What's for Dinner?

I love LOBO spice packets - their Holy Thai Basil packet is phenomenal. I did not realize that they also make a Spaghetti Sauce and Taco Seasoning. I guess the Thais are branching out, but I think I'll stick to my Old El Paso taco seasoning and spaghetti sauce in a jar.

Interesting Menu Options

I love it when restaurants are honest about their limited selections....

One of my favorite "International Flavorities" is Filet Migong complete with Fried Friend. I didn't ask if you get to choose which friend gets fried, but I should have.

Forget red, yellow or green curry, when "rad" curry is on the menu. Vegettables and mashrooms are also delightful.

The hilarious thing about this drink menu is that if you lift the sticker that says "ain", it says "ian", which makes it actually printed as Black Russian and then fixed to say Black Russain.

I didn't get a chance to talking with Run, but I'm sure him would have introduce give for me some great food choices.

I LOVE THAILAND!

The Best Airline Ever Award Goes To....

QATAR AIRWAYS! Seriously, everyone should fly Qatar Airways at least once, just to experience the luxury of the long layover. When Julie and I booked our flights to Bangkok, we were seriously dreading the 11 hour stopover in Doha, Qatar on the way there and the 13 hour stopover on the way back. We were wrong to think that it would be terrible - in fact, it was kind of nice.

The airline provided us with meals, visa fees, hotels and transport to and from the hotels and airport. It was so easy. Upon arrival in Doha, we went to the layover desk, where we received our vouchers, popped through immigration, immediately were met by our transport driver and were whisked off to the hotel for our meals and room. Our layover on the way back was from noon to 1am, but they still hooked us up in one of the "Leading Hotels of the World". Best accommodations we had for the trip, besides maybe the resort we stayed in at the wedding beach. We got to tour around Doha, where Julie and Scott will be living next year, during the day and took glorious naps before boarding our flight back to Casa.

Normally, I check out cheap fares on Expedia or Kayak when planning travel, but I'm now finding myself looking into Qatar Airways first- because it rocks and makes plane travel so much easier. You should check it out, too! They have flights all over the world.

Nuts and Beans

In case you're hungry on a ridiculously long sky train/train/bus/ferry travel excursion, my travel buddy Krista highly recommends getting some Nuts & Beans for a snack. For those of you who are wondering what comes in the Nuts & Beans snack bag, you'll be happy to know it's just cashew nuts. And maybe some of those crazy invisible beans.

The recommendation is that you "consume after opening the package". Krista went ahead and followed those directions, even though it went against her instincts. :)

Team Efforts

Planning a successful wedding is a ton of work. I spent the evening after I got back to the States helping with the wedding of the century. A month before the wedding, Aunt Jane still had a 4 page to do list, so I has happy to lend a hand.

Wrapping candy bars was a team effort. Tom took the Hershey's bars out of the 6 pack boxes and distributed them to Erin, Aunt Jane, and me. We were in charge of using double sided tape and an intricate folding process to put Erin and Ryan's picture over the Hershey's logo. Check out how focused we were!!

Uncle Kev played an integral role in the process. I bet you're wondering what his job was. If you know my Uncle Kev, you could probably guess - drinking beer and keeping the conversation going. He was the entertainment to spice up an otherwise mundane task.

Things I Love About America: Part Deux

Here are a few more things that I love about the United States of America:

1. Variety: It seems like every other week, M&Ms and Doritos come up with new delightful flavors. Here in Morocco, you get Nacho Cheese, Sweet Chili, or Sweet Barbecue Doritos. That's it. There are regular and peanut M&Ms. That's all. In the US, you can find delightful treats like Doritos Collisions, with flavors like Ranch/Pizza or Buffalo/Bleu. M&Ms aren't slackers on the variety front. Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms are totally my new favorite candy. I'm also really interested in trying the Limited Edition Coconut M&Ms.


2. Pork: There are places like Rib City in the beautiful town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. They serve all sorts of delicious ribs in a variety of sauces. Yum! Thanks for showing me the wonders of Rib City, Mikey!

