hadn't seen in almost two months.


I chatted with the other partner, Ayesha, for awhile and she paid Dan and me some really lovely compliments. She said how impressed she was with how much we try to go out and explore Ghana and see different places. She joked that we probably knew more of Accra than most Ghanaians who don't go out much and stick to the areas they know. Ayesha did a rotation in the UK and said she understands how easy it is to just stick to the customs/food/places/people you know but that she was genuinely pleased to see that we were outgoing people and open-minded to trying new things. (File under: qualities I never would have used to describe myself 5-10 years ago). It resonated with me because we really do try, but it's nice to know that other people see our efforts and appreciate them.

Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were quiet with football. I checked out a new grocery store and found tortilla chips. When I handed Dan the bag, you would have sworn it was the $1.5 billion Powerball ticket. He almost ate the whole bag in one sitting. That night, I went out to Bistro 22 with Alex and Leonora for dinner to catch up on their holiday happenings, which was very nice. Another work week flew by and Friday night, we went out to Urban Grill for dinner. We'd only been there once before, for Dan's birthday, but I really like the place (photo at right - credit). They have a really good salmon dish, which is not a common fish here, so I enjoy it even more. We had some wine and split a tuna/avocado appetizer. Dan got roasted chicken. It's a little pricey but consistently good and has a great reputation among the expats.

Saturday afternoon, we went to a place called Wild Gecko with Robin and Hannah. A lot of expats shop there for Ghana souvenirs. Since our time here is quickly coming to a close, we wanted to see what they had to offer just to keep in mind. I was really looking for housewares that we could bring home, like a cool mirror or light fixture, rather than just a knick-knack. They had some things but nothing that wow-ed us and everything was really expensive. We shall keep looking. Afterwards, we got dropped off at home, everyone had a little rest (except Chef Dan) and they came back over for dinner that night.

We ate and watched the recording of the Golden Globe awards from the weekend before. After they went home, Dan and I watched some football until we fell asleep. On Sunday, we hung out by the pool for a couple hours and watched some movies. Enjoyed a good week for our fantasy football team and got some rest for the coming work week.

Christmas Vacation - Part 4 (Final) - Netherlands

On New Year's Eve, we took our final train to Amsterdam. I've been excited about Amsterdam for awhile and, aside from being a little cold, it did not let me down. I am absolutely infatuated with all the canals, and the Dutch houses, and all the bicycles... even though I may have almost gotten run over by several of them in 36 hours.

We got in around lunchtime and went to the Hilton Amsterdam to check in. We took a tram back into the central part of town to look for a restaurant for lunch. It was a place called Metropolitain, and it was recommended by the receptionist at the hotel. It was very cute and they served late breakfast/brunch which might be my favorite thing ever. Upon perusing the menu (and eavesdropping on other diners' conversations), I realized most people speak English. Dutch is the official language and I'm sure most people speak that as well, but the overwhelming majority of speech and menus was English. I loved Amsterdam even more for that after weeks of language barriers and Italian gesticulations trying to get my points across.

At lunch, the gentleman sitting next to Dan struck up a conversation. He was very nice, if not a little weird, but it is Amsterdam. Come to find out he's a musician who was in a famous band back in the 80s and created a keyboard riff that is used in tons of music. He called the rhythm "Daddy's little pension" Haha. After fueling up on some food, we roamed around checking out some potential areas to explore later that night during the festivities. Once we felt like we got a lay of the land, we headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Normally, New Years Eve is all about getting dressed up and prancing around. Not this year. For me, it was "how many layers of pants do I think I need?". We layered up and went upstairs to the Executive Lounge for some food and drinks before going out on the town. We took one of the last trams before they shut down for the night at 8pm. It was still very early so we went pub hopping from one Heineken-serving bar to the next. We met some very nice/fun people along the way. We unintentionally walked through the Red Light District which was... well, it's everything you read that it is!

