Party time, excellent

We spent last weekend on the Connecticut shore at a reunion of the Sloan Fellows. First we attended a lovely and exceptionally well-executed party at the home of one of Ed's classmates, Brian, and Brian's lovely wife, Shelly. Sadly, Elliot was too young to enjoy the awesome treehouse platform and zip-line that Shelly built.



Ed took this artsy shot.



Ed and I each brought one small bag for our overnight stay in a hotel. Elliot had, I don't know, about 6 bags. He usually sleeps well at night but seemed cranky about not being at home, which combined with all his crying in the car made me not want to go anywhere with him until he's 10 years old. At least. :)

After a yummy brunch with the Fellows at a diner in New London, we took Elliot to the Mystic Aquarium. He loved the fishies!

Two milestones for Ed

It's been a big couple of weeks for Ed. He graduated! I'm so excited that there's no more homework, for either of us, ever again. Ed's mom came out from CT for the big event. Of course we're very proud of him. :)



And he celebrated his birthday -- he can officially race the real masters' races this year. We had a dinner for him on Saturday with a few friends. Here he is with a spectacular cake made by Neilie and binary candles (of course).

He blogs

Ed has been doing a little blogging of his own. He wrote up our visits with his classmates in Zurich and Paris on the SF08 blog.

Betty likes to supervise us while we're blogging.



A few weeks ago, we attended our final Sloan Fellows Orientation Dinner. The theme was "A Night at the Oscars." Ed got to wear his tux and I trotted out a dress Ed got for me in a consignment shop (Ultra Gal) in Noho shortly after we started dating in 2001. It's full-length with a crinoline, which made it a bit difficult to drive to the dinner. :) Here's Ed's account, along with some additional photos.

Zurich - 3/23/09

Early Monday morning, we were back at the train station and on our way to Zürich.

Here's an animal rights protest at Zürich Hauptbahnhof (main train station). Check out those massive cowbells!



Ed's classmate Alfonso met us at the train station and took us out for a very tasty lunch. He was an excellent tour guide and walked with us all over Zürich. Here we are at Zürisee (Lake Zürich).





After that we went to the ETH Zürich campus (the MIT of Switzerland). We even saw someone walking around with supplies for the Beer Game, beloved by business students. We took in the beatifully austere Grossmünster. We had some coffee and I learned my favorite German word/phrase, "Superdanke." After Alfonso went back to work, Ed and I kept walking. Here he is outside the Zürich Rathaus (town hall).



We also thorougly enjoyed listening to Pavel Runov, who makes an accordion sound like a church organ. Amazing.

No trip to Zürich is complete without chocolate, which we enoyed at Sprüngli before meeting up with Marc (another Sloan Fellow), Marc's wife Florencia, and Alfonso for dinner at Zeughauskeller. I didn't know it was possible to eat so many different kinds of sausages in one evening.



Then, once again, it was time to get on the next train. Here are our luxurious accomodations on the night train to Vienna:



I feel like I got a taste of what my 6'5" brother-in-law's life was like when he was a nuke on an attack submarine. It was impossible to sit up on either bunk. I don't know how we slept. On top of our train passes, this cost 75€ each! I was excited that I'd learned a few words of German and could help the nice Slovak father and son who needed help reading their tickets to find their compartment (right next to ours). Finding out they were Slovakian involved a sort of "Me Tarzan, you Jane" pantomime. Good times.

Paris - 3/19/09 and 3/20/09

We started out our first day in Paris with a visit to the Eiffel Tower.



Unbeknownst to us, there was a nation-wide transit strike going on, so it took 30 minutes to get a Metro train. We visited the Archaeological Crypt first and then Notre Dame. Love the flying buttresses.



Later, we saw a bunch of Sorbonne students protesting in solidarity with the striking transit workers. They had a banner about "being ready to air our general grievances" that they probably pull out for every protest.



I spent a lot of time consulting my Rick Steves book.



We toured the Louvre.



We then enjoyed a gorgeous walk through the gardens and up Champs-Élysées. There was some kind of military observance going on at Arc de Triomphe, so we didn't get to go inside.



