Mexico City New Year

I'm a sucker for airline miles manipulation, and this year, they got me.  After our trip to Aruba and our flight back to California, I was shocked to see that I hadn't flown enough on actual paid trips this year to maintain our Delta flight status.

Sunset on our way to Mexico City.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Super ridiculous privileged first world problems, but if we're going to be honest about privilege and first world stuff, then we need to talk about financial literacy.  It's very important in terms of people's ability to transition from parents who are "poor, first in their family to go to college" to children who are "Bay Area hyper-educated normal." My family was *not* upper class, my parents were both the 1st to go to college in their families, and my 2nd generation college-groomed privilege was that I found finance interesting and I could subscribe to magazines about investing and business and my parents let that happen (they were all essentially free due to some weird sweepstakes magazine thing)...

Tacos from El Rey De Suaderno -- Delicious!

All of this (understanding the scarcity model plus a desire to maximize profits) contributes to my ability to realize that if I didn't get at least Silver Medallion status on Delta for 2019, I was losing quite a bit of value (as I had several reserve MQMs that wouldn't roll-over unless I was at least Silver, not to mention upgrade opportunities, free drinks/food, etc.).

Zocalo, the 3rd largest public square in the world.

E called it when I saw my status on the Delta App on our flight home from Aruba/Atlanta, "You're totally going to book a New Year's Trip that gets you status to protect our 2019 travel, aren't you?"

consommé -- one of the best things about  CDMX taquerias

Well, yes.  I tried to brush off his suggestion initially, but of course he knows me better than I know myself and 1 week later, we'd booked a New Year's trip to Mexico City.

The ruins in downtown CDMX right off the Zocalo.

We have several friends who've gone in the last few years, and they've all had wonderful things to say, particularly about the food.

Aztec Sun Stone

I knew we'd have a wonderful time -- it's the largest city in North America -- of course we could find things we'd adore.

Stereotypical touristic stuff at a ridiculously charming outpost near Teotihuacan.

But, folks, it totally exceeded our expectations.

Pyramid of the Sun -- the largest pyramid in the world you can hike up (3rd largest overall)

It was awe-inspiring.

View from the pyramid of the moon.

The teotihuacan pyramids are, frankly, almost as impressive as Machu Pichu, but with less crowds, and much easier to get to, so net, possibly a better experience.

The food was, as promised, excellent.

We decided on a light Portuguese lunch

(Jamon Iberico, Pan Tomate y Mejillones y Pulpo)

The museum of Anthropology was one of the best museums I've ever been to, which is saying a ton, as I tend to prefer my museums on the modern, arty, side.

We originally went with hopes of out of control Mexican fireworks (for which they are known), but, one of the few downsides of modern day Mexico City is the air quality (abysmal).  As such, fireworks had been more or less outlawed (as had tire fires and trash fires), so we found ourselves on Paseo de la Reforma with a cheery, happy group of folks with nothing more than a band, lights, and *HUGE* sparklers.  It was wholesome and wonderful and one of the more enjoyable ways I've crossed the new year's threshold.

Overall, it was a wonderful way to transition into the new year and I'm a bit shocked that it isn't held out as more of an international destination for Americans who want to travel.  It is the largest city in North America, very tourist friendly, but clearly its own Latin American destination where English will work, but not remotely as well as Spanish (so if you have some, use it -- they will appreciate your efforts!), and it has tons of culture.  Why it is not on the default list of easy places for American families who want to raise world traveling children is shocking to me -- the pyramids alone are worth a trip.

Also, the food.  Did I mention the food?

Chapulines -- look closely, those are baby grasshopper tacos (delicious!)

We'll probably go back as our friends stayed an extra day and did stuff we didn't do that sounded wonderful, plus there were neighborhoods we didn't visit and food we didn't try.

We fit in all sorts of fun cultural stuff including a great night of Lucha Libre!

If you're looking for a short international trip that has tons of culture, you should consider Mexico City.

U.S. Southern Route West, Part 1

I drive outside of North America, E drives in North America -- this sabbatical year, I made out like a bandit.

We've got a bit of a schedule to keep on our drive back to California.  Technically, the sabbatical year is up today, and we are now on borrowed time.

Unlike the lovely 9 week trip we made from California north to Canada and then east, below the great lakes, back up over Niagra falls and through Quebec to Maine and down to Atlanta, we're pushing the mileage and minimizing the site-seeing on our trip back.