Since it was cold, we decided to stay inside as long as possible and then try to find a spot on one of the bridges over the canals to watch the fireworks. Around 11:45pm we got a spot on a bridge and waited. We knew we weren't in the center of one of the main fireworks displays but it was kind of cool because, when they started going off, they went off in every direction around us. Some were the city's shows, others were individuals setting them off. We watched the show and then wandered a bit. It became apparent that drunk people with explosives is not a good combination so we went on a 2am run to Subway (yes, THAT Subway) and walked all the way back to our hotel.

On New Year's Day, we walked to the "I amsterdam" sign, ate a pretty tasty breakfast and went to Rijksmuseum. There are LOTS of museums but, supposedly, this was the one that could not be missed. We were unimpressed. We've both been to better museums, so we lost hope in the potential of the others. We made some stops for souvenirs and then Dan wasn't feeling great (he had been fighting off a cough for a few days by this point). He asked if we could go back to the hotel and rest. We had been going, going, going this whole time so, as much as I wanted to see more of Amsterdam, I was exhausted too. We took a nap and ate downstairs at the Italian place in the hotel. Hopefully, we will make it back to Amsterdam as there is so much remaining to see and do. We shall see.

Early Saturday morning, we started the trek back to Accra. We flew a budget Spanish airline called Vueling. The tickets were half the cost of our usual fares, so we overlooked the 7 hour layover in Barcelona. We've been to Barcelona before, 7.5 years ago while on the study abroad trip where we met. So last time we were in Spain, we were more like acquaintances. We took a bus into town, got some tapas and sangria, roamed the Ramblas shopping street and pointed out all the things we remembered from 2008. We hunted and hunted for this place where we watched Spain win the Euro Cup. We recalled in detail what it looked like and where we thought it was but we couldn't find it. I'm convinced it's no longer there. Either way, it was a fun way to spend a layover and enjoyable to roam some of the same places now as husband and wife.

One more long flight and we were home safely on a Saturday night. Sunday was a lot of laundry and football and getting back into the swing of normal life after the craziness of the holidays.

Christmas Vacation - Part 3 - France and Germany

After adventuring around Switzerland, we headed to Strasbourg, France. I'll be honest, the only reason this city made the list is that it is famous for having one of the best Christmas markets. The town itself is really cute and looks a bit German in construction as it is on the border between the two countries. Apparently, the Alsace region was traded back and forth between France and Germany over the course of history until it finally ended up with France in the early 1900s.

Strasbourg has a beautiful cathedral that was a very impressive sight. I have to admit that I was incredibly underwhelmed otherwise. The Christmas market that usually stays open until New Years Eve closed early this year on Christmas Eve so, we had missed it. There were numerous little wood shops with the shutters closed on all of them. We read an article in the paper about the tourists being really upset about the change in closure date. People book their holiday travel so far in advance and it was disappointing for many of us to arrive and realize all the markets were closed. 

We enjoyed a walk around the city and admired the sights but, despite it being a weekend, not a thing was open. We suspect that with Christmas being on a Friday, the shopkeepers just remained closed all weekend. This left us with little to do aside from explore, eat and drink. I remain very disappointed in the experience as I don't see any reason why we would ever go back there. France did not do a good job of scoring points with Dan, so it remains one of his least favorite European countries.

On Monday, we traveled to Stuttgart, Germany. There isn't much in this town either; however, it is famous for two museums: the Porsche Museum and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. On Monday afternoon, we went to the Porsche museum, had lunch there and roamed the exhibits. It was very well laid out and full of fun facts. 

That evening, we went to a sports bar near our hotel for dinner and soccer. We had just finished paying when the fire alarm went off. This was not a good sign since it was attached to our hotel. Turns out, someone's radiator or towel warmer or something had started smoking so everyone in the hotel was confined to the restaurant while the fire department de-smoked the hotel. Always an adventure haha. 