3. Really Low Calorie Beer: My new fave - Miller Genuine Draft Light 64. Only 64 calories per beer. The best part? They are so watered down that you can drink all night and still stay hydrated! Ont was a real trendsetter when she introduced everyone to 64, my new drink of choice!

4. Scenic Views: I really do love the convenience of living in a big, dirty city, but I totally miss these kinds of views. This picture of a sunset with trees, the Puget Sound, and the Olympic Mountains was taken at beautiful Carkeek Park. Located in Northwest Seattle, it's a great spot to have a barbecue with good friends and enjoy the scenery. It's not even like it's a huge trip to get to.

5. Lunch Special: This one is definitely my fave. The cheapest lunch in town, the Costco polish dog, comes with a refillable soda and only costs $1.50. In Washington state, where there is sales tax, the grand total for lunch is $1.64. The price definitely makes it grand, which only gets better as the polish dog burps continue to remind one of the yummy flavor for the rest of the day.

Not Your Average Class Party

The End of the School Year for Elementary School is always an important time to celebrate academic achievement and reflect on a great year together as a class. We reminisce and kids make plans to see each other over the summer. At my old school in the States, we often did this by signing each other's yearbooks and bringing in chips and soda to share. Sometimes, we even got cupcakes.

That was public school; this is private school. When one of the students in the class has an awesome pool, you must spend an entire day at his house for the end of the year party. Also, when the parent hires jumping castles and blow up slides, the school's Reading Specialist has to attend if only to check it out. My dear friend and colleague Jen invited me along to this awesome bash. It was quite wonderful because the teachers didn't have much to chaperone - there were over 12 staff members (lifeguards, maids, nannies, chefs, etc.) around to keep an eye on the kids.
The trampolines were a real hit! Even I popped up, threw on a harness and managed a couple of backflips. Someday when I'm rich, I'm getting one of these for my backyard.

After a delightful breakfast spread and a lunch consisting of salad, lasagna, fried fish & calamari, and other assorted treats, the household staff laid out bowls of candy under these tents for kids to load up on as they ran around swimming, jumping, and otherwise frolicking around the giant yard.

The parents didn't expect teachers to enjoy the candy bowls, so they had fancy cookies and strawberry juice prepared for our table.

Not a bad send off to the end of the year. I don't know how I'll get used to the standard chips & soda potluck again.

Things I Love About Morocco

I know I haven't posted in ages, which is mostly due to a lack of internet access as I had the best summer ever! I finally made it home safely to Casablanca after a massive flight delay in London and it feels good to be home.

Here are a few things I love about coming home to Casa:

• Zakia! - My amazing maid had my apartment in tip top shape upon my return. The furniture was reorganized and I love the way it turned out. She also put Diet Coke and water in my fridge so I wouldn't be thirsty once I got home. To top it all off, I had these beautiful roses on my table to welcome me home.


• Proposals - There's nothing better for the self-esteem than random marriage proposals from local taxi drivers. My taxi driver on the way home from the airport managed to communicate with his limited English and my limited French & Arabic that he would like to marry me. I ended up rejecting the offer, but man do I feel special!
• Friends - It has been great catching up with people and getting exciting news (Julie's engaged - yay!). Off to a school barbecue tonight which should be a blast.
• Produce - took some new hires on a tour around the market today. I love how fresh and cheap all the fruits and vegetables are here. Markets are soooo much better than Safeway's produce section!
• Time Change - Ramadan started today which means that yesterday we set our clocks back an hour. Even though I left London at 8:45 p.m., I still made it back to Casa by midnight!

I'm trying to get back into blogging mode, so keep checking back!

Molecular Explosions

Favorite Trip Quote

Dad: "You may not know this, but when you get to high altitudes, pressure increases which causes explosions of toiletry and other packaged items."

Katie: "Dad, I may not have climbed a mountain before, but I have been in a few airplanes. I get it."

Example:
Gary figured this out when he went to open a new can of powdered milk when we were pretty far up the mountain. He was quite surprised when the powder decorated his sweatshirt.

