My New Favorite Restaurant!

We are busy preparing for our Morocco trip by reading travel books, watching movies involving Morocco, learning key Arabic & French phrases and eating Moroccan cuisine. As part of the preparation, this past Sunday P and I went to Marrakesh with Billy & j.dub. It was amazing! In my opinion, at $30 per head (plus tax & tip) it's one of the best deals in DC. It's 7 delicious courses and the atmosphere is phenomenal. If you live in the area you should definitely check it out. If you live far from DC you should come visit and we'll go there to eat -- dinner's on me :)

Back from Korea!

Korea was amazing! I had such a fantastic time. It's a beautiful country full of wonderful people. I'll share photos when I can they will be far more interesting than my rushed narration. Here's a brief recap of what we did:

Day 1: Leave for airport, realized I forgot my camera! Kick myself thoroughly then remember that Alina and Camille are likely to be better prepared than me. Or in the worst case, purchase new camera in Korea. Fly from Dulles to LAX. In LAX, get voicemail from Alina that she is catching an earlier flight to Seoul so please let Camille know. Send email to Camille's OLD email address with Alina's flight info on it. Camille never got the info. Then fly to Tokyo, and slept like a baby in business class (the seats lie flat!).

Day 2: Transfer in Tokyo to Seoul and arrive in Seoul. It was easy to pick out Alina & Camille because they were the only blonde's at arrivals! Caught a shuttle to our guest house in Seoul. I highly recommend the guest house we stayed at it's the Seoul Guest House. We stayed in the Sarang-chae which was a little 3 room house. It was so cute and built in the traditional way with rice paper walls, it was beautiful! Got organized in the guest house and went to bed.

Day 3: Woke up bright and early and headed out to find breakfast. Stumbled onto a great little bakery near the guest house and piled our trays full of mystery pastries (none of us knew any Korean or could read hangul). Lucky for us, all the pastries were delicious! We then headed off to Kyongbok Palace. It was great and they were reenacting a changing of the guard, and some of the Kings processionals as they were during the Chosan Dynasty. We even got our picture with the King! I'll share photos as soon as Camille & Alina upload them. We then headed off to Insadong for lunch. We had an amazing lunch. It was so delicious. I should add they we ate a huge meal about every two hours on the trip! Then we metroed to Seoul Tower, took the cable car up to the top and enjoyed great views of Seoul. We collapsed into bed exhausted at 8:00pm!

Day 4: Woke up went to the same bakery and stuffed faces again. (Notice the ongoing theme of stuffing faces!). We then went to Changduk Palace. It was magnificent. We wandered around Seoul a bit more then headed back to the Guest House to pack up and head to Camille's place. We metroed the hour and a half back to Camille's, dropped off our bags and headed out to eat again!

Day 5: We took a tour of the DMZ. This was amazing! We went to 3 different look out points where we could peer into North Korea, went to the third infiltration tunnel (one of the tunnels the North Koreans dug to move troops into the South), went to Dorasan Train Station, and then finished the tour at the Joint Security Area. Where we were told by ROK and US troops to keep our hands down, no sudden movements, gesturing or verbal/non-verbal contact with North Korean soldiers. I should add that Alina & Camille were slightly concerned that I would gesture while talking and get us killed!!! While we were in the meeting room about 5 North Korean soldiers came up and started peering int he windows. It was so exciting. Camille got a great picture of one staring in the window.

Day 6: Started off the day fully intending to go to Suwon, but got distracted in route and instead spent the day shopping. Seven large oil paintings, three purses, two robes, a blanket, a set of chopsticks, and countless souvenirs later we wrapped up this day by eating again.

Day 7: Went on a tour of Kosu Cave and took a cruise on Lake Chunchoen to the Dam. It was very relaxing and great to see the Korean country side.

Day 8: Low key day of more eating, packing, and general preparations for leaving. Alina & I said farewell to Camille and caught a bus to Incheon. Arrived in Incheon had quite the adventure getting to our hotel, and ate dinner at a nearby the restaurant. Lucky for me I can say bi bim bap! I think it may just be all the Korean I need! :) and kamsahamnida, of course.

