Not a very nice view

Today I went to Chicago, or at least, I flew into Chicago O'Hare Airport and then set off in the opposite direction to the suburb of Schaumburg. Schaumburg is not a very nice place, it is full of outdoor shopping malls and business hotels and motorway intersections. However, my customer, US Cellular has an office here and I had a meeting with them.
To get to DCA (Reagan National Airport in DC) I booked the Super Shuttle, not that I can't claim a proper taxi, but because they are reliable and actually turn up on time. You can track your shuttle on-line until it reaches your door, on a map and know that you will get to the airport on time. Booking a taxi does not mean it shows up, and it is always a gamble to trek up to Wisconsin Avenue to just catch one.  This morning I checked as usual when I got up where my shuttle was and it turned out it was just around the corner (literally), which was a bit stressful as it was not supposed to pick me up for another 30 minutes. I quickly gathered my stuff and got ready, but it continued to hide around the corner. When it finally showed up (on time) I asked the driver about hiding around the corner and he was surprised i knew. He said he was early and did not want to stress me, which I guess was nice.
Meeting went well and we checked in to a different Hyatt (Regency) than normally, as the usual one was full. I must say I am NOT impressed by the view from my hotel window.

Spring arrived & today's Police action

Back from South America, Spring properly arrived in DC. We had several warm days before I left, but the trees and plants had not properly woken up.
Today I noticed:

Pink flowers on neighbors tree

Little blue flowers in our lawn - hmm... how do I cut the grass without damaging them?

The Tulips turned out to be yellow, but are almost done!

The green leaves on our hedge are turning red and the little tree above the tulips have pink leaves.

Little red flowers on the bush below the porch

Sun-flower seeds I sawed before I left for Peru & Bolivia are sprouting up

More blue flowers on the lawn in the back garden. They look nice - but are they weeds?

Tulips in the back garden are also yellow!

and some dandelions. I have to go and by a tool to dig them up before they spread.

Today's police action happened around lunch-time. A lorry was pulled over at our junction by a police car with the sirens on! Stayed for around 20-30 minutes.

Day 1 Peru & Bolivia Trip - Lima & Cusco

1 new country (Peru), 2 new cities (Lima and Cuzco)

Challenges:
- Find and pay for taxi from airport
- Book Train and Entrance tickets to Machu Picchu

Arriving Lima just after midnight, quite tired after having had to chat to a 16-year old missionary, first time out of Canada from a tiny rural village, most of the 8-hour journey. Flight (American from Dallas, TX) ran out of drinks, there were no movies or power plugs.
Luggage took ages to get out and long queues through customs. Alastair had prebooked a taxi for me to meet before you got outside, as the ones you catch outside the airport can be pretty dodgy. I had a map of where the taxi-desks should be and did find a sign with my name on. However there was no person holding on to the sign. I did get a driver though who whisked me out the back door to avoid the crowd, which made me feel a bit like a celebrity not wanting to be noticed. The driver spoke no English, and on Day1 I really could not remember any Spanish at all to have any type of conversation. Half way to the hotel I realized that he may not take credit cards and I did not have any SOLs at all and not enough USDs. I showed him my Visa card to try to find out if he would accept it and he happily stopped at the next ATM, where I took out the maximum amount, hoping it would be enough. At the hotel, the doorman confirmed it had already been charged to the room so not to worry.
After a short rest, we looked at the view from the Hilton Miraflores roof terrace, whilst having breakfast. I am told it is always foggy like this. The sea is just behind the two tall buildings.

The hotel was nice and I had forgotten their great shower gel and other toiletries. They also did a decent breakfast in the executive lounge, along with snacks and drinks throughout the day.
We had time for a short walk around the Miraflores area of Lima and a short rest by the pool in the fog, before heading back to the airport and flight to Cuzco.

At the airport we found that Peru Rail had a stand. Clever! So we headed off to book train tickets Cuzco - Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu) - Cuzco. That turned out quite impossible. There were no return tickets. This is because many people trek into Machu Picchu (on the Inca Trail) and take the train back. In the end the booking agent suggested we take the last train of the day to a town called Ollataytombo, 2 hours from Cuzco and try to find a taxi or bus back from there. Having no choice we booked this.
Back in lounge we then started booking tickets for the entrance to Machu Picchu itself. During the 1 hour we spent there we never managed to get them booked on the government website. Payment kept crashing.

Arrived in Cuzco safely after around an hours flight and quick discussion with taxi driver at airport. He seemed OK, but then immediately after picking us up he wanted to stop for fuel. In my logical mind, you fill up your taxi with fuel before picking up passengers, but Alastair's slightly more South-American thinking came up with the logic that he took the car over from someone else and then was late to catch the passengers at the airport coming in from Lima. I still don't approve. Also he had no change!
We checked in to our hotel, Palacio del Inka, a very nice hotel in the old part of town and  got upgraded to a Senior Suite... yes, more space, but there were no proper windows, just balcony doors in solid wood and not sure about the decor:

In the evening we had a short walk around the old town in Cuzco and found a place to have dinner. They had all three of the typical Peruvian dishes on the menu, Cervice (raw seafood), Guinea-pig and Alpaca. Cuzco is far from the sea, and Alastair has had bad experience of Cervice before so we ordered the other two. The Alpaca was excellent and the Guinea-pig tasted nice, but it was very hard to get any meat off it.

















