Travel – Farm and Finery

December 12, 2023December 12, 2023

Harmonizing Tech and Tradition: Our Coventry Conference Adventure

Hello friends!

I realize it has been a while since we have posted onto Farm and Finery. We continue to make improvements to the property with more pictures coming soon. John has also continued his hunting of native stone tools and his collection has grown to epic proportions (seriously – do we need all these flintknapped rocks?).

Heading to England

I was invited to present at a conference in Coventry, England in October 2023 with the European Union’s Business Incubator Tech Camp. Although I present at conferences often, most are in the US or Canada (with an exception being a keynote address I did in Brazil in August 2019). Since I would be going so far to present, John and I decided to make a trip of it and spent 16 days away from home.

The Ruins of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, England

We landed at Heathrow and immediately starting making our way northwest to Coventry. Coventry is a city in the West Midlands County in the UK on the River Sherbourne. It became a wealthy city in the Middle Ages and later became an important industrial center, becoming home to a large bicycle industry in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it became a major center of the British motor industry.

Jet-lagged or not, I had to lead a two hour workshop at Coventry University for 36 participants. The attendees came from all over Europe as well as several from the Middle East.

Participants at the training beginning to arrive

Between leading the training and attending events at the conference, John and I had a chance to do a little sightseeing in Coventry. The city has 3 universities: Coventry University in the city center where I did training during this trip, the University of Warwick on the southern outskirts, and a small private school, Arden University. The sessions at the conference were very focused on how entrepreneurs and business incubators could use new technology to improve efficiency.

A little history about Coventry

The home of Lady Godiva, she has a statue in the middle of a pedestrian mall that has a very young and urban vibe mixed in with the medieval buildings that somehow survived the German air blitzes of 1940-1942. Legend has it that Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry to protest unjust taxes levied on the citizens by her husband, the Earl of Mercia.

During the Middle Ages Coventry hosted a national Parliament – in 1404 King Henry IV held Parliament in Coventry to raise money to fight a rebellion, which wealthy cities such as Coventry lent to him. During the War of the Roses, the Royal Court was moved by Margarat of Anjou, the wife of Henry VI. This, however, came to an end in 1461 when Edward IV (the White Rose) won.

St. Michael’s Cathedral

We also spent a lot of time touring St. Michael’s Cathedral. The 14th century church was largely destroyed in December 1940, leaving only the outer walls and spire. At 300 feet high, the spire is claimed to be the 3rd tallest cathedral spire in England (after Salisbury and Norwich).

It was very moving to walk around the remains of the church. The amount of stained glass remaining (above) in the bombed out windows was amazing and beautiful.

We also toured the new Cathedral, which was completed in 1962 and was featured in the 2009 film Nativity! John Lennon and Yoko Ono planted two acorns outside the new cathedral in June 1968. The charred cross inside the new cathedral was found in the rubble of the old cathedral and was taken as a sign of hope.

This baptism font is made from a boulder brought from Bethlehem

St. Mary’s Guildhall

On our last night in Coventry, we attended a final reception and dinner for the conference at St. Mary’s Guildhall. During the Medieval period the Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva founded a Benedictine monastery in 1043 dedicated to St. Mary. St. Mary’s Guildhall, dating from the 14th century is one of the more notable surviving medieval buildings still in Coventry.

We attended the event along with the conference hosts and some friends we had met along the way. Richard, wearing orange, was a local who taught at Coventry University.

One of the more remarkable things in the St. Mary Guildhall building is its tapestry. According to PBS-based TV show host Rick Steves, it is the oldest tapestry in England to be in situ – that is, it is still hanging where it was designed to be (rather than being taken down and displayed in a museum). The tapestry, woven between 1505 and 1515, has six different scenes on the tapestry, all protected by glass. The scenes line up perfectly with the stained glass above the tapestry.