Tuesday morning, we went straight to the Mercedes museum first thing and roamed the 7 floors of cars and information. The museum was also very good, but was different in that it traveled a timeline of Germany and how specific world events (wars, technological advances, etc) impacted the company and its trajectory. Very interesting. After all this car inspiration, we rented a BMW and Dan drove the Autobahn from Stuttgart to Cologne. There was little traffic so Dan was able to explore the "no speed limit" idea. I don't recall how fast his top speed was and it's probably best that I don't. Though I never felt unsafe with him behind the wheel. After driving in Cape Town, with a stick on the left side of the road, the man can do just about anything.

We checked into the Marriott in Cologne and roamed the streets in search of a dinner place. We eventually found the area with all the restaurants and opted for an "American Sports Bar" (shocking). We walked home through the quiet streets and crashed after a long day. 

The following day, we walked to the Hohenzollern bridge with all the love locks on it. You may think this is a silly idea given that Paris just cut all theirs off the bridges. Firstly, I trust German engineering immensely. I mean I did just ride there in a BMW. Lastly, this bridge is the one on which all the passenger trains cross the Rhine.... soooo it can hold some weight. Several thousand metal locks are not going to impact the structural integrity of this thing. We walked and walked trying to scope out a spot for our lock. We eventually managed to find a suitable place, affixed our lock, each took a key and tossed it into the Rhine. There our lock will stay, in the shadow of the Cologne Cathedral.

 It had gotten cold and windy, so we wandered a little more and then picked a warm place for lunch. New Orleans creole food that was very good. A bit more roaming and then we went to a quintessential German beer hall for dinner. The kind of place where they don't ask what you want to drink, they just bring beer.

In conclusion, this portion of the trip was a mixed bag. I suppose that's to be expected. Not every place you visit will be everything you hoped for and you will always love some places more than others.... to each their own.
One more stop til we head home to Ghana (well one and a half... but more on that later.)

Christmas Vacation - Part 2 - Switzerland

We arrived in Geneva and checked into Eastwest hotel. The train ride was quite long so it was already late by the time we got settled at the hotel. We went to a pub to watch the Manchester City match and had a late dinner before going to sleep.

On Tuesday, we got up and walked across the lake to the shopping district. The main language in this part of Switzerland is French so we had a bit of a language barrier to deal with. We waited in line outside the supposed best chocolatier in Geneva and I got a small box of truffles. Dan got a gold star for this considering there are few things he dislikes more than waiting in a line and chocolate. Haha. That night we had dinner at a hotel restaurant which was pretty good, then we walked back to our place to get some rest. We had an early morning wake up call the following morning to take a bus up to Chamonix.

 Geneva's fountain from the Mont Blanc bridge/Dan's true feelings about chocolate

The bus ride up was uneventful. It was unseasonably warm throughout much of Europe so there wasn't much snow. This was obviously disappointing but we dealt with what we had. This was one of the few things that Dan really wanted to do on the trip so I was happy we were able to do it. We skied a bit throughout the afternoon.... Dan skied... very well, as usual. I fell most of the way down. I was much better in Tahoe but I guess that was already 4 years ago so I lost my snow-legs. You can take the girl out of Florida, but you can't take the Florida out of the girl. That said, Dan was incredibly patient with me and my last run of the day was... respectable. (Even that's probably an overstatement but, hey, just let me have this one.)

We got back to the hotel, showered up and went on a hunt for dinner. We found a burger place that was very busy so figured that was a good sign. We ate there and went home to rest after a long day.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we headed off to Zurich. We stayed at Hotel St. Gotthard which was perfectly located right near the train station and on the main shopping street. Unfortunately, everything was already closed for the holiday but the city was very well decorated with Christmas lights almost anywhere you looked. The main street had strands of lights hung vertically from 4-5 stories up the whole way down the street. It was an impressive sight.