So many wrought iron fences in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

E drove from Atlanta to New Orleans in one 6 hour plus day.  We arrived to heat and humidity and a culture that was so uniquely its own that it floored me.  If most of our American travels are about realizing how much major US cities are all starting to evolve to be more like each other, arrival in New Orleans was the opposite.  This place is *very* much its own, with very strong French, Spanish, and Caribbean influences. 

Also, the food.

5 PM beignet snack before a hot sauce tasting

at Pepper Palace (YIKES!)

and a 2 hour walking tour

followed by a delicious dinner.

Oh. My. God.

We only ate a few meals in New Orleans, but I could not believe the deliciousness of every single bite that passed my lips.  These people have combined and savored everything from all of their immigrants and made a cuisine unlike any I've ever had.  So many different layers of flavor.

We took the Creole Queen down the Mississippi to the site of

the Battle of New Orleans, which they are proud to report

is how the war of 1812 was finished off, and why the USA

did not have to lose her Louisiana Purchase territory

to the Brits (or the Spanish, due to legal technicalities).

After 2 nights in New Orleans, E drove another 6+ hour day to Austin so that we could visit with friends.  Visiting Austin was bittersweet.  The C family were the folks we had our most frequent social interactions with when they lived in our town.  They moved while we were traveling, and coming back home to miss them is going to suck.  Thankfully, they have a very comfortable guest suite that we plan to take frequent advantage of.

Austin still feels foreign to me, but after several visits in the last few years, it's starting to feel more and more comfortable.  For example, I thought I didn't like Tex-Mex, but actually I just hadn't had good Tex-Mex before Austin.  Similarly, I thought Texas BBQ brisket was fine, but the best offerings in Austin convinced me that it's one of the most impressive ways to cook beef, period.

Welcome to Texas, indeed!  Driving across the border from Louisiana.

I started running regularly in Austin after a couple days of recovery post Peachtree.  It was ridiculously humid, but after Atlanta and New Orleans, 70% humidity didn't seem too bad.  I kept the running up on our road trip after we left, and I pulled a 7-day 25 mile running streak (took day 8, today, off) for the first time in a long time, with most of the miles being slow (often run-walking), in heat and humidity.

Oh, Texas...

After a few fun days with the Cs, we pushed westward with one-night stays and days of driving with only the occasional stop for missile-related site-seeing.  Each day we got closer and closer to home, and things started feeling more and more familiar.  Rural Northern Californians, and particularly my Dad's and Mom's extended families and college friends have so much in common with the average person we encountered in Western Texas and New Mexico.  Every day of westward travel, as the landscape and air became drier and drier, and the accent moved more towards that of my grandparents, I could feel our cultural approach to my homeland in my bones.

Last night's accommodations at the Big Chile Inn, Las Cruces, NM.

After a full year of travel, we are coming home, visibly, palpably, a little each day.  And for the first time in my life, I'm completely devoid of wanderlust.  I can't wait to live a bay area home-bound life!

Iceland, Part 1

A good friend sent me the Oh, you went to Iceland? Amazing link.  It sent me into hysterical laughter.  You should read it if you have friends, family, or social media acquaintances who've gone to Iceland recently, you'll probably relate.  I did.

See, I already had a love-hate relationship with Iceland by the time we got here.

View of the Blue Lagoon from the approach to KEF.

[Full disclosure, this post is going to have some serious first-world spoiled rotten whine in it, because you can't really complain (even honestly) about being able to travel to amazing places without sounding like a bit of an asshole.]

Typical gorgeous road trip view

if you are unlucky enough to be in Iceland when it's storming.

So, we were doing Europe on our standard seat-of-the-pants "dirt-bag planning" that more-or-less worked this Sabbatical year throughout South America, most of Asia (but not Japan), and all of Europe right up until Iceland.  This approach means we don't usually have lodging or rental cars more than a week in advance (sometimes booking the day before), and typically, we buy tickets for trains, planes, ferries, etc. a week before we need them (or 2 weeks if we really have our shit together, or, on the other extreme, we just buy them the day of if we're convinced we don't need to purchase in advance).  Essentially, we're cheap, lazy, and late, and we tend to take the best of the dregs of the cheapest of what's available wherever we are headed with a dedicated bathroom ('cause we're old now), which generally tends to work out fine and occasionally results in some very funny stories.

Road trip views of the ocean and shoreline in Iceland before the weather turned.