A Little Night Music

The conference also had a two piece band perform on a small stage in front of the tapestry. The duo was playing standards, a favorite genre for me, so John went up to the musicians and asked if I could sing along. I think I’m a little sharp, but hey, I’m a professional trainer and coach – not a singer…

We enjoyed our last night with friends made over our several days in Coventry and will especially miss our local host, Richard – with whom I obviously had a lot of fun…

Overall, we really enjoyed our time in Coventry. Because of the bombing it sustained, it is not as well preserved a town as many others we saw, and some are critical of Coventry for that. But we felt it was a unique blend of old and new architecture with great and friendly people at every venue we attended.

Next, we head to Stratford-Upon-Avon…

Thanks for stopping by!
Libby

February 19, 2021

Surviving Snowmageddon 2021

First, I want to begin by saying thanks to all those friends who reached out to check on us the week of February 15, 2021. It felt like John or I had a birthday – we received so many texts, calls, and emails. So thanks for checking on us. It’s been a weird week.

The past few weeks we’ve had beautiful, spring-like weather. In fact on January 22, 2021 I worked outside in the sun on the pool porch. I even had to move because I was getting too hot. Ha!

This week…. not so much. In fact, we had planned to go to the Texas coast for a long weekend get away for John’s birthday and Valentine’s Day. It would have been our first trip (albeit by car) since we went to the Cayman Islands last year for John’s birthday and Valentine’s Day. But as the weekend neared and the storm predictions got worse, we cancelled our plans and stayed put. Just as well – we had a number of chores to complete before the storm including covering up our garden beds, wrapping the water pipes down by the water well and pump, and gathering firewood for the weekend.

covering garden beds and harvesting vegetables

Yes, we did lose power, but not for very long – especially compared to others. We also briefly lost hot water, but John climbed into the attic and did his McGruber thing to fix that before the day was out. Our local paper called it a “once in a lifetime storm” and the Texas Governor called it “a once-in-every-120-year cold front”. I think that is fairly accurate considering the following records that were broken this week:

For the first time in recorded history, all 254 counties in Texas were under a winter storm warning.
For the first time in recorded history, the National Weather Service out of Austin/San Antonio issued a wind chill warning.
Austin channels say the area broke the record for the longest period of time with temperatures below freezing (previous record was 140 hours).

Construction was supposed to begin on the swimming pool this week, but obviously with the freezing weather, that was postponed to sometime next week when we get back to “normal” temperatures.

We hope you are all doing well and have been weathering the winter well. Be on the lookout for posts about our pool construction, which will begin soon!
Until then, stay safe and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

March 14, 2020

Cabinetry!!!!

Well I must begin by saying, first, I hope all of you are safe and sound as the Corona Virus cancellations are really picking up speed. From SXSW in Austin and the Spring Antique Show in Round Top, to the St. Patrick’s Day Parades in various cities, to numerous conferences cancelled – this social isolation is impacting many of our friends and family. Personally, all of my travel going forward has been cancelled until further notice and the two international conferences where I was invited to speak this spring have been cancelled or postponed. John and I both hope that the cancellations do have the intended impact of “flattening the curve” – meaning that it may not stop everyone from becoming infected (eventually) with COVID-19, but it will elongate the period of time it takes for everyone to be infected, and thus reduce the strain on our hospitals and healthcare system.

Moving onto happier topics, as mentioned in our last post, our cabinetry arrived and has been installed this week!

No seriously. I think I squealed and did an awkward jump into the air. Even John commented, “You don’t usually look that dorky.” Thanks, honey.

Shall we go through room by room? Yes, let’s… Let’s start with the heart of the home – the kitchen. We are really glad we went with the upcharge for the cabinets up to the ceilings. What are we going to keep in those glass front cabinets up top? No idea, but it sure does look perrty…

Back of the hood
Drawer microwave and fridge space
Sink and dishwasher

Just off the kitchen is the Butler’s Pantry. It’s basically a little bar area as well as a dish storage haven. It’s like a bigger version of the bar at the lake cottage, for those of you who have been there.