Mountain Chow

Alright, I know it's been a long time since I've posted, but I've been doing a bunch of travelling on the North American continent and haven't found time to blog. I'll post about those adventures soon, but I wanted to get a few more Kili posts up.

Our food situation on the mountain was impressive. Not only did our porters have to deal with carrying everything we needed to our various camps, but they also had less than perfect kitchen facilities.



Note the cleaning and cutting of vegetables in between tents on the ground. Not quite sure what this guy is cooking, but I know all the food we ate was delightful.


For hot lunch, we got to stop at gorgeous places such as this cave, named "Second Cave". I'm not going to try and claim that the stools were comfortable or the table even. Sometimes, I came pretty close to falling over, but that's what you get for being clumsy.
Our dinner was cooked and served to us in this tent. Here's just part of our group having tea after our plates were cleared away and magically cleaned by the cleaning fairies.

We were even fortunate enough to have dessert along the way. This pudding and biscuit combo was a very welcome treat after a long day.

Things I Love About America...

I'm taking a quick break from the Kili posts to share my excitement about being back in the US. Here are some of the things that I didn't realize that I missed so much.

• Ice: they serve these frozen bits of water in drinks here. On my flights over, I was given full glasses of ice with my soda, rather than empty plastic cups. I particularly like when I can get the ice myself out of the soda machine.

• Family: Nothing's better than showing up at the Bert Mooney Airport to Aunty Jane, Gramps, and Uncle Kev. Well, except maybe waking up to this delightful breakfast at Grandpa's house.

• Pox: I love my car. He was washed and ready to go when Gramps and I picked him up this morning. I have been having fun cruising around Butte with the sunroof open, listening to CDs I made forever ago. I may retract the love for driving once I have my first 10 hour road trip tomorrow, but for now I'm loving it.

• Pork: it's on all the menus here - bacon, ham, etc. Luckily, Butte happens to be the home of the best pork place in America - Porkchop John's. Gramps and I had deep fried porkchop sandwiches for lunch. Yum!
• Efficiency: I ran all of my errands today in a single morning! Well, I've got some more to do this afternoon, but all the big stuff got out of the way in a mere couple of hours. Same errands would have probably taken me a week to do in Casa.

I am so stoked about the rest of this vacation. Can't wait to see everyone!

Village Dining

Hiking in the Rif Mountains is a beautiful experience. In Chefchaouen, we hired a guide to take us to God's Bridge and then to lunch in a local village. This is the village where we ate our lunch.

The village was pretty small, so we set up for cooking our lunch outside the village mosque.

While our guide chopped up veggies for our vegetable tagine, we got to relax and take in the village sights. This adorable kiddo was walking around the village carrying a bag of laundry soap. We also listened as the village boys recited the Quran. They practice 6 days a week for the whole school day, with the goal of memorizing the whole book. That is the only education they receive in the village.

Our tagine was cooked in this part of the mosque, where the water is boiled for cleaning before prayer. Non-Muslims are not allowed in mosques (besides the Hassan II Mosque in Casa, which is open to tourists), but we were able to check on our lunch and pose for pics by the boiling water in this part of the mosque. Note our lunch on the propane tank on the right side of the photo.

This was the final product - it was delicious! We ate in Moroccan style, by using bread to dig in (with our right hands, of course) to the communal dish.

The Imam came out with mint tea for us and Ahmed poured the tea for us. We were happy and full when we left!

Borthday Weekend Part 1

Here's how to have a kickass birthday:

1. Get friends together for a yummy barbecue. (Make sure to have cool dude at the grill.)

2. Have amazing raspberry cake from Le Notre bakery.

3. Pose for cute pictures with the other two R Fatine gals.

4. Don't mess up the beauty of the cake with birthday candles. Instead, blow out a giant decorative candle and make a wish. (Also, make sure cute kid is in attendance)

5. Appreciate living in a foreign country with a different language. Even though Jen wrote down "Happy Birthday Annie" for them to write on the chocolate, they still ended up spelling it "Happy Borthday Annie". Love it!

What a wonderful way to celebrate my 28th year. The fun continued with our big night out the next night...I can't just celebrate my birthday on one day.

