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CURRENTLY VISITING HAWAII!!

Hawaii

Hawaii
Akaka Falls

See the World for Free

The idea here is to TRAVEL THE WORLD regardless of time or budget. It dawned on me one day that even if I had unlimited time and money (which I definitley do not), I still couldn't see everything in the world that I'd like to see--I'm simply not going to live long enough to do it.

But I had a bit of brain wave and soon after the travel envelope was born. This is an actual physical envelope. I typed the name of every country in the world, plus every state in the US on little slips of paper which I then put into the envelope. In the beginning we (myself, my husband, Dave and daugher Catherine) would draw out a slip at random at the beginning of the month and that's where we would go---at least in our minds. We grab some books about the country from the library and put them in our bathroom to look at. We also check out some videos about the country if any. We check it out on googleearth, listen to the music, try the food, maybe even attempt to learn a dance or celebrate a festival.

After the first two years we discovered that even virtual traveling can be tiring, so we travel now whenever I happen to be in the mood.

It's great fun. I especially love it when people I meet have been to the place I'm "visiting" in real life, or get excited and have some virtual adventures of their own. I hope that anyone who comes across this blog will feel welcome to come with us on the trip!



You have a standing reservation to see it all!

Mar 3, 2011

Stranded at the Cafe du Monde

I've only been to Louisiana once--specifically New Orleans. This was before hurricane Katrina and before we had a cell phone AND while we were on a "cash only" kick so we had no credit cards.  It was an adventure.  We took Catherine, who was about 6 years old and her cousin Natalie to New Orleans for the day.  Had a wonderful time, saw the Mississippi, ate cajun and then left to head back to my sister-in-law's house, when the car died.  Dead. Completely.  Uh oh. We could have been in real trouble, but it died in front of the world famous Cafe du Monde--home of beignets!!!  Beignets are small rectangular donuts smothered in pounds of powdered sugar.  Great with hot chocolate.   It took us awhile to get back to my sister-in-laws.  New Orleans is a fun city, but they have the world's least helpful police force.  The details are misty now, but eventually Dave wound up taking a taxi to a Sears store to buy a battery that got us most of the way back (naturally the problem wasn't anything as simple as a dead battery).  I would have enjoyed the beignets more if I hadn't been worried about the car and money and the whole situation in general, but beignets are great at any time, even under stressful condidtions--heck, maybe even better.
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Feb 28, 2011

Saudi Dinner

I should have had a bunch of people over for dinner to make it a proper Saudi Arabian dinner, but oh well. DELICIOUS food--the internet is a wonderful thing. Date balls---walnuts toasted in butter then add dates and spices and a little flour-mold into balls. Yum. The Saudi Bread (all of this is from the internet) is basically a pizza with a little cumin in the crust topped with a hamburger and leek mixture--again very good. then there was tabbuleh--bulger wheat with lemon, garlic salt, and tomatoes. Dessert was supposed to be kind of chocolate cake. I made a crust with gingersnaps and butter and the filling was sweetened condensed milk, cocoa and cornmeal. Tasted all right--the cornmeal was odd, but that's part of the adventure, but it didn't quite set up. So the cake turned out to be a pudding. We put on aol.radio set to "world caravan" and had a good time.
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