Category: Current Affairs

Next door neighbor Jennifer Fulbright has a fabulous article about living in Niger with kids in today’s Washington Post.

What I want it to look like.

What it really looks like.

Not suppose to be celebrating until the 13th, but in Portland the Scandanavian Fair is this weekend. So, in celebration of ablesceever:

Peter called from Monoprix. It was almost as good as being there. His patient was resting comfortably on Thursday, so Peter had a some-expenses-paid full-day all to himself in Paris. And since Niger is in the same time zone as France, no jet lag. He said they are putting the little lights up on the rue de Rivioli. Oi. At the place with the really good Vienoise he had a perfect coffee, served in the china with the flowers. Oi some more.

Our car has arrived! They backed it into our driveway yesterday afternoon, complete with Nigeriene plates. I’m kind of scared to drive it though, it’s sooooooooooo sandy here, our street is like driving on the beach, deep soft sand. Trapping sand, says Stefan. Also, it’s impossible to see what you are backing over and people are always walking behind everything. Also, the car has no gas, and I have no cash and no coupons they pass out at the embassy to get 25% off. I think gas is $10 a gallon here or something. Too bad we didn’t get the Land Cruiser you plug in.

The little bike of Stefan’s that we stuck in the back of the car was still there. So was my Starbuck’s ice tea cup I had put in the glove box. I came to the embassy with my ice tea in a tall Starbucks’s cup and everyone did a double take.

Stefan crawled in bed with me early this morning. "Is that noise crickets or Santa’s sleigh?" he asked.

Well, our plot to buy lemon curd and ride on a double decker bus to the Tower of London has been foiled. Still not sure what our plans are, but it doesn’t look like they will include London. Will update as soon as we know something, anything. “I think you better turn on CNN,” emailed Amy from Beijing. Thanks for letting me know something was up, Amy!

Update: We will catch the Paris to Niamey flight we were suppose to be on on the 15th. We leave here on the 14th at 6:45, business class to Paris.

Yesterday when we went to pick up the car, we had no idea we were on an odessey. With the sound track from Annie playing, we drove over the (Chesapeake) Bay Bridge–when I see a sign to the Bay Bridge I think I’m going to Oakland. It was so beautiful, so A Time of Wonder; we were on our way to the Delaware seashore, Bethany Beach. The three hour drive took five hours because of traffic. As soon as we got to the beachy town we raced to the sand and touched our toes in the lovely water under a twilight sky and gorgeous moon. We pounded our way, with mallets, through a fabulous crab dinner, at a charming place where they toss the crab on a brown-bag covered table and bring you hush puppies and buckets of cooked-but-not-shucked sweet corn. Peter and I had a glass of pinot gris that was perfect. This place wasn’t crusty at all, really cute and the food was really some of the best I’ve ever had. I enjoyed watching Peter eat every last crab leg.

After the crabfest: we discover that this is the busiest week on the eastern seaboard. At first we think the lady at the Holiday Inn is exagerating. But after checking a few places in Bethany Beach–all full, and one no vacancy sign after another–we faced facts: there was NOWHERE to stay. The owner of the restaurant made a phone call for us and struck out. We drove down the coast to two other towns, running in and out of lobbies, getting turned down. At 11:00 pm, we finally turned inland. We checked every hotel on the road home, and ended up all the way back in Washington. Our place is the closest place to the beach we could find! The whole three hour drive home, (at least there wasn’t any traffic) we kept pulling into hotels behind people shaking their heads, also being turned away. One sight that really had us going in an only-at-2-in-morning kind of way: passing by a teenager leaning over her car door throwing up in a McDonalds parking lot. “Do you think it was the food?” Peter asked me. We stopped at six hotels on the way home. All full.

Got home at 3:30am. Would have gotten home at 2:30, but no, had to get lost in DC first. This was our first time navigating the city by car, and we got totally turned around. After a harrowing one hour drive through DC’s seedy side, all the recent high-crime rate Washington Post articles running through my burned-out brain, we finally found our hotel. I was never so happy to be home to the Washington Suites. A valet parked the car. Bliss.

Peter and I have never NOT been able to find a room. Antibes, France in August. Showed up and got a room. Has this ever happened to you? Oh we did find one place, sort of early on, so we were feeling not the beggers-can’t-be-choosers that we were: it was $450 a night. The website says Bethany beach is quiet and affordable.

Today we drove a short way and had a hike and a picnic under the trees, by some falls. I was surprised, but after lots of tea/coffee/juice and working our way through the Sunday paper and watching a couple rounds of Nick Jr, everyone wanted to go somewhere in the new car!

It’s like being pregnant. Instead of “When is your due date?” it’s “When do you leave?” Next Thursday, August 10. But Friday is pizza night no matter where we go.

Today CaSt and I did a completely decadent thing. My excuse is: 100 degrees and the air quality is terrible. The kids don’t want to go anywhere because it is too hot–the complaining that starts as soon as we leave the lobby of the hotel is too much to cope with–or so Camille and Stefan tell me. I paid $14 for a taxi to the National Art Museum, which is probably less than I would have paid if we had walked, considering how many Starbucks there are between here and the National Mall. Today the paper confirmed my hunch: Washington DC has more than eleven Starbucks for every 100K people, the most in the country, even Washington State. Camille says we go to Starbucks ten times every four days. But I figure we are going to the last Starbuck-less place on Earth, so it’s okay.

At the National Art Museum we walked through the Rousseau exhibit. They ingeniously have cell phone-like devices with a little symbol for kids to look for, enter in a number and listen to a shpiel about a painting or two in each room. This was great, as somehow they managed to make it interesting to kids, although I suspect Stefan was just interested in the listening device itself. I got to read lables and actually look at the paintings. Camille has all kinds of information about Rousseau now: Did you know he carried a sketch pad with him at all times? I forgot that he painted Carnival Evening and it was a treat just to see that one painting. Stefan wanted to go see any other exhibit that had the listening device, but the museum closed. And I found $110 dollars on the floor of the cafe, beating the record for the time I found a $100 dollar bill in a gas station parking lot. Quite a memorable afternoon.

Yesterday and today: passports, banking, mail forwarding, plane tickets, travel advance/voucher (we need a class in this, it’s very important and Peter and I just don’t get it) visas and shots, the second round. Camille, after powering through three shots last week, really resisted today and become absolutely no-don’t-make-me-do-it-I-can’t-do-it crying hysterical. I don’t know what Peter and the nurse finally did, I had to leave the room. Then we went to the Natural History Museum and had a gelato and bought her a stuffed panda and the drama was over.

Our shipment was over by 500 pounds, we could either pay $1500 or lose 500 pounds, so the piano is going to storage. After two years of piano lessons, Camille is thrilled with our decision–it was even better than the panda.