The joys of traveling

Delayed flights. Missed connections. Grumpy airline crew. Wallet-gouging food. Ah, the joys of traveling. Another doozy is accidentally packing your Blackberry charger in your checked-in suitcase instead of carry-on bag. Unfortunately I get to experience all of these things in one long day. My original flight to Madrid from Miami is delayed by 3.5 hours, which means I will miss my connection to Brussels. The unfriendly guy at the ticket counter begrudgingly books me on another flight to Brussels. When I ask him whether my luggage will be transferred to the new flight he shrugs and moves on to another customer. Nice.

With five hours to kill at this point, I wander the airport to look for a spare charger for my phone. Of course the one that’s compatible with my Blackberry is conveniently the most expensive one. I think about the 3 spare ones I have laying around my office and decide to pass. I send emails instead to let people know about my new arrival then shut my phone down since I will need it more when I finally get to Madrid. So I pass on the $50 charger that feeds my lifeline (yes, the Blackberry has my life in it) but instead buy a $6 bag of pretzels. You know, the one that sells for $1 at the local grocery store. These stores know exactly what they’re doing to sleep deprived travelers. I only know I’m in Miami because there’s a juice stand grinding out passionfruit and mango juices. I’m salivating at the thought but the idea of risking an upset stomach on a long flight has me buying a bottle of water instead. 

After visiting every duty free shop in the entire airport, I plant myself at the gate. CNN is covering the Obama pre-inaugural activities nonstop. It feels more like a coronation than an inauguration. If it weren’t for this trip I would have found a way to be in DC this week myself.  And that’s the true cost of traveling. For all the opportunities that arrive from being on the road, there are so many other missed events. I’ve missed out on graduations, weddings, baptisms…all because I was somewhere else.  Last year, when all of my girlfriends were planning events around the opening night of the Sex and the City movie, I was traipsing around Europe. Instead of getting all dressed up for a girls’ night out to enjoy the movie, I caught the movie a week or so later literally all alone. I’d snuck out for a matinee and there was no one else in the theater with me. The movie was completely dubbed in French. This turned out to be a blessing anyway because some of the dialog took longer to translate in my head, and by the time I laughed at the joke five minutes later, the movie had already moved on to another scene.  I still enjoyed the fashion in the movie thoroughly but it would have been a bigger treat to ooh and ahh over it with my friends. The road often feeds you secrets from lives of strangers in distant lands, but by the same token it deprives you of every day, ordinary events occurring to those who are close to you. 

But with this blog, I am no longer doing anything completely alone; I will feel like I’m taking you all with me on these visits in the next few weeks. See you on the road.

 

It’s about time that I bring fashion and travel together here at this blog as they are the only two constants in my otherwise erratic schedule. And what better way to see fashion in motion than to document how a few pieces have taken me through a couple of busy days on the road so far. I apologize in advance for the length of this blog. I would have liked to break it up over two entries but I’m flying out tomorrow and won’t have time to log in until I arrive in Belgium.

My first full day in Florida begins with a bridal luncheon that was inadvertently left out of my agenda. I don’t have the invitation so I have no idea what to wear, but in a last minute mad dash I grab a charcoal grey Diane von Furstenberg herringbone dress and slip on a pair of black patent Manolo Blahnik heels.  It’s in the high 60s here so a medium-weight black cashmere cardigan is all I need.   A black Chanel camera bag finishes off the look.

 

Luckily all the other ladies are also wearing day dresses. To me, fashion faux pas is not so much failing to put a look together but rather failing to dress appropriately for the occasion or location. Anyway, after the lunch some of us head over to the main house to help the bride with frosting cupcakes to be given away at the reception as parting gifts. We form an assembly line to tie blue ribbons around the boxes,

 

make then spread the cream cheese frosting over the carrot cupcakes,

 

and box them up.

 

Some of us, and I won’t name names, are still a bit loopy from the wine at lunch so we are undaunted by the task at hand.  That might also explain why we have such a hard time keeping count of the cupcakes.  Or maybe it’s just me. It just feels like a lot of cupcakes!

 

We don’t have enough time to finish the job or change for dinner because the priest calls the house to say the rehearsal has been moved up. So my DVF dress takes me through both the trial run at church and the rehearsal dinner.  We skip dessert and go back to the cupcake assembly line.  It’s an all-nighter.

The next day begins with the Vietnamese ceremony. I choose a simple black Chanel knit dress with a scalloped neckline and decorate it with two crystal leaf brooches that had come with another Chanel knit dress from an earlier collection. I wear the same Manolos because I didn’t want to pack 2 pairs of heels, and of course I’m kicking myself now. I have an OCD about wearing the same pair of shoes two days in a row–something about needing to give my shoes a day of rest in between use as if that were a negotiated term in a labor contract between me and my shoes.