We hadn't booked our flights back to the US from Europe, but I knew that Icelandair had free stopovers for up to 7 days in Iceland, and I knew that Chase Ultimate Rewards points could book on Iceland Air, so I figured we'd just go with this option and do some time in Iceland on our route back just like so many of our friends and family who've shown us their awesome photos.  First mistake -- I waited 'til about 2 weeks before we needed to fly to Iceland and called Chase Ultimate Rewards because I couldn't figure out how to book the free stopover on points online.  Turns out, they couldn't either.  Apparently, it's a benefit that's only available for people actually paying real cash to Icelandair.  I could have called and researched and tried to solve the problem but I decided that was too much trouble, so we just booked one leg to Reykjavik on the Chase Ultimate Rewards points on Icelandair.  And then, I built in a week stay for us to enjoy Iceland (without doing any research on hotels, mind you) and booked our flight from KEF to the US on airline miles after that week.

Stereotypical $110+USD a room night, in-room sink,

but down the hall for shared toilet and shower
Iceland special.

So, now we had flights in and out of Iceland right around the Summer Solstice.  In hindsight, I probably should have guessed that a place with that much Summer sun might be a popular destination around the longest day of the year...

But, I didn't.  So when I went to start reserving hotels, my jaw dropped at the prices, and I quickly downgraded to guesthouses and hostels with shared bathrooms, which, in most cases were still some of the most expensive lodging per night we'd purchased for the entire sabbatical year (including amazing suites and glorious ocean views and what not in places off the beaten track in Asia and South America).  In fairness, we did cheat a bit and used hotel points and Chase points in big expensive cities this year, so it's not a true apples to apples comparison, but even so, I was super shocked to learn that rural Iceland is *much* more expensive than rural Japan when booked late on our seat-of-the-pants-travel-plan (like 2X for a basic room for 2 in Iceland sharing a bathroom with multiple guests vs. enjoying a very private en-suite bathroom for half the price in a rural Japanese business hotel).

Waiting for the Geyser to erupt...

You know what none of my friends or family who'd been there before told me?  Iceland is CRAZY EXPENSIVE.  Like $10 pint draft beer special expensive.  Like $25 hamburger expensive.  Like $40-$60+ per person to get in the popular hot springs expensive (and that probably doesn't include towel rental, etc.).  Like now that we've seen our options, we actually plan to go to Taco Bell (secret guilty road-trip pleasure in the US normally) and see how much we can save with a run to the border for a road-trip meal before we leave.  All of a sudden, my cousins who brought their camping gear and MREs and did a road trip in a rental car and tent-camped around the Ring Road in May even though there was still snow on the ground don't look so crazy to me.

Beautiful Icelandic horses in the wind...

Oh, did I mention the weather?  Yeah.  Turns out, Iceland is green and beautiful for a reason.  Our day of arrival was gorgeous, but we'd come from Malta so we figured this was normal and didn't take too many pictures.  Since then... well, it looks like we're here for a week of serious wind and rain and cold.  Did you know Iceland is the windiest place in the world where people actually live?  Yeah.  It's true.  Thankfully, we have rain gear and hats and wool socks and gloves from some of our other travels, because it had not occurred to me that 21 hours of sun a day in Iceland would be anything other than glorious Summer.  I mean it was almost 25C in Copenhagen when we were there!  But the high today was 8C (46F), and it rained *all* day.

The face of the Eurasian tectonic plate from the rift walkway...

Anyways, Iceland is gorgeous, but the rain, wind, and cold has cut back on our planned enjoyment of the views, the running, and the hiking.  And, unfortunately, the food in Iceland is actually pretty terrible.  There.  I said it.  I'm from California, I've been traveling the world for a year (primarily to eat good food, if I'm honest), and today, I was excited to go to a diner where I could order mozzarella sticks with iceberg lettuce and a cucumber on the side with a large soda water for lunch -- this was a *great* option by local standards (in fairness, it's actually a pretty great little kid guilty pleasure lunch, just super unhealthy).  Not to be outdone, E had one of the famous Icelandic hot dogs and jalapeno poppers along with some fries (to the restaurant's credit, they gave us the fries for free and we both enjoyed them -- the fryer had more than they needed for the lunch service and we arrived on the late side of the lunch rush).  This gastronomic experience set us back $30, which is by far the cheapest meal we've had in Iceland thus far. 

Posing, with the famous Icelandic hot dog... (just fine, not mind-altering).

