World Travels

January 31, 2011

Lyon: Bocuse d'Or 2011

Bocuse d'or 2011

Every time I go to France, I make it as far as Paris and just stay there, romanticizing about all the wine, baguettes and delicious cheese I can eat without getting fat (well, thats what they say), but making it to Lyon was a special treat, although I have to admit the people do not get nicer. I had the spontaneous opportunity to go to Lyon for the biannual Bocuse d’Or competition last week because of some ties to the Radisson hotel. My flight was booked at 4pm on Sunday for departure at 7 am the next morning, and only with the help and organizational skills of others already going did I actually make it to France. I didn’t book any of my own travel or hotels, have any idea what was going on half the time, but blinldy followed around the others in charge and had such a great time just going with it.

painting the Icelandic flag on everyone's cheek

I didn’t get a chance to sleep til Tuesday, and we spent all day Tuesday cheering for Iceland’s candidate, Thrainn Freyr Vigfusson, and then all day Wednesday patiently waiting for the compeition results. Everything went down at Sirha, a huge exhibition self-proclaimed as the world’s rendez-vous for all restaurant and hoteling needs.

the crowds on day 2

Thrainn’s direct support crew were some of his closest friends, his coach slash former bronze Bocuse medalist Hakon Mar, and his comis chef Bjarni Jakobsson. Behind them they had a couple more kitchen helpers, namely Atli and Tomas, and then about 50 or 60 Icelandic cheerleaders, all friends, family or restaurant industry related people. We were only outnumbered by perhaps the French and Japanese spectators, although 50 Japanese cheering sounded like background noise compared to only 4 or 5 Icelandic men clapping, screaming “Islande!” in bass voices, and blowing off all sorts of noice makers. We had awesome tshirts, face paint, and viking helmets to make sure we didnt go unnoticed.

Mister Sevens, Bjarni & Thrainn

We spent the time outside of Sirha taking in the best wining and dining Lyon had to offer, eating at a bunch of different restaurants since Lyon is the world’s gastronomy capital. We partied at Wallace bar, a joint with over 200 whiskies, overrunning it with the same Icelandic people 4 nights in a row and probably giving them the best mid-week business they’ve ever seen.

We crashed a Norwegian techno dance party the night after the results, celebrating Thrainn’s 7th place finish; he was expecting better, and under a shroud of politics and suspicious dishonesty, he perhaps deserved 3rd or 4th, but 7th is damn good for a country of 300,000, competing with a small fraction of the budget that medal winners Denmark and Norway had (Denmark brought the Prince with him!).

Domaine de Clairefontaine

We had one relaxing day to be tourists, and took the day to drive out to Domaine de Clairefontaine, a beautiful chateau south-west of Vienne, where the famous Philippe Giardon runs a restaurant and catering heaven amidst the surrounding vineyards and countryside. I’ve never really traveled for food tourism before, or in a group of 50 people, but everything turned out so well, and ironically enough, I’ve never felt more like an Icelandic patriot.

Related Links:

Icelandic Newspage for food and wine, and Bocuse d’or reports (in Icelandic): http://www.freisting.is

Bocuse d’or: bocusedor.com or bocusedor.is

January 11, 2011

The Midwest Roadtrip

cleaning my shoe after throwing myself into a big snowbank (I did it to make Clio feel better for throwing her into one). They're not as soft as they look.

My best friend Clio was applying for Phd’s starting last fall and when she got accepted in Seattle, I was super excited for her to accept. Then, at the last minute, she changed her mind and instead moved to Minneapolis (!?) Most people reacted as surprised as I did, but only out of ignorance since, as it turns out, Minneapolis is a great place, with lots going on! I just didn’t have any clue about it until I visited her there a couple weeks ago. First of all, Minneapolis has the largest snow banks Ive ever seen, thanks to the snowstorm that hit just before I arrived and luckily stopped in time for my plane to make it in. Minneapolis is really two cities, hence, the TwinCities nickname. Minneapolis has great cheese (from next door Wisconsin). And of course, Minneapolis has the University of Minnesota, which apparently has the one of the best clinical psychology graduate programs in the US. Good job, Clio 🙂