Moroccan Time

I went out for fondue last night with some lovely ladies I know. Since restaurants don't open here until 8p.m., we made our reservations for 8:30 and although it was pretty empty when we got there, we weren't the first ones! There was another couple already there, which does not normally happen. Just because someone else was already in the restaurant didn't necessarily mean that we were eating dinner at an acceptable Moroccan time - in fact, the owner was still in shorts and a T-shirt when we were there. Later in the evening, he changed into his formal attire. By the time we left at half past midnight, the restaurant was still popping.

It's been kind of crazy adjusting to Moroccan time - nothing runs on schedule and everything's closed between 12 and 4 for nap time. The French schools even have a break for a couple of hours at lunch and go until 5:30 or 6p.m. Unfortunately for adjustment, CAS operates on American time. Our standard hours of 8-4 do not allow for nap time, although most of the Moroccan staff sleep during their lunch breaks to make up for the fact that they don't got to bed at an early hour. Fatima Zahra, who works at school with me, recently went to a wedding around 10:30p.m. and when she left at 3a.m. they hadn't even served dinner yet. Makes for a really tiresome day at work!

Breakfast?

While many airlines have responded to the economic crisis by charging unreasonable amounts for checked baggage, meals, and even beverages, Royal Air Maroc includes all of these things in their ticket prices. It's always a delightful experience.

Check out this awesome spread. Clockwise from the bottom left: croissant, jam & butter, roll, yogurt (sugar flavored), potato square, chicken nuggets (yup - chicken nuggets!), pizza and quiche (under the pizza). This is the breakfast we were served on our 9:25 a.m. flight to Barcelona. Not the most traditional breakfast in my book, but it was actually tasty!

Special Treat: Homemade Lard

While Mum, Katie and I were in Krakow, we were able to experience to some awesome traditional cuisine. Apparently, homemade lard is a pretty common appetizer in Poland, because we saw it on pretty much every menu that served traditional cuisine.
At one Restauracja, we were served bread, cheese, and lard to start our meal. What better way to serve homemade lard than in a cup. (Side note: check out the gorgeous sheets that were the backdrop of our booth - remind me to decorate with floral sheets if I ever own a restaurant!)

Here's the closeup! I must say that I didn't sample this delightful looking treat.

My mum got stuck having a bite when she was posing for this picture and the waiter came by and asked how she liked it. She then had to take a bite in order to be respectful. Judging from the look on her face, I don't think she was a big fan...

Saving Bread

Here's some fascinating information about garbage pickup in Casablanca. Although some garbage is strewn throughout the streets and the unofficial garbage field by my house, some people throw their garbage away in garbage cans.


Garbage trucks, like this one, pick up the garbage from the garbage cans and carry it off to the official garbage dumps. So far, this probably sounds like what happens all over the world in terms of garbage.

The interesting thing about garbage pick up here is that bread is kept separate. Plastic bags full of bread are left next to the garbage cans and the garbage truck drivers place them on top of the gas tank. They are then distributed to people in need, who often sell them to others to feed animals. It is against Islam to waste bread, so it's a pretty important part of life here.

Pizza Night

When Kris, Emily and I were in London, my parents treated us to a yummy Pizza Night. We all chipped in and did our part to create our lovely meal. Mom stole some pages out of a magazine at the doctor's office that gave an awesome recipe for pizza dough and sauce. She also chopped up all sorts of toppings to put on the various pizzas we made.

Dad and Kris manned the barbecue. Luckily, they had some Guinness to keep them company while they warmed up the grill.

Dad was in charge of keeping his pizza stone covered in semolina flour to prevent the pizza from sticking.

He and Kris teamed up to transfer the pizza from the pan to the stone.

Once the pizza was cooked, Emily cut them into pieces and we all ate them.

Here's Kris with the after pizza and the before pizza. Go Team!

You may be wondering what I was doing to help with this endeavor. Well, I was the photographer, which is of course the most important job. I was also a bit of a jack of all trades as I spent time chopping with mom, dictating toppings, and making sure everyone had cold beverages. I guess that was probably my most important duty. :)