Reflections from two weeks in France

After two weeks in France, I realized a few interesting things:

1. Northern France is pretty.

2. There is a noticeable difference in how people treat you when you are a lone male.  American traveling versus traveling with three cute girls.  I've seen some French stereotypes come true this week.  I caught a dirty look when I asked for my steak medium-well (which is basically raw), and couldn't get into an empty restaurant because it was too "busy" :).  It also might be because I was traveling with a Brit and German though.  Either way, interesting.

3. Spending almost two weeks in a dog food factory made me realize that (a) I miss Lolly, and (b) I'm glad I work with cereal.

4. Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream is awesome (as is the factory)!

5. There are no bread plates in France.  It is customary to put your bread directly on the table.

6. Lastly, there were a couple notable similarities to Italy:

      a. Your change is always put on the counter (not in your hand).

      b. There is a lot of graffiti.  Someone even graffitied my picture:

Portugal Impressions

1. The Portuguese people are great.  They were overall very welcoming and open.  They were enamored with Jeryn's blonde hair.  No less than 10 people came up to her to touch her head over the few days of our visit.

2. Almost every vertical surface in Lisbon is graffitied.  It's likely a result from the 30-50% unemployment rate for people under 25 for the last several years:

Portugal Youth Unemployment Rate:

3. Meals are much much later than America, and the UK.  Dinner usually begins around 10pm.  We were usually the only people in the restaurant at 8pm (accept for some other Canadian Expats).  In fact, most places don't even open for dinner until 7:30pm.  We took this photo out our apartment window at 10:18pm.  People were just starting to gather for dinner.  Notice the people with the baby buggy:

4. The weather and landscape is awesome.  It looks and feels like California or Italy, but significantly cheaper than both.  The trams, suspension bridge, and hills of Lisbon reminded us of San Francisco:

5. Portuguese pastries are incredible.  They are called "Pastéis de Nata", and they are something straight from heaven.  No surprise that the main ingredient is egg yokes:

6. Lisbon is also home to the oldest operating bookshop in the world (established in 1732).  It was great for a look around, but since we don't speak Portuguese we ended up with a local copy of Where's Waldo (Onde Esta O Wally?)

Other area highlights...

Sintra is a 40 minute train ride away (or 3 hours if there is a train strike over the Easter weekend).  There are some amazing sites including two palaces and a castle:

Cascais is similarly about 50 minutes by train from Lisbon (again, subject to Portuguese train strikes).  It is an equally beautiful area with some small and unique beaches cut into the city:

TBT: Circa 2010

Looks pretty good in a bump cap, don't you think?

Clearly not compliant with the hairnet policy though...

Pam Baier: 1951 - 2015

We tragically said goodbye to our mom Pam last week.  She passed away unexpectedly on March 10th from complications brought on by chronic illnesses.  It appears that she passed peacefully in her sleep. 

Thank you to all of our friends and family for the incredible outpouring of support over the last week.  It has come from all areas, and has helped ease the pain from our loss.

Pam will always be remembered for being a wonderful mother to two beautiful and amazing girls, her creative practicality, and demonstrating incredible strength.  She will be forever missed and always remembered.

Janessa and Christina both spoke beautifully at the service.  They both displayed the strength and wonder that would have made their mom proud.

Here is the obituary:  http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/69933/?fullname=pamela-baier.

First Post of 2015

Winter is dismal in the UK, I suppose as it is in most anywhere you might be reading our blog from.  It usually rains 20+ days during the month, and it is rare to see the sun.  That's probably why our blog posts really tail off after Christmas until the sun starts to show up again.

We have been keeping our simple family blog since 2006.  On average, we have the fewest posts in February.  It looks like this year is no different than the average:

In more interesting news, we were able to explore Lanzarote this month with a cheap EasyJet flight.  What an amazing place.  It is a strange volcanic wasteland combined with some incredible beaches transformed into a full tropical paradise by a bunch of smart and creative entrepreneurs.

One of the most amazing sites is the Timanfaya National Park.  The park is basically miles of dried toxic lava that extends well beyond the line of sight.  There is no vegetation, only a couple roads, and little resemblance of life outside of tourists:


This picture from the bus gives a little context on the size of the volcano craters.  Notice the line of cars in the background that are waiting to get into the park:



The best part of an international assignment is amazing opportunities to experience other cultures and places in the world, that would otherwise be unreachable.

For now, it is back to reality of all the difficulties and challenges that daily life in a foreign world can bring:)

Oh, and by the way, in case you are wondering where Lanzarote is, here's a quick geography tip thanks to Google.  It is 11 times closer to the coast of Africa than it is to Spain, even though it continues to be governed as a Spanish Island:

2014 in Review

Thanks to all of our special friends and family who helped make 2014 an incredible year.  Here's a short video to summarize the year.

2014 In Review from Josh Anderson on Vimeo.

And the links to the previous four years: 

2013 in Review

2012 in Review

2011 in Review

2010 in Review

All the best to you and your family this holiday season!  Have a Happy New Year!

Christmas in Chester 2014

We were lucky enough to spend Christmas with Grandma Pam again this year. We always have so much fun together! Highlights include: Last day of school before break, Christmas baking, 'Frozen' tie blanket making, Lantern Magic at Chester Zoo, Snow White Pantomime, hot dogs at Costco, and Christmas with the Liverpool Philharmonic. It was a quick 9 days and I think we wore Grandma out to exhaustion,  but many lasting memories were made. Here are a few moments captured on camera:

The Berkowitz's Visit

We were so excited to finally host the Berkowitz family here in Chester. They have been a bit busy since we moved over: New baby, MBA, and two new careers! Now that all of that excitement has settled, it was the perfect time for them to visit. We enjoyed fish-n-chips (a few times), Christmas markets in Chester and London, Thanksgiving celebration, and a 7th birthday party. It was so much fun! We were so sad to see them go, but their sweet dog Mini was excited to have them back. Thanks for making the trek over. We love and miss you so much!!

A few more Italy highlights

The Cinque Terra is one of the most beautiful places we've visited yet. I just hope that someday we get to return.

We have had an amazing year of life changing travel - all at a fraction of the cost it would have been if we never made the move.

Living as an expat is not easy.  It's not all glory and wonderfully beautiful pictures.  We haven't posted all the challenges, difficulties, and frustrations which equal the number of incredible experiences.  Some of the simple daily activities require so much extra work.  For example, it is hard to transfer money internationally between banks, mailing a package cost 4x, getting your drivers license takes two tries if you are male, and learning the workplace legal requirements requires reprogramming on all levels.

Although, it is probably not different than living anywhere in many regards: life is what you make of it.  It depends on your outlook, your lens, the perspective of which you appreciate the gifts you have been given.

We didn't plan to move to England, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity.  Our eyes have been opened to appreciate experiences and differences that we didn't know before.  We are continually thankful for the learning opportunity, but miss our family incredibly.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Italian Oddities

This week's visit to Italy helped us reflect on some of the cultural differences between living in the US and abroad.

We found many interesting things in Italy:

1. When you receive change back after paying, it is always placed on the counter (not in your hand).

2. Italians smoke a lot.  We got pummeled with second hand smoke:

3. In Rome it appears that you can park just about anywhere...check out a few of the worst parking offenders that we saw:

4. In addition, Italian drivers are crazy.  There is not much use of signals or traffic laws, but extensive use of the horn.  Despite that, there are more fatalities/100,000 cars in the US than in Italy:

Here are a few other interesting comparisons that may be surprising from a few countries that we have visited:

Beer is expensive in Norway!

Gas is way cheap in the US:

Actually, everything is expensive in Norway: