Little Black Guidebook

Ok, we did leave Rouen, France, that was only the 1st day. I’m just slow at posting. After driving through Rouen we arrived and spent our first night in Bayeux, France. Its famous for its tapestry which is basically a 70-yard political cartoon which tells the story of William the Conqueror’s rise from duke of Normandy to king of England, and shows his victory over Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It also is a convenient town to sleep in before exploring the Normandy WWII historical areas.

My WWII history knowledge comes from talking to my Grandfather about his WWII experiences. Grandpop only tells humorous stories as if the whole war was about joking around, pranks and cruising around (he was in the Navy). I know he just doesn’t want to deal with telling me the sad or harsh stories, but that’s ok. We decided to do a full-day Normandy WWII tour with BattleBus. This is a French company who specializes in D-Day and Battle of Normandy tours, but their guides are mostly native English speaking expats for whom D-Day is a lifelong obsession and hobby. Our guide didn’t have a memorized schtick, but a genuine passion for history. And our bus had 6 people in it, not the 40+ people of the Grayhound buses that we were passing on the road.

Sainte-Mère-Église was the first stop of the day. If you have watched the movie The Longest Day you might remember the famous scene where a paratrooper was caught on the Church by their parachute. The scene is based on an actual person John Steele who returned to the town year after year for D-Day celebrations and along with many vets was quite beloved by the locals.

The other sight beyond the Church in Sainte-Mère-Église is the Airborne Museum. While it was included in our BattleBus tour, I wouldn’t pay the 14E to get in if I was DIY my own tour. The reason I say this isn’t because the museum is bad, it is just too small to be worth the price tag.

Don’t forget to look inside the chapel. Visit the chapel early in the morning before the tourist buses ruin the moment would be well worth it. Inside you will find that they have redone the stained-glass which was blown out in the war with new commemorative glass which features the paratrooper who liberated the village. People from Normandy have a great affinity, even to this day for the US military. A Norman child places a flag on every allied grave every year on D-Day. What the allies did for Normandy is taught in schools. As an American it is strange to travel and have people like you these days, while I’ve never encountered hostility there is a lot of confusion on how and why America does what it does in the world. I’ve never felt the need to impersonate a Canadian because I think these discussions are important means of spreading good will and understanding. None of this was necessary in Normandy. My husband is in the Army so he has the short hair of an Army officer, sometimes this causes problems, but in Normandy we felt nothing but extreme warmth, very un-French, but very nice. That accompanied by the wonderful Norman cider and mussels had us wishing to stay longer.

via: John in LA

Oahu, a tropical wonder of beach and sand, mountains and jungles, but it can also be the land of uber-big tacky hotels and tons of tourists.

Hubby will be there for four days of Army training with just a few hours here and there to do more than stare out the window at the rainforest.  Given more time, I’d go with him and do things again like sea kayak or scuba dive. Oahu is everything you’d want a tropical paradise to be, with enough to see and do here to keep you busy for a lifetime (duh people live here for just that reason), but between cosmopolitan Honolulu anad the mountain ranges of Ko’olau there is still an incredible diversity of things to do, even with just a short amount of time.

Here is the little list that I made for him to take with (after jealously whining about the injustice of being left behind).

Stroll through the Botanical Gardens

The 1st time we went to oahu we went to the Foster Botanical Garden, but it was fall time. Now it is Spring and Hawaii’s amazing collection of sweet-smelling flowers and treeswill be in full bloom. Its right downtown and only takes an hour or two to go through.

Bishop Museum

This museum took me all day and for most people it will take at least half a day, especially if you have kids, but you can time it to go just in time for one of their one hour topic specific tours and be in and out in just over an hour. Even if you do not have kids, this is a must-see on your vacation. Originally founded by Princess Bernice Pauahi, it contains a great collection of Hawaiian and Pacific artifacts and a huge science adventure center where they actually make lava as one of the displays.

Nu-uanu Pali Lookout

Honolulu traffic is hell, it once took me 2 hrs to go 3 miles. So why not go a little out of the way on your commute (yes rental car is pretty unavoidable for business trips as the bus system is so slow). Take about a half hour drive from Waikiki to the Nu`uanu Pali Lookout which has a great view of the windward side of Oahu and Kaneohe Bay.