Make no mistake, Iceland is *not* a culinary destination.  Which is, of course, fine.  Its landscapes are obviously the reason to come.  But it's more fine if you happen to be here when the weather is good and the free views and hikes help balance out the value of the otherwise egregiously expensive trip with bland expensive food, or, it's fine if you're prepared with MREs like my genius cousins, or at least if you're pre-prepared for the amount of money you'll be paying for something that doesn't really qualify as a proper meal in many of the places you regularly spend time (I wasn't and it's still smarting, every day, to see the totals on our bills after mediocre meals -- oh, the 4 EU full-size amazing margarita pizzas in Naples, they do that one aspect of life better than just about anyone, and it really hurts to experience how badly Iceland missed the good food value boat).

Italy and the return to Italian

E and I were talking about it, and it's agreed.  My Spanish, is, finally, after 3 months of immersion, miraculously, better than my Italian.

Classic salcicia e friarelli pizza.  (And a saltimbocca sandwich in the background).

But...  A little bit of Italian goes a long way in Italy.  Like way more than quite a bit of Spanish in Spain or French in France.

Plastercasts of people buried alive by the ash of Mt. Vesuvius in Pompeii.

Also, every day we were in Italy, my Italian got much better.  E told me about a week in that he was happy to see that service people stopped cringing when I insisted on struggling through in Italian when clearly their English is much better than my butchering of their language (conveniently, my face-blindness extends to a lack of awareness of people's frustration with my insisting on speaking a language I think I should be able to communicate in). 

I was unprepared for how large the Pompeii ruins are.  It's an entire city.
(That's been under constant excavation for more time than the US has been a country!)

And, somehow, along the way, I happily unlocked stuff that was 15 years deep in the recesses.  About halfway through our visit, a server counted the number of pieces of uneaten pasta on E's plate and motioned that he was not doing his job.  We all laughed and I said, "Vergogna?"  And then, certain I must have gotten it wrong, I proceeded to try about 12 different Spanishized/Fracophied/Latin-based modifications until the server stopped me and said, "Si. Vergogna. Shame!"  It's always very bizarre when your brain re-activates a long dead pathway.  I knew "Che pecatto" but for some reason at that moment, my neurons grabbed another word, one I had no recollection of actually knowing, but somehow did.

Running in Italy did not happen much, but aggressive hiking on sketchy trails to historically fascinating

sites was a regular activity.  (View from the hike to Tiberius Ruins on Capri.)

In the 15 years since I was last in this country, Italy has become much more English-speaking.  If you are a tourist, it's now hard to even do anything in Italian if you speak English unless you are in a non-touristy place, which, since so much of the economy of Italy runs on tourism, is kind of hard to find...

Sea Urchin Spaghetti -- Amazing

After 11 days of minimal Italian study and using it every day in the country, E commented at dinner, "It's probably true that your Spanish is better than your Italian right now.  But you are just so much more comfortable in this language.  Watching you talk to people in Italy after a week is like watching you talk in France.  You just expect that things they say will make sense to you and that they will obviously understand what you are saying. You visibly try much harder in Spanish."

Lemon ricotta, cream, basil, preserved lemon ravioli 

(Very traditional Amalfi meal -- no new world ingredients)

And there it is.  Despite years away, Italy and Italian is like a homeland to me.  I may love France and French, now, but I worked so, so very hard for it, whereas I definitely didn't do the same level of effort for Italian.  In fact, I think I probably have also done more total work on Spanish than Italian, and definitely much more recently, and yet, I'm just more comfortable in Italian (and they, in fairness, tend to be more comfortable in English as well).

2 kinds of tartare and 2 kinds of carpaccio with a side of beef sushi

(Appetizer before arguably the best beef meal of the year in Reggio Calabria)

I mean, I get their jokes.  That's really what it comes down to.  They are close enough to my people that I understand what they think is funny even if I don't totally understand all of the words.  And they see me laughing.  And they reach out, physically, because they are a loving, demonstrative, joyful, and full-of-life people that I'm so very happy to visit yet again. 

On the trail of the Gods hike in Amalfi

Also, it doesn't hurt that E looks like half of the men in Napoli and 1/4 of the men in Sicilia.  We've seen so many people who've reminded us of his uncle Vinnie (no joke) and his grandma on this trip.  And I have dark hair, and I may or may not come from people of this region (or its many invaders), but they often assume that it is true.  They are so accepting and loving and feeding you too much food (today at the airport the food service guy refused to take money for bread and breadsticks when I returned to buy them after realizing we hadn't bought enough).

The average Naples intersection -- we hadn't seen traffic on this level since Vietnam.