We had an INCREDIBLE dinner at Le Griffonier just off Champs Elysées with several of Ed's classmates (SF08).



The next day, we squeezed in a quick visit at the Rodin Museum. Here, Ed thinks with The Thinker.



Next we went to Musee de l'Armee (Army Museum), which was my favorite Paris museum. We only had time to see the medieval armor and the WWI/WWII exhibits, unfortunately. Then we went to Musée d'Orsay. This half of the diptyque "Rêve antique" by Émile-René Ménard made me think of Aimee.



The king's chapel at Sainte-Chapelle was AMAZING.



"Misuse will be punished." This was on the train from Paris back to Frankfurt.

Buenos Aires, 11/19/08

We signed up for a tour with Alfonso and Charlotte. First we took a smaller tour bus, then met up with a larger tour bus. Then that bus took us to Tren de la Costa, which we took a few stops to San Isidro. Here is the beautiful cathedral there:







Then the bus picked us up again and took us to Tigre, where we got on a tour boat. Tigre is on a delta. There is little land, which is used for housing. Things like schools and supermarkets are all on boats.



Alfonso found the tour to be terribly exciting.



After an interminable bus ride back to Buenos Aires (the highway was closed due to a protest) I enjoyed my last el bife de chorizo of the trip in Puerto Madero.



We also had our last dulche de leche helados. Sigh. Here's a picture of "our" Freddo on "our" corner, Arenales and Callao. It was a great end to a wonderful trip.

Buenos Aires, 11/16/08

We started our day at Feria de San Pedro Telmo. The photo below doesn't really capture how crowded and overwhelming it was. I was also hesitant to take pictures of the many people in very strange costumes (I wasn't sure if tourists were supposed to pay them for photos).



After reading the excellent article "Argentina on Two Steaks a Day," I was disappointed at how long it took us to find steak number one. Finally, after gawking at the gorgeous fresco in Gallerica Pacifica (a high-end mall) and running into a few of Ed's classmates, we had one. Yum. Then of course for dessert we had dulce de leche helados.



Some weird art in Galleria Pacifico. This wasn't even the weirdest art there.



Then it was off to the wedding, held at the gorgeous Palacio San Souci (a historic mansion) in Victoria.



Gorgeous outdoor ceremony. Due to complete separation of church and state in Argentina, the ceremony was purely religious. The civil ceremony and paperwork are completely separate.



The first dance.



Argentinean weddings go all night and feature lots of food and fun. The first entertainment was a pair of professional Argentine tango dancers.



The Tone Bellows reunited and sang for the Sloan Fellows.



There were also professional salsa dancers who gave lessons. Then everyone was provided with hats and masks. Here Ed does something I like to call the "Bill Cosby dance."



Fun times.



The limbo. BTW, Ed was not drunk. Not even a little bit. He is just a lot of fun.



I didn't get a mask, so I was a bit jealous of Mariam! We were fortunate enough to be on our first flight, from Boston to New York, with Teck and Mariam. I really enjoyed getting to know them better. (Totally random side note: I was very distracted at Logan Airport by the unedited, poorly punctuated tweets from random people that CNN was running in the crawl.)



This hat was so perfect for Harry.

Buenos Aires, 11/15/08

We went to Buenos Aires about a month ago to attend the wedding of one of Ed's classmates. We had a wonderful time and were lucky to make the trip with frequent flyer miles. Some friends (who live up here) let us stay in their apartment in Recoleta.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was being able to get around fairly easily with Sesame Street Spanish and an okay reading vocab from English, French, and Latin (collectively).

Our second stop after arrival (first we got sandwiches) was Freddo, purveyors of fine dulce de leche helados (gelato).



We walked around Recoleta and visited Plaza R. Pena. Those are chinaberry trees.



Ed did some studying in the lovely apartment where we were staying.



Tim and Ed (along with the rest of us) sang Happy Birthday to Diego, the groom.



Since we were at an Italian place, Amici Miei in San Telmo, Diego's birthday cake was tiramisu.



One of Amici Miei's owners, a former singer at Teatro Colon, performed several famous arias for us.