Me and Clio outside the U

We spent time around town, seeing the university campus, sampled the nightlife, but then took a roadtrip to Illinois. We craigslist rideshared our way all the way through Wisconsin, driving 7 hours from Minneapolis to Chicago with exactly the type of guy you don’t want to lay eyes on when first getting in his car. Craiglist is one of those things that you hope only trustworthy people use, since its kind of risky and a little less common in the midwest than the very liberal westcoast. We got an email, text and call from this guy named Glen who Clio thought was an average caucasian guy, and he seemed nice enough to spend 7 hours in his car with. When he picked us up in the morning, an hour and a half late, we discovered he was actually a 6 foot 3, 300lbs African-American. But, we realized you can never judge a book by its cover, and all the invalid stereotypes we pegged him with disappeared when the first thing he asked us was “Oh, you aren’t afraid of hamsters, are you?” There were two, tiny baby hamsters that looked like teddybears sleeping in a cage in his backseat, and as we learned more about his job working with troubled youth and the YWCA, we realized he was just a big harmless teddybear too.

girl and guy, reunited in Chicago

We spent the weekend in Chicago, met up with that guy named Guy, and braved the -26°C to oogle at the Chicago Bean. Its this amazing, massive, reflective sculpture that no matter what angle you look at it or approach it, you´re eyes are being tricked by all sorts of optical illusions. We also saw a friend of mine from Semester at Sea who I hadnt seen since our Fall 2006 voyage – I love reuinions like that.

the Chicago Bean

After a classy night at the Chicago Symphony Hall watching the Brass Orchestra and some touristy days, we craigslist rideshared out way back with a guy named Andrew from Tennessee. He turned out to be a little nerve wracking before we met him;  he wanted us to meet him at 11 am, but called at 9:30 to explain his car had been towed since he parked somewhere he wasnt allowed when 3 inches of snow had fallen. He claimed the sign was unclear, I dunno, but either way there was lots of snow around. Then he took until 2 pm to get it out of the towyard, and $160 later he picked us up at a café where we had been waiting for him. All the delays were history once we learned he was a spunky gay guy from the South, not so common if you know anything about the conservative south. We were greeted by him pumping his tires with a protable car air pump, in his tiny 2 door Honda. It wasn’t the best car for winter driving, but then when another massive snowstorm hit as we were leaving Chicago, the 7 hr drive quickly turned into 10 hours and I still can’t believe we made it home that day! Moral of these craigslist stories: it always works out, maybe not as you expected, but hey, travel is more fun that way.

January 1, 2011

Roadtrip Westcoast & Craigslist Rideshare

After I spent a day in Miami, I flew to SFO to start a week long road trip from the Bay to Vancouver, B.C. I wanted to visit friends and family from here and there, since that´s what people like to do during the holidays. Me and Steve used his Subaru as a Craigslist carpooling tool and rideshared parts of our drive there and back. We decided to skip the boring, direct I5 and take all of Northern California along the much longer but prettier highway 101, and also thought it would be a good opportunity to stop along the way in Mendocino county for some wine tasting. We had Phil and Kai, both good-hearted travelers not really from any one place in the states, who drove the whole day with us to Oregon, and thankfully knew how to drive a stickshift so that some of us could taste as much as we wanted without spitting.

maxell Digital Camera

all my favourite people from Portland

We visited two California Organic Certified wineries, Yorkville Cellars and Barra of Mendocino, and while I still can’t admit that I can taste the difference in organic versus non-organic, you still somehow feel better supporting a more sustainable, less environmentally-damaging winery just because some California certification schema says that they are. Weird, but true. We also stopped at a famous microbrewery in Boonville, California. Anderson Valley Brewing company makes almost 20 different varieties of beer at their tastehouse, and their Winter Solstice Seasonal ale, my personal favourite, is super scrumptious. Although, it hardly compared to the limited edition, seasonal, 11%alc. Abyss, by Deschutes brewery in Oregon; Ryan described it as God walking down your throat in velvet slippers.

Sienna Ridge Estate Winery

We dropped Kai off in Eureka, and then Phil drove the rest of the way through a grove of Giant Redwoods, weaving along Grants Pass after we entered Oregon. He needed to be dropped off in Ashland, and the person who he was staying with offered us to stay the night there too since it was getting late. Phil got the couch at his friends place, and we got Cadbury Cottage, a beautiful 2-storey, cozy house to spend the night. It’s rented out for hundreds of dollars per night during the very famous Shakespeare festival that happens in Ashland every summer, but I guess in December when noone uses it they can afford to let random craigslist rideshare friends stay a complimentary night 🙂

winter time in wine country

maxell Digital Camera

We made it to Vancouver to visit my mom and sisters, and gorged for the next few days on Mom´s home cooking and specialty Christmas treats. On the drive back down, we had two craigslist people again, this time from Seattle to Oregon, but they were much younger, a guy and a girl, and had no luggage at all. Sounds suspicious, but I almost felt like we were more dangerous than them. We spent that night in Eugene, Oregon, with a friend of mine, Jesse, who works at June. Its a restaurant/bar and we stopped to have some more delicious micro-brew, local beer and stouty christmas ales. We spent most of the night talking about couchsurfing since he and his girlfriend are going to Venezuela and Colombia soon and want to start using the site; of course I gave it the highest recommendation, helped him get his profile completed, and gave him 2 suggested hosts in Colombia to make sure he doesn’t change his mind.

