CLT+AVL, USA

Since I was in the proper earth-quadrant, I passed through North Carolina. Good thing I had this detour planned, because my parents are moving out of their house where quite a bit of my stuff has been living. I got rid of a lot of stuff, but can not bring everything to Europe with me. (Thanks for the continual storage space, folks!) I spent some time in the mountains fly fishing with my dad, then we headed to Charlotte for a few days of cleaning and hanging out with the whole family - the little sister was also in town. I was also fortunate enough to see my Grandma and an Aunt and Uncle - I didn't have time to make it to Raleigh, but will *knock on wood* be there in Autumn.

Asheville might be known for its beer, but the food that comes with it is pretty dope!

mole-mint lamb meatballs with cucumbers

Honestly, I ordered "the glutton" for the novelty value.
Fried chicken on a brioche doughnut with Gruyere and something maple. 

Back in Charlotte, I was forced to get a manicure with my Auntie B (Thanks! The "Game of Chromes" gel color I got to-go works great and I've gotten lots of compliments on it.) and was able to do some US American things like watching baseball and going to a bridal shower.

Family at the new-to-me downtown baseball stadium. So urban.

Technology can be difficult for the newly retired.

The lil'sis and me at her BFF's bridal shower.
Congrats, Emma! Sorry that I can't make it back for the wedding.

Gma aka my (probably) number one blog-reader.

Two sets of sisters. It  was great seeing all of you.

USA!

I spent most of October in North Carolina, the first week was at a conference on Water and Health at the nation's oldest public university, followed by a speedy trip to Florida and Hogsmede, then some more time in NC.

After answering some questionable questions about my time in Kenya (it is on the other side of the continent from the ebola...), I was allowed through customs and was whisked off to what was formerly the best pizza joint in the city by my parents where we met some friends. The pizza took forever and was not that great, but they have one of the best beer-lists of any restaurant in the city.

Then we walked across the street to see my favorite bluegrass band, Chatham County Line, perform at the Neighborhood Theater. What a great way to say hello to NC after being away for ten months!

I caught a train to Raleigh where I presented and had a poster (about business model innovation and reaching scale in the water and/or sanitation sector) at the conference. There was a good mix of researchers, practitioners and funders in attendance and it seems as if what I am studying is interesting for them.

I probably shouldn't be looking at the screen, but the spotlight gave the monitor in front of me a glare. 

My parents drove up and cooked a southern meal for all of my colleagues. They survived the BBQ, sweet potatoes, green beans, coleslaw, and pecan pie to pose for this photo:

We were rolling deep at this conference!

Pops somehow figured that the best day to escape the Muggle world was a Tuesday, so I spent the weekend in Raleigh, got my one and only pumpkin latte of the trip, and caught the Sunday afternoon train home so that dad and I could drive down to Florida to visit Harry Potter World! That gets a whole photo post of its own.

Tasty! My turkey, avo, bacon, cheddar, mustardish sauce croissant was even better - Helios rarely steers me wrong.

Upon returning to NC, Ma and I headed up to see G-ma, who treated us to lunch in the fancy dining room (like where you need reservations) at the old folks' home. We then continued on to Raleigh where we horsed around with one of my Aunties and her horse, Jack.

Such a good teacher! Mom didn't want to ride, but soon had much better steering capabilities than me!
I got Jack to walk in a figure eight and over a bridge (with a stop in the middle).

After church (and the brunch that followed) on Sunday, we drove back to the western part of the state for a week of sports!

I caught this guy. I have apparently not learned how to hold a fish in a photo, guess I just need to catch some more!
(Also pretty unhappy with how that nail polish color turned out.)

Brisket, corn bread, cheese grits and butter green beans from 12 Bones, when Barack and Michelle eat when they are in Asheville. 

We went to the Charlotte Hornets opener. Dad started taking me to basketball games when I was a little kid, like couldn't go into the bathroom on her own little. I remember taking a notepad to one game and keeping a tally of the score. So it was really neat to see them come back to town (Back story: long ago the Hornets moved to Louisiana, Charlotte got a new team called the Bobcats, Bob sold the team to Michael Jordan, the Hornets (now of New Orleans) changed their name to the Pelicans, fans lobbied to bring the hornets name (and purple and teal branding) back to CLT). They weren't doing so hot, and in the third quarter were down by over 20, but they rallied and hit a buzzer beater, sending the game into overtime.... So now my mom thinks basketball is fixed.

