Grace on Pace

Author - Jeff Grace

Washington DC Blizzard 2016

Washington DC Blizzard 2016

After watching a day and half of the Washington DC Blizzard 2016 demolition derby from our window, we emerged this morning from the shelter of our apartment to check out the full wrath of #DavidSnowie.  While the jury’s still out on the name, this truly could be the Blizzard of the Century.  More than 60 million people were under blizzard conditions with incredibly snowfall totals as follows:

  • Washington, D.C.: 17.8 inches
  • Baltimore: 29.2​ inches
  • Philadelphia: 22.4 inches
  • New York City: 26.8​ inches

Although public transportation was completely shut down during Washington DC Blizzard 2016’s storm and Dulles and Reagan National were closed all weekend, the storm still only ties for fourth all time.  Apparently in 1922, DC received 28″ of snow on January 27-29.  However, for three cities — Baltimore (29.2), Allentown (31.9) and Harrisburg, Pa. (34) — it was the biggest snowstorm ever recorded.

The sun is shining and the snow is over, but the cleanup has just begun.  Metro says it will operate extremely limited FREE rail and bus service Monday , so a sledding trip may be in order to Capital Hill for Esmei.

 

Our Travel Highlights of 2015

Our Travel Highlights of 2015

Our Travel Highlights of 2015 – Top 10

Well, it’s that time of the year again — when we can’t believe another year is in the books.  We have had so many amazing travel experiences this year, getting to fulfill lifelong dreams of seeing things on our bucket list.  In all seriousness, though, looking back at our travels like this also reminds me not to take any of these experiences for granted.  Having been afforded the chance to represent Americans abroad in the Foreign Service, I feel privileged to travel as much as I do.  I never want to forget any of that!  But okay…let’s get to it.  Here are some of our travel highlights of 2015, that we hope will inspire your future family travels!

No. 10 - Abu Simbel

No. 10 – Abu Simbel

No. 9 - Aruba

No. 9 – Aruba

No. 8 - Belgian Waffles

No. 8 – Belgian Waffles

No. 7 - Kempinski Hotel Cathedral Square in Vilnius Lithuania

No. 7 – Kempinski Hotel Cathedral Square in Vilnius Lithuania

No. 6 - The Northern Lights with a Sleeping Baby

No. 6 – The Northern Lights with a Sleeping Baby

Our Travel Highlights of 2015

No. 5 – Amsterdam Gay Pride Canal Parade

Our Travel Highlights of 2015

No. 4 – National Cherry Blossom Festival

No. 3 - Watching the Eiffel Tower Light Show

No. 3 – Watching the Eiffel Tower Light Show

No. 2 - Camel Ride to the Pyramids

No. 2 – Camel Ride to the Pyramids

No. 1 - Getting To Do It All As A Family

No. 1 – Getting To Do It All As A Family

Our Travel Highlights of 2015 – Statistics

Traveled to Sixteen (16) New Countries

Travel Highlights of 2015
Spent One Hundred Thirty-five (135) Nights in a Hotel Room
Took Twenty-eight (28) Flights
Saw Twenty-eight (28) UNESCO World Heritage Sites
Visited Twenty-Two (22) World Wonders

The battle for the White House – which has already been raging in the media for months – will undoubtedly dominate 2016.  However, besides finding out my new boss, we have some big things in the works lining up in our personal and professional lives that we can’t wait to share along the way.   We wish you joy and peace throughout the new year and let us all cherish family and friends along the way…


Holiday Season in Berlin

Holiday Season in Berlin
Holiday Season in Berlin

Joining the Foreign Service permits a different kind of travel, by allowing you to become immersed in the local culture for up to three years.  We have traveled all over the world, but until this most recent adventure, never had the fortune to stay in a city more than a few days.  We have always tried to see as much as possible by “hitting” the highlights before jetting off to our next destination.  On my latest assignment, I got my first taste of “slow travel” with a six week temporary duty assignment to Berlin.  Fortunately for me, Jennilou and Esmei agreed to tag along for a holiday season in Berlin.

Setting up shop for our extended stay at the Hotel Otto, it was great to have such a fantastic home for exploring the city.  With Berlin playing host to over sixty Christmas markets annually, one of the highlights of our trip was getting to experience the shops at our leisure throughout the trip.  We also made evening and weekend trips to the Reichstag Building, Brandenburg Gate, Pergamon Museum, The Holocaust Memorial – Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin Cathedral, East Side Gallery, Zoologischer Garten, Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Charlottenburg Palace, Television Tower, Sony Center, and Hackescher Markt.  The metropolis is certainly charged with political history and reminders of a turbulent 20th-century are everywhere.  It seemed the more highlights we “hit”, the more we discovered existed.