After 20 days of Italian chaos and joy, we left for Malta.  Despite the inefficiency and unpredictability, I was so thrilled and happy to be listening to and singing the song of Italy, enjoying its gorgeous countryside, talking with its people and eating its delicious food at every turn. It has been wonderful to return after 15+ years of absence.  And, I can only hope to return much sooner next time.

Spain

Ibericos and Pinxtos -- 2 major decision factors

In deciding to ditch the central European travel plan, the analysis went something like this:

[At an amazing meal in Dijon] E, taking another bite:  Oh man, French food is heavenly.

Me, taking my own bite:  Mmmm, I know.  Although, in fairness, on our first night in France, you totally ordered a plate of various Spanish jamons and chorizos.

E, grinning:  And it was good!

Me, taking a sip of wine:  And French wine, so reasonably priced in France...

Both of us, sighing contentedly.

E:  You know where the food and wine is not going to be this good?  ...Poland.  And all the other countries between there and Italy.

Me [laughing]:  It's true.  Remember the pickled sausage in Prague?

E: Also, it's been surprisingly cold in France.  Have we checked the weather in central Europe?

Me: You know, there's no reason we *have* to go to central Europe.  I want to visit all of those countries and sights on our list, but we don't have to do it this trip.  It is a fairly ambitious itinerary, and it's been so nice to take it slow since we arrived.  You make a good point about the weather.  I know how much you love Spanish food (Jamon & Pulpo), and, obviously, Spain is much easier for both of us, linguistically, than any of the central European countries, so if you would rather just stay in western Europe, we could add Spain and figure out some other stops before showing up in Italy for the wedding...

And that was that.

Surtido de Embutidos

After 20 days of eating gorgeous but filling composed plated meals in France (I pulled out all the adventure stops and had Andouillette for lunch as my last authentic meal - In case you were interested, that box has been checked by this *very* omnivorous eater and does not ever need to be revisited), the first dinner in Spain was such a great change. 

Pimientos de Padron -- when we get back to California,

I'm eating these every week until they are out of season.

Tapas that we could share. Olives with additional marination in the form of olive oil and some delicious spices on the outside.  A salad of sliced tomatoes with onion, olive oil and oregano.  A small plate of jamon.  A bikini (toasted ham and cheese sandwich). Pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato juice and olive oil on it).  And that was it.  We left feeling satiated, but thrilled with the light food and lack of heavy fat, cream, and sauce. Conveniently, in Catalonia, my mixing of French and Spanish as I transitioned back was welcomed as closer to Catalan.

End of the run in Girona.

E and I started our road trip by running in Girona and then walking along the Roman city walls to cool down.  From there, we picked up the car and headed out towards Zaragoza.  E has developed a ninja-like ability to pick restaurants on our road trips.  I don't question his methods, because the results are unquestionably divine.

Best Pulpo of our trip.

This first road trip pick was a Catalan speciality restaurant in a suburb of Barcelona (the server spoke only Catalan to us, which was fun to decipher, but thankfully the menu was in both Catalan and Spanish, and they understood my Spanish with residual French mixed in just fine).  This restaurant had a gorgeous outdoor seating area, and we were drooling with each dish:  olives (marinated after curing, again, brilliant), a selection of cured sausages and cheese, pa amb tomaquet (smashed rustic bread topped with olive oil, garlic & tomato juice), pimientos de padron and the best eggplant preparation ever (dry! No oil!), and finally a grilled octopus arm over pureed potatoes.  We paired this with a little wine, a lot of sparkling water and finished it up with 2 espressos.  The meal took almost 2 hours, which broke up our longest day of driving to Zaragoza.  We spent the entire drive congratulating ourselves on our good decision making re: staying in Western Europe.

Zaragoza was a bit surprising, as neither of us had realized that Basque was prevalent there.  At some point on the drive the signage switched from Catalan/Spanish to Basque/Spanish, which did not help with me trying to revert my brain to clean Spanish post-French, but did result in some more delicious food.

The coral where they hold the bulls before the running.

We stopped for lunch in Pamplona and E's restaurant picking abilities were yet again on point.  After an 11EU 2-course Basque set meal for both of us followed by cheese and espresso, we stopped to enjoy a drink in the bar on the square where Hemingway passed the time while writing The Sun Also Rises, and after watching the world go by, we found our way to the start of the circuit of the running of the bulls and walked the route to the stadium.  This visit was particularly poignant for me, as Pamplona was one of the only places my Dad had ever gone in Europe (of course, for the running of the bulls -- he wore the traditional outfit with the red neck kerchief, although he didn't run and just stood high on a pillar and watched them go by).

View from Café Iruña into the Square in Pamplona.

