Christmas in Germany

So I recently got back from a trip to Germany to visit the Frankfurt Christmas market. Its not the most gemütlichkeit of markets (plunked right down in the middle of a busy shopping strasse) but hey, beggers can't be choosers. I did get my fill of gluewhein and sausage, tried some honey wine and schnaps and did some Christmas shopping. One of the main things I was on the prowl for was mulling spices for my wine, but apparently I was too early and the stores hadn't put it out yet. Luckily there is a German deli in DC that carries it!

My Christmas party last weekend was indeed as success. I was a little fretful when I woke up in the morning with sinus pain and thought briefly about cancelling. But a nap in the afternoon straightened things out. All in all about 35 people showed up and in the end only 1 bottle (out of 22) of wine was remaining along with a 1/2 liter of vodka. And there were no left overs to clean up!

So now is the run up to Christmas. I mailed all boxes last week and I have foregone cards this year. I just didn't feel like spending the money or time to do them. Maybe next year. If all goes well I'll get a standby seat on the last flight direct to KC on the 24th and then come back to DC on the 27th.

Christmas season is starting

and I haven't even gotten over Thanksgiving yet!
I woke up on Turkey day to cold but sunny skies. Elsa and I met John and Auggie for a walk around the cemetery and then Scott picked her up to take her up to Pennsylvania with him. I cleaned the bathroom. I spent the afternoon at the house of my friends Steve and Jayson and some of their friends. Had some great turkey and big slice of carrot cake for dessert. I could barely keep my eyes open at 4pm! Unfortunately, I wasn't in the position to just slide down to their basement for a nap. Things broke up around 5pm and I went home, where I promptly realized I was alone on a holiday and that was a bummer... The blues stuck with me all weekend during my trip to Calgary, but I'm perking up this week. Prior to Thanksgiving, I had called in sick with a headcold, and so took 12 days off. When I have too much time on my hands, I tend to over analyse things.
So now its time to look forward to a new month. So far I have 4 holiday parties lined up and decided to throw one of my own - why not! I'm hosting a gleuhwein (hot mulled German wine) party on the 14th. Now I need to figure out how to make it! For Christmas I am going to try and fly home to Kansas City (assuming my dad makes it back from Australia. He's flying on passes, so you never know....). I'll have back up plans in the event that I can't make it home since I don't want to sit around feeling blue all alone (Elsa will be in PA again).
Won't be doing any shopping this year. I'm keeping my $$ for myself! I find it amusing that the powers that be have just decided that we are in a recession... which started last December! I'm working tomorrow and then meeting with my career counselor friend on Friday to get started with a "networking" plan. Hopefully I can start networking at my first Christmas party!

Rami Kashou

Project Runway fans will be jealous: I was mere feet from Rami Kashou, season 4 runner-up. He was in town to speak at The Phillips Collection. The Phillips has a exhibition on right now from Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the "drapers" who were responsible for The Gates in Central Park two years ago. I had been working on the marketing campaign for the event as was excited to see that it was a full-house.

He spoke a bit about his life story, then took questions for 45 minutes or so. The best questions were asked by a few small children in the audience, including things like, "did you feel cheated when you didn't win"? The kids didn't beat around the bush.

I would have liked to hear him speak about how his work related to that of Christo and Jeanne-Claude (thereby tieing it into the exhibition) but I was pleasently surprised to hear him talk about his work and life in relation to the Palestinian occupation. He chose his words carefully, and steered clear of turning the event into a political discussion, but he did touch on the fact that his purpose in life, as he sees it, is to "exist" in spite of the turmoil in the world.

Yet another trip to Brussels

Keith, Eric and Britt

Yes, Brussels is getting old. But this trip was actually nice for once.
I flew to Brussels the day after my cruise (for work of course) and had the pleasure of flying with an (almost) all guy crew, several of whom I've known for several years.


After a relaxing afternoon at the coffeehouse down the street, we headed downtown to the Reserve, a bar just off the Grand Place owned by a UA customer service agent.
Someone was having a birthday. Never did quite figure out who that was, but hey I got some birthday cake, so I was happy. After a multitude of beer rounds, none of which I had to pay for, we looked a bit different than on the plane:

So we headed back to the Place for a light dinner. This is my favorite old-town square in all of Europe, and everytime I am here something is different. I think they are stringing up the lights in anticipation of the Christmas market which will start in a few weeks:

The Cruise

Yes I know I'm behind....