Months before we traveled, I contacted the hotel's concierge regarding restaurant recommendations. I suspected many places would be closed for the holiday and I didn't want to wait too long to book a table and find that nothing was available. She helped us book tables for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, we went to a place called Blaue Ente (blue duck in German). What we didn't know was that it was not actually in the city center. So we took the train out to the suburbs and went to a cute little place for dinner. The food was good and it was packed so clearly we made a good selection.

On Christmas Day, we kept the family tradition going of seeing a movie. Any guesses? Yep, Star Wars... again. BUT this time it was in English, thankfully. We laughed on the way home about the bits we had totally wrong or just missed entirely from our first viewing in Italian. We took a nap, facetimed our family to wish everyone Merry Christmas and went off to dinner at Zunfthaus Zur Waag.

The building was beautiful and based on the photos inside, it is quite old. Dinner was really good and the ambiance was nice. We didn't feel rushed at all. I actually didn't see many tables turn over so maybe they only took one reservation per table for the entire night. Lots of families out and about. On the way home, we found a pub that was open and figured it would be a quiet way to wind down. Boy, were we wrong. It was jam-packed. People everywhere at 10pm on Christmas.

We stayed for a bit and then went back to get our things together for the next train ride the following morning. Next stop: France.

Christmas Vacation - Part 1 - Italy

Dan and I arrived in Torino (aka Turin) within a few minutes of each other. He was held up a bit having to go through immigration but we met at the baggage claim and got our show on the road. We checked in at Townhouse 70 which was a really cute boutique hotel chain with a great, central location, and went out and about.

Considering Star Wars Episode 7 was released while Dan was flying to Istanbul, we decided to try to find a movie theatre. We succeeded in locating one... but, it was closed. They had advertisements for the movie posted all over the place but the doors were locked. Perplexed, we circled the block looking for another entrance. We came upon a quaint little restaurant so decided to go in for a quick bite and a glass of wine. We sat down and were quickly told that they were closing as lunch service had finished, but they had a table at 8pm if we wanted to come back for dinner. Sure, why not?

Circled the block a few more rounds and noticed more people congregating around the entrance. Apparently, they must open just a few minutes before the first showing. We went in and waited in line. We had a discussion regarding whether or not the film would be in English. Dan said that he didn't think it was possible that the film had already been dubbed in foreign languages, so, at worst, it should be in English with Italian subtitles. This seemed logical to me but I requested that he inquire with the ticket sales counter to make sure it was in English. He did not. And it was not. haha.

When the plot started rolling up the screen and it said "Il Risveglio della Forza", he must have been relieved that I don't possess Vader's choke hold skills. But, the way he laughed at me and knowing how much he loves Star Wars, I couldn't leave. So we stayed and tried to comprehend as much of the film in Italian as we could. Dan "gathered" much more than I did but I got the general gist... or at least enough that I wasn't worried about any spoilers that could be posted on the internet. We went home to rest up and wandered back that way for dinner.

Back in our hole in the wall restaurant, we had our own private room surrounded by Italian wine on all the walls. The place was called Ristorante Enoteca Parlapa, and we had 3 courses each, with wine, and left about 4 hours later. No I'm not kidding. We sat down at 8 and as we were finishing our coffee, Dan said holy shit it's midnight. The food was good, not great, but the experience was quintessentially Italian.

See that table in the back room (on the left side of the photo)? 

Yeah, that was our table. Photo credit: here

The next day was Sunday, so we slept in and wandered around a bit. Walked toward their famous landmark, Mole Antonelliana (which is actual the Museum of National Cinema). It was cordoned off by police as apparently there was a bomb scare. Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm, but we didn't stick around to find out. To the left is one of the few photos I was able to get of the top of the Mole Antonelliana.

Around 6pm, we wandered to an aperitif place under a colonnade surrounding a plaza. The plaza had a stage with a gospel choir singing Christmas carols so we sat outside and listened and people watched. We found a sushi place called One Apple for dinner, propped Dan's phone up against a glass and watched football in the corner upstairs while we ate.(hooray, Slingbox!)