OK, maybe a much bigger version… Again, we really like these cabinets up to the ceiling. All the glass will be installed in the doors later, after they have been stained and varnished. All the wood (except for the outside kitchen) is knotty alder.

Moving into the library, John’s desk has been installed, as well as a wall of bookcases (a TV will be mounted in the middle section) and a corner set of bookcases too. These have file drawers on the one side for household documentation storage. I’m weirdly excited by this quirky little library/den. Makes me want to drive up North and get all of our books out of storage now!

The master bathroom and master closet also have cabinetry. In the master bathroom, we included built in medicine cabinets (again, the mirrors will be installed after staining and sealing), and I have a little vanity space as well. In the closet we included one built in (my antique dresser will also go in here).

The two other bathrooms have simple vanities. The vanity in the family bath (with a tub) will be painted, while the little one in the bar bathroom will be stained. The bar bathroom actually was designed to have a podium sink, and while I think they are lovely (we have one in our lower level bathroom at the lake cottage), they provide no storage at all. So we added this little two door vanity in at the last minute.

We also have a couple of built in benches. One is a window seat in the guest bedroom. I think this will be a lovely spot to sit and read a book, or it would be a great place for guests to get their suitcases up off the floor. The other bench is in our mudroom, right outside of our laundry room. It will be a place for us to sit and take off dirty shoes from hiking around the property.

Guest room window seat

Speaking of the laundry room, I’m loving this one. I’ve never had a laundry room with a window (our garden will eventually be on that side of the house – so it will be fun to look out at that). Here we did not opt to pay the extra money for the cabinetry to go to the ceiling, nor did we upgrade the drawers to soft close, but since it will only be John and myself using this room, I think it was a good place to economize.

The great room has two areas of cabinetry – the bar and the built ins around the fireplace. But first, our bar from the Lodge – the first bar we ever designed. It was a fantastic and often used focal point of the great room in our home of 20 years.

This one is a little bigger in length and about a foot bigger in depth. We decided to not be so squished between the front bar and back bar on this round. We also included some bottle drawers for the bar.

The bookcases on either side of the great room fireplace will hold our turntable, records, and maybe some games. There is a gap on either side of the fireplace because they will be installing stone around the fireplace all the way back.

And finally, the cabinetry for the outside kitchen was installed. At the end, we decided to cut out the exterior cooktop – John wants a grill/smoker and that cannot be put right next to the house. So instead, we opted to have a TV wall mounted here and it will be a nice place to put food out for a buffet (we have outlets for crockpots, hot plates, etc.) and it will have an outdoor refrigerator, sink, and garbage/recycling. The wood for the outside cabinetry is cypress. The front of this bar will be stone, matching the stone on the great room fireplace (inside) and chimney (outside).

The only other thing that was not delivered, was the living room mantle. It will look very similar to the bottom of the kitchen range hood.

Having the cabinetry in place has really helped us get a sense of the rooms, how we will functionally use them, and what we can see from various points of view (like the living room fireplace, for example). In short, it has really helped the shell of the house feel much more like a home. We know that trajectory will continue as the painters and stainers will be arriving Monday to begin painting everything (which is estimated to take two weeks).

With all that cabinetry, now you can see why we took so long to find a wood stain, right? There are a few painted pieces of cabinetry (although John is hesitant because, as he says, why would we paint such beautiful wood?), but the majority will be stained.

We’ve also decided to change our window sills from painted to stained. While the baseboards and trim around the doors will all be painted, we wanted to add a bit more of the stained wood look in at the windows. Above are a few examples we found on the internet (sorry – I don’t remember now where I found them so I cannot give photo credit).

So that’s our update for now. Stay safe and healthy and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

February 24, 2020

Appliances are Ordered!