Jackson Wellsprings near Ashland, Oregon

For the last leg of the drive, we didn’t find any craigslist rideshares, so we took our time stopping in Jackson Wellsprings, a hotspring spa that did good for our stiff backs and sore buts from all that driving. We also stopped at Sienna Ridge Estate, a winery right in the middle of Oregon visible from the I5, in an old, restored farmhouse. Our wine pourer was this lovely old man whose name I can´t remember, but it started with G and he’s only one of two people who work there since somedays, noone even comes to taste business is so slow. If you go there, ask him how his sister is, since he was on his way north to visit her at the Vancouver General Hospital the very next day.

I’ll call him Mr. Sienna Ridge

Even though we had no rideshares, we did pick up a crazy hitchiker, who had the most obnoxious, raspy New Yorker voice, and didn’t once stop talking (with excessive cursing) in the 20 miles we drove him. Anymore than that and I think I would have started to regret picking him up but instead it just makes yet another great story to tell from our roadtrip.

December 31, 2010

Miami in Transit

To start my 2 week journey back to Iceland, I flew from Cancun to Miami, which I had never considered that similar, but they definitely gave me a familiar feeling. The downtown area and beautiful beaches could verywell have been side by side, and the only real reminder I was in the USA was the big, multi-lane highways covered in shiny, new cars and oversized SUV´s. The Miami airport was almost totally employed by Spanish speakers, and even when I got to South Beach, many were still speaking Spanish. I just resorted to asking questions to retailers and bus drivers in Spanish again, and that went flawlessly. Different to the rest of Central America, people actually thought I was latina, so people assumed speaking to me in spanish was totally normal. I guess I wasn´t that far off from being confused at how everyone knew I was a gringa during my trip.

definitely one instance of "window-weather," as we say often in Iceland where it's actually common

Miami beach was shockingly cold, so even though Mexico hadn´t been that warm, sitting and starting out at the Caribbean Ocean on one of the sunniest days with temperatures at 5° C was really hard to comprehend. It was like a postcard picture of everyone´s expectations for South Beach, but then totally deserted except for a few people dressed in winter clothes and seagulls hovering way to close for comfort since I was the only person with tortilla chips in my hands. 

I was wearing my 2 month old tattered clothes, jeans with holes in the legs, a summery shirt, and flip flops, so I certainly wasn´t prepared for the weather. I also wasn´t dressed for walking around Lincoln Road Mall, since everyone was super hipster, fashion savy and dressed to kill, some even appropiately warm for the weather – I didn’t know Floridans (Floridians?) had winter fashion. I decided to go into a clothing store and buy an entire new outfit, and came out, successfully, with new boots, jeans, a sweater, a scarf, and a faux-leather jacket. I left my old outfit on the top of a garbage can, just incase anyone would have any use for it.

December 25, 2010

Belize

Belize is a tiny, carribbean-coast country in Central America, the only one that does not include spanish as its official language, and probably the most ethincally diverse and mutli-cultural place. It’s a fusion of ex-colonial British influence crossed with the reggae-rhythm lifestyle of the West Indies, and a dash of latino mixed into everything. The architecture switched from the one-storey concrete blocks typical in Spanish colonial towns to the two-storey, stilted, wooden houses encircled by verandas, less subtly affected by annual hurricane damage. Even though it was by far the most expensive place, poverty was still severe, but the extreme class separations seemed more balanced. They say Creole English is the spoken tongue, but I’m not sure how long you can call a language a dialiect of English if it develops into a completely new way of speaking, incomprehensible to most native ‘English’ speakers. The super-thick accent, rapid but lazy way of speaking, and the number of novel slang words made it tough for even me to understand, even though I grew up with my Mom and Grandma speaking Creole English from Guyana.

the water taxi port from Belize city to Caye Caulker

I spent all my time in Belize on water, mostly on the coast but also on the New Belize river to see Lamanai. I spent one day in Corozal, in transit from the cayes to Chetumel, Mexico. I thought it would be more tourist-friendly than it was, but upon arrival realized there was only one budget place to stay at $20US per night. The Sea Breeze hotel turned out to be one of my main Belizean highlights, since the owner decided a hefty discount, a complimentary bar tab, and breakfast included would be the proper way to treat a solo-lady traveler nearing the end of an over-budget trip. He was an older guy from Wales who decided to retire to Belize and run a hotel after spending his golden years managing some amazing rock bands like Phish, the Grateful Dead and The Who. I also couldn’t get enough of the hot, pressurized shower, a queen sized mattress all to myself, and the shining white, clean towels and sheets.

boating down the New Belize River from Lamanai back to Orange Walk

who wouldn't want to hammock in Caye Caulker?