After a lovely lunch with some facebook acquaintances on the 24th (and an unsuccessful shopping expedition for a new swimsuit) I flew down to Fort Lauderdale on Sat the 25th and immediately ran into Michael from Rhode Island in line, which was an auspicious start to a nice week. The ship, Holland America's Eurodam, was nice (and brand new) but they were short staffed and not on top of their game and it was apparent from day one unfortunately, as my room wasn't cleaned properly when I arrived and I don't think I met my cabin steward, well, ever during the cruise. Most of the time they are there to greet you as you walk in your cabin and point out the amenities. Not that that was necessary for my inside cabin. I found the lightswitch on my own.

This was my third cruise with Aquafest, which does gay group charters on mainstream ships. Rather than chartering the ship (as some groups do), they put together large groups (we were 350, down from last year due to the economy) at prices more economical (for my wallet at least) than whole-ship charters. We had our own private parties every night, plus afternoon t-dances, which I usually skipped because it coincided with my naptime. The fun straight folk are often bummed out the they aren't "allowed" in - its kind of funny...

The day goes something like this: get up, eat stewed prunes (my ship tradition), work out, lay by pool, eat, lay buy pool, nap, get up for cocktail hour, have cocktails, dinner, change for party, attend the evenings party (with cocktails), roll into bed in the morning.

Our dinner/cocktail group: Michael, Michael, Eric, Greg Paul and Scotty.


Me with Michael and Scotty from Houston.

I only got off the ship twice. In San Juan, Michael and I took a day trip to El Yunque, the only rainforest in the National Park Service (a factoid for your next trivia game). We had a nice hike, and believe it or not, it rained on us the moment we got out of the van (I had to remind myself I was in a rainforest after all).


The big party of the week was of course the halloween costume party. I have included some of my favorites below:

All I could think of was a washed-up Whitney Houston


The Andy sisters as Alpine milk maids...


The Twisted sisters, who packed blue knee high plastic go-go boots and managed to find a use for them in each costume night.

There is a big contest with cash prizes. If they had a category for most inexpensive, last-minute costume I would have entered with my toga. As I was neither particularly creative nor outlandish, I watched the parade from the sidelines...

My second venture off the ship was to Holland America's private Caribbean island for some beach time (had to put my foot in sand at some point).

I thought I would be sad to come home, but unlike years past, I felt fairly calm and truth be told I was exhausted! It was nice to come home and sleep in my own bed, if for only one night before I had to go to work again...

Buy one Get one Free

Greetings from Washington, D.C. on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, where I should be outdoors, but instead am inside blogging.
Elsa was kind enough to let me sleep in until 7:36am this morning before putting her wet nose in my face. My bed is a platform style, so my head is directly at her eye/nose level. My last bed sat up much higher, so she couldn't nose me, but she did have a knack for half-jumping up on the bed, and a wet nose is a more gentle way to wake up.
We had a nice morning at the cemetery and then I had something of a first: using the grocery store circular and using coupons!
Now I know in theory that coupons are a good thing and get you stuff, but I never really paid much attention to them, chiefly because I wasn't the one doing the cooking, nor did I really need to think about watching my money. Well of course that has changed, and so the last couple of weeks I've actually started to pay attention to the ads in the food section of Wednesday's Washington Post. Imagine my excitement when I saw that Harris Teeter was having a buy one, get one free sale and Safeway was having Redskins weekend specials! Conveniently, both stores are only one block apart and both have parking. Highlights of Harris Teeter were the buy one get one free laundry detergent and coffee. Safeway sold me 2 jars of pasta sauce (already on sale for $4) and then threw in two free boxes of pasta. I then used an additional $10 in coupons.All told, I saved over $55 off list prices for things I purchased today, and I am now a confirmed coupon clipper!!!
Spent a couple days in Brussels this week. After running all over in Argentina last week I was in the mood to relax, and I never made it past the cafe on the corner down from the hotel. The evening was spent watching a DVD I checked out from the library (free too - see a theme here??) called The Kingdom with Jamie Fox and Jessica Garner. It started out as a political thriller, segwayed into an action/adventure and ended on a real bleak note that really made me take pause. I actually spent an hour watching the DVD extras and apparently they created a much tamer (tho not happier) ending because they thought audiences couldn't handle the ending as written. I agree!
Sat with some worksheets that my neighbor dogwalker Peter gave me to start thinking about career changes. He works as a career coach and is not cheap, but has agreed to cut me a deal on his hourly rate and work with me ala carte so that I get just the things I want, which are really help with a resume and trying to determine how to package my skills in sussinct language. And he's encouraging me to dream big and not settle for a "stepping stone" job, at least not right away. I've gleaned from my writings that what I really like about my job now is the travel and the freedom I get from not being bound to a desk. But there are quite a few negatives as well and there are all sorts of new career opportunities that would let me travel and not be stuck at a company with its morale in the crapper. I worked on a 747 this week (and will again the day after tomorrow) and we are now feeding business class passengers snack boxes; its totally embarassing when you consider that other airlines, like Continental, are still serving hot meals in coach.. for free!
So that about all the news I have this week. Just lounging on the chaise listening to my tunes thinking the house is starting to feel like home....