Hawaii’s Royal Palace

Take a unique tour of the only royal palace in the United States. Built in 1882 for King Kalakaua, Iolani Palace takes only about an hour to see and is just a short walk from the State Capitol in downtown Honolulu. http://www.iolanipalace.org/

Pearl Harbor
He went to Pearl Harbor on a family vacation with his parents once, but with military I.D. its super easy to see the U.S.S. Missouri simply by driving yourself and not waiting for the shuttle bus. Both the beginning and end of World War II are memorialized forever at Pearl Harbor today in the form of the U.S.S. Arizona and the U.S.S Missouri. To save time you can drive to the Missouri yourself with military I.D. and see the U.S.S. Bowfin real quick. Tickets to the Arizona are timed so if you only have an hour or so to stop by you’ll have to get there early or skip it.

Historic Mission Houses
The Mission Houses were the original headquarters of the Sandwich Islands Mission, a group of New England Christian missionaries who arrived in Hawaii in 1820. It takes less than two hours to quickly peruse all three buildings. http://www.missionhouses.org/

Hike Diamond Head
Located on the southeast coast of Oahu, not far from Waikiki, Diamond Head is one of the world’s best-known volcanic craters. The view from the 760-ft. summit is well worth the climb. The steep trail to the top is mostly paved and includes two sets of stairs. One is 99 steps, the other 76 steps. They lead to a 225-foot tunnel (bring a flashlight) and end with a spectacular view of the island’s west side. This is also an excellent spot for whale watching during the winter months. While the park service suggests you allow 1.5-to-2 hours for a leisurely hike; the hike itself, round trip, takes less than 30 minutes for an in-shape Army guy.

Pearl Harbor Memorial – Honolulu, Hawaii

I refuse to use the cliche staycation, its like fashionista, recessionista, and other annoying “now” words. I think of what that word refers to as really just making the most of your time that’s not at work and enjoying the pleasures of home with or without taking time off. This weekend is probably the last one before the snow sticks for the winter so its got my thinking cozy thoughts.

Half the time when we have the weekend together without Army or travel to interfere we spend it mutually tuning each other out with the tv on, the laundry running and both of us on opposite ends of the sofa on our laptops until one of us says “That’s it, am I seriously killing time on Stumbleupon at home?!” and then we actually do something. This weekend we got a headstart and made a list of things to do together to enjoy the pleasure of being home. Tonight we’ll cap it off with an end of summer BBQ. May as well get some use out of the deck before the snow flies, even if it means flipping burgers and watching our breath rise. Smores are definitely in order.

This list is my version of the one on this Zen Habits post. Since we are still childless I edited down to more couply ideas for a weekend in, but see the original list for family ideas.

1. Play together in the snow, rain or leaves, then go inside for a cup of hot chocolate made with real chocolate and marshmallows.

2. Make a large bowl of popcorn and snuggle in front of the DVD to watch a movie you’ll both enjoy. No chick-flick that he pretends to like, but something you are actually both interested in.

3. Have a picnic. In wintertime, it’s just as fun to have a picnic indoors.

4. Snuggle together in bed on a cold Sunday morning.

5. Go out for a leisurely Sunday brunch.

6. Just talk. The art of really truly communicating with each other takes practice.

7. Grab a board game. My husband and friends play a mean game of Risk

8. Cook together. Then eat without turning on the tv.

9. Visit the library. Part of the beauty of staying home and not traveling is that you don’t have to buy books to enjoy new reading material.

10. Have a family make-your-own-pizza night.

11. Go for a hike. Maybe in your neck of the woods its still warm enough for this. Right now we’re in that odd period where its too chilly for mountain hikes and not cold enough for snowshoing. Fall actually makes for nice bike riding too.

12. Go to the museum. Play tourist in your own home-town by hitting up the local museums.

13. Go ice-skating/skiing/snowboarding/sledding.

14. Make breakfast foods for dinner, together. Then eat it in bed. Almost as good as room service and a far better value.

15. On a warm fall night, it’s fun to go camping in your own backyard and sleep in sleeping bags, under the stars. We actually drug our mattress into the living room once when it was -20F out just to shake things up a little. We lit candles instead of a fire. Silly, but memorable.

16. Get moving together. Our community has free dance lessons on Saturday nights and Latin dance nights once a month. We have also tried Aikido, fencing, swimming and ultimate frisbee together.