I’m not sure who is happier that I’m home from my recent trip to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory – me or John. Sometimes I’m just too far away…

John and I share our locations with each other, and on some of my long trips, it’s comforting to see where he is. So, no, it isn’t stalking… 😜

And it isn’t easy getting to or from the Yukon Territory. Adding to that, my flight from Vancouver to Dallas/Ft Worth was diverted to Denver to so they could remove an unruly passenger in handcuffs. So that was different…

But now that I’m home, it’s time to get focused on the ranch again and today I ordered all of our appliances. All of them.

It’s an exciting and slightly frightening experience to spend that much money at one time. And I double and triple checked the order again and again before finalizing everything. Wondering what’s coming?

Although I went back and forth on a separate cooktop and wall ovens, when I saw the ilve (pronounced ill-vay) range, I was sold. We will be receiving a 48” Italian ilve dual fuel range with double ovens and a full warming drawer. As you can see in the YouTube video above, it has lots of bells and whistles, plus we are getting the midnight blue range with brass accents. Gorgeous!!

And we are getting an LG refrigerator that makes craft ice (as shown in the video above). I wondered about the door in a door feature, but our friends Miste and Dennis say they really enjoy and use that feature in their refrigerator. And did I mention that it makes craft ice?

Other appliances include two panel-ready Bosch dishwashers (one for the kitchen and one for the bar), an ice maker for the bar, a small deep freezer for the pantry, and under counter refrigerators for the bar, butler’s pantry, and outdoor kitchen.

Tomorrow we will meet our site supervisor at the house to discuss the next phases of construction. But in the meantime, thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

February 19, 2020February 19, 2020

Home for 27 Hours

Well, I meant to get a post done Monday, on Presidents Day, but since I was only home for all of 27 hours (during which I slept, did laundry, repacked for a vastly different destination, and visited the home site), I’m now writing this on a plane.

What a difference a day makes. I did training in George Town, Cayman Islands (and tacked a few days on the beach on afterwards) and now am flying to Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada. Above is a time stamp of the weather at the same time in the two locations.

First, Grand Cayman was beautiful and we celebrated John’s birthday and Valentine’s Day, in addition to my work.

At one island restaurant, The Wharf, guests were invited to feed the tarpons.

While 7 mile beach is beautiful and the weather was consistently 82 degrees and sunny everyday, John and I both found the island very expensive. Almost gouging. Especially the restaurants and the cabs (there is no Uber or Lyft). The one really nice meal we had was at Tille’s on St. Valentine’s Day.

Back home, we were anxious to see the progress at the house and barn, and we were not disappointed.

Living room fireplace
Living room
Looking into the dining room
Looking into the kitchen
Entryway looking into the library and bedroom
Library
Looking into the master bedroom
Looking into the master bathroom
Master bathroom
Master bedroom fireplace
Kitchen
Kitchen
Hallway
Behind the bar
Bar
Great room fireplace
Great room

Finally we can REALLY see the size of the rooms, even if we do miss being able to walk through the walls.

We are wondering when they are going to remove the beam from great room… And somewhere our master bathroom tub, tub faucet, and kitchen sink have been delivered, but Wesley must be keeping those items somewhere else for the time being.

The barn has recessed lights installed on the outside porches and they have begun the exterior soffits as well.

So that’s my short update from a quick trip home. Thanks again for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

January 30, 2020

2019 Travel in Review

Today John and I traveled to Houston to renew our passports. As soon as we got back from our cruise last November, we probably should have sent our passports in for renewal, but alas my team was trying to schedule some work travel so I was waiting to see how that all worked out.

PSA: do not renew at the Passport Offices. Ugh – it was a long and tedious day. But it takes 3-4 weeks to get your passport back even when you pay for it to be expedited and my life doesn’t work like that at this point in my life/career.

Within the span of three weeks I’ll travel to Toronto, Grand Caymen Island, and back to Canada in the Yukon province. I haven’t traveled for work since my Halloween trip to Ottawa, Canada, which has been unusual and definitely spoiled me. It was also great timing since it has been important to be at the house site to find and fix those things that were either forgotten or not installed correctly.