If you’ve never attended a Vietnamese wedding, it’s basically a ceremony that commences with a procession of gifts from the groom’s family to the bride’s home. Gifts consisting of wine, tea, cookies, fruits, candies, and roasted pig are wrapped in red cellophane paper and carried on trays by the groomsmen. The representative of the groom knocks on the door, asking for permission to enter and deliver the gifts. The pig always comes in last.

 

The gifts are laid on a table cum altar:

 

Welcoming remarks and introductions are made then the bride’s presence is formally requested. In this case, the honor goes to the bride’s mom to walk her out. As you see below, they are both wearing traditional áo dàis but the bride’s dress and headgear are specifically bridal in style:

 

More speeches are made to symbolize the union of the two families. Typically you will see candles and incense, photographs of ancestors, and a tea set laid out on the table. This is because the bride and groom close the ceremony by paying respect to the ancestors and offering tea to their parents (and/or other close relatives).  The tea offering is a moving, quiet gesture laden with deep emotions. Very few words are actually exchanged between parents and children here as everyone is too choked up to speak. It’s my favorite part of the ceremony because affection is not freely abundant in many Vietnamese families; yet every one of these ceremonies that I’ve attended has convinced me that there is no greater, albeit unspoken, love than that of Vietnamese parents for their children.  You just have to watch the look in their eyes as they linger on each drop of tea slowly, nostalgically, longing for the years that had gone by much too fast to know what I’m talking about.  Luckily tears quickly turn to laughter because around this time, gifts of fine jewelry are also showered on the bride from both sides of the family. OK, maybe this is really my favorite part of the ceremony! In this picture you can see what the bride’s dress looks like from the back:

 

The ceremony then officially ends with an invitation to lunch. What did you think that roast pig was for?  I opt for finger food instead:

 

Before I know it, I’m drafted to help out with the church decorations.  This Catholic church was purchased entirely with private donations by the VN congregation. It was once a Baptist church that had gone into foreclosure or something to that effect. This economy spares no one, not even the higher powers. Anyway, as it turns out, the church is very strict and I’m not allowed to do anything anywhere near the altar so we can only wrap some tulle around the pews and hang the wreaths on the outermost doors. The peonies are relegated to the pews as well. You can see a bit of my dress here:

 

The church is far out of the way so I stay in the same dress for the afternoon wedding mass (no photography allowed during the ceremony either!) then rush back to the hotel to change into my formal wear for the reception.  My gown of choice for this affair is a Chanel dress from the 07P collection: 

 

I’m starving at this point and that’s why there’s that shot of me at the beginning of this blog with a bag of fries.  Coco, Manolo, and McDo…would that be a fashion faux pas per my definition of dressing inappropriately for the location?

It’s dark by the time we arrive at the reception venue but we are right on time to catch the bride and groom’s arrival:

 

The ballroom looks beautiful basking in blue lights…

 

and after the fifth champagne toast, everything seems like heaven. Coco, Manolo and I dance all night. I hope they had as much fun as I did.

Congratulations on your beautiful wedding day Anne Marie!

Tags: ao dai, Chanel, Coco, Manolo Blahnik, McDo, vietnamese wedding

Tags: Add new tag, Europe, Miami, packing

 

Today’s blog was supposed to be about packing for my upcoming trip (during which I’ll get to blog on location in real time!), but I got bored by my own words before they even made it to print. Maybe I’m just too wired to focus.  So as an escape from all the stress that builds before any trip I take, I think I’ll just share some pictures from the last time I visited Ha Long Bay in northern Vietnam. Thinking about its jade colored water and fantasy-like limestone monolithic islands has a way of calming me down. Actually, it would take a few blogs to share all of the pictures I have of this incredible place, but in the spirit of preparing for my trip across the Atlantic, I’ll just show photos I took from the overnight junket as we proceeded to enter the Bay.

I’d booked this “cruise” from my hotel (though I found out later that I could have done it less expensively had I walked around the corner to a local tour company) after breakfast and the next day was picked up in Hanoi for the ride to the dock:

 

Luckily the tour was not full so I almost felt like I was on my own private yacht…

 

I got to roam around the “top deck,”

 

lounge around for a bit,

 

and choose a room of my liking…

 

OK, so it wasn’t the Four Seasons, but for me, so long as there’s a private bath and things are clean, I can cope.  Truth is, when you are in nature’s paradise, what is there to complain about?

 

We passed by a few floating communities and I was humbled by how simply people lived.