In the north east I spent some time in Belize City, but unfortunately planned my entire day there on a Sunday (its a pretty religious population) which meant everything was closed an even the main streets at midday were ghosttowns. From there I took a 1 hr motor-boat taxi to the caye’s, and instantly felt like I was surrounded only by sand and tropical ocean. Caye Caulker is basically just a mile-wide strip of sand surrounded by ocean along its 5 mile length, and an altitude of maybe a couple metres above sea level. There are only golf carts or your own two feet to get around, and you’ll quickly get to know all the locals that line the main streets trying to sell you today’s catch for dinner. During the day tourist guides and shop vendors all shout out hello to you, wanting to know how you are, directing you to walk slow, or just flatter you with compliments until you give them a big enough smile. All the houses were pretty colourful, and the resident population is probably always dwarfed by the constantly renewed tourist population, but somehow it maintained a really local, laid-back vibe that anyone picturing a small-island getaway would consider perfect.

December 24, 2010

Mexico: Chiapas & Yucatán

Crossing into Mexico was one of the stranger borders, since you leave Guatemalan customs in La Mesilla and then need to take a taxi 3 km to Ciudad Cuauhtemoc to officially enter Mexico; which country are you in for those 3 kms? No man’s land I guess. I went from the border town another 3 hrs to San Cristobal de Las Casas, a fairytale colonial city that actually made me think I was in Disneyland a couple of times.  It’s located in Chiapas, a state full of mountains, ecotourism, Mayan history and an unexpectedly cool climate. The backdrop of the cobblestone downtown is Cerro de la Santa Cruz, a small mountain with steps leading all the way to the top where you can find a church with the most beautiful view of the city, and the biggest, more patriotic Mexican Flag you could ever imagine. There are 31 states in Mexico, and it’s a huge country, but funnily enough its often not included in talk of North America or Central America, so it’s just kind of in its own league. Respectfully so, though, since just the state of Chiapas has over 100 languages spoken by all the different indigenous groups, a testament to the countries rich and complicated culture. Nothing was really that different for the first couple of hours driving into Mexico, but it slowly became obvious I was somewhere new when the roads stayed consistently safe, American tourists were numerous, people didn’t speak just Spanish (usually English or some indigenous dialect), and I saw  a Wal-Mart supercenter in the middle of the countryside. I also thought it was awesome that there are actual places in Mexico called Tabasco, Jalisco, and Tequila, and that stray chihuahua’s replaced the non-descript, middle-sized dogs I had gotten accustomed to.

a pretty city nightscape in San Cristobal

I couchsurfed some more in Guatemala and Mexico and the host I had in San Cristobal de las Casas was a young guy who worked for the Ministry of tourism, lived right downtown, and ran a bar on the main nightlife street with friends of his. He was such an awesome host, and as it turns out, we ended up having a mutual friend in Oregon since he went on a Rotary exchange in highschool to Eugene and met Clare, my former Semester at Sea (fall 2006) classmate Ryan’s girlfriend who I stay with when visiting Oregon. Small world.

me and Gabe at his bar, Pura Vida

I didn’t spent much time in Chiapas since I was mostly taking the huge detour inland to see Palenque before making my way back to the Caribbean coast. I crossed back into Belize before going north again, through Chotumel and straight into Tulum, a big backpackers. There’s a beautiful coast line there, speckled sparcely with resorts, a mayan site, and lots of cenotes. I stayed at the Weary Traveler hostel, which was cheap and included a mediocre breakfast, but offered a stiff atmosphere and an overly complicated way of managing its guests – if you’re there soon, I highly suggest taking a bus or a cab out to the coast and paying $5 to sleep in a hammock on the beach.

the bluest sea I think I've ever seen

I spent a few days in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, both overridden with middle aged or retired cruise ship passengers, mostly Americans or Quebecois Canadians. They all port off just for a day, with the assumed goal of shopping til they drop, buying all sorts of Mexican souvenirs, cheap alcohol, and overpriced jewelry. It was fun to hear all the Spanglish exchanges, since every tourist just knew a little Spanish, and most of the vendors knew enough English, but together they spoke thi hilarious Spanglish to negotiate just the right price.