Monday morning we boarded the train to Switzerland for 5 days in Geneva and Zurich. I promise I won't break every city into a separate post. This one was just particularly eventful with our movie go-ing and crazy dinner experience, so it was getting a bit lengthy. :)

NAWA and Dan's Birthday

The early part of this week was quiet, mostly because we were waiting to get paid... haha. On Wednesday, I went to a cafe to work and Alex came over at lunchtime to have a coffee and chat. She mentioned that she recently joined NAWA (North American Women's Association) and wanted to go to an organized dinner the next night. She wanted me to tag along; partially, so she didn't have to go alone but also because she's British, so she wanted an American partner in crime. Dan was expected to have a work happy hour that night anyway so I agreed and we RSVPed.

Thursday evening arrived and Alex was coming to pick me up. Just then, the sky opened up and DUMPED rain. In the run from the door of our building to her car, I was drenched. We very carefully navigated Accra's poorly drained roads and got to dinner safely. We weren't sure what to expect as we had been told that NAWA was a lot of older ladies, so we were going in open minded. There were about 20 of us and I think people ranged from early-mid-20s to early-mid-40s, so a good group. Everyone was really friendly and it was nice to meet some new people and share our experiences here in Ghana.

Maybe 5 of us were actually North American which I found pretty funny. One girl from Boston, two from Montana, one from all over California and me. The dinner was at an Ethiopian restaurant and was served buffet style. The food was very good and as enjoyable as I recall it being in Addis Ababa. The owner of the restaurant is definitely Ethiopian so the authenticity was never in question. We had some wine and chatted, and eventually parted ways around 10pm. The restaurant was very close to Alex's house so I felt bad having her return me back home. Luckily, one of the other ladies lives quite close to me and was kind enough to drop me off. I'm really glad I went and grateful to Alex for inviting me. Going to stuff like that alone can be overwhelming.

Friday was Dan's 30th birthday and we had reservations for dinner at a place called Urban Grill, which we heard good things about. It's close to his work so he and some coworkers went over and hung out at the bar downstairs after the end of their day. I met them there and, apparently, just missed the cake/singing bit. Funny because I know that Dan is not a fan of that stuff so I know better than to inform any servers it's his birthday. He had gone to the bathroom and when he returned they started their birthday music and parade of servers with a cake that has a sparkler in it, and immediately knew what was coming. That's what he gets for leaving Noks unsupervised. Dan and I went upstairs for dinner while everyone else kept enjoying their happy hour. We got a bottle of malbec and shared a tuna and avocado appetizer that came with plantain chips. For dinner, we got salmon with quinoa and a beetroot sauce and plantain chip crusted grouper with salsa and green beans. We swapped plates halfway through, haha.

After dinner, we went back down and found everyone right where we left them. We rounded up the troops and headed to Republic, an outdoor bar in Osu. We had some drinks and chatted until we got tired after a long day of work and celebrating. Headed back home around 11 to crash. I think Dan had a good birthday and a nice kickoff to Halloween weekend.

Wings and Rugby

Another busy week in the books. Thursday and Friday, Dan taught trainings at the office for the better part of the morning. Friday, I ran some errands to top up the electricity and go on a wild goose chase hunting down dishwasher tablets... for which we have now checked four stores and no one has any... weird.

Friday night we wanted to go out for a bite but wanted to try somewhere new. Recently, just on the other side of the US Embassy, a new wing place opened up. It's called Lord of the Wings... see what they did there? The menu is sizable and seems to be a knock-off of Buffalo Wild Wings in the States. They have a few different types of wings and then 15 or so different sauces. Now, this is Ghana where spicy food is a big thing. So we decided to try a few different sauces and Dan stuck around the middle of the heat scale. His thought process was that given Ghana spice, anything labeled as spicy would be tear-up-your-insides/smoke-out-your-ears spicy. The wings came and while tasty, there was no kick at all, which left us a little disappointed. Oh well. You live and you learn. At least it's a walking distance place for a decent meal and a beer after a busy day.