Again, we were surprised to realize that the signage in Pamplona was Basque/Spanish.  The festival of San Fermin and the running of the bulls is actually a Basque Festival.  I had thought that the Basque-speaking region of Spain was much smaller than it actually is before this trip.  The only place I expected to find it in Spain was in San Sebastian, where I had been the guest of a French-speaking Basque family during the Basque Festival for the city, when hundreds of Basque descendants who had spread throughout the world (like my friend who took me from Bordeaux) returned to the town of their origins to celebrate.  This visit was much more sedate, although still quite international, as the tourists dominate San Sebastian, at least downtown and along the waterfront.

View of San Sebastian from the other side of the bay.

For the rest of our time in Spain, we were a little shocked to realize that our lessons from South America re: the Spanish being jerks and just brutally rolling in and taking over the local language and culture *also happened in Spain* (by the Castellano against the local European peoples with their own distinct languages and cultures).  Today, it appears there is a resurgence of respect for the dialects.  Most Spanish regions we visited had bi-lingual official signage in Castellano and the local dialect.  Also, menus, ATM instructions, and Museum guides could often be found in Castellano, Catalan, Gallician, Basque and more (often all of these options were available where English wasn't (but French usually was)).

Running route in Burgos

We had such a lovely time in Spain.  Not sure if our experience is true for the country as a whole, but somehow we put together an itinerary that made it very easy to run and workout. In most cities there were separated running/walking and biking trails and many people using them, including women in serious workout gear, often running very quickly.  (Another huge difference from France, where I saw some men in workout gear, but very few women.)

Our favorite Spanish Meal!

Before this trip, my ideal Spanish meal involved Pulpo a la gallega and pimientos de padron and some olives.  E's choice Spanish meal, of course, was a plate of Ibericos.  I'm happy to report that we had many different meals (lots of pinxtos, gazpacho, salmorejo, arroz mucoso a la Valenciana, etc.) but E and I are steadfast.  My stereotype remains as my favorite quintessential Spanish meal and because we'd recently had Jamon, we had it (minus the olives) as our last lunch before flying to Italy.

We ate so well and enjoyed the people we met and the ease of being in a place where we could use a language we spoke/read reasonably well that we agreed that Spain is now up there with France, Argentina, Japan, and Italy as one our favorite places where we will always want to return.

Goodbye Spain, 'til we meet again.

20+ Days of French

After we modified our European travel plans to slow things *way* down, we ended up with 20 consecutive days in French-speaking Europe.

8 days in Paris.

Sunset view from our walk home in the 10th.

2 days in Dijon and the surrounding area.

Porte Guillaume, Dijon.

3 days in Lausanne.

View of the alps from a steamboat on lake Geneva.

7 days in Marseille.

Marseille Vieux Port, with La Belle Mere in the background on the hill.

4 cities in 20 days, with only 2 countries, no flights, and only one language was a big change from much of what this year abroad has looked like.

It was so wonderful.  We relaxed and enjoyed amazing food and wine every day.  After Paris, I got in many runs.  We leisurely made our way around sightseeing, but felt no pressure to do any particular *must-do* because this part of the trip wasn't actually planned with any goals in mind at all (other than avoiding the weather in central Europe). 

My veal, d'auphinoise, bone marrow, and E's salad, filet mignon & bone marrow.  Too much!

Also, it's the longest consecutive amount of time I've spent in a French environment since 1995.  I fell back into many comfortable rhythms and re-confirmed that I have a connection with this language and its people and its food unlike any other.  If you add the time in Quebec and speaking French in Vietnam, I have spent almost an entire month of our sabbatical year immersed in French.

This was a huge (and pleasant) surprise.

Elevator retrofitted into the gorgeous

1800s era building in the 10th.

Spanish was the planned language that was going to dominate our time abroad this year.  And it did.  When all is said and done, we will have spent almost 12 weeks in Spanish speaking environments during the Sabbatical.  Both of our Spanish has improved greatly, and this is certainly something that will continue to pay benefits in California and on future foreign travels.

But, oh, the return to French.

I've absolutely adored it and can't believe it wasn't always part of the plan.

Square of Chalon Sur Saone,

where we met my childhood French pen-pal for lunch.

I'm seriously considering never letting another year go by without some time in a French speaking environment (and of course the food and wine benefits that go along with that).  It's very bizarre to realize that something I spent so much time working towards as a teenager and then executing on in my late teens has been dormant, but remains a huge part of my identity and a thing that gives me so much joy.