Uploaded by mrtwism

If you look at the tagline for this blog you’ll see that it is about making life an adventure. To me making life an adventure means that I do things that are sometimes outside my comfort zone. In Hawaii this meant trying scuba.

I swam in high school and snorkeled before, but had never tried scuba. I didn’t want a big group class, but I didn’t want to spend too much either. I ended up finding a structural engineer on sabbatical who is a professional scuba diver and under-water photographer in his new-found free-time. He teaches through Deep Ecology on the North Shore of Hawaii.

Deep Ecology is a full-service, five-star PADI Dive Center and a National Geographic recognized dive center, located on Oahu’s famous North Shore in historic Haleiwa. In addition to the classes they give they participate in environmental activism activities such as turtle rescues, ghost net recoveries and the creation of the North Shore’s first marine sanctuary.

Our intro to scuba class was held at Shark’s Cove on the North Shore. (so named because of the shape of the rock formations in the caves not because of the number of sharks) There were a bunch of other classes out there that day, but most of them were groups of 6-8 whereas ours cost no more and was just the two of us and the instructor. Also, they were all out of the water before us and didn’t go as far away from the shore. Since we weren’t held back by whoever was the least comfortable in our class we got to progress a lot further in our class, learning a few extra skills including confined diving in a lava cave with sea turtles.

After our class we chatted with our instructor about life on the North Shore, being an engineer in Hawaii and got a lunch recommendation. If you’re ever on the North Shore of Oahu with a hankering for Mexican look up Chollos Authentic Mexican. They have the best nachos and margaritas. I would drive the hour from Waikiki just for their nachos. Hubby loved their mojito as well.

I will admit I freaked out a little bit before getting used to it. But looking back it was one of the most amazing things I’ve done in a long time. We saw so much wildlife and a totally different view of our world. If we get another chance to go back to Hawaii we’ll definitely try and do our Open Water dive certification in 3 days.

Cost $109.00 for 1/2 day of scuba. $20 for lunch.

Mexico/San Diego Wedding+Army

Hubby will also be taking three pairs of shoes, but that’s because he flies out directly from San Diego only a few hours after the wedding for a week of Army duty. All of his clothes have to be washable and reusable because he can’t check a big bag, schlep it to Mexico and back and then jet off for training easily. He’s trying to go carry-on only with wedding clothes, a week of Army clothes and a laptop, which is quite difficult with how bulky those uniforms and boots are.

He packed his REI Adventure pants, which as he said “If I made it through Italy in August, I can handle Mexico.” He’s also bringing a Horny Toad button down shirt which he can sink wash and wear over again if necessary if he has any free time in the evenings after duty. I’ll probably be bringing his one wear only pretty wedding clothes back with me. His other lightweight favorite is his Marmot Ion windshirt which folds down to the size of a handful of Kleenex and really is the perfect layer for planes and humid climates where all you need is a little extra something to keep the air off of you and not a heavy jacket. I tried talking him into using his Army PT shorts as swim trunks, but he said he’s not allowed to use US Army uniform items while in foreign countries.

So there you have it, my no-wash Mexican weekend and his carry-on only 10-day Army packing list.

Since sophomore year of college hubby has had one hand tied behind his back as far as doing what he wants because of ROTC in college and then Army Reserve duties. We can’t just take a three week trip because he has monthly drills and obligations. He also has to be contactable all the time. He went from doing homework in the evenings and ROTC field exercises on the weekend in college to handling all the issues and paperwork to take care of his soldiers which basically amounts to working a part-time job as an officer in the reserves on top of his full-time job.

So, when we were discussing the fact that he has just three more years to go the other night it was in the context of, “What would you like to do with all that free time and freedom to do what you want that you will have?” This led us to start talking about taking a one-year sabbatical from our full-time jobs and traveling the world. We would like to do all the random things we put off doing while he was serving his country. When I ran into this article on how to put your travel on your resume I perked up. Of course, we won’t actually be quitting our jobs, just taking sabbaticals, but others might be worried about how to come back from the trip of a lifetime and start job-hunting with a gap on their resume. My favorite part is the excerpt of an actual resume which shows exactly how the author put travel on their resume. How to Make Travel Look Good on a Resume.

I had a friend ask me to type up these instructions for staying in touch on the cheap for their boyfriend who is deploying to Iraq this week with no laptop, but just an iPhone. Basically it is the method I use for most of my international travel.  I don’t have an iPhone, but this method works for any unlocked wi-fi enabled phone. Hopefully someone else will find this useful. I’ll have to post a follow-up after they have been using this method for awhile.