Looking back at 2019, I flew 126,760 miles and drove another 10,000 miles as we prepared our home of 20 years for sale and moved into our rental home in Texas. I visited 19 states (plus the District of Columbia), 5 countries outside of the US, and spent 112 nights in hotels (51 of those nights apart from John).

Images from Curitiba, the Brazilian rainforest, and Rio de Janeiro

Looking back over 2019, my favorite trip was definitely our 12 days/nights in Brazil. First – John went with me, and I would not have wanted to go that far away for so long without him. Second, it was a great mix of work and pleasure and my first time delivering a keynote address. Even John gave a last minute keynote after the other international speaker missed a flight and wasn’t going to make it. And I definitely improved my Portuguese language skills.

Speaking at the My Innova (My Innovation) Summit in Curitiba, Brazil

I had been invited to speak at a conference in Cairo, Egypt in June 2019 and am sorry that I couldn’t go (it was a week before the new owners closed on our house so all hands had to be on deck to get us packed and out of there). But I would love to see Cairo someday.

Pics from John’s birthday trip to Washington DC

My favorite domestic trip in 2019 was to Washington DC. I had to travel to DC for work the week of John’s birthday and by happy coincidence, it turned out that Lauren was going to be in Washington at the same time to see her (and John’s) alma mater play basketball. So I convinced John to join me and surprised him with tickets to the same game – but of course the big surprise was seeing Lauren!

Who knows how much I/we will travel in 2020. Where are some of your favorite destinations? Or what was your favorite trip in 2019? I would love to hear your thoughts! And as always, thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

December 2, 2019December 2, 2019

Cruising Around: A Review of the Celebrity Equinox

Last December our friends Julia and Bob returned from a Thanksgiving week cruise and urged us to join them the following year. We had not started construction on our home, and since our own Thanksgiving traditions have been in transition since John’s mom passed and Lauren began hosting Thanksgiving at her home in New Jersey, we thought why not?

This was our first cruise and we relied heavily on our friends’ previous experiences and also selected our stateroom so we were just down the hall and had similar amenities.

Our cruise was an “Eastern Caribbean” cruise and ports of call included San Juan, Puerto Rico, Charlotte, St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands), Samaná, Dominican Republic, and Nassau, Bahamas along with two days at sea. I won’t review the itinerary as that is what we selected based on what our friends had already booked and there are many, many varieties of itineraries with Celebrity and all of the cruise lines.

Instead, this is a review of the Celebrity Cruise Line and the Equinox Ship.

I think John was saying, “I hate this,” while this photo was taken

The Bad

The positive aspects far outweigh the negative, so let’s get my criticisms over with. They mostly have to do with technology based issues.

As concierge class, the lowest of the upgraded levels, we were able to have lunch in the main dining room on embarkation day, which was lovely. But when we went to order drinks, the waiter told us that we had purchased the Classic Non-alcohol Package. Huh? No, darling, I most certainly did not pay for a Non-alcohol Package. I was even told by no less than 4 employees that I probably thought I had bought the Premium Alcohol Package, but obviously I had not.

I get it – the staff believes in their own systems and I must be a confused passenger. After digging through hundreds (literally) of emails from Celebrity, I finally found my receipt for the Premium Alcohol Package for both John and myself. After a long wait for our turn at the service desk, they reprinted our Seapass cards that you use as a room key and anytime you order anything. The whole process was stressful and freaked me out because I had purchased (and paid for) these packages MONTHS ago so I spent most of lunch searching my phone for a receipt instead of enjoying our special perk.

Beautiful beach and part of the nature preserve on St. John.

Similarly, I had pre-paid for internet for 2 devices for the trip, but that did not register on the Celebrity App either. You can use the Celebrity App for free to see your schedule, message other guests, see the ship time, and check out all the activities occurring that day. It’s very similar to using an airline’s app while flying – you can check things associated with your flight and luggage, but you cannot access email or the general internet.

