Birthday Backpacking Euro Vacation (Part 1: Belgium)

A classy bike in Brugges

For my thirty-third (??!!??) birthday, I decided to pretend that I was once again a college-aged vagabond and take a little backpacking voyage through a corner of the continent. With a few minor upgrades of course.

From Oslo it's a quick hour+ flight to Brussels, which puts you in the middle of Europe. From there it's pretty much a two-hour train ride to anywhere. With that in mind, I decided to use Brussels as my hub and tap into my network of friends to fill up my nine days of European vacation. I left Oslo with a sketched-out itinerary, but no set plans for my days, trusting that things would work themselves out. They did just that.

Brugges vs. Ghent

It's probably unfair to pit these two medieval Belgium towns against one another, but in consulting with friends, I was often told that while Brugges is nice, Ghent is cool. So I decided to do some day touring in Brugges and head to Ghent for a couple of nights. Correct decision. 

When in Brugges, don't think, eat the fries. 

In Brugges I wandered around, in awe at the beautiful architecture and the mass amounts of tourists, even in October. I didn't go into a single museum, but rather used food and drink as my guide. I started off with a hot cone of fries at Chez Vincent that I enjoyed while eavesdropping on some sort free tour for backpackers. I admit that I had a certain smug satisfaction in knowing that I no longer had to travel through Europe on a $15 a day budget and share dorm rooms with smelly strangers. 

Gourmet Food Festival

After a little bit more wandering, I decided to head back to the train station a little early, but on the way there got distracted by a major gourmet food festival at a park. This was a local event that featured professional chefs sampling their best dishes for a few euro a taste. Yes, Please. I got a handful of tokens for about 20 euro which provided me with four dishes and two beers. I had an Indian style burger, a waffle with fresh seafood, and a crem brule dessert. I chatted with locals who had traveled from neighboring towns for the events and listened to some live music. I had been ready to write off Brugges as a quaint old town ruined by tourism, but this stop saved it. 

Noodles in Ghent (plus beer, of course)

From Brugges it was on to Ghent, where I would spend the next two nights. My friend and travel buddy wouldn't be joining me until the next morning, so I decided to brave the rainy night for a hot bowl of noodles from a noodle shop I had passed earlier. Not since Seattle had I had a good bowl of ramen with homemade noodles, so this really hit the spot. 

When my friend arrived, trooper that she is, we headed straight out onto the town to find some champagne. We had read that on Sunday mornings there is a stand that serves champagne and oysters at the market, so we joined the navy blazer wearing locals and had ourselves a little morning bubbly. From there it was on to enjoy a day of shopping with a stop at a local brewery for lunch. On our way back to our AirB&B (an excellent way to stay) we ran across another street purveyor of champagne. Seriouly, two street carts selling champagne in one day, what an amazing place! We of course decided that having a little more bubbly was a good idea and got to chatting with the owners of the retro little cart. They were so excited to have visitors to Ghent, that they wrote down all kinds of fabulous places to go out that night. 

So after a nap and cleaning up, it was on for an evening in Ghent. By time I was totally convinced that Ghent was far superior to Bruges, but an unexpectedly eventful Sunday night sealed the deal. We had good food and good drinks, all at bargain prices compared to Oslo. We ended the evening at a little hole in the wall jazz club where we were treating to excellent music, and of course some of the best belgian beer I'd had yet. 

A fuzzy night at Hot Club de Gand

Ghent beautifully lit at night

 The next day before heading on the Brussels we put on our running shoes and took a jog around town, ending at the Ghent Castle. It is a small little fortress right in the middle of town, but does have a great little museum on the many ways you can torture someone. 

Torture Museum at the castle

Then, on to Brussels. Neither of us had any specific things to see in Brussels, so I don't have much to highlight other than saying there was food and drink. Brussels is very much a modern city, with some history, so we didn't worry about doing the touristy thing. We rested up for our last night as a traveling duo before my friend headed back to Oslo. 

Mussels, fries, and beer in Brussels

Our final night in Belgium was also my birthday, the whole point of this trip. Sadly, there are no pictures suitable for posting, but needless to say it was an excellent night. I had the good fortune of having a couple of Norwegian friends from Oslo in town for a meeting, so they joined us for a night of rockabilly swing dancing at some country bar somewhere in Brussels. Who knew?

The next morning we packed up, me to continue on to Germany and Luxembourg and my friend back home. Stayed tuned for part two.

