Camping

Dano's

Life in Ithaca is so familiar! It is weird to have been away for seven years, lived in three different continents, and to find the same restaurants with the same menus as when we left. We've been to Aroma's which has not painted their interior or changed their pizzas (hmmm, black bean pizza!), to Just a Taste which still has the best cod fritters and the same staff, and Dano's, which was wonderful as always!

Only one more day together, and then we will be living apart for a whole academic year... :(

Xcalak

We spent the next days on the Costa Maya in Mahahual and Xcalak. The sea was too rough for scuba diving, and maybe this was a good thing because my head hurt for 3 days after our previous dives. Instead, we took a snorkeling tour from Xcalak. It was beautiful!



Xcalak is so laid back that we waited 45 minutes for these fish tacos and panuchos to be made by the lady running the "restaurant".

And finally, here is the mangrove that forms the border with Belize. It is supposed to have manatees, but all we saw were some egrets. Still, we did not have any regrets (pun courtesy of F).

Mexico: Isla Mujeres

We're back from our two week holiday in Mexico! We spend most of our first week decompressing on Isla Mujeres, an island across the bay from Cancun. We sampled Mexican food,

... (this barbecued fish ("tikin-xit") was so good we had it twice)...

... walked and biked around on the island, and even went scuba diving! We enjoyed the sunsets...

... and the pelicans...

... and sampled some of the margaritas.

Decompression accomplished!

On the Way Back from Florida

After swimming with manatees, kayaking with alligators, snorkeling with sting rays and jelly fish, and camping with mosquitos, we are back in a motel with internet access on the way back home.



Here is Anke and a whole gaggle of other tourists trying to pet a manatee (and succeeding in doing so):



One of the hundreds of birds we saw (I think this is an ibis):



And here is Anke kayaking:



Yesterday, we had a food day. We started with an amazing huevos rancheros at Rosita's in Florida City:



Followed by a famous rock shrimp restaurant, called Dixie Crossroads. They served corn fritters, which was a great (early) substitute for the obligatory oliebollen (Happy New Year!):



And these amazing rock shrimp:



We then drove on to a town that is even crazier than Williamsburg, St. Augustine (still in Florida). Anke found another great restaurant though, Catch 27. We had a wonderful fish stew:



And an even better main course of shrimp and grits:



We also had blackened flounder which was good, but paled in comparison with the shrimp.

We then enjoyed a little bit of the local craziness:





Happy New Year!

Some Final Pics from Our Holland Visit

We are home after all our summer travels! So I guess it's time to finally post some (not so recent) pictures from our visit to Holland. Pictured above: a palpable hue of anticipation of the birthday of Poppa...



... and here the Mohn cake Ellen made for him (and us)! You can find more pictures of the birthday on Ellen's blog.

Then, for old times' sake (and great food), we went to Snackbar Bird in Amsterdam:





Still as good as we remember!

Also, Vennington in the Prinsenstraat:



Still famous for their BLT sandwiches and fruit shakes, and rightly so.

Soon: a few photos from the Zillertal. For a more extensive report look at Ellen and Christiaan's Bergvakanties blog. The first four posts are up, and can be found here, here, here and here.

Richmond Foodz

Richmond is supposed to have good foodz. We did not find it yet.



Still we enjoyed this restaurant's home cooking.

Dinner

Tuncay knows the awesomest restaurants in DC. We knew the Ethiopian restaurant from a previous visit, and this time he took us to a Thai restaurant.



It was like being in Thailand, maybe even better. These first two pictures are the appetizers: chicken salad and cucumber soup.

Then another four dishes were served:



Beef salad.



Fish.



And pumpkin curry. I am missing a picture of the slow cooked pork. Each dish was simply awesome.



As a "filler" there was some Pad Thai, and for dessert sticky rice with mango.

Highly recommended: Thai X-ing in Washington DC.

One Day in Frankfurt

We are back from Tyrol --- plenty of photos will follow soon. We made a stop in Frankfurt on our way back, to apply for a US visa, and to have some big city food, which we sometimes crave. We went to two Chinese restaurants, and one very special Frankfurt one (we will post about that one later).

Shui Zhu Yu (boiled fish served in chili oil) is one of those Chinese dishes that you don't expect to get a good version of, anywhere but in China. But lo and behold, in this small restaurant in Frankfurt, we found it! Real authentic flavors, and good, very fresh boiled fish --- an absolute delight!



We also had some fried tofu, and some cabbage, which were quite good too.



Highly recommended: Restaurant Jade on Moselstraße, close to Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

Korean Food

Another thing we were looking very much forward to in Beijing: our local Korean restaurant.



It did not disappoint at all!

These are just a few of the many, many, many dishes we had for lunch.

Time for Guo Lin

The first thing we used to do, when we got back to Beijing, was have lunch or dinner at Guo Lin. Old habits are hard to break.



We had some of our favorites: fish head...



... Beijing duck...



... and some duck liver.



We had missed you, Guo Lin!

Turkish Stewed Fish

To make the transition between continents as easy as possible for A, I made some fish with Turkish spices: cinnamon, raisins in tomato sauce.

YAC

YAC, or Yet Another Continent. I arrived in Lima, Peru a few hours ago, and the only thing I have done so far, is eating this ceviche. It was totally awesome, and came with corn on the cob that had the biggest kernels I have ever seen. Still, I only managed to finish half of it. Booo for jet lag.

My first impressions of Peru are that it seems very poor -- much more so than even Vietnam, although the bad weather could somehow be adding to the impression. The neighborhood my guesthouse is in is a bit richer, and not very exciting.



Still, it is very exciting to be here, mainly because the smells are so different! I can't really describe it, maybe it smells like fire sometimes, and it often smells very strongly of laundry soap (see picture).

I am staying on European time today, because tomorrow I get to wake up at 2:30 for my flight to Arequipa. So that's all for today -- it's time for bed now!