criplomats

Alaska from the air

The long trip to get to Juneau was worth it – John and I left DC Friday afternoon, overnighted in Seattle (via Chicago), and arrived in Alaska yesterday morning! Juneau is lovely – small, hip, with a good vibe. We walked around a bit, ate an early lunch at the Rookery, napped, then went for dinner down on the water at the Hangar where we sat outside and watched the cruise ships and floatplanes. We struck it very lucky on the weather – just cool enough for a light jacket and lots of sunshine!

This morning we went on a floatplane flight to see the glaciers – just amazing. The blue ice is incredible. It was a little bumpy (you know I don’t like heights), but completely worth the white knuckles to see the amazing mountains, spruce (fir?) trees, and ice.

Aerial view of glacier

Click to see the first of my photos!

Love the old buildings around Juneau

From the floatplane

View of the Queen Elizabeth through beauty shop window

Foal

I had a great week at the embassy in Reykjavik – my friend Donna is the chief there, so it was fun to get to work with her and her staff. The embassy is downtown, so it was easy for us to get out for lunch every day (including my favorite, Artic Char at Messinn). It also makes it convenient to do some shopping after work. Donna and I ended the day Thursday with a glass of wine to wrap up our week. Unlike December when I was there when it was only daylight from around 10AM to 4PM, it was light from around 4AM to 10PM (or later – I was asleep).

I took a vacation day on Friday and did a day tour with a small company. We went to the western peninsula of Snaefellsnes, which was just beautiful. We went to a gorgeous black beach, a lovely fishing village where we walked along the cliffs, stopped for a great lunch (fresh cod), drove through lava fields (well, the whole country is basically one big lava field anyway), saw some crazy basalt, a gorgeous mountain, lots of waterfalls, and ended up at a horse farm where we had a great home-cooked meal and got to get into the pasture with the Icelandic horses – including two adorable foals! One was very curious and almost came up to me to let me pet him, but got too shy at the last minute. It was cold at the farm, with some snow flakes falling and windy! Otherwise, the day was sunny but cold – the guide called it “window weather” – where you look out the window and think it looks like wonderful weather, then you go outside and realize it’s cold!

I stayed at a different hotel, the Exeter, which was very hip. They had a good little restaurant downstairs, plus a bakery that had these amazing doughnuts, including one stuffed with salty caramel – yum. Reykjavik in general is very hip – it has a young, cool vibe to it.

I flew home on Saturday morning – which meant I got up around 3AM in order to get to the airport for an 8:30AM flight via the bus – the reward was a lovely sunrise over the marina.

Today my friend Carol from Hendrix came for lunch – I don’t know that I’ve seen her since we graduated, but we’ve reconnected via social media – John made us a delicious meal and we talked for hours until she had to leave to catch her flight – so enjoyable!

With Carol

Casa Crippen

I love the scale of this (some glare from car window)

Cool bird

Water everywhere

Furry face

Babies

Reykjavik, good char dinner one night

Water everywhere

Cool bird

Downtown Reykjavik

At the horse farm

Happy horse

Icelandic horses with snowflakes

Whale fluke

I left DC yesterday for Iceland and arrived here this morning (four hours ahead of DC). It’s a beautiful day here – I walked over to the municipal hot pools, but it was so crowded that I left. My hotel is near the marina, and as I was walking back, I noticed a whale watching boat about to leave, so I jumped on. We saw two humpbacks and followed them for a while – it was great to be out in the fresh (cold!) air after flying all night.

We had dinner at Ris Friday night with Rick and Claire – lots of fun and good food.

John and I attended a two-day class at FSI this week, a seminar to help plan for retirement. Some good information, plus we saw several old friends.

Fishing

Cool building

Shore view

Iceland

Door, Suriname

It’s hard to believe my two years as a regional consular officer are coming to a close – what a great job! I flew last Monday to Suriname – Lordy, it’s hard to get there. Twenty-four hours in total, even though it’s not really that far away (nine hours was spent on a layover in Trinidad). I always enjoy my visits there, though – super-nice staff, ambassador, and deputy chief of mission. The small consular staff took me out to dinner Thursday night, then Friday we went to a little outdoor market for lunch.  The embassy is beautiful and new – lots of light and great art throughout. The hotel has a decent little gym and the staff is wonderful – so all in all, a good trip! I got lucky coming home and shaved four hours off the return by catching some earlier flights – only 20 hours coming home instead of 24, but I’ll take what I can get.

Wedding party at the hotel

Friday’s lunch menu

With my consular peeps

It seems that spring may finally be here, although we had some chilly days earlier this week. While I’ll complain about hot weather soon enough, I’m ready for the cold to go! The tulips around town are gorgeous.

Pennsylvania Ave

I had a nice dinner with Cathy this week – she treated me to a delish steak at Rare. The next night, John and I met Claire’s parents who were visiting from England, along with a few other of Rick and Claire’s friends. They were absolutely delightful and we enjoyed getting to know them.

Love the one red one in the middle

Thursday evening, we took the metro up to Maryland to the Strathmore to see a showing of the movie, “The Triplets of Belleville.” It’s a wonderful animated movie with no dialogue – just music and sound effects. The composer directed an eight-piece ensemble live while the movie played – so fun. The venue is just incredibly beautiful!

The beautiful Stratchmore Music Hall

Yesterday was busy. I took Flavia to the vet to continue getting her ready for our move this summer. In the afternoon, I drove over to a friend’s house to check on him after a nasty fall. I ended up in Falls Church at a great camera store, where I bought a new lens to take to Alaska. John made an excellent Mexican stew for dinner, and we watched “Crazy Rich Asians.”