Achievement Status:

- Got to Lima hotel OK from airport
- Train tickets bought, but not return to Cuzco from Machu Picchu
- No entrance tickets to Machu Picchu

A trip to Oxford and Cambridge (MD)

A beautiful day that just beg you to go on a trip somewhere.

Reading my new Virginia and Maryland book, I finally settled on St Michaels which reminded me of a book I read, actually 4 books of a trilogy (the Chesapeake Bay Saga) set on the Chesapeake Bay shores, written by Nora Roberts. Unfortunately St Michaels is very near Oxford, MD and Cambridge MD, and having lived in Cambridge we could not resist prioritising those places. In the summer there is a ferry from Oxford to St Michaels, the Oxford-Bellevue ferry,  but we were too early. That would have made it a nice loop around.

First we went to Oxford, MD which is a tiny little village on the shores. Some photos below:

The Clock

The Library

The Beach

Jetties to park your boats

and a Museum

There were also village stores, which we for some reason did not visit (so no postcard) a boat sales place and an Inn. We could not find anywhere to eat lunch, which was probably because the tourist season had not started and the ferry was not running across the bay. 

After Oxford we headed off to Cambridge, as you do. I drove the car for the first time, it took about 20 minutes and was not too bad, but I don't like driving new cars in unknown places. It seems a nice car though. 

I wanted to eat seafood, especially crab as the area is famous for their crabs, so we drove around a bit. Cambridge is much bigger than Oxford and eventually we found a nice seafood place overlooking the bay where we had crab-cakes and potato-skins filled with cheese and crab-meat. 

An after-lunch walk around town was interesting. The Highstreet was going through a re-generation project where it was very nice in some places and run down in other parts. Some buildings were being knocked down.

 I found some interesting looking rocking chairs outside a pub and after a quick Internet search also found out that they sell them in the local Lowes store in Easton, which we would pass through on the way home.
I now have two of these to put on my front porch.

Winter finally over?

Weather in DC is strange, one day snow - next day shorts, T-shirt and BBQ. Anyhow it seems like the snow has stayed away long enough for a few things to poke up in the garden from below ground. As we moved into the house in August this is an exciting time, to find out what we will see the rest of the year.
Right now we have:

Little white flowers in a shady spot in the back garden and

something that definitely looks like they will be Tulips in the sunny spot.

Happy New 2014 - no pizza today!

In Sweden New Year's Day is the main pizza-eating day. I guess it is the easy option when you have been up celebrating all night and in need of something with fat, sugar and salt. So, decided it was a good idea to for for a walk.
We live on 38th St NW which abruptly ends at the end of our road. Found out that 38th St NW continues south on a squiggly bit of road through McLean Gardens that was worth investigating.

The walk took us around some well kept apartment buildings, around the new building site "Cathedral Commons", which will be really nice when it is completed later this year. Lots of places to go out and a new supermarket.

The goal of the walk was "2 Amys Pizzeria", but unfortunately it was closed. So we headed home again.

With no pizza I decided to have some of the non-eaten cheese and baguette bought for the previous night. Unfortunately 24h old baguette, new bread-knife and my left index finger did not get along well, so the remainder of the evening was spent patching up badly bleeding Sissi

Job offer arrived

Just before Thanksgiving I finally received a job offer!
It is an internal transfer with NSN, working from home in DC as Project Manager for Solutions Deployment, It basically means I will manage upgrade projects and introduction of new functionality. I was lucky, I decided one morning to follow up with a guy who I have been in touch with before, just to let him know I was still around. He told he had someone resign in the morning so we had a quick chat and it all sounded good. Then I spoke to the Customer team representative and we got on very well, so they sad I had a good chance. Job got advertised on the Internal website, I applied, beat the competition and now I have the offer :-)

However, being the U.S. the offer is conditional. I have to pass a background Police check from three countries (Sweden, UK and Australia) and I have to pass a drug test. Police checks were kicked off last week but due to Thanksgiving I could only do the drug check today. For that they sent me off to the scary part of town, well I think being Washington DC there are scarier parts, but walking along the streets with my e-reader did not seem like a safe thing to do. Lots of houses with bars over the windows, boarded up windows, druggies on the streets and generally bad feeling. Found the place I was told to go, scruffy with worn-out carpet tiles and strange smell. After while got called into an office, some rookie who only spoke whatever language they speak in Ethiopia, was directed by a colleague to fill in my forms. Then asked to empty my pockets and pee in a cup, exactly to some imaginary line. Now I am in the hand's of them - should know in a few days, but unless the owner of the "Daiquiri Shack" in Bahamas did not put anything weird in my drinks I should be good.
When story relayed to new boss he suggested that perhaps they sent me to that area to see if I got tempted to buy some drugs...

I am pretty sure I am no criminal as well, as did all 3 police certificates last year and passed. Since then I haven't even got a parking ticket! But it will take time, so from tomorrow I start working here as a Visitor from the Swedish organisation. Straight in there with customer meetings in Chicago and Christmas party this week. I always wanted to visit Chicago, as I have changed planes there many times, but never got out, but December wouldn't have been my choice. The rest of the team sits in Irving, TX, near Dallas. So assume I get to go there soon too.