I ended my trip in Mexico in resort-filled Cancun. Ending a two month backpacking trip in central America there was a little ironic, very expensive, but totally practical for flight purposes. I was spoiled by being put up in an all-inclusive resort for 2 nights, a strange thing to do alone but almost even more luxurious that way, and spent most of my time writing, drinking specialty coffees with Kahlua, and swimming in the ocean or the pool, depending on how salty I wanted to be. It was a prefect middle point between Central America and Miami, where I flew to after leaving, slowly readjusting me to American culture, more spoken English, and the gradual drop in temperature and loss of sunlight hours I felt while heading North.

its not always sunny in paradise, but the water's always baby blue

December 22, 2010

The Maya Trail

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Copán Ruinas

My first site was Copán Ruinas, in Honduras. It was super impressive, probably because it was my first Maya site and it did look just like what I hoped the ruins to look like. The surrounding lawns were well maintained, so it was hard to picture the place a thousand years ago – was it thick jungle, totally clear, covered in livestock or crops, or equally groomed? It was also really hard to picture the temples any colour but grey stone, but apparently the buildings were sometimes elaborately painted and decorated. Copan was the most expensive ruin site, costing $15US for entry, and another $15 to enter the tunnelways underground. A guide cost even more, so I didn’t quite get the full experience only walking around the outside grounds, but was much happier to enjoy them in the unexpected quietude of only a few other people sharing the entire site.

Palenque, Mexico

My second visit was to Palenque in Mexico, which sat in dense vegetation, elevated a little above the town of Palenque, perched on the hillside 8km away.  It was bigger, had more freedom for climbing the ruins, and was better maintained and restored. It was busier, with hundreds of tourists bustling around, and dozens of market vendors lined the walkways selling all the same things, easily distracting me from looking up and around at the much more important temples.

Tikal, Guatemala

My third site was in Guatemala. Tikal as a tourist destination was very organised, with San Juan tours monopolising almost all the tours and bus transportation to the isolated destination almost 40 km from any towns. However, when you got there, you were dropped off to the entrance of a 15km2 densely vegetated park scattered with ruins all over and temples rising way above the jungle canopy visible only from the tops of each other. It was so wild, with entire 3 storey temples completely buried in new vegetation with hundred year old trees rooting on top of them. Only about 20% of the entire site has been excavated, so I can’t wait to go back there in 25 years to see what it looks like then.

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Lamanai, Belize

My fourth site, Lamanai, could only be reached from Orange Walk by a bumpy dirt road or a 2 hr motor boat ride down the Belize New River. I went to the ruins with a local and his wife who agreed to drive me the hour and a half in a sedan  for $35US, and met up with a tour group there that Jungle River Tours from Orange Walk organised for me to have a guide and ride back to town with. It was the only site I had a guide and it definitely gave a totally different experience; instead of walking around gawking at the big temples wondering what it looked like before and what the people did back then, the guide basically explained everything he knew to paint a perfectly clear picture of how it might have been back in the 600’s. The boat ride back might have been the highlight, since we saw lots of birds, water lilies, crocodiles and even a pair of very friendly spider monkeys – one even came in our boat to steal a couple of our leftover bananas.

Tulum, Mexico

Tulum was totally different than the other ruins by being located right on the coast. Instead of a jungle environment, they were perched right over the most tropical, baby blue water and white sand beaches, with palm trees swaying in the perfect Caribbean breeze. The site was small and so were the buildings, so it was certainly crowded with the hundreds of people visiting, but it was still a pretty place to visit for a morning.

I was no exception to the tourist frenzy of trying to get my portrait with the temple

My final visit was to Chichen Itza, a way of saving the best for last, since this site had so many different era’s and types of archaeological ruins, scattered over a pretty big area, but still small enough to walk and see everything in a day.The main temple, now one of the 7 new wonders of the world, was really majestic, sitting huge and ameliorated in the middle of a big, open lawn with people from all corners of the world surrounding it, trying to take that perfect portrait with Chichen Itza to take home and show all their friends. All the walkways connecting the older ruins to the main temple and the main temple to a beautiful cenote nearby were lined with vendor after vendor, who would call out to every passerby “almost free,” advertising their cheap prices. They did sell little trinkets for 10 pesos (less than a euro or dollar) and the one time I responded, jokingly but cheekily, “I only shop for free stuff,” the vendor put a handcarved wood statue in my hand and said “enjoy with your family.” This of course but a big smile on my face, and I thanked him with a hug and a picture together. It was certainly a better tactic than others asking “hey lady, something for your boyfriend?” *short silent pause* “somthing for your ex-boyfriend?” I would always politely dismiss the first, but couldn´t help but laugh out loud at the second question.