Arrival to Atlanta

10/13/11

We hanged out with Ivana, Stanko and Katka this morning before we left. We drove about 8 hrs before getting to Atlanta. Traffic was really bad in road 85, apparently something happened but we took a detour after being stuck for 45 min. The detour allowed us to get back to a flowing 85. We got to Atlanta at 7pm. We were received by my sister Jayne and Bill her husband. It was an exciting time to visit Atlanta because Jayne and Bill recently announced that they are expecting a child in May! We arrived at their house and had a great time seeing their new apartment and hearing about their experiences with the pregnancy. Jayne cooked a delicious meal of pork, squash and salad with home made apple pie for dessert. It was great.

After dinner, Jayne and Bill retired for the night and we met Gladys and Ramon for a couple of beers. Gladys is one of Mónica's best friends from undergrad and Ramon is her fiancé.

While in Puerto Rico we were fortunate to witness Ramon's proposal, hence we were eager to share some time with them after the fact.  I know Mónica was really excited to get to spend more time with Ramon since Gladys was probably her undergrad friend that had spent more time with us as a couple at the beginning of our relationship. They picked us up and took us to a bar called The Porter, apparently Beer Advocate rated it as one of the top bars in the country. They did have a fine selection of beers and we sampled some very tasty ones. At bar time we went to their apartment and Ramon showed us some videos of his family in Brazil. Thewe seemed like a fun family and we hope to one day meet them at their wedding. Before finishing up the night we dusted the guitar and vocal cords to sing one or two song. Unfortunately due to the time of night Ramon could not play his percussion. We hope to have a jamming session in the near future. 

North Carolina with great friends

10/12/11

Today we woke up to the giggles and laughs of Katka and Stanko. I (moni) woke up first and went to meet Kataka  immediately. She was soooo soooo beautiful and "comible" (like you can eat her).

But after taking different gender sociology classes in undergrad and reading bunch of different articles about gender I have try as much as possible to stop using traditional adjectives used with girls and boys.  Why? because those pave the road for a perception of inequality amongst genders that is perpetuated in society today. The only true is that girls can be brave, strong and boys can be sweet and emotional and vice versa. So, why only call them one or the other. If we keep doing that we limit each human being to a small dimension of itself and run into the danger of spoiling their potential. 

Because I don't surround myself with many kids I took this opportunity to practice. I told  Katka,  you are so strong and brave. But I was not wrong, this kid was strong, she would latch at you to stand up and do all sorts of maneuvers in order to get to her mom. 

I truly appreciate Ivana. I lived with her for 2 years in grad school while working to earn a doctorate in Genetics. Grad school is not easy and it requires and extreme amount of self-confidence.  I believe living with Ivana helped me gain a less stressful perspective of grad school and brightened my days with easy living. She was not the type of student that tried to hide the fact that a PhD is hard,  but she was equally not the type to keep complaining about it; all of that with a positive and sunny attitude.  In addition, she brought a lot of cultural insight to my life. Ivana is from Slovakia, an Eastern European country. She would cook a smoked sausage soup with cabbage that was so comforting. She would make simple and delicious green salads and drink tons of tea during winter. She definitely turned me into tea, although she might not know that. Imagine, my symbolical self, how exciting is to visit her and hang out with her kids.

Not only that,  North Carolina has more goodies waiting for me. For some reason a couple of my friend from WASHU ended up in Durham- Raleigh. In the view of us coming here I had contacted Jane and Javier but did not gave them another heads up until the same day. Fortunately they were available to meet, so we planned to see each other that night.

In the mean time I became good friends with Stanko and was the only one allowed to built the trains tracks for him. Also we got into a mood of car photography. Paul had much more luck with the girls and spent some time charming  Katka with different toys. 

We decided on a dinner meal to cook. We went to the groceries to get the necessary items, in our way back we were joined by Mica my other Washu/NC friend. Luckily for me it was Mica's day off, hence, Ivana and I got to catch up with her. She is such an inspiring woman. On her own, she has ventured to many wonderful places in the world not just to look and take pictures but to make a difference. 