WiFi is not cheap – we paid $358 for 2 devices in the weeks before the trip. By Monday, I really needed internet and had to purchase internet for 2 devices again – this time for $208! Of course, another trip to the service desk had them refunding that, but still – I should not have had to do that and it is annoying that the price dropped by $150 two days into the trip.

My final criticism about the expensive WiFi is that it was incredibly slow in the staterooms. So not only is it expensive, but it sucks too – for example I couldn’t load a single photo up to this blog while on the ship.

On the helipad deck cocktail reception with Julia as we left St. Thomas, another perk from our Concierge Class. upgrade.

My final criticism has to do with the messaging aspect of the Celebrity app. Again, the app is free to use by anyone and includes the option to message other passengers, which would be great – If it worked. But unfortunately it was completely unreliable as sometimes messages went through and other times your friends received nothing, so Julia and I used What’s App to communicate. It did help that we were literally down the hall from each other, but the app really should work properly.

The Good

There were many more positive aspects of the cruise than negative aspects. First and foremost, the entertainment was surprisingly, incredibly good. Every night there is a show at 7 or 9 pm, so you can choose either time, depending upon when you are having dinner. There were 3 theater productions throughout the week with loosely organized plots highlighting singers, dancers, acrobats, and aerialists. Seriously amazing and I could put many, many more videos up.

Topper show

There were also 2 comedians and 2 musical acts that gave some nice variety throughout the week.

During the show by the musical group “Uptown”, they pulled a passenger into the stage to sing to and she introduced herself as Squirrel from Arkansas. 🐿 Not joking. Squirrel was a bit hands on during her time in the spotlight with the 3 male singers and I literally laughed until I cried watching her. I later met Squirrel, who is originally from North Carolina, and she would stop and chat with us throughout the cruise. I loved it when she was schooling John on how to play video poker (yet another Concierge Class perk was that we each got $50 in credit for the casino – combined we made $150 in cash from our time in the casino). 🤓

Posing with Squirrel at the Silent Disco (hence the blue headphones).

Another positive was the staff and the ship itself – everyone was very nice and helpful and the ship was beautiful and did not feel crowded. There are numerous comfortable places to sit and gather with friends. The bar staff at our favorite bar, the Ensemble Lounge, knew our first names and our drink preferences pretty early on. I think the cleaning staff must have cleaned 24/7 because everything was always clean, dirty plates were picked up immediately, and our room was refreshed 2-3 times a day. It was a beautiful environment for the week and our friend, Bob, even opted to stay on the ship when we arrived in the Dominican Republic because he likes being on the ship that much!

Another positive aspect was the high quality and wide variety of food options. We had Select Dining in the main dining room as part of our Concierge Level perks, meaning that we could show up at anytime for dinner or lunch (on non-port days). Other guests were assigned an early or late dining appointment. The portion sizes were thankfully small, but there is still a lot of food so I usually skipped the desserts offered. I was only disappointed a few times, which is pretty impressive. The broiled lobster was great, but as someone who has made beef Wellington, theirs was NOT beef Wellington, but a sad, thin steak with some puff pastry placed around, after it had been cooked. But overall, the food was great.

Our Concierge Class also includes a tray of canapés in our stateroom every evening at 4 PM. Again, the portions sizes were small (2 deviled egg halves or 2 slices of cucumber with smoked salmon with a small sweet treat), but it was good to have something to tide us over until dinner.

They also had several specialty restaurants such as the French restaurant Murano, the Italian steakhouse called Tuscan Grille, Blu (the Aqua class only restaurant), and finally Qsine, which had a 3-D video show where 4 animated little chefs had a cooking competition.

The food at the specialty restaurants was much better, but you must pay extra to dine at them. We ate at Murano on the first night because they offered steep discounts for that night. Sorry, no pics from that night.

Another positive aspect was finding a fun community of folks on the ship, like Squirrel referenced above. One guy on our catamaran trip to St. John’s lost his wedding ring as soon as he got into the water to snorkel. Chris, one of the 3 guys working the catamaran dove into 20+ feet deep water almost 30 times and actually found his ring. We later sat next to him and his wife at the 2nd formal night and they said they would be snorkeling again in the Bahamas – and he would be more careful on this excursion.