For all the fond memories I have of Berlin, the tragedies which took place in Paris and San Bernardino during our posting will forever distinguish the stay.  Watching thousands of people march past our embassy to pay their respects across the street to the French at the mounting display of candles and flowers will be unforgettable.  I commit to memory the events that evoked an anxiety to bring the girls into crowed Christmas markets.  It’s sad to think about giving any space for fear and intolerance to terrorism and it gives all the more reason to stand together as humanity to uphold our way of life.

Exploring more slowly during our holiday season in Berlin allowed us to form a stronger connection to the place we were visiting.  With plenty of time, we didn’t feel the stress of attempting to knock out every site in our guidebook.  Instead, we stayed long enough to recognize commuting mates, shop in the local markets, and pick our favorite restaurants.  I have come to realize that few societies move as quickly as Americans do, and getting the chance to find myself slowing down a bit over time into the pace of the German culture, was a terrific feeling.

For recaps of the weekend getaways during my latest assignment, check out the following posts below:

Neuschwanstein Castle and Salzburg from Berlin

Neuschwanstein Castle and Salzburg from Berlin
Neuschwanstein Castle and Salzburg from Berlin

Although planned weeks before our arrival to Germany, on our final weekend together, we ventured south from Berlin into Bavaria to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle and Salzburg, Austria.  Nobody knows exactly how many castles and manor houses there are in Germany, but estimates put the number at close to 30,000.  However for us, the Neuschwanstein Castle and accompanying Hohenschwangau Castle were an effortless choice.  Used as the inspiration for Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle, the structures have become global symbols for the era of Romanticism.

Although the “fairytale king” commissioned the castle to be perched on the north side of the Alps range, we had a relaxed and enjoyable time with the stroller exploring Ludwig II’s seemingly endless grounds.  As we left, it was interesting to reflect on how the citizens of his time referred to Ludwig as the “Mad King” for overspending on his grand projects, only to have befallen to endearment for the beauty of his projects in Bavaria as the time has passed.

On our way back to Berlin, we decided to take a short detour to the west and visit Salzburg for the afternoon.  The peaceful, glowing Austrian City seemed to be endowed with an old-world charm made famous in The Sound of Music, when the children learned to sing at its landmark Mirabell Palace and Gardens.  Looming from above while we explored Old Town, we couldn’t resist making the hike to Salzburg Fortress (Festung Hohensalzburg) to overlook the city skyline and impeding Alps beyond.  After all this, you could expect we were utterly exhausted and the girls were happy to saw some Z’s on the final stretch back to Berlin.

Capture

Long Weekend in Northern Italy

Long Weekend in Northern Italy

Because my temporary duty assignment spanned the Thanksgiving Holiday, we were afforded the rare opportunity of a long weekend in Europe.  The possibilities seemed endless as we lay awake at night searching for deals and studying guidebooks.  In reality though, notwithstanding the $39 round trip fare from Berlin, we were going to rationalize a long weekend in northern Italy.  The trip began years before we tied the knot, when Jennilou and I shared our stories about a perfect marriage. Hers could be paraphrased like this:

“____ and I are moving to Europe to work for an NGO helping to eliminate poverty in developing countries.  We will live in a cozy home filled with children and laughter. One of our favorite things to do in the summer will be to drive our convertible to the end of Italy, eating pizza and pasta, while washing it down with fantastic wine.  There, we will have a picnic at sunset, fall asleep under the stars and wake up in the morning and go home.”

Years later, now that my name fortunately filled the ____, we were finally around to planning her dream.  We would fly to Venice, rent a car, and drive to Tuscany for Thanksgiving.

We arrived mid-afternoon to Florence and immediately felt blown away as we looked down onto the cityscape from the hotel deck.  That evening, we strolled to the nearby Piazzale Michelangelo and then down the hill to see Ponte VecchioPiazza della Signoria, and Piazza del Duomo, before finding a small pizzeria for some chow.  The next morning, we headed up the hill to take in the magnificent views at the Basilica San Miniato al Monte, before returning to the city center to scale the Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiore and visit the Accademia and Uffizi Galleries.

The next day, we decided to head for the coast and make a few stops on our way back to Venice.  We arrived in Pisa mid morning and spent a couple hours grabbing a bite, strolling, and watching tourists prop up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Our next stop was the picturesque Portofino along the Italian riviera.  We decided to hike up to Castello Brown to watch the sun set, before having to reluctantly pull ourselves away.  One day we will be back!

After ditching our rental car that evening at the airport, we hopped aboard a ferry and set sail for the Hotel Metropole. In Venice, everything looks and feels so romantic, foreign, peculiar, I don’t know…fill in the ____.  For example, Venetian buildings are built like boats: three layers of wood and a lacquer finish. Apparently, once a month, during the full moon, the ocean fills the restaurants with three feet of salt water. The staff puts chairs and rugs on the tables the night before and comes to work early to mop up the place before opening for business.