Paul and I prepared a simple meal of chicken wrapped in bacon and Gouda cheese with roasted potatoes. While doing so OTČE (father in slovak)  arrived. There was such a commotion for Jacobs arrival that I imagined -that- to be Jacobs best part of the day. Stanko got so excited, just at the sound of the car approaching that he waited for his dad in the front door. Once OTČE arrived he hugged and jumped on top of him.  

We all (including the kids) sat at the table and ate the meal talking about the hardships and gratitudes  of an anesthesiology residency. Later we had a bit of a photo shooting, cars included. 

It was time to get together with the Revollo's so we parted to Moonberries. Unfortunately for some reason the GPS gave us the wrong address so we got really delayed. Finally we got to the right place. Again, Javier is one of those people (like Ivana)  that I will always keep in a special place in my heart. He was along with Ericka, Abhi and Tejas one of the  persons that help me to establish a healthy social lifestyle  in WASHU. They were my family. It is difficult to describe Javier because he is such a wonderful person, but he influenced many aspects of my life ranging from open-mindedness and philosophy to lab rotations. I was really excited to see them. It was very delightful to sit down, talk and laugh with them. Obviously, a big part of the conversation we spent talking about our friends in WASHU and Paul and I tried as much as we could to give them an update. The best part was really talking about all the possibilities of fun in Bolivia and the fire in Javier's eyes as he talked about the  wonderful place who saw his birth. I was really please to see they were so happy and carrying away with their lives so successfully. 

We got to the Nadler's residence and went to bed. 

Drive to North Carolina

10/11/10

This day we woke up rested and started driving towards North Carolina (NC) primarily to visit Katka and Stanko ( Ivana's and J's babies). We decided to do it this way because our penultimate stop is Atlanta and I've been hoping to go out dancing with my friend Gladys, something you mostly do on weekend. 
Despite of Atlanta being closer than North Carolina we decided to go to NC first and then backtrack to Atlanta for the weekend. 

On our way to NC we passed other parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and finally we arrived to North Carolina. We lost one hour of time change and arrived super late (1am).  Arriving at Ivana's was a bit quirky because we could not find the phone to call her. We probably spent about 10 min looking around the car. Finally she let us in and we immediately went to bed. 

New Orleans

10/10/11

We woke at about 9 am after a well deserved rest. Immediately we went to Cafe du Monde for our cafe au lait and beignet fix. Although the place was unbearably packed we managed to get seated and served pretty quickly. Despite I told Paul one serving was enough I knew he secretly desired 3 whole beignets for himself so I ended up ordering 2 servings which meant I also inevitably ate 3 huge beignets. We were very pleased.

Since it was Paul's first time at New Orleans and Monica's third, we decided to just walk around with no definite plans. We enjoyed the architecture and multi-culturality  of the place. New Orleans, Luisiana most commonly known as NOLA is definitely a place with many influences from the beginning of its history.

As the story goes New Orleans natives were the Chitimaca tribe, but of course Europeans, in this case French, always come with their diseases and wiped out some of their population. New Orleans then was established as a French Colony  in the 1700's, then it was ceded to Spain who had it for more than 30 years. It returned back to French control in the 1800 and it was finally sold by Napoleon early that century to United States. England tried to invade once right after the Louisiana Purchase but was unsuccessful.  After hearing all of the people that mingled there at the turn of the century I started to understand the influences you see today in NOLA but it does not end there. Another important immigration happened that brought thousands of african descent-Haitians to the area. These group was looking to establish the second colony of free blacks in the continent. This gives us perspective of why Luisiana played such crucial part during the civil rights movement. The biggest concentration of free african descents was contained in New Orleans. Ironically, as many as free, many more slaves were trade in the same port.  

All of these influences made Luisiana a multicultural place and shaped the food they are so famous for, now a days. We went for another coffee at Royal blend Cafe in Royal street and right before getting there, street musicians were enlightening the streets with their awesome recreation of The 20' jazz song  "I 'm going away just to wear you off my mind". 