Cool honeycomb court. 

The martini glass bottle opener new building downtown lit up purple and teal for the win!

The following evening the Panthers lost to the Saints (American football). We tailgated with some neighbors down town. The new baseball stadium was open for concessions and beer. It seems pretty cool, hopefully I'll be in town when the Knights are playing some time.

U-S-A!

The big news around the stadium is these new giant screens. Maybe that is what was causing the QB to throw so darn high!

Halloween involved lunch at one of my favorite diners, a visit to the house I grew up in (my old bedroom is now a sizable closet), and heckling trick-or-treaters with some family friends.

Yum! Small block southern style with a side of fried okra!

This is (the garage of) where we used to live. We moved out 15 years ago and the garage is still the same.
We painted it like this when it became the kid's hangout. The dartboard was still on the wall! The house had been greatly expanded and is back on the market.

I thought of it too late, but it would have been cool to recreate this photo while we were there, but I didn't have any pumpkins.

No Halloween is complete without eyeball stew.

A few more days of packing, eating and hanging out with the perma-pup and it was time for:

My goodbye America breakfast. (Belgian waffle, two scrambled eggs with ketchup and coffee)

My goodbye America lunch. (mac'n'cheese, squash, deviled egg, tomato soup and a biscuit)

Thanks USA! That was a crazy on the go few weeks. Hopefully, next time I will have some more relaxation time built in. I'll be back for a really quick trip at Christmas!

Switzerland with mommy

In two days I will have been in Madrid for almost a month, so now is obviously the perfect time to recount the vacay that I took with my mom between working in Germany and starting school in Madrid. Ten days, just me mom and the Alps... sounds dangerous, right? Well, we survived and hit most of the categories of Swiss sterotypes: mountains/cows, chocolate, trains and I even bought a knife (also wine, which they are trying to push as the 'next Swiss thing'). Okay, almost all of them... I guess we forgot cheese and cuckoo clocks.

Mountains

They are tall, windy and beautiful. We went up Mt. Pilatus where we explored some dragon caves. There was also this cute white church halfway down that mom wouldn't hike to, despite her trip goal of wanting to go to "a cute little church." The doors/doorhandles were particularly nice in this area.

From there we moved onto the Berner Oberland, which was even prettier. We did a bunch of hiking and got some great views of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch, saw some crazy paragliders (I want to try! well, I guess that isn't something you 'try,' but you know what I mean) and cheered on the poor souls running in the Jungfrau Marathon. We stayed in Grindelwald and Wengen, both of which were much nicer than Interlaken (where I had camped the last time I was in der Schweitz). There was compulsory frolicking. Another of mom's goals was to see some cows on a mountain side. This lil guy joined our picnic on one of our hikes!

Chocolate

I think that any of you who have met my mother can probably guess the sort of role chocolate played in our trip. We went into so many chocolate shops and even went to chocolate school! The lesson was on filled chocolates and then we toured the factory (and bought a bunch of chocolate). My pralines were dark chocolate with a chocolate and port ganache (mom was supposed to share them around NC, let me know if she didn't) and mom's were dark chocolate with dark chocolate ganache. The playground at the factory had huge chocolate bars to climb (or in my case lean) on.

Trains

We had SwissPasses so we rode them (a lot). The SwissPasses were really nice and allowed for flexibility. For example, on the way up to the Pilatus Base Station, we saw an advert for a Glass Blowing Museum with FREE ENTRY. So we just hopped of at that station did the tour, bought some glass accouterments (i got a hippo), then got on the next train heading our way! Also they have trains just for Chocolate tourists (we did not ride those).

Knives

I got the most adorable victorinox ever! Mom gave me some crap about buying a Swiss Army knife, given the selection we have at home from my Granddad, but I like to think of it as carrying on the tradition (plus we had leftover CHF). Guess which color I picked out!

Wine

After mountain-time we headed to the wine region in the French speaking part of the country around Lake Geneva. The lake and the vineyards are so pretty! Honestly, the wine was a little boring, but a nice grape farmer's wife gave us a bunch to try.

I think that's all for Switzerland (for now)! I'll start working on some Spain stuff, but between classes, a new ultimate community and cervesas with the classmates I've really been going pretty non-stop since I've arrived. I really like it here!!!

PS: ENE geeks don't worry. I documented the MSW and water distribution systems while I was there.