 

A family on a tiny boat…houses cramped with multigenerational families.  I’ll have to tell you about a family I did get to meet after I kayaked from the boat to their floating home–but that’s for another blog. Look closely at this next picture. Yes, there are two pairs of legs you see there:

 

Ha Long Bay or Descending Dragon Bay took on full meaning when we sailed by this island:

 

Everyone on the boat stopped talking the minute it came into the view. Our captain slowed down the boat and we all stood in silence as the sun shimmied itself to rest over the limestone formations.  Just as the sun closed its eyes, I heard the waves hit against the sides of our boat, in a sweet rocking motion.  If this had been the last thing I could see with my own two eyes,  I would have been very lucky indeed:

 

Tags: Ha Long Bay, junket, Vietnam

 

Last summer while I was hatching my idea to create this blog, something else was coming to life literally outside my door: a bird’s nest was building  inside the wreath hanging on the front door.  No one else was more excited about tracking the nest’s progress than I was, with the exception of the mailman who found every excuse to walk up the two steep flights of stairs to personally hand me the mail the entire time the nest was occupied.

I kept a photo and video diary of it thinking perhaps I could blog about the event in real time. Unfortunately the blog took longer to launch and by then my visitors had come and gone.  Some five months later, I’m finally blogging about it. But better late than never as I always say. 

6/30/08  The nest has been slowly building for over 3 weeks now. There are twigs cleverly secured inside the wreath.  It’s expertly constructed with insulation no less–I’ve seen what looks like fuzz from the dryer machine woven  into the twigs. But today two eggs show up inside the nest! I’m excited and terrified at the same time. I’m wondering if I should stop using the front door.

7/1/08:  It’s not possible to stop using the front door.  I’ve been peeking inside the nest every day and today the third egg makes its appearance.  I google to see if I can find out what the average number of eggs is inside a nest.

 

7/3/08:  This makes 4 eggs in 4 days! I don’t see how another egg could comfortably fit inside this nest.

 

7/9/08:  Almost a week has gone by and it looks like there will only be 4 babies. The nest is getting taller and fuller.

 

7/15/08: I come home from a trip and see that I’d missed out on some action.  A lot of action in fact–all but one egg have hatched!  Now I’m really nervous. They were safe inside their shells, but now that they are hatched life is more precarious than ever.  There are racoons, coyotes, and all kinds of big birds in these hills. Let’s hope my nest is well hidden enough inside the wreath.

 

7/16/08:  The slacker has hatched!  I wonder where the eggshells went.  Does the mommy bird destroy the evidence to hide the location of her babies?  I know I’m not supposed to hover over the nest so I look at them from a distance with binoculars to make sure all four heads are moving. They look like slugs with transparent skin. I can see the veins in their heads. Nature is both fascinating and gross. I don’t really enjoy seeing nature in hi-def after all. I’ll just post a soft focus pic to give them some privacy–I’m sure you wouldn’t want naked baby pictures of yourself all over the Internet either.

What the heck, let’s just show the movie, too!

7/19-21/08:  They look a little bit more alive, but there’s still very little movement. Every day I tell myself to expect the worst before I open the door, and then I’m relieved when I see all four still safely snuggling inside the nest.

 

They don’t move so much as they jiggle, like a bowl of bird jello:

7/23/08: The wings and feathers take shape.  Bird poop and snails also show up on my door.  Ugh. But the birds look more alert. Their eyes are black and sharp.

 

7/25/08: They are learning to move around because they are now facing in a different direction.

 

7/26-28/08:  They are developing strong lungs. Every hour or so there would be a chorus of chirping. When I open the door the mother bird darts out of the nest and the babies pipe down. I know I shouldn’t interrupt their feeding routine but I just want a picture with their beaks wide open!

 

Here’s what it sounds like from behind the door:

 

I finally get the shot I was waiting for:

7/29/08:  They are starting to look fully grown to me and I know my days with them are numbered.  I take tons of pictures as if they were the last.  There are lots of small insects on the door now. It’s not pretty.

 

 

7/30/08:  My heart is in my throat; there are only two birds left in the nest!  Do all parents experience this silent panic attack every time their children walk out the door?

 

7/31/08:  I’m lucky to catch this little guy in action. He’s propped himself up against the door and I know it’s just a matter of minutes before he spreads his wings for the first time. What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on that wall to watch him go.

 

8/1/08:  And then there was one. I bet this one was the last to hatch! I can’t tell if he’s just a big chicken, a slacker, or maybe the smartest one out of the lot. He looks like he’s enjoying having the entire nest to himself and in no hurry to fly. I check in on my last baby a bunch of times that day and he doesn’t seem to move at all.

 

8/2/08: Empty nest syndrome hits me like a ton of bricks.  And then there were none. I’m relieved the mess can now be cleaned off my door, but I’m experiencing major separation anxieties. I hear birds chatting up in the large trees over my house and I wonder if my babies are up there enjoying their freedom.  I’d like to preserve the nest because the mother or father bird had taken so much time and care in building it, but it’s full of insects and snails.

 

My front door is now clean and there’s no trace of birth or departure left.  I won’t be replacing the wreath with another. I hope the next expectant mother will find another safe haven to lay her eggs.

Tags: birds, eggs, nest