We had a blast taking everything in as we wandered amongst the canals to check out the Grand Canal, Saint Mark’s Basilica (Basilica di San Marco), Doges’ Palace, St. Mark’s SquareSt. Mary of the Friars, and Santa Maria della Salute.

All in all, although we have probably come late to Italy, it was lovelier now, perhaps, than in our younger days that seemed to never be fulfilled.  Even now though, content with leisure toward the shifted axis of our new baby girl, we appear to never be where we are, but somewhere else, even in Italy.

Krakow and Auschwitz Birkenau Weekend Trip

Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau Weekend Trip
Krakow and Auschwitz Birkenau Weekend Trip from Berlin

On our second weekend in Berlin, we decided to visit Poland by renting a car and driving south for a Krakow and Auschwitz Birkenau Weekend Trip.  The drive was very easy and we arrived Friday evening after work.  In the morning, we set out on foot to explore the historic heart.  The entire center is surrounded by the green belt of Planty, laid out at the site of the medieval town fortifications that were torn down in the beginning of the 19th century.  Only a small part around Barbakan (barbican) in front of it, a huge circular fortress for the defense of the glacis.

Historic Krakow was completely rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries after the Tartar invasions, following a grid pattern with the Main Market Square (Rynek Glowny) as the commercial and administrative center.  In the middle of Rynek Glowny remains the Renaissance Cloth Hall (Sukiennice) and the leftovers of the once magnificent Gothic Town Hall.  The Historic Center was lucky to be spared from destruction in the two world wars and from “modernization” afterwards. It is still a mixed residential-commercial-service neighborhood with all kinds of shops, pharmacies, hotels, university buildings, art galleries, and restaurants for every budget.  In the streets you’ll hear all languages of the world.  Among the Pope John Paul II —the first non-Italian pope in 455 years.

Looming over the city center, and calling our name as we waited for our lunch to settle, was the Royal Castle (Wawel) district, outside of the Planty belt; and historically a separate entity with its own jurisdiction.  Inside the fortress we were greeted by the magnificent Wawel Cathedral, home to royal coronations and resting place of many national heroes.  At the end of the day, exploring Poland’s medieval capital by foot had been a delight and we were cheerful it had astonishingly survived wars and oppressive regimes, to become one of Europe’s cultural treasures.

On our way back to Berlin, we decided to make a side trip to the sobering Auschwitz Birkenau State Museum, a very humbling experience I will never forget.   First we visited the Auschwitz site and it’s exceptionally well curated gallery, done so with the utmost respect. Next we drove to nearby Birkenau, and the place of most of the killing.  It was altogether different as a site. It is huge in area and in some ways there is less to see – barracks, ruined gas chambers, the selection platform, as well as the barbed wire perimeter. It is here, however, that you can get a perspective of the scale for what happened. It’s so hard to come face to face with events of this place, how things got so completely and totally monstrously out of control.

History and time does not make this any easier to understand.  The location is a reminder of the cruelty and degradation that we can subject another human being to.  This visit will make you uncomfortable, it will make you sad and angry, and it will make you feel guilty for the blessings and comforts you have in your life.  One can only imagine what hell went on here all those years ago and for a moment everything you think is a problem in your life will disappear.  You will never forget or question why it is that so many gave their lives and continue to give their lives for the freedoms we often take for granted.

Capture

Berlin to Prague For The Weekend

From Berlin to Prague For The Weekend

For our first side trip during our long-term stay in Germany, we decided to rent a car and self drive Berlin to Prague for the weekend.  We soon learned, the Autobahn is the ultimate in driving altogether.  The roads are excellently designed, built and maintained for high speed driving.  Amenities were numerous along the way and drivers seemed to be uncharacteristically cooperative on the four hour jaunt.

It’s common enough to get lost in European cities, with their narrow, winding streets, but as we slowly rolled past our hotel for a third time, we had to laugh at our unadventurous arrival.  After settling in, wandering aimlessly became a goal in itself.  That evening, we managed to visit the Charles Bridge (Karluv Most), Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti), and the Astronomical Clock (Staromestska Radnice), before stumbling onto a restaurant / playground for Esmei to practice her Czech toddler gab.

In the morning, the staff at Hotel Residence Agnes, offered to give us and our stroller a ride to the Strahov Monastery, so we could simply walk down the hill visiting the St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague Castle (Prazsky hrad), St. Nicholas Cathedral, and Dancing House on our way back to the hotel.  After spending the day in Prague, I am convinced, anyone visiting will find a place where the crush of big crowds will fade away.  It will happen in a park or garden, or even in the middle of the city along its many cobble stone streets.  I take pride in my sense of direction, but loathe the thought of being lost (perhaps stemming from the days my father would plant me in the woods with a rifle and tell me to meet him just over the ridge at nightfall). Prague was different for me, as I was all but happy to lose myself for a few hours.

