Seafood and Siestas!

During my trip to Spain, I was lucky enough to meet up with Linda and Kohei during their round-the-world travels. They’ve been in Europe for the last 3 months and are heading to South America next. This is at Parc Guell, which is filled with sculptures made by Gaudi. You can also visit their blog at travelingseeds.wordpress.com. We hope to meet up with them again in Asia next year.

Brian, Jung, and I had a great time traveling together. Among our more “travel worthy” stories is our attempt to fit 3 people on our King size bed. We weren’t actually planning to keep up the pillow barriers, but Jung and I fell asleep too quickly. Note: Brian’s “pod” is probably 1.5 times bigger than mine. Hilarious!

All of our time in Spain was spent either eating or walking. We had AMAZING food from pinoxtes (Basque tapas), seafood paella, and Spanish wines and beers (for them). This was at a cute restaurant called Quimet Y Quimet. The owner of the restaurant made his own creations in front of us and we enjoyed them right away at the bar.

My favorite dish is Spain is called “Arroz Negro”, which means black rice. I didn’t post a picture of it because it doesn’t look nearly as good as it tastes. It’s made with squid ink and is another version of paella. I also loved eating regular paella and tried many different types of tapas. We adapted to the Spanish schedule easily – lunch around 2, a siesta, and then dinner around 9.

We generally walked a few hours each day to the sites in Spain (museums, parks, churches). In Barcelona, Jung was our elected navigator. We always arrived at the expected destination and the rest of us followed. In Madrid, Brian was promoted to navigator as most know that I am direction-challenged. We had a nice “wandering” experience when it was just the two of us. No matter how hard we tried to stay on course, we seemed to go in circles…literally. On the upside, it was a good way to experience the small streets. This is El Retiro, which is a nice park in Madrid.

I am finally back in the US. I have an overnight visit in Dallas with the parents and then head to Alex/Kristin’s wedding in Hawaii. Jung is picking me up from the airport in our 12 hour time zone difference from Spain! It's been a whirlwind tour and will finish up in Cali before heading home.

Hola ¿Habla Inglés?

Warren and I parted ways in London, so that he could “dissertate” with minimal distractions from me. I flew to Malaga, the southern tip of Spain, and took a bus to Granada. I now start all conversations with hola...habla ingles and expect the answer to be no.













I took a segway tour my first day in Granada. We rode up to the top, which was a picturesque view of the entire city and passed through the Sacramonte gypsy area.










At the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, the city of Granada has lots of streetside restaurants and cafes. It is a very quaint town with beautiful scenery and part of an area in Spain called Andalusia.














This is one of the street performers who provided some entertainment during my late lunch. (I seem to eat around 2 or 3 pm here to match the schedule).

Alhambra Palace is the main attraction in the area. It is an ancient fortress of the Moorish monarchs. The area is beautiful minus the numerous tourists. There are 7800 visitors per day.

Tomorrow I head to Barcelona to meet up with Jung and Brian!

British Bookends

We began our five week journey with a stop-over in Heathrow, and now conclude our trip with three nights in Central London!














Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, we quickly made haste to get to the 6:30pm service at All Soul’s Church – the pulpit of which was occupied for many years by John Stott. It was a simple, solid, Evangelical service with a broad range of racial diversity in the pews.

We took a ride on the “London Eye” which is a newer tourist spot that looks essentially like an oversized ferris wheel granting breathtaking views of the city from thousands of feet in the sky. Below us in this picture are the famous “Big Ben”, Westminster Hall, and Parliament.

Coincidentally, we stayed at the Hilton Metropole, the site of the 2010 European Poker Tour (EPT) – London, which was held during the same time as our stay. I (Warren) was pretty excited to see famous poker superstars wandering around the hotel premises – Chris Moneymaker, Eric Seidel, John Juanda – I even had a short conversation with Greg Raymer in the elevator over his early exit!

Our last day was spent journeying 80 miles north of London to the site of Stonehenge. These large stones were mysteriously put into their places over 5000 years ago for purposes which are still unclear to scientists and archeologists. There’s literally nothing around this site – one wonders who decided to carry these stones from several hundred miles away to this random, grassy field in the middle of England.

Our journey comes to a close. We have so many memories that we are so grateful to have made and shared with each other – and with our friends and family. Looking back, we really have done so much! During the five weeks we took ten flights, en route to visiting five countries, used six different currencies, and bought seven different SIM cards for our iPhone. 

Melissa now continues on to Spain and Hawaii while Warren returns to Boston to get back to “dissertating”. Hope to see y’all really soon and talk to you about our travels in person! (Stay tuned for more updates from Melissa!)

wrapping up East Africa

Nairobi, Kenya (layover)










We took advantage of a 4 hour layover in Kenya – we ate a huge meal at the famous “Carnivore” restaurant and spent a few moments at this scenic spot overlooking downtown Nairobi…

Kigali, Rwanda (which is actually pronounced: Cha-Gali)









We devoted ourselves to a week of volunteering at Cards for Africa – a socially responsible company co-owned by one of our closest friends, Jimmy Quach. (http://www.cardsfromafrica.com/)

Over 75 employees work in this incredible company devoted to making handmade cards from recyclable materials. The card-making staff (63 folks) comprise largely of orphans who have lost parents due to the Rwandan genocide or HIV. Watching these folks labor over the details of rather intricate cards was a thing of beauty (especially as American hip-hop blasts in the background).

Melissa spent some significant time with Athanasie (pictured) and Aimee, who are in charge of inventory, stock, and materials. Mel spent time with both women, teaching them how to use Excel to manage data. I (Warren) spent the better part of the week troubleshooting blue-screening computers and solving technical issues like a good Asian boy.

We definitely grew in appreciation for the difficulties of running a small business – especially in East Africa where things considered routine in the States (e.g., ordering supplies, reliable internet connection, unbroken electricity).

We have a short stay in Uganda before we head to London for three days. We bid a sad goodbye to East Africa, where we have learned so much and come to appreciate so much of the language, the culture, and the people!