Swinging on the Roof!!!

Yup, here are a few pictures of the fun, fun, fun night we had. I've been asked by quite a few people to make it an annual event. Can't say that I'd be opposed! Hamid (the dance instructor) started us off with the basic footwork for Rock-n-Roll. Eventually we moved to Salsa and Merangue, and then before the evening was up had covered Mambo and Gnaoui too. It was a blast!

Getting a few Rock-n-Roll pointers from Hamid


Mary grilling,
Katie & Tim dancing
(Happy Anniversary to them!)


The "cavaliers" getting ready to sweep those "cavalieres" off their feet!


Tasha wasn't enjoying this at all...


Bethany & Hamid


Mary & Issane


I think it's called the Lawnmower.

Thai Garden - birthday dinner

I've been really missing my Thai food moments, so for my birthday I wanted to go to Thai Garden for dinner. My two roommates, Karen & Lauren (who had been spoiling me all day starting with pancakes for breakfast), Manal (who came 3 hours by train!), Mary who crowned me (literally!) with fun all day, David (my fellow office prisoner), and Scot (a sane non-school employee who reminds us that there is a world beyond the school walls) all came to help celebrate (again) my entrance in to my 4th (thanks for the wake up call, David) decade.

The food was delicious & the company was great too -
not to mention all the fun presents :)

Lauren, me & Manal


Mary, Scot & Karen


David & Mary


Fellow coffee appreciator, Scot
made sure I didn't have to drink alone :)


The perfect ending to any meal...

More friends helping me celebrate!

Thank you, Thank you very much!
(I can just hear my dad's impression of that line!)

David, Sarah, Mary, Hind, Rosemary, me & Melissa


David & Cyndi share my office space and are regular contributors to my Word-Of-The-Day contest (today's word is Pickwickian - any guesses?). Sarah from Alaska was one of my roommates when I first moved here in August.

Celebrating at Lunch :)

At lunchtime I got an upgrade on my crown - Thanks, Mary!



Here are my roommates helping me celebrate in PURPLE :)

Karen & Me


Heather, Me & Lauren

Cake Time!

I arrived at work this morning & found a blackberry pie waiting on my desk with a big 3-0 on it! My offfice mate David brought me a crown and my friend Victoria showed up with French press coffee - mmm! Then my boss came in with a present - a cool coffee mug filled with Snickers (so I can stop borrowing the "guest mug" (I get in trouble for that just about every day)!

30 Years Ago Today...

Greeting my birthday with a smile!

I got up and found my latest favorite purple outfit and then went into the kitchen and found both my roommates also in purple and black - what a great day to wear purple! Lauren made deliciouso pancakes and Karen whipped up some syrup (nope - can't buy that in Africa!). I brewed some Lavazza Il Mattino coffee in my French press (poured into my favorite purple mug) and we sat down for really yummy breakfast before rushing off to school.

Vonage, or Not!

OK, for those of you who've been asking lately about my new Vonage box, here's the latest. I finally last week got all the necessary componants together to set up my vonage system. I got a power strip into which I can plug both my american phone and the american vonage box. Then I bought a heavy duty transformer to plug the strip into. I got a new adapter for my computer plug (since that was the trouble-some problem that caused me a month of internet disruption at home - of all the dumb problems!). So, I plugged in the Vonage box and all the lights lit up and then blinked out about 30 seconds later. I fiddled with the plug a little, and then smelled that scary burnt electronics smell. I brought the box and the new transformer up to my awesome hardware analyst at work. Turns out the transformer converts power to 126 instead of 110 power, which generally isn't a problem, except that Vonage boxes are very high maintenance. So yeah, my box is D-E-A-D! Here is the killer - he explained that the big heavy plug for the box actually transforms the power from the wall into 12 volts. So if I had just bought a 220 plug that outputs 12 volts, i wouldn't have even needed the transformer. AAAaaaahhh!!!

I just got my phone local bill for April - $150. Plus my cell phone is $20. Plus my Vonage bill $30 (and i'm not even using that!!!). This is crazyness!!!

Ready, Set, Swing (almost)!

Hey everybody!

Guess what? It’s almost time for my birthday! Next week, May 24 (Wednesday) is the exact date, so don’t forget to pop your head in my door (or send me an email) & make sure I’m not getting too depressed over the fact that I’m now officially OLD! Yeah, 30, Ouch!

Ok, I’ve been on a Swing Dancing withdrawal since I got here, and just this past week I found a guy that does a great job teaching (at Miami Fitness) the European version of Swing – Rock’n’Roll. SO, mark your calendars for Saturday, May 27th at 8pm. We’re gonna have a party with dessert & dancing – including a Rock’n’Roll lesson. The place to be is the GWA Tower Two Roof!