For US to Iraq -
Method 1. Him computer, you computer
Simple enough. For folks back home to reach him in Iraq, they need to download and install Skype software and you can talk to each other as long as you both have an Internet connection and a computer with Skype installed. This allows him to cancel his cell-phone plan (early cancellation fees waived for military) and save that cost while he’s away.

Method 2. Him cell phone, you computer/cell phone with Skype installed
We want this to work without him needing a computer to receive calls.  The first thing he will need is an unlocked mobile phone. In the United States, some carriers will unlock your phone if you ask. I’m not sure if AT&T will unlock the iPhone, but there are ways to jailbreak it yourself. Whenever he arrives in Iraq he can buy a local SIM card (the tiny, interchangeable chip inside the phone that actually lets you connect to a particular carrier; they’re sold at mobile phone stores and kiosks for $2 to $25, depending on the country) and make local phone calls and send text messages without paying exorbitant international roaming fees. The best type of SIM card to get is the kind that allows unlimited incoming calls.

Every SIM card has its own local number associated with it. Fortunately Skype also lets you call out to mobile phones and land lines (with SkypeOut) so you can call him with SkypeOut and it will ring on his Iraq # on his iPhone. Iraq is inexpensive to call this way, but not free like the first method (calling computer to computer). It costs $ 0.372/minute from a US computer or a US cell phone with Skype installed on it to call an Iraq cell phone.

So, here’s how a call to him would work:

You dial his Iraq # using Skype, and it rings on his iPhone at his Iraqi cellphone number.

Cost to you: $0.372/minute. Cost to him: zero.

This system lets anyone with Skype, reach him, at a minimal cost to him (just the cost of the SIM card assuming he gets one with unlimited incoming calls). All he needs to receive a call is a cell phone signal.

Cost to you: zero, cost

Method 3. Him cell phone with Iraq SIM card or computer with Skype, you any US cell phone or landline
We also want this to work without you needing a computer as well so if you’re having that really bad day and need to give him a ring (assuming the 12 hour time difference and his military duties don’t have his phone turned off), you can. To do this he needs to purchase a SkypeIn number that has a U.S. area code so his friends and family can use normal phones to call him using a local number to reach his computer. ($60 a year or $18 for three months) He can also forward his American cell phone number to the new SkypeIn number by calling AT&T before he goes and giving them the new SkypeIn number. He can then go online and set the Skype software’s preferences to forward the new SkypeIn number to the new Iraq # associated with the new SIM card he buys in Iraq.

SkypeIn has a relatively low fee. ($60 a year or $18 for three months)

So, here’s how a call to him would work:

You dial his regular American cell phone number, which forwards to his SkypeIn number, which, in turn, forwards (via SkypeOut) to his Iraqi cellphone number.

Cost to you: zero. Cost to him: $0.372 miniute.This system lets anyone, anywhere, reach him, at a small cost to him. All he needs to receive a call is a cell phone signal.

Of course if this were another country than Iraq you would be paying like $0.021/minute to France for instance and this whole method becomes a lot cheaper and more attractive than the alternative (phone cards at pay phones).

Calling from Iraq to the US -
If he wants to call home, he’ll use a slightly different and far simpler system. Tell him to download Skype for the iPhone while in the states (and data is cheap), be in range of a wi-fi signal and make SkypeOut calls to anyone he wants to for $0.021/minute, or for free if the person is online and logged into skype.

Hawaii Wishlist

Hubby has an upcoming trip to Hawaii in May for an Army meeting. He’ll be busy 3 days and they will pay his airfare, but we are planning on extending the trip a few days on either end and spending a week there total. It is providing just the necessary motivation to stick with the Weight Watchers meetings and complete food journaling. I call this image my Hawaii wish list. If my wishes are full filled I’ll be wearing the two-piece bathing suit, but I would be content rocking the coral colored one piece as well. I could totally go a full week packing only the items above. Two dresses and two pairs of shoes and a cardigan to throw over-top in the evening. One of the dresses is nice enough to go to dinner in at night. All I would add is some toiletries, a pair of jammies and maybe my new Macbook for blogging. A girl can dream anyway, especially in this weather. So that’s my wish list.