After strolling around we were ready for some seafood. I read Deanie's Seafood would have the freshest catch.  We were not disappointed. We sampled their complimentary whole potatoes boiled in crab water and seasoned salt. Next got the charbroiled oysters , they were the best of this place. Subsequently we order blackened redfish, fried crawfish and crawfish étouffée.  The etoufee was our second favorite.

After an extremely full belly we walked to the river and got the Algiers Ferry which takes people to the Algiers area across the Mississippi river. From it we got a nice view of the New Orleans skyline. 

After the ferry we saw the Fountain Spain gifted NOLA and we sampled the famous pralines candy.  For some reason cigars are big in New Orleans, therefore, we entered in a cigar factory and saw the workers rolling some cigars, this is called -hilar tabaco- in Spanish. This was interesting to me because my paternal grandmother  used to work doing this in her youth. My imagination went off thinking of her. 

After all this activities we took a nap. We woke up just in time for another beer-in-hand-stroll and dinner.

This time we made it to Tujegue's. The dinner was a pre-set dinner of 5 courses. First we ordered New Orleans traditional drinks. Paul got a sazerac cocktail and I got a pimp's cup. Immediately they served the appetizer which was shrimps in remoulade sauce. Next they brought the gumbo which is a soup with rice, chicken, andouilee sausage and seafood. Their gumbo was just delish and my favorite of the night. Next they brought a piece of boiled beef with a horseradish sauce. It was perfectly cooked. You could choose between 4 main dishes. Two of them were seafood and since we had gotten seafood earlier we decided to pass on those. We both ordered the veal in blue cheese sauce. It was really good. To finish they brought a bread pudding in caramel sauce. These bread pudding was unlike the American versions, it resembled much more the type of bread pudding we make in PR. 

At the end of the huge meal we were really tired so we went off to bed.

Arrival to New Orleans

10/9/11

We woke up at the random motel in Wichita Falls and immediately started our 660 mile journey to get to New Orleans. We drove through Dallas. For lunch, we stopped for BBQ again just before we exited Texas. This part of the road was really boring and no mountains or landmarks were around it. We finally made it to New Orleans. After Monica spent a lot of time figuring out which hotel to stay we decided to drop by one of them. That was great because we found a jewel. The hotel was French Market Inn, as the name suggests the hotel retains the charm and architecture of the once French colony. In addition, the location is almost impossible to beat. Most importantly it was not expensive, the price was moderate, we ended up paying about 75$ a night. Try getting a place close to that in PR for that price, impossible. 
http://www.frenchmarketinn.com/

We settle in our room, refreshed and went out to enjoy the brimming city. Because we arrived so late (9pm) Monica's plan to eat at the famous Tujague's was not possible. We looked around and went to another restaurant nearby. Paul said he had to try the Po' boy, the New Orleans retaliation of a sandwich in a bread similar to French. I got the Jambalaya, a traditional Cajun rice dish with sausage, and seafood.  We both had a local Blonde Ale, we forgot the name but it was a well balanced one. 

Finishing our dinner we asked the waiter where to go for good music. He suggested Spotted cat (http://www.spottedcatmusicclub.com/) Before heading there we decided to get some beers from our cooler, after all is the only place in USA where you can walk in the streets with a beer in hand. So Paul's wish came true, stroll free in the streets of his country beer in hand. You would think this simple freedom should not be regulated in the "land of freedom".

We entered into an area borderline between the French Quarter and the Marigny area. Apparently the place were the locals hang. The waiter was right on, spotted cat was the epitome of NOLA's jazz culture. A bunch of misfits, people of different ages and abouts. We got to see the band Pat Casey and the New Sound ( http://www.patcaseymusic.com/html/showcase.php). They were really great.

While listening we sample a local beer from the Abita brewery called Restoration Pale Ale. Made only with cascade hops, Monica though it was too mild for a Pale Ale. Anyhow while sipping we met a bartender from NOLA's renowned draft bar named Bulldog. The guy, knowledgable, about NOLA's beer scene, did not recommend Restoration pale ale from that brewery but did recommended their seasonal brews.  