Saturday we had plans to meet up with some of Dan's coworkers to watch the Rugby World Cup semifinal of South Africa v. New Zealand. The pub is really close to this clothing store I've been wanting to check out so we left a little early to go there. It's called Brown Sugar and they have really cute clothes on their website and in the window (very American looking). We went in and the place is pretty small but they do have quite a bit of inventory. I was pretty disappointed to learn that all the clothes I thought were cute and could wear in the States were... actually from the States. I would say half the inventory is called Forever XXI Contemporary. Now I have no idea what the Contemporary line is or how it differs from standard Forever XXI, but I cannot justify paying $60 for a dress that is from there. For that price, there are many better-made options in the States so I suppose I'll set aside my shopping desires until I get back to the homeland in a few weeks.

The rugby group was fun: me, Dan, Veronica, Noks (wearing her South Africa rugby shirt), Janni, and "white Joe". White Joe requires differentiation as we ran into "Teddy Bear Joe" who is Ghanaian and was also at the pub watching soccer. Unfortunately, SA lost to the All Blacks but kept the score close which is an impressive showing given New Zealand's dominance in the sport. There was a promotion for Carlsberg beer that you got free swag if you drank so many beers. Given there were quite a few of us and we were there for 3 hours, much swag was procured. I think by the end we had 3 shirts, two hats, and two coffee thermoses amongst the table.

After rugby, we got some last minute groceries and came home. Hannah and Robin came over for dinner but we were all pretty exhausted by 10:30 or so. Watched a little college football an then hit the hay. There's a game at Wembley in England today so NFL watching starts a little earlier than usual in our house. Looking forward to another Fall Sunday!

First No-Travel Month... in awhile

Think about it... it's really been quite some time since we've had a full calendar month without a suitcase. Jan-Mar: Mozambique, Apr: Morocco/England, May: Safari in South Africa, June/July: Ethiopia/Tanzania, Aug: Dubai/Cairo, and Sep: SF/Munich. It's been incredible. We wouldn't change a moment of it. That said, having all of October to lounge around and catch up with friends and life here in Ghana has been lovely.

Things are looking very late-October-y (you like that made up word?) around here. The Halloween decorations have blended in to appear like normal house decor, weekend evenings are filled with football of both the NCAA and NFL varieties, the teddy bear business is booming in preparation for the holidays and we're just about a week and a half away from Dan's 30th birthday.

The last couple weeks have been very average. We've both had some busy work weeks culminating in many quiet evenings at home with dinners and DVR dates. We went out to dinner a few times with friends including a positively hilarious night with Hannah and Robin. We went to a French restaurant. Admittedly, we had wine at their house before we went so all four of us were feeling quite loose. We weren't sure of the dress code so Dan called to see if he could wear shorts. They said no, so we had to swing by the house for him to change into jeans. H & R were hounding him and giving him a time limit. He was taking a really long time and we couldn't figure out why. Finally, he appears back at the car in a full suit... apparently he really took the no shorts thing to heart.

Sitting at the restaurant, Robin wanted us all to speak in sub-par French accents through dinner, which no one else was really chomping at the bit to do. So then he decided we should give each other a character to act out until the next course arrived. We got to pick out the character for the person to our left. We'll just cut to the chase and say Dan won... or maybe I won depending on how you look at it since I picked his character. I told him he was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I was actually crying at the table. He starts subtley rocking back and forth stroking his left arm and saying (in the perfect voice) things like: "There's three pieces of bread. Three pieces of bread." "You had wine but now you don't. You need more wine." Suffice to say, no one else even attempted their character because we were a) too busy laughing and b) well aware of the fact that we couldn't beat him.

I apologize that our lives haven't been particularly exciting in the last few weeks, and, as a result, my posts are less entertaining. But, hopefully, the mental picture of this story was enough to put a smile on your face.