Buenos Aires Part Dos

After a quick shower it was time for dinner.... A steak... a big steak!~


After a bottle of wine (per person.. it flowed like manna from heaven) we walked dinner off and I went to bed.

Arose Thursday to a sunny day full of action-packed activity. Another coworker and I walked downtown to Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest boulevard in the world, for a quick photo op. It wasn't that exciting, but at least I can say I've been there. We stopped by their "Washington monument" called the Obelisk which sits in the middle of the road..



Next, we hopped the subway to the Recoleta neighborhood to visit the Recoleta cemetery.
It felt a bit like being in a leafy neighborhood in a newer part of Paris, complete with lots of dogs:

It is a far different cemetery than the one I am used to walking in. This cemetery (which is younger than the one I walk Elsa in) is chock full of mausoleums and crypts jammed up next to one another. The oldest ones (from the 1830s) are very grandiose (think columns and cupolas) and as time went on some are sold off and torn down, so that now there are hodgepodge of styles ranging from roman and egyptian temples to art nouveau to quite modern. They are arranged in a maze with lots of rows and rows to get lost in. Here are some fun photos from that tour:







Recoleta is also the home of Eva Peron, and of course I had to have my photo taken there.

Then it was back downtown to watch the march of the "Madres de Plaza de Mayo". Every Thursday at 3:30pm, a human rights group marches in the square to keep the memory of alive of the 30,000 citizens killed during the military regime. During the regime, the mothers began to silently march in hopes of learning the whereabouts of their sons and daughters, and today they keep their memory alive in an attempt to bring the murderers to justice. Today there were no riot police.

Buenos Aires

I sometimes think that perhaps I should feel a larger sense of amazement when exiting the aircraft in a foreign land. I was talking with a coworker with it on the way down south the other night and here's what we agreed:
1. We step into our office and board passengers.
2. We throw some drinks around (and if you're lucky) some food.
3. We read the paper and do some crosswords.
4. We occasionally walk up and down the aisle.
5. We take a nap.
6. We leave the office 8 hours later.
7. Said office doesn't move (at least it doesn't seem to when you don't look out the window).
9. Voila its all over. Sometimes I think that I haven't moved at all and someone just changed the scenery.

But it was nice to see someplace new. I've figured out that I've been on 4 continents this year alone (well 4 1/2 if you count Kuwait as a semi-continental area unto itself. I'm never really sure if its considered Asia or Europe).

It was cloudy and rainy when we got in. I took a nap for a couple of hours and then popped out to tour the city before meeting up for dinner.

We stay near downtown B.A. in an area of renovated piers. The actual downtown is a mishmash of building styles from the belle epoque to art noveau to, well, gaudy and 1950s ugly.



I stopped first at the Casa Rosada to see the balcony where Madonna sang (the guard says its there on the left, but he was awful young and I don't think was there to actually see her).



I walked along Florida Street, the main shopping thoroughfare (some beautiful buildings that they went and ugly-fied on street level and prices that I thought were not all that much of a bargain) and then came to Plaza San Martin (named after the founder of the country. And right at the bottom of the square was this tower - the British clock tower. The name was changed after the Fawklands war in 1982 but apparently everyone still calls it the clock tower.