The band ended up playing at about 2 am. As we strolled back to our cozy european room in the heart of the French Market we saw many cool bars, one of them called Paul's attention and we entered to have a PBR. Inadvertently  we ended up having a conversation with a aspiring film maker. at the end we went to bed.

1st day of drive to New Orleans

10/8/11

Today was a driving day. We had free continental breakfast at the motel and then headed to the Toyota dealer in Flagstaff as the car was due for a tire rotation. We hit the open road at about 9:30, destination unknown but in the direction of New Orleans.

The scenery for most of the trip looked like a western movie. Desert, mesas, sand dunes and buttes. We stopped somewhere in New Mexico for lunch at a place that claimed to have some Native America cuisine, Virgies. It was mostly southwestern food, but they did have a Navajo taco on the menu that we sampled. It was basically a taco that had a fried bread tortilla.

We then passed through Albequrque which brought fond memories to Paul of a trip he had made there as a child to visit his Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bill. We were then on a collision course with Texas, the lone star state. As we made it into Texas, we were surrounded by flat plains. The sun was setting behind us and we were treated to a beautiful sky. We had lost two hours by driving East into the Central Time Zone that day. When we pulled over for some Texas barbecue in Armarillo at Tyler's Barbecue, the place was actually closing. Fortunately they had some chopped beef left and the servers were more than happy to serve us a couple plates. It was delicious. One of the workers sat down with us and told us about the restaurant, Tyler the owner, and Texas. Apparently, Texas is a pretty large state. He said we could make it to Wichita Falls by midnight and find accommodation there for the night. We were thankful to the kind folks at Tyler's Barbecue and continued on our way.  Rain slowed us down for the rest of the night and we pulled into a motel at Wichita Falls around 12:30, ready for a good night sleep.

Grand Canyon ascend

10/7/11

We woke up at 5:00 at the Bright Angel campground so that we could get an early start for the long hike back to the rim. We made a breakfast of instant oatmeal and packed up camp. We were able to hit the trail by 6:45. It was light out, but the sun had not yet rise above the rim to shine its rays directly on us. The first couple miles of the Bright Angel trail took us along the Colorado River and did not climb much altitude.

As we began climbing altitude, we made sure to take it easy. We took breaks every hour to eat food, hydrate and rest our legs. We also made sure to stop and enjoy the views. The trail going up seemed easier than the trail going down. There was more shade and it was a more gradual climb. This trail had more water and bathroom stops than South Kaibab. Indian Gardens campsite is one of the landmarks with such amenities and marks roughly the middle of the hike. The Indian gardens area is the one with more vegetation of both trails and we suppose the reason for it's name.

As on the other trail, we encountered many other hikers and took time to chat along the way. At our lunch stop we were surrounded by a number of fat, aggressive squirrels that we had to continuously scare off to keep them from our food. We guess that they are often fed by the hikers on this route. We tried to keep an eye out for one of the 75 California Condors that now inhabit the Grand Canyon. At one time, these creatures with a 9 foot wingspan, were the rarest bird on earth, with a total population of only 22. In 1996, a group of condors was reintroduced to the Grand Canyon. We were happy to hear the ranger report that they have begun to reproduce naturally in the Grand Canyon again. There were three nests this year, one of which came from the original group of reintroduced birds. Unfortunately, we were unable to see one.

We reached the top of the Canyon and finished our hike at about 1:00, making for about 6 hours of total hiking time. We considered this to be great time for ourselves and felt great about completing the hike.

In the afternoon, we left the Canyon for Flagstaff as we needed to take the car in for a scheduled service the next morning. We ate some burgers at a cool place in Flagstaff called Diablo Burger. Afterward, we got a beer from a local brew pub. Sitting in Flagstaff, enjoying good food and beer and sleeping in a warm bed, we felt worlds away from the bottom of the Grand Canyon where we had started the day.