Germany Part 1 - Oktoberfest

We arrived in Munich around 5pm on Monday evening... just in time to get caught in traffic of people trying to go home from work or meander over to the festival for a liter of beer after a day at the office. Took us quite some time to get to the hotel but the room was spacious, for European standards so we quickly showered off the airplane smell and decided to roam over to check out the happenings.

Monday night's intention was just to get an idea of what this whole thing is about. I knew from photographs that there was a ferris wheel and maybe some other rides but I wasn't expecting the grounds to be as big as they were. They were easily twice the size of what I imagined. We were warned by friends who have attended in years past that it's almost impossible to get into a tent if you weren't there first thing in the morning.

Given that advice, we found a small beer stand off to the side and grabbed a beer and kind of surveyed the land. There are a ton of carnival rides and games that are all over the grounds, mixed in with these absolutely massive beer halls. Each big tent is sponsored by a different German brewery and most of them serve one particular brew in their tent, which is their brewery's Oktoberfest offering and you cannot get it anywhere else. After our beer, we went roaming around to find an ATM. Every one we found was out of cash but we were walking past one of the big tents and Dan noticed there was one inside. Expecting to have to haggle with the bouncer to get in the door, I offered to wait outside as "collateral". Dan walked right by and the guy didn't even look at him, so I did the same and Voila! we were in a tent.

This particular tent was really busy, so we decided to check out a few others before choosing a place to settle down for some dinner. We went to the next tent and asked one of the servers for a table for two, so she took us upstairs. We were looking at the menu when we realized... we had stumbled into the one wine tent that Oktoberfest offers. Dan found this particularly amusing as we then noticed all the  decor was grapes. We sat down, had a bottle of chilled German Reisling and some dinner... roasted chicken, with potato salad and a massive pretzel.

Our dinner and a quick picture from the second floor of the Weinzelt tent

Post-dinner beer

After dinner and wine, we figured we should find some beer so went over to Festzelt and posted up at a table with some nice Canadian guys. We chatted for awhile and then parted ways around 10pm as we were exhausted from our travel. We didn't sleep well at all and were awake at all sorts of crazy hours so our alarm at 9am was not particularly enjoyable. We had breakfast, threw on lederhosen and a beer maiden dress and walked back to the festival.

There was one particular tent that was on my "must-see" list. I've seen so many photos of it and I just needed to see it in person, so we went there first. We got another delicious "base pretzel" to line the bellies before the beer and got the day started. By maybe 11am, people were standing on tables chugging liters of beer while the rest of the tent cheered them on... these people don't mess around. We shared a table with two German girls and two guys from Texas. The table behind us was a whole group of young people from Switzerland so we were having a good time. So good, in fact, that we totally lost track of time and laughed that Oktoberfest is like Vegas where you have not the slightest clue what hour it is. Around 1pm, we decided to go next door to Hofbrauhaus's Tent.

Our tablemates here weren't nearly as much fun but the atmosphere was still worth experiencing. It's funny how much the decor inside each tent changes it's entire ambiance even though they are the same size. We finished our beers and decided to head back to the hotel for some naps.

 My fave tent - Hacker Festzelt/Tired Dan and the "base pretzel"

Silly pictures/Silly hat/Hofbrauhaus Tent 

 After our naps, we noticed it was raining (good thing we came home when we did), so we borrowed an umbrella from the front desk and set out in search of a dinner spot. We found a German restaurant/bar that was showing soccer and had dinner there. I had weinerschnitzel, and Dan had veal medallions with a sausage/sauerkraut starter... very German of us. After dinner, we walked back through the rain to the hotel and tried to get some rest before our early train to Frankfurt the next morning.

All in all, Oktoberfest was a blast. I'm not sure you need more than maybe 2 full days there... nor do I think that would be the best decision for one's liver. That said, I'm so glad we went and it was definitely a worthwhile experience that we would recommend.