Finally, I would say that the enormous number of activities each day was also very impressive. There was a program placed into our room each evening that highlighted the next day’s events, which ranged from 75 to 115 separate events. It was very easy to overbook yourself between dance lessons, meditation classes, spa treatments, Bocce ball games, wine tastings, etc. Not all the activities were free, but the majority were.

Our friends, Julia and Bob opted to pay extra for the weekly pass to the Persian Garden which is a private part of the spa/workout facility that includes hydrotherapy, steam rooms, and aromatherapy rooms. They used it enough that I think they would opt for the Aqua Class upgrade in the future. We had an agreement with Julia and Bob that we would do dinner together each night, but could do our own things during the days (although we took several excursions together as well), and it seemed like a reasonable balance of together and separate time for all.

Final Analysis

Overall, the Celebrity Equinox Cruise was a great experience and one we would try again, especially with friends. We probably would have made more “cruise friends” had we been on our own. I would suggest that you take printed copies of receipts for the various perks you paid for (such as the drink package and the WiFi) as it was unfortunate and annoying that they did not have those properly recorded in our account.

Let let me know your thoughts on cruising and if you have your own review of Celebrity or other lines. (If you do not see a space below for comments, click on the title of this post to get to the original post so you may add those comments).

Thanks for stopping by! – Libby

November 2, 2019November 2, 2019

Halloween in Ottawa, Canada

This week, my work brought me to Ottawa, Canada for a few days of training. The training was organized very last minute (for which they apologized multiple times) and could *only* be done on October 31-November 1. Meanwhile back in Texas, John went to a Halloween party at our landlord’s house, which I had to miss. Shoot!

My colleague, Oliver, helped organize most of the event, so I was surprised when I arrived and everyone spoke French! Je parle un peu le francais, but certainly not enough to do two days of training on business topics. Comment dites-vous revenue model en francais?

My colleagues at work say that I have a “Canada curse” because almost every time I fly to Canada, I get delayed, rerouted, or even get snowed in overnight and this trip was no different. Thanks to strong storms across the US, my morning flight out of Austin to Chicago was delayed by more than 3 hours, which required me to rebook my connections. Long story shortened, I finally arrived in Ottawa at 1 AM, crashed in my hotel room and then had to be up and training by 9 AM. Ouch.

Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, seems to be a lovely city (of about 1.5 million people), but unfortunately it was rainy for the first 36 hours and very cold the entire time I visited. So the picture above (of a picture from my hotel’s elevator) is the prettiest shot I have of the Parliament building. The other interesting note is how difficult it is to get here. The airport is tiny with limited flights. My training participants told me they either took 8 hours bus rides to get here or had to pay $1200 for a domestic flight here. Ouch again.

On Friday night it finally stopped raining and I had awoken that morning with a sore throat. Since I could not leave Ottawa until Saturday (again very few flights into Canada’s Capitol city), I searched for a place for dinner “pour un”. Trip Advisor helpfully let me know that just a 10 minute walk from my hotel in downtown is Sansotei Ramen. In fact, it is rated #4 of 2,218 restaurants in Ottawa.

The reviews were indeed superlative! What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the line outside the building.

Yep, I waited outside in 34 degree Fahrenheit weather for more than 40 minutes. I thought about bailing, but being alone in a foreign city – what else did I have to do? Plus this place is legit – the website is in Japanese first and English second. But no French? How very un-Canadian!

Hot tea, to warm my cold hands and ease my sore throat

I’m not sure if it was worth the 40 minute wait out in the cold, but it WAS the best ramen I have ever had. The last ramen I had was in Curitiba, Brazil with John when he had the sniffles. There is just something about a good Japanese ramen soup when the weather gets cold!

Miso Black Ramen with the best gyoza I have ever had. I could not eat all the noodles but really enjoyed the broth!

