The Baptism

During our first full weekend in the States we headed to New Jersey to see Paul’s family and attend the baptism of our nephew.  Though I missed the Brazilian dinner Paul’s brother and fiancé made on Friday night, I heard great things about it.  We’ll have to have a cook-off one of these days!  Saturday brought more time with family and more great food.  “Pah, pah, pah, Paul” – It didn’t work.  The baby is still too young to pronounce the letter P, much less say Paul.  Maybe next time.

The reception for the baptism was before nighttime the Mass and once all of the guests were there, Paul’s sister told us she wasn’t 100% sure the Mass was going to be in English! Ha ha.  It was…and it wasn’t.  Half of the songs and half of the readings were in English.  The gospel and homily were done in both English and Spanish.  And the baptism was only in Spanish.  I was translating for Paul’s cousin which is pretty difficult given that I haven’t spoken Spanish in a year.  The church was packed and the mass was…long (3 hours).  After the part and the after-party, we went back to the hotel to hang out with Paul’s siblings.  As I write about this all now I don’t know how we had the energy to do it all, but when you only have limited time back home with everyone you just subtract and hour of sleep and add a cup of coffee, and somehow it all works out.

Home Sweet Home - Part One

Paul gets to go on lots of trainings and attend conferences for work, but this time, I got to go on training too!  Paul was studying the nitty gritty of managing contracts and I was studying the basics of U.S. assistance to other countries.  Our trainings were conveniently both in Washington, D.C. (so we got to spend some time in one of our favorite cities, eat at our favorite restaurants, and see our friends!) and conveniently timed around our nephew’s baptism and my Grandfather’s major award!  Although we promised ourselves after Christmas that we wouldn’t do it again, we crammed 4 states, 7 flights, a train, and 2 buses into 2½ weeks – and it was totally worth it!  We were pretty useless at work the first day back so this weekend is the recovery consisting of sleep, water and vegetables.

So the trip starts out with us, as always, super excited to be back in the States.  Because we were on official training, work told us a dollar amount that we can spend on the hotel and we find our own hotel.  And if you know me, you’d know that I will get the best deal – so we stayed in some of the most famous 5 Star hotels in the city!  Fabulous!  We got to see a lot of our friends which was really really great (and the main reason we were excited to get back to D.C.).

Just like every time before, I loved D.C.!  The food, the architecture, the smiling people!  What better way to start off your day than a man saying “Good Morning!  Have a great day!” and handing you a free newspaper as you enter the metro?  The training was really interesting and we got in as much time with friends as possible while being introduced to three new great restaurants:  Founding Farmers, Grill Fish and Hill Country.  The first is all local food with amazing cocktails (like the specialty cocktail at our wedding.  The second was delicious fish – also ecofriendly!  The third wouldn’t make my list of favorites, but Paul liked it so much he ate there twice in two weeks.  We also checked out a few houses but they were just slightly over (4xs) our budget.

The highlight of Part One for me was my short trip to Miami!  I’ve heard many people compare Miami to Tel Aviv – nothing alike.  Okay, very much alike, but to compare them is to compare McDonald’s to Ray’s Hell Burger…or Wal-Mart to Nordstrom’s.  The best part about it?  Alexandria!!!  If you haven’t seen us together, we are quite a pair.  Not only do we ALWAYS get asked if we are sisters, but there is always an interesting or funny story about the people we meet or the things we do.  She is great, her friends are great, the food was great, the weather was great! My only complaint is that I never have enough time!