29 May 2009
SpongeBob DutchPants
We are stuck. We are supposed to be preparing to land in Bujumbura right now but our flight was cancelled. Slight moment of panic when we discovered that this morning. The next regularly scheduled direct flight is Wednesday. But we reminded ourselves that we're in Brussels, not Bujumbura, and there are plenty of other flight options and since the cancellation is not from weather, the airline should take care of us.
And in fact they've taken good care of us. The whole direct flight was rescheduled for tomorrow at the same time. The hotel is nice and they are giving us plenty of voucher euros for meals. If we weren't so tired of being on the road we'd really be enjoying ourselves. Mike's watching SpongeBob SquarePants right now and it's dubbed in Dutch. Of all the cities on our trip, Brussels definitely has the greatest variety of languages on tv: English, French, Dutch, and German.
We're not getting out and seeing any of Brussels. We are tired of figuring out local transportation systems. We are tired of looking at beautiful old buildings. We are tired of restaurant food, cafe food, bistro food, market food, and travel snack food. We are ready to be home, in our own bed, with our own cat, with clothes that we haven't worn for the last two weeks.
25 May 2009
I think I have glacier burn
I don't have a sunburn, but I'm toasty. We walked up to the foot of a glacier yesterday, crossing more snow than I've seen in years. But it was warm! We were in shorts and t-shirts most of the day.
24 May 2009
Do I Hear a Cow Outside?
That's what I asked Mike yesterday morning as soon as I woke up. The answer was "Yes." We arrived in Interlaken, Switzerland, late and drove to our hotel just outside town in the dark. We were afraid the town might be fake mountain town, like Big Bear in California. But the morning proved us wrong. This is the view from our hotel:
It's hard to see the cow, but it's there in one of those green patches.
It's hard to see the cow, but it's there in one of those green patches.15 May 2009
Etainerie y’ihuye – The Tinsmith of Butare
A recent article for our community newsletter:
The tinsmith workshop in Butare, Rwanda, is just over the border along RN 1. It was established many years ago by a Benedictine monk. It closed in 1994 but became operational again in 2003. The shop is completely run and managed by Rwandans. They create serving dishes, goblets, candlesticks, vases, and a variety of whimsical animal figurines.
The workshop uses pewter, which is an alloy made of 99% tin. Pewter is soft and can easily be molded.
You can take a tour of the tinsmith shop to see for yourself how these silvery creations are made. The first stop is the molding room, where molds are made from clay and liquid metal is poured in to them to create the desired shapes. It only takes a few moments for the metal to harden and cool. Then the shapes are removed from the clay mold.
Different pieces are created, such as two halves of an elephant body and its trunk, and then welded together in another part of the workshop. Before being welded the edges are smoothed down.
After welding, the objects are polished and cleaned. Then they are brought to the shops. When you decide what you want to buy (and it can be a hard decision!) your pieces are brought back to the workshop for a final polishing before you can take them home.
Items are also often available for sale in boutiques in Kigali at the Hotel Novotel and Hotel Mille des Collines.
The workshop grounds are a nice spot for a picnic lunch and if you leave from Bujumbura early enough in the morning, you can make this round-trip in one day. There are some hotels in Butare and an overnight trip with a leisurely drive back the next day with shopping stops along the road would make for a nice weekend excursion. Butare is also home to the National Museum of Rwanda, a must see for anyone traveling through the region.
The shop is open every day except Wednesday and Sunday. Tel: +250-08640923; email: abmabuye@yahoo.fr
Written with information from Magic Safaris.com and wikipedia.
The tinsmith workshop in Butare, Rwanda, is just over the border along RN 1. It was established many years ago by a Benedictine monk. It closed in 1994 but became operational again in 2003. The shop is completely run and managed by Rwandans. They create serving dishes, goblets, candlesticks, vases, and a variety of whimsical animal figurines.
The workshop uses pewter, which is an alloy made of 99% tin. Pewter is soft and can easily be molded.
You can take a tour of the tinsmith shop to see for yourself how these silvery creations are made. The first stop is the molding room, where molds are made from clay and liquid metal is poured in to them to create the desired shapes. It only takes a few moments for the metal to harden and cool. Then the shapes are removed from the clay mold.
Different pieces are created, such as two halves of an elephant body and its trunk, and then welded together in another part of the workshop. Before being welded the edges are smoothed down.