Day 9: Catch shuttle to the airport and fly to Tokyo. Spent my 6 hour layover in Tokyo in the Admirals Club. Flying business class ROCKS! The Admirals Club had showers, nice bathrooms, free computers, free wifi, free buffet with snacks, free drinks, it was great! Managed to use my Korean calling card on Japanese phones which was a major feat considering I can neither understand or read either language! Then caught a plane to Chicago and left Tokyo.

Day 10: Arrived in Chicago wizzed through immigration and customs in record time and managed to find an earlier flight to DC. Traded my first class seat for a middle seat on a flight that left 4 hours earlier than my scheduled flight. Flew to DC squished in the middle. And arrived safely at home around 8 pm.

Korea was a terrific experience and all three of us had a great time. I managed to grow my stomach three times its normal size and learned mad charade skills! Pics will follow soon.

Harebrained Schemes

Among some of my close friends I've become notorious for my ridiculous ideas. For instance, I once changed all the electronics in my house to French thinking that this would help my French language skills. It didn't work. And because I don't have a strong French electronics vocabulary, it took me forever to figure out how to reset it to English! Additionally, Peter really didn't like watching movies in French. He was particularly annoyed when I surprised him by switching his google to Spanish. Then there was the time Alina and I thought it would be a good idea to transport 7 individual containers (no lids, no trays, lots of air conditioning) of ice cream across town from our favorite ice cream place in July. Note to readers: ice cream does not travel well!!!

Well I had another one of these ingenious ideas this week. I bought myself a pull up bar. BARGAIN! Only $20 and it just sticks right in the door frame so I can do pull ups and leg lifts and get a rock hard bod for tri season. Smart idea, right? WRONG! My pull up bar was quickly reduced to nothing more than a dangle bar. It's a lot harder doing leg lifts then I remember!?!? And is there such a thing as a pull up crunches? It's a tough realization to discover I'm a dangling blob rather than the pull up leg lift machine I pictured in my mind.

Anyhow after spending an inordinate amount of time sadly dangling in my doorway, and whining about it to Alina. She suggested I lower the bar to do dips and modified pull ups. Clever idea right? She has a PhD she's clearly quite bright. WRONG AGAIN! I pulled my back doing the stupid modified pull ups. I flew off the bar and hurt myself doing another exercises!?!?! That bar is pretty much a death trap. Mind you, this whole time Peter keeps saying 'just take it down before you really hurt yourself by flying off the bar, over the stairway railing, and down the stairs.'

Well, the pièce de résistance came a few nights ago. P is out of town and the recent storms have knocked out my home phone line so I use only my cell. So it's late at night and being the diligent student that I am I'm busily working away on my final. I'm in the room with the dangle bar in the doorway and my cell phone starts to ring. I remember it is in the study so I quickly finish my sentence and leap up to answer what I assume is my husbands call. Being the dedicated and devoted wife that I am, I sprint out of the room to answer his call and WHAM right into the *#&@(#&*@ dangle bar!!! Which I stupidly set at about nose height!!! I am knocked backward onto the floor from the force! My nose has taken the brunt of the force, and it's not pretty!

I didn't go to the doctor but I'm fairly confident my nose is hairline fractured at the very least! It hurts ALL the time, is red and swollen, and while I don't have black eyes they do look a little funny. I tried to cover up the red line that I now have imprinted across my nose with make up but dabbing at my nose with make up was just too painful. It has prompted people at work to ask if something happened to my nose. Unfortunately, P is out of town so I can't just say he decked me :) which is really probably better (and more believable) then my idiotic tale. My boss was so befuddled by the whole thing he kept asking... 'but WHY did you think the pull up bar would be a good idea?' Excellent question. Sadly, I don't have a good answer.

Your thoughts? Stong words from John P.

I accidentally stumbled on this transcript from John Piper's radio show. What do you think of this? I'd be interested to hear your views.

Is it wrong for married people to have friends of the opposite sex?

No. For goodness sakes, no. But one wonders, since it came up, if by "friend" you mean something too close.