I hopped on the subway and headed back towards the main square (a 15 minute walk from the hotel) and found a fun march through the square so I stopped to watch.

And then I started hearing the firecrackers and noticed the SWAT team in formation ready to respond and realized that perhaps this wasn't a "happy" march!
So I moved along and walked by this building , which has something to do with the military (either that or the military just decided to use their front lawn as an outdoor museum). I think this was my favorite building that I saw that day....

A crack in the asphalt

Well after a few weeks of hectic activity, I am trying to get back in the swing of writing. Dear Aunt Veronica emailed me the other day asking wondering why there wasn’t anything new in my blog. Well here ya go!

I can’t really tell you where September went but off the top of my head I can’t remember going on any really exciting trips. Mostly I seem to sit in the hotel room and watch tv (yawn).

I did have a nice date last weekend. We went to lunch and then to see the new Ocean hall at the Smithsonian Natural History museum. After having been to some really great aquariums across the country (with real, live animals) this place was a disappointment (from my perspective) as it had exactly one (1, uno, eine) tank of fish: everything else was either dead (in formaldehyde) or skeleton. I’m sure that the youngsters were intrigued (I had to push several on the floor and climb over them to see the cases) but for an adult, it was boring. The Hope diamond room hasn’t changed. Had to push the Asian tourists out of the way there so we could see them (I know that sounds harsh, but having been to Asia and seeing how they act in crowds, it wasn’t a big deal).

But the visual highlight had to be the coffee stop at the National Gallery of Art’s sculpture garden. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t resist:







Was it rude of me not to say anything?

OMG Can you believe its been almost a month since I've written???? Bad Eric bad Eric!

I don't even know where the month has gone. Its been work work work (and nothing too exciting to share even) and only now at the end of the month does it feel like things are slowing down a bit.

So this week mother came out for a visit to see the new place. I have been forbidden from placing a photo of her on the web (she's a private person after all) so you'll have to make due with some touristy photos. We visited the Air Force Memorial and the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon. Both memorials are simple and serene. I especially like the bench design of the Pentagon memorial, as it invites you to sit at the bench of your loved one...

Paris... First Class..... International.....

I'm much more upbeat than my last post. True to form I went off to work and "got over it". I listened to an old, fat man complain about me not showing the correct inflight movie (September movies were programed into the CD-Rom 3 days early) and that had me laughing. He just sat there in his (first class mind you) seat with a scowl on his face. Life is too short!

I got back from L.A. on Saturday and then turned around and flew to Paris on Sunday (not before having a nice brunch with my new friend David). The stars were aligned - I got to trade a San Diego trip for Paris -and- had enough seniority on the crew to work First Class!

I love getting to sit up at the front of the plane!



First class is a 6 course affair with appetizers, soup, salad, entree, cheese and ice cream sundaes. Though it isn't as glamorous as it used to be (no caviar.. no carving a roast in the aisle.. no bouquets of roses...) it still beats coach! I worked with a fun gal named Sharon who indulged my photography of food carts.




Doesn't that cheese look good? Yum!

We got to Paris, and after a nap I headed over to BHV, a department store with a huge selection of door knobs, drawer pulls, a lumbershop in the basement (in Paris!) and everything else you could ever want for your kitchen, livingroom, bathroom or closet. After two hours I came out with a new vase for the living room.

After a quick jaunt by Notre Dame




I hopped the Metro back to the hotel



for wine, cheese and pate in the crew lounge (we were put to shame by the Delta crews who had a veritable tapas bar set up in the kitchen).



and then it was off to dinner with about half the crew at a creperie near the hotel.



I've been experimenting with the settings on my camera (in lieu of reading the instructions). It has several night and slow shutter modes to use ambient light to some very interesting results:



We walked up to the Eiffel Tower for the 11pm twinkling light show for more photos. I've included a sampling for your edification.







And then it was off to bed.

If work was always like this maybe I'd want to stick around for awhile.

I hit the gym on the way home and then picked up Elsa. She's going to stay with me for a few days. Right now she's driving me crazy. She is trying to sit in my lap as I type! Its a good thing she's so cute.