Tuesday, August 30, 2011

No Chocolate For You!



Hello from America!  We've had an awesome time visiting with my family!  Thanks for the lovely time and know we're already looking forward to next year's visit!  

Besides visiting, we also went to Hershey, Pennsylvania, where Ramon had an anesthesia conference. 

 

Hershey is a city with two nicknames:  "Chocolatetown, USA" and "The Sweetest Place on Earth."  It's a lovely place and we enjoyed ourselves. 

Our first night there we ate dinner in a nice restaurant near the Hershey Chocolate Factory.

When I ordered some keenly anticipated hot chocolate,

Hot Chocolate in 5 minutes

the waitress told me, "I'm sorry.  You can't have any hot chocolate.  Our machine is broken."

WHAT?!

No hot chocolate for me in "Chocolatetown, USA" that's what!

 

This is kind of funny, because something similar happened to my father once!  When my parents were in college during the "olden days" :), and there was no turnpike, they drove through Pennsylvania, right through Hershey, while traveling from home in Ohio to school in Maryland.   Once they stopped at a little cafe right across the street from the Hershey chocolate factory.


Dad ordered a chocolate sundae.

The waitress told him to please pick strawberry or caramel instead BECAUSE THEY WERE OUT OF CHOCOLATE!

Dad told her, "Are you telling me that I'm sitting here looking at the Hershey Chocolate Factory and I can't have any chocolate?"

"Yes," she said, "I'm telling you that."


Like father, like daughter!  Anyway, I think it's funny that both my dad and I had trouble getting chocolate in Hershey, PA!

Well, Hershey made up for it later when we ordered (and received!) this:


which was rather good I must say!

Speaking of hot chocolate reminds me of the rather delicious hot chocolate I had in Argentina.


Yes, it came like this and you added as much of the chocolate bar to your hot milk as you liked!

But the very, very best hot chocolate I've EVER had was in Paraguay!  (Long time readers of this blog may remember me telling about this last year.)  This adorable cafe, Sugar,


 in the Mariscal Lopez Mall in Asuncion


makes their hot chocolate with ice cream!  Amazingly wonderful!  Can't wait to have some when we are there next week!

When we get back home to Nepal, I'm looking forward to having hot chocolate again here at the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu, where I spilled mine all over the table just like I used to do when I was a child!  If you ever get a chance to go there, try it, you'll like it!  (The hot chocolate--not the spilling!)

 

There's also good hot chocolate here at the Annapurna Hotel


and at the Yak & Yeti Hotel too.


Well, I guess that's enough about hot chocolate!  Now we're just enjoying out last week in America and thankful to the Lord that the earthquake and hurricane that shook us up and got us wet this past week on the East Coast are history and that we are all fine.  We're praying for those who may still be having troubles.  Have a good week!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Travelin' Home!

Yes, we made it home safely!  What happened and where did we go?  First of all, we spent the night in Kathmandu so we could relax before the long flights.  It was a festival day, so we saw colorfully dressed people out and about including those visiting the statue of Shiva we passed by on our way to Kathmandu.




Not everyone took the day off.


We super recommend the Kathmandu Hyatt Regency.




We also super recommend relaxing before long flights.  We were well rested when we went to the airport.



At the airport we were happy to run into a young friend who was traveling to the U.S. to start his studies.  We knew he'd be there, but we didn't know if we'd actually "bump" into him, so it was nice when we did.  He was on our flight to Delhi.  I must say that the refurbished Indira Gandhi International Airport is REALLY nice!

Even the restrooms are nice!

Finally we arrived in LONDON!  You can see how happy I was to be back...

...and how happy Ramon was with his fish and chips!

Even though we stayed in the airport, the shopping was Great (with a capital G!)!  Loved Harrods of course!
 
My third time at the checkout counter I told the girl that I was so happy the shop was there for those of us who aren't able to go into town.  "Oh, lots of people tell us that," she said.  Then she continued, "Have you been able to go to our main store in London?"  "Oh yes, many times.  But it was before you were born," I answered.  "Well, when was it?"  "1977."  She smiled.  "Yes, that was before I was born!  You should see it now.  It's quite lovely."  "Well," I said, "it was quite lovely then too!  Maybe next time...!"

Goodbye Beautiful England!  See you on our return trip!

Hello America!  Happy to be back hone for a visit!  Thank you Lord for safe travels.  Look who was waiting for us at my sister's house--her beautiful Havanese puppy!  WHAT AN ANGEL!!!  We are in love big time!

He loves to play with his big brother.

Uncle Ramon is fun too

and so is hiding inside the coffee table.

"Please bring me some water."

"Now I'll go to sleep.  Night!"

Now I'll say Goodbye for now.  We wish everyone a beautiful day and as many blessings as we have!  :)