Immeasurably More

I've never NOT lived in furnished housing.*  But "furnished apartment" means someone else is going to decided what you sleep on, where you put your clothes and what you cook with.  And every time you move, you sleep differently, fold your clothes to different sizes and re-consider your recipes. To minimize the amount of stuff I'm hauling around the country, I restricted myself to two cookbooks - one specifically about cakes (hooray!) and the other a bound year's worth of Cook's Country magazines**.  After a week of eating dinner out (or eating leftovers from dinners out), I sat down with Cook's Country to find a recipe for the weekend.  A few pictures caught my eye, but the recipes were disheartening; first, brown on the stove, then transfer to the oven. While I have no complaints about the basic equipment in my current kitchen - all major and most minor appliances are provided - it's certainly fair to say the intended lodger is here for short s...

My business travel wardrobe can be described as Black. Grey skirt, black skirt, black slacks, black heels, black flats, black jacket.  The accompanying cardigans and t-shirts are in a variety of colors (including but not limited to black and white). My China ready wardrobe can be described as Blue. Blue jeans.  Blue T-shirts.  Blue sweaters.  Blue socks.  What isn't blue is white or black. Since nothing's changed but the color, why has my vacation packing taken three times as long as the business packing ever does?

The subject line of the email read: This is a weird hypothetical question. HYPOTHETICALLY, if the family took a 12 day China River cruise this November over Thanksgiving, would that be something a person might be interested in?  The person (who is of the female persuasion) would have to share a cabin with one of their male cousins.  (twin beds, obviously) Any thoughts? I imagined each of my three cousins as a cabin-mate.  I frowned at my account balances.  I thought about my plans to visit friends in New York that I haven't seen in years.  I wondered how much I would hate working Christmas week almost entirely alone in the office while everyone else was on vacation.  I almost decided not to go. And then I remembered the family Thanksgivings we used to have - trying to fit everyone into my grandparent's house which was decorated with Chinese silk paintings and knick-knacks.  Friday always included a movie and Chinese meal.  Sometimes Grandp...

Dear Reader, Today I arrived in Edinburgh where I will be for the next two weeks.  I thought I would take my new digital camera out for a spin by posting a photo every day while I am here. Before I moved to the UK and began traveling extensively for work, I used to literally live out of my suitcase during trips.  But traveling with TIRMa taught be better.  Now I unpack on arrival, and my mornings are much, much easier!  (And my clothes are less crumpled.) ~LeAn

Dear Reader, When I checked out of my Santiago hotel room this morning, the message light on the phone was still flashing. Actually, multiple lights were flashing. Two on the phone by the bed, two on the phone on the desk and one on phone in the bathroom. I assume this means that someone called me, but I don't know who. The first time this happened was sometime last week. I never even noticed the flashing message lights until I turned off the lights to go to bed. When I picked up the phone, a recording of a woman's voice said (in English), "You have a callback request. You can still make a call by pressing * and dialing the number as usual." And then the phone dialed some number and started ringing. It was 11:30 pm and no one answered my call before the second ring which was the fastest I could hang up the phone. The lights blinked on. Out of curiosity about the way things work, I picked up the phone again, pressed * followed by the "voice mail" but...

On the flight from London to Sao Paulo, they served yogurt for breakfast. I looked at the expiration date and read 02 Jul 17. That's some seriously long-life yogurt. Actually, upon second reading, it was 02 Jul T7. Whatever T7 means. I ate the yogurt and I feel fine.

Several weeks ago, my boss's boss came to me and said, "Since you're going to be in Phoenix, you may as well go to Chile to train our new employees there", as if Santiago were just across the state line. I protested because I still need to finalize my UK visa application and I have to do that from the US , but in the end, I scheduled a two night stay in Santiago . (For the curious, Santiago is a two leg, 13-14 hour flight from Phoenix . Almost exactly the same flight time as from Boston .) And now I'm on the restaurant balcony on the 17 th floor of the hotel, looking at the Andes and drinking espresso. There's also American easy listening pop music on the radio, if that can be considered a bonus. Sometimes we have to suffer for our work.

The following fares are not upgradeable: Fares booked in I or O Fares booked in Q between North America and Asia, Europe, India or South America. Q is me.

Packaged snacks could destroy Australia. This had never occurred to me until I arrived at the Sydney airport this morning. After queuing to get a stamp in my passport, I mobbed with all the other recent arrivals into the baggage claim hall and then after that the Quarantine hall. Notice I do not refer to this as Customs. Other countries refer to this as Customs, a process whereby officials can search your bags and charge an extra custom if they find excessive amounts of alcohol, cigarettes or foreign currency. The proper disposal or declaration of fresh fruit, raw meat and soil specimens is a secondary purpose. In Sydney, these things are reversed. The predominant goal of Quarantine officials is to make sure that nothing potentially hazardous makes it into Australia. And by hazardous, I mean not only obvious things like animals, bushes, and mexican jumping beans but also food of any kind. Like trail mix. The Quarantine offensive begins on the plane. There is a special video whi...

I'm finishing up a week in the UK and will soon be sliding my two light blue vintage American Tourister bags into the furthest corner of the bedroom closet in the company apartment until I come back in three weeks. One of these bags is a carry on and its contents got me pulled aside at security twice. (I'm not counting the third search which was completely random.) So, I'm going to list its contents here as a warning to others. Loose contents: Scarf pieced together from discarded fabric samples One pair well worn black gloves The Settlers of Catan board game Marnier Lapostolle brown glass bottle Books Larousse Pocket French-English Dictionary British American Language Dictionary From Word to Image Robert Frost poems Eyewitness Travel Guide - Great Britain Eyewitness Travel Guide - France Michelin map book - Paris Bescherelle La Conjugaison pour tous Small spiral notebook with French vocabulary notes Tamashi Radio Alarm clock box containing Pale pink wash cloth Year of the g...