Random Socializing in Edinburgh

The plan for Memorial Day weekend came about a little haphazardly. After buying tickets to Istanbul in early April, I decided that I should make an effort to get out of Norway a little more this year and did a little searching for some cheap intra-Europe flights. I found some under $100 roundtrip tickets to Edinburgh, hit purchase and promptly filed the trip into the "plan later" category. Fast forward into mid-May and I finally got around to booking a hotel and thinking about what I might do in Scotland. I didn't manage to recruit a travel companion, but three days of low-key hanging out sounded nice.

The Friday before Memorial Day I hopped onto my first Ryan Air flight from Oslo Rygge (a much smaller airport south of the city) to Edinburgh. The experience was about what I expected of Ryan Air - cheap, no frills, and not exactly comfortable. But it did the trick and without incident I arrived in Scotland, caught a bus to my hotel, and settled in for a quiet night in. While checking the good old facebook, I noticed that one of my A-100 (Foreign Service cohort) friends was also in Edinburgh to run the half-marathon that was also taking place. After some message exchanges we found a time to meet up, and voila, people to hang out with!

We had a lovely (and oh so cheap in comparison to Norway) lunch and then joined a free walking tour. Catching up and seeing sights was great, and while I love traveling alone, it was really nice to be able to engage in a running commentary on the tour guide with som like-minded Americans. I was even invited in to a home-cooked meal with my friend's friend (a genuine Scot).

The next day I did some exploring of the castle and downtown while my friend and her colleagues did a cold, wet half-marathon out to the coast. I decided to do my own run through town, running up and down Arthur's Seat, racking up some kms along with some sore hamstrings. Later in the evening we all joined up for a very fancy set-course all-local meal before heading out for an evening of whiskey tasting and experiencing the Edinburgh nightlife.

Monday I returned to Oslo, grateful for a wonderful weekend away and for random encounters with colleagues from around the world.

Edinburgh Castle

The top of Arthur's Seat, the mountain on the edge of Edinburgh. I didn't end up with much of a view from the top at first, but a few minutes later the clouds parted and I got a great view of the city. 

A visit to the Scotland National Museum was rewarded with a close-up encounter with the remains of Dolly the cloned sheep. 

My last day in Edinburgh: The clouds and rain finally ceased and a rainbow emerged over Arthur's Seat. The white building with the spikes coming out of it is Scotland's Parliament building.

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Alaska!

Last week I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel to one of the most remote parts of the United States, the great frontier of Alaska.  I spent a couple of days in the near-Arctic coastal town of Nome and then another two days in the bustling city of Anchorage for work, getting a small taste of this far-away mega state in the process (see map below).

Welcome to Nome

One of the reasons for my trip up to Alaska was to attend an event that the National Park Service was hosting - a cultural celebration of Beringia, which is the region around the Bering Strait that includes both the United States and Russia. While you cannot, in fact, see Russia from the shores of Alaska, I did learn about the close historical and cultural ties between the people on both sides of the icy, rough waters that separate us from our Russian neighbors. I also got to experience a town most people have only heard about in reference to the early 20th century gold rush or the Iditarod dog sled races. Things I also learned about Nome while I was there include:

• Nome was once the most populous town in Alaska, with estimates ranging up to 20,000 at the height of the gold rush.
• Wyatt Earp once owned the most successful saloon/casino in Nome, earning a good living during his post-Tombstone retirement years.
• Total gold production for the Nome district has been at least 3.6 million ounces

Besides the standard meeting, greeting, and discussing of the issues that I was sent to Alaska to discuss, I also was able to learn about the Inupiat communities in Alaska and Russia, and to see first hand the similarities between them, through their dances, language, and food cultures. 

Unfortunately my busy days of meetings and some misty, rainy weather didn't allow for much time outside of the "mini-conference center" (that is honestly what it was called).  On our last afternoon we did go out looking for musk ox, which had been reported to be close to Nome.  Apparently Nome is one of the few places in Alaska where you can find musk oxen close to a village. But, as would be the pattern for all of our attempts at seeing the wild, we were not successful in our hunt for musk ox. However, seeing the fall colors on the tundra is amazing, and the last blueberries and crowberries were ripe and plenty.

Tundra berries!

Fall on the tundra

After our three days in Nome, I moved on to Anchorage for two days of solid meetings. I stayed at the historic Captain Cook Hotel, which seemed like the kind of establishment from which many an adventure had begun.  Once again, we were told to look out for local wildlife, this time moose, but once again a thorough search came up empty.  All failed animal sightings aside, the trip was amazingly productive, busy, and enjoyable.  Alaska is truly a unique, vast, diverse, and wild place that is a special part of the United States.  But next time I'm going to have to hire someone to find me a bear, moose, or musk ox.