My dish had spicy Kakuni – a simmered pork belly.

The guys in line next to me were friendly, although they mostly spoke French. They asked me to take their photo and in return I snapped a photo of one of their ramen bowls. This was the tonkotsu.

Tonkotsu – a basic ramen dish with pork belly

My dinner, with 18% tip, was $22 USD – very reasonable. Especially at the 4th most popular restaurant in Ottawa…

It’s a little sad that my highlight of this trip is ramen, but sometimes that’s just how it goes – the weather didn’t cooperate. Thankfully I’m flying home today to Texas, just before the snow hits Ottawa. Brrr! 🥶

View from my seat on the flight back to the states.

Have you had good luck traveling to Canada? 🇨🇦 What is the best ramen you have ever had? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs, Libby

October 23, 2019October 27, 2019

October Wedding Trip to the Midwest

This past weekend found John and I back in the Midwest for a wedding and long weekend with friends. One of my oldest friends, Neil, and his honey, Brian tied the knot after 6 years of blending a family.

Part of the fun was that multiple high school friends traveled back for the festivities and these days it’s unusual to say that you’ve been friends with someone since you were 12 or 14 years old. But that is just how long I’ve been friends with this crazy crew.

Middle school and high school friends back together. Who knew that spending our lunch hours in the student newspaper and year book room would keep us friends for more than 30 years??

So the weekend was a bit of a mini reunion as well as a chance to do some work on our lake cottage, which is on the market (I’ll tag a post about that later).

Guests were highly encouraged to wear tweed. Boat rides at the lake and other reunion fun not pictured.

Sorry to brag, but John’s tweed coat cost $9 at a thrift store. I think he has a tweed coat somewhere in storage, but where???? It’s a mystery…

On our trips to and from, we stopped off at the Admiral’s Clubs in DFW (on the way North) and ORD (on the way South), and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the American Airlines Admiral’s Clubs have significantly upped their free food game. No more cubed cheese and weird salad made from couscous (or was that a pearled barley? Either way, it wasn’t good.). Instead they had a REAL salad bar!

Lettuce, tomatoes, grilled chicken (crumbled bacon was another option). This is with a vinaigrette but there was also a honey mustard dressing option.

OK, you may think this isn’t a big deal, but with a cup of soup (tomato basil soup in DFW not pictured), it makes a full meal in a way that cubes of cheese just can’t cut (boy-pun intended).

Make your own Mac and cheese in O’Hare!! With a cup of unsweetened iced tea.

The make your own Mac and cheese at the club in ORD was really good and thankfully they have these small cups so it’s easier to do portion control. Being gluten sensitive, John did not have this but he did enjoy the custom made guacamole and chips.

Happy hour guacamole and chips with corn, jalapeños, tomatoes, lime juice, and crumbled cheese.

By the way, the freshly made happy hour guacamole and chips (and in the morning it’s custom made avocado toast – with smoked salmon as an option!) are only available in larger Admiral’s Clubs. My “home” Admiral’s Club in Austin is much smaller and does not offer this perk (but it is still my favorite club).

Free house wine and Hendricks with lime, which is not free.

In case you are considering springing for a club membership or for a day pass, I should mention that there are also lots of free drink options including coffee, hot chocolates, lattes, hot & iced tea, sodas, flavored waters, and house wine, beer, and spirits. The premium drinks, like Hendricks gin, are an extra fee. In fact, 3 Hendricks on the rocks (one for me and two for John over the course of 3 hours) cost $40 before tip.

Anyway, it was a wonderful trip “home”, except it didn’t feel like home as much anymore, which was a bit odd. John and I discussed how much our heart is in our building project and that’s where “home” is – even if we are living temporarily in a rental house. We are both looking forward to getting back and seeing the progress made on the foundation and a better (less steep) driveway up to the house site.

Would love to hear your feedback – either about your experiences with airline clubs or even your own with mini reunions with friends!

Hugs, Libby