I hope that my wife considers all of my male colleagues friends. But there are all kinds of logistical dynamics that she would avoid with men that she wouldn't avoid with women.

For example, we as a staff at Bethlehem don't ride in the car alone with any woman, period. If there are two women, yes. A man and a woman, yes. One woman, No!

My wife would do the same thing. She would feel very awkward being taken to the airport, for example, by a young man if they were alone. If our daughter is with her, not a problem.

Every now and then Noel will ask a woman in the church to come clean house for her. It takes her about four hours. If I'm there, Noel stays there. If Noel has to go, I go. I don't stay in my house with this woman, even though she is a friend and a member of our church. I count her as a friend, but we take steps to be careful.

I don't think married Christians should go out to lunch with friends of the opposite sex. This is really tough in the professional world, but I'll say it anyway. Say, for example, there is a woman lawyer who is married, and she's in a firm with fifty others, some of whom are men. And a guy says, "We need to talk about this case. Let's do lunch." I don't think she should do lunch. I think she should go into his office, leave the door open, and do business there. But if he wants to do lunch, she should say, "Can Jane come along?"

So those are the kinds of things that need to be handled carefully. Yes to the friendship. But we need to preserve the whole array of dynamics that cause our spouses to know that we're jealous for saying that we're married to them. And it's right to be that way.

Say, "I'm just eager to make plain to others, 'I'm not available!' I have a man (or a woman) and I'm very happily married. I don't want to compromise you and I don't want to compromise me."

I think we have become very lackadaisical about that in the professional sphere.

Two down in 08

I have a secret ambition to visit every continent. At this point in my life I am less than 50% of the way there. However, this is a big year for me because I am knocking two continents off my list!!! That’s right count 'em-- two continents. At the close of 2008 I’ll be over 60% of the way there only South America and Antarctica will be left.

Next month Alina and I are going to Korea to visit Camille. (Asia—Check!) We’ll be there about a week, and I’m so excited. Neither of us have ever been to Korea and Camille hasn’t been able to escape from her base much so it will be a new adventure for all three of us. As I understand it, when in Korea I should plan on eating, shopping, eating, shopping, and even more eating! I do plan on eating my way through Seoul! We also have a trip planned to the DMZ—other then that we’re still planning so if you know any good things to see and do in Korea I’d love to hear them!

In November, we are going to Morocco with the Pulitzers! (Africa—Check!) I’ve always wanted to go to Morocco ever since I first saw Casablanca. I’m really looking forward to it and j.dub has already started planning a great trip for us. We’re meeting this week to have a Morocco planning session. Should be heaps of fun!

Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.

LeechBlocked

I know some of you have already seen j.dub's blog on LeechBlock. P saw it on lifehacker a while back and sent it to me. I'm frantically trying to finish a paper by Friday so this weekend I decided that I needed a little extra help with being disciplined so I downloaded LeechBlock for the first time. It allows you to block certain websites from yourself and it can be set to only block certain websites at specific times of the day, say when you're most productive, or most susceptible to laziness, etc. So for instance, this week I've LeechBlocked practically every website not public health related from myself between the hours of 6:00 pm and midnight. It's been extraordinarily helpful! (Which, I suppose, speaks more to my lack of self control then to its greatness.) Now if only I could LeechBlock more things in my life like chocolate chip cookies, daydreaming, and t.v.!

In the meantime I'm off to write this paper--and Blogger is now leechblocked.

Ode to Mr. and Mrs. Pulitzer. Love, The Little People.

Every once in a while one gets the opportunity to bask in greatness. That happened to Peter and I this week. Our good friend Billy won the Pulitzer for his outstanding contribution to journalism!!! P & I were very impressed. In addition to being good friends B&J are also our neighbors so they came over last night to celebrate. P and I decided to have a bit of fun with them while properly honoring Billy's achievement so we got all dolled up in formal attire, (remember that dress KMS & KSV???) printed an 8x10 photo of B, presented him with a flower, and asked him to autograph his picture.

In all seriousness, congratulations to Billy!

PS-- I bet in no time Julie will get the Nobel for literature! Then they shall be known as Mr. and Mrs. Pulitzer-Nobel.