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New York

Prior to this past weekend I had only been to New York city one time, nearly two years ago for Thanksgiving. Being that it was my first trip to NYC, the trip leaned heavily on the main attractions. Our first goal was to catch part of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, so my traveling companion and I left DC very early in the morning and found ourselves dropped off in the middle of Manhatten craziness, blocks from the parade route. We spent the three days immersing ourselves in the most authentic of NYC tourist experiences: Santa at Macy's, the Staten Island Ferry, Wall Street, Times Square, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, pizza and deli sandwiches. It was a great weekend and a wonderful way to first experience New York.

This past weekend was a much different, but no less amazing, NYC experience. I didn't do any of the things that I did on my first trip to New York, yet my experience was no more or no less authentic. The city is like that, all of the big tourist spots are important to the fabric of the city, but there is so much more, so no matter what you end up doing, you are experiencing the place. This time I had the benefit of a Brooklyn native friend as a tour guide and a brownstone in Park Slope as a resting place (complete with home-cooked meals and shopping tips). One thing that is new to both tourists and locals alike is The Highline, an amazing urban park and example of excellent urban planning. Suspended above the city streets on an old rail line, you can stroll for miles along the lower West side, eating popsicles and people watching.

At the end of the Highline we landed at Chelsea market, where we sampled a lovely WA state oyster to fuel our afternoon stroll through lower Manhattan. From there we wandered through the Union Square farmers market, sampling various homemade ice-teas and other local products. Our ultimate destination was Pomme Frites, a Belgian fry mecca with dozens of delicious dipping sauces, but on the way we took a detour through a fair-midway-like street event where I was introduced to the glory that is a "mozzarepa." Combine a sweet Mexican-corn arepa with Italian mozzarella and you have a mozzarepa - amazing. So after splitting the cheesy corn-cake snack and an order of Belgian fries over the course of about 5-6 miles, we were pretty well done with Manhattan. An evening spent drinking beer in Brooklyn and a Sunday adventure in thrift store shopping capped off a perfect NY weekend.

Everything goes in New York

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The Last 17 months in 5 paragraphs or less

The last 17 months have truly been the most amazing of my life, so I really can't figure out why I haven't taken the time to write about them. Granted, writing a blog, with an audience of potentially zero, doesn't provide much external motivation, but I still love to write. And what is 20 more minutes of typing at the end of day full of typing? So what have I been up to since January/February of 2010? Well, a lot of traveling, learning, and generally just having a blast.

In March of 2010 I began what would be an extended assignment at the State Department in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science. I became well versed in international agreements related to air pollution, chemicals, and hazardous waste. In particular I geeked out (I mean worked) on the Montreal Protocol - the universally ratified agreement that is doing a pretty good job of getting rid of that scary hole in the ozone layer. From March to November I practiced being an enviro diplomat, traveling to Stockholm, Geneva, Moscow, and Bangkok. I loved every minute of it, but all good things come to an end, and so in December I returned to my home base of the Department of the Interior.

Back at Interior, I was offered the opportunity to take over coordination of our Arctic portfolio, which sounded like a great use of my latent Norwegian skills, and so I jumped at it. Since then I have been becoming the one stop shop for all things in the U.S. Arctic, which got me a trip to Copenhagen this past spring and has allowed me to flex my policy muscles in a very fun way. While it would be better if I could somehow stop the Arctic from melting, I've enjoyed being in the middle of conversations on how we can do better as a U.S. government in our role in the Arctic.

On the non-work side of things, I've gotten out in the world a bit as well. In March I fulfilled a long-held wish to visit Spain and in May I had a fabulous time watching a friend get married in Costa Rica. I've almost burned through my frequent flyer miles, but am starting to hatch some plans on what my next steps might be to get me up in the air and out in the world. Here in DC I've been spending lots of time exploring the city on my vespa, being outside, and tasting new beers. Oh, and I recently got a cat.

My two-year plus period as a Presidential Management Fellow comes to an end this fall and I will be moving into a more permanent status as a regular federal employee. That is, unless something changes. While I love working in DC on issues that I care about, my wanderlust led me to take the foreign service exam last month. I passed the written part and am now waiting to hear if I will be invited to take the oral exam this fall or winter. In any case, it has been an exciting year+, with plenty of things to look forward to down the road. Stay tuned.