After welding, the objects are polished and cleaned. Then they are brought to the shops. When you decide what you want to buy (and it can be a hard decision!) your pieces are brought back to the workshop for a final polishing before you can take them home.
Items are also often available for sale in boutiques in Kigali at the Hotel Novotel and Hotel Mille des Collines.
The workshop grounds are a nice spot for a picnic lunch and if you leave from Bujumbura early enough in the morning, you can make this round-trip in one day. There are some hotels in Butare and an overnight trip with a leisurely drive back the next day with shopping stops along the road would make for a nice weekend excursion. Butare is also home to the National Museum of Rwanda, a must see for anyone traveling through the region.
The shop is open every day except Wednesday and Sunday. Tel: +250-08640923; email: abmabuye@yahoo.fr
Written with information from Magic Safaris.com and wikipedia.
14 May 2009
For the second week in a row I've cancelled my Friday morning running date
It has been a rough week for us. From last Thursday through today it’s been a week of car accidents, deaths, and car-accident-related deaths involving our friends and family members of our friends. Thursday nights have become late nights of some people talking too much and some people drinking too much. I know tonight is going to be another one of those nights and I shouldn’t even bother attempting a run tomorrow morning.
We are so ready to be on vacation.
13 May 2009
12 May 2009
Vacation
We were watching a movie a few nights ago and the New York City skyline panned across the screen. Mike said, "Won't it be weird to be in a real city?" It certainly will.
We're leaving for Paris on Friday and I can't wait. Neither of us have been before. I can't wait to take a subway and wear urban, spring-time clothing instead of the year round shorts and t-shirts we wear here. I can't wait to see streets lined with modern stores and restaurants -- I'm sure I'll do something totally American like go to Starbucks and shop at the GAP. I can't wait to stay in a nice hotel. I can't wait to see lights at night and have the electricity stay on all the time.
I will probably miss the fresh tropical fruit. That may be the one thing that will be irreplaceable. But I'm sure lots of ice cream will help me forget.
It's been a long few weeks since we got back from Tanzania. And that vacation was fun but it wasn't relaxing. I wouldn't say we're homesick but we just need a break.
11 May 2009
The sky is falling
Not quite literally but it feels like the city is crumbling apart . It rained buckets this morning and the ground is already saturated so the water has no place to go. The rain itself isn’t out of the ordinary; we’re at the tail end of the rainy season. What’s odd is that it rained for several hours and even after it stopped the sun didn’t come out. We generally have an hour or less of downpour, then sun for the rest of the day.
A higher number of roads are washed out than usual. The garden wall at a friend’s house was washed away by a wave of water and debris coming down the mountain. The retaining wall across the gully from our house is wiped out. We hope that our wall won’t sink because of the fresh mud and water piling up at the base, but there really won’t be any way to tell until it starts sinking. There’s a reservoir up the mountain from our house and we’re hoping that this relatively small break relieved enough pressure to keep the whole darn thing from flowing down on us.
Of course these occurrences aren’t all that new to us after seeing the way San Diego reacts to rain every winter. But unlike in San Diego, they won’t close roads or condemn houses with orange cones and yellow tape. I saw a guy wearing a bright yellow vest, like a surveyor might wear. I’m sure he’s Bujumbura’s top engineer, on the case at the retaining wall. The gully is a main thoroughfare for walking between town and the rest of the mountain. It’s not quite the I-95 of Bujumbura; maybe it’s the older and more charming Route 1. The evening commute is going to be muddy.
A higher number of roads are washed out than usual. The garden wall at a friend’s house was washed away by a wave of water and debris coming down the mountain. The retaining wall across the gully from our house is wiped out. We hope that our wall won’t sink because of the fresh mud and water piling up at the base, but there really won’t be any way to tell until it starts sinking. There’s a reservoir up the mountain from our house and we’re hoping that this relatively small break relieved enough pressure to keep the whole darn thing from flowing down on us.
Of course these occurrences aren’t all that new to us after seeing the way San Diego reacts to rain every winter. But unlike in San Diego, they won’t close roads or condemn houses with orange cones and yellow tape. I saw a guy wearing a bright yellow vest, like a surveyor might wear. I’m sure he’s Bujumbura’s top engineer, on the case at the retaining wall. The gully is a main thoroughfare for walking between town and the rest of the mountain. It’s not quite the I-95 of Bujumbura; maybe it’s the older and more charming Route 1. The evening commute is going to be muddy.
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