AND, if you have any great big band, swing or jazz music that you want to share – let me know because I’m collecting music J Does anybody have the Paul Anka Swings CD?

Here's a picture of the view from the 3rd floor balcony - the roof has an even better view of the crashing ocean waves!

Camping in the Desert

Yeah, I am so slow in posting stuff! While Kim was here we drove down to the Sahara Desert (about 8 hours away) to do a camping trip. Kim had never in her life been camping, so this was about the roughest initiation, but we both survived :) even without toilets. We got to a hotel on the edge of the desert where we met our guides (the blue men) and our camels. They picked me to ride on the littlest guy, so I named him JR. I know, it's so original, right? I named Kim's camel Martzie (which rhymes with what? Fartzie! I'll let you guess why). She gave it some other name like Harry or something very uninteresting (I can feel a comment being slammed at me even as I type!). Anyway, we were really grateful for the turbans since we had a sandstorm ravaging us upon arrival. I tried not to take too many pictures because I was afraid of getting sand in my camera (which I did at the sand dunes in France with my old camera & it cost me a fortune to fix the camera and it was never quite right after that). Anyway, here are a few pix to prove we really did ride those camels. The first day I thought it wasn't bad at all. We rode about 2 hours to get out to the area where tents were set up for making dinner and sleeping. It was the first time I had been camping without a toilet, so that was interesting - I didn't do too much drinking! I guess there are fates worse than facing a squatty potty!!!

The Blue Men


JR


Ready to go!


Our Camel Train


Ah, our tent

Mouse catching

My poor sister-in-law has a house mouse problem. Well, I guess it is my brother's problem too, but I heard about it from her. It made me laugh at the memory of mouse catching in France. When I was living in Bordeaux we had a mouse family take up residence in our house, and I developed extraordinary mouse catching talents. I discovered that if you see a mouse running along a wall and make direct eye contact with it, it will stop running. So then I would sit there like a cat ready to pounce keeping direct eye contact with the mouse, because it won't run until you glance away. In the meantime I would yell (they don't seem to mind yelling) for Pierre or Benoit to bring me a grocery bag which I would put over my hand, all the time staring at the mouse. Then I would suddenly pounce and catch it in my bagged hand. It worked great, except that I am not very good at killing live things once I catch them. So I would turn over the mouse to Francois who would fill up a bucket and plop the mouse in until he drowned. I really felt sorry for the drowning mouse, but not sorry enough to let them roam all over the house!

Maybe mouse-catching runs in the family - John you wanna give it a try???

The Answer Is...

Our Turbans!!!

We went down to the Sahara desert for a camel trek - complete with sleeping in Nomadic tents and using the Desert Bush WCs! We were warned that we should get scarves to wrap into turbans before we left so we went on a shopping mission in the medina to find them. Luckily we were also warned that we should wash them so that they wouldn't bleed brilliant colors onto our faces if we started to glisten a bit in the desert sun. I think I'd rather have brilliantly purple hands than face!

Purple-ness

Any guesses on what I am cleaning here?
(It took my hands 3 days to recover!)

Spring Break Pix 2!

On our way down to the Sahara Desert we stopped to see my friend Manal. Her mom prepared us delicious mint tea and we took a tour of the local marketplace.



Kim bought a bunch of pastries to bring back to her dad. Then we realized they wouldn't survive the Saharan sun very well in a car for 2 days, so we had to save them from being wasted - yum!



Spices



Heads anyone?

Spring Break Pictures!

Matsuri



YES!!! We do have sushi here!!! In fact just thinking about it is making me want to declare tonight a sushi night. Kim & I love getting sushi when we're at home in NJ, so I couldn't let her miss out on my favorite sushi place here. The sushi chefs work in the center of the restaurant, and then pile the little dishes onto this track that sends them past the tables, so you just pull of whatever looks good.

Tea Bringer

Thanks for the Good Earth Tea, Quimit!

Computer Update

Our hardware analyst returned from his several weeks of vacation and so I had him look at my computer and try to figure out if there is a short in the computer or what the trouble seems to be. What he discovered is that there is some malfunction in my adapter (plug that adapts the US prongs to European prongs for the power). The funny thing is that I tried 2 different adapters b/c I thought that maybe I was having a problem with one of them. Anyway, my laptop is sitting on my desk at work plugged into the power through his heavy duty adapter. Tonight I'm gonna try to back up everything on this machine while I've got charge in the battery! Hopefully I'll get the power situation worked out at home too :)

Miss you all!

Teabag Thoughts

I have discovered this absolutely fabulous tea - Good Earth. It's a really delicious blend of tea and tons of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom... good stuff! They also put a quote on each of the teabags. Today's quote was just as good as the tea.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882)