For us, Prague created that feeling you have when you’re on a great vacation: your stress levels drop and trivial concerns reveal themselves to be just that.  Unfortunately though, what makes Prague spectacular is that so much of what is encountered has been completely obliterated by war in other parts of Europe.  That being said, we feel lucky to have been afforded a visit and would never want to take away from what could be Europe’s most beautiful city.

Berlin to Prague For The Weekend

Self Drive Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

elf Drive Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

Self Drive Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

When I was 12 years old, a family of Bosnian refugees became our neighbors.  That same summer, I was working full time building an intense tree house and happened to cut my left index finger with a hand saw.  A few weeks later my parents hosted a BBQ, where I was proudly showing our family and friends the scar, when a shy teenager approached us perplexing all of us as he pointed from body part to body part signaling with a show of hands the horrors he had gone through.  An unshielded experience I will never forget.

Last week I traveled to Sarajevo to support a new warehouse under construction.  History was inescapable as I strolled through Old Town during the evenings.  Although independent during medieval times, Bosnia and Herzegovina has more recently endured a multitude of regimes at the epicenter of east-west struggles.  Four centuries of Ottoman rule, four decades of Austro-Hungarian law, and 75 years under the Kingdom and Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina is notorious for its cultural heritage inherited from bygone civilizations.

What you can’t miss as you walk around town is the destruction resulting from a November 1990 national assembly, where communist power was replaced by a coalition of three ethnically based parties.  Over a three year period approximately 100,000 Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats became casualties of the Bosnian War.  Burnt out homes and buildings in disrepair are a constant reminder of the violence and carnage that took place only 20 years ago.

With my departure set for Sunday and the project getting rained out Saturday, I decided to spend the drizzly day renting a car and touring the area.  I got up early and drove west to Mostar and the location of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of Stari most and Old-Town.  Along the way, I traveled along the Neretva River, managing a glimpse of the Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad, before getting drenched on my quick stroll through Mostar.  Plotting my next move as I tried to dry out, I decided to head for the coast and make the most of the bad weather to see the Dalmatia coast.  Luckily, my late afternoon arrival from the long journey rewarded me with a glimmer of sunshine and a view of Dubrovnik, one of the most photogenic towns on the Adriatic.  It was hard to pull myself away, but with my plane scheduled to leave in the early morning, after a hurried dinner and walk through the medieval city, I was forced to make a bee line over the mountains to Sarajevo.

Of course much has changed since the war and the region is now a bustling with cities full of cafes, shops, and tourists.  As I drove through the winding mountains at night, I couldn’t help but remember my neighbor having to leave his home all those years ago.  If anything, it became a reminder that it’s not so much about making history these days as it is to quiet it; because there are still too many streets branded with conflict and anguish that have good people afraid to walk down them.

Capture

2015 Joint Base Andrews Airshow

2015 Joint Base Andrews Air Show

2015 Joint Base Andrews Airshow – Prince George’s County, Maryland

This weekend, we ventured out to Joint Base Andrews widely known for serving as the home base for Air Force One, to attend the 2015 Joint Base Andrews Airshow featuring some of the best aircraft and pilots in the world.  Along with some awesome aerial demonstrations, the field had static displays where you could enter the aircraft as well.

The 2015 Joint Base Andrews Air Show is the conclusion of week long activities in the Capital Region, to include the Air Force’s Birthday Week festival.  The F-35A, the U.S. Air Force’s latest fifth-generation fighter, was the most impressive aircraft on display.  During the show, the aircraft was able to float backwards under full control.  The aircraft will replace the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt II’s, which have been the main combatant aircraft for 20 years.
AFG-150805-015

It was my first airshow and it definitely exceeded my expectations.  The action was basically non-stop the entire afternoon and the announcers and background music generated quite the powerful scene. Almost as impressive was the organization of the crowd and transportation set up to bring the thousands of spectators to the event from the Branch Avenue and RFK parking lots. All in all it was a great way to spend the day and our only regret was not having enough time to thoroughly visit the numerous static displays and booths peppered around the viewing areas.

France and Belgium With a New Set of Eyes

France and Belgium With a New Set of Eyes

When I was twelve years old, I left the United States for the first time (well besides Canada) for a trip to my cousins wedding in France.  I can’t recall the trip in much detail and tragically the pictures were lost in a flood a few years ago.  Luckily, at the end of August, projects in Lyon and Brussels allowed me to revisit the region and gave me the chance to see France and Belgium with a new set of eyes.  Not only because I would be 20 years removed from my initial visit, but this time Jennilou and Esmei were tagging along.

Lyon to Bruges Map

My project in Lyon was our first stop. Again, most of my time was consumed preparing and attending the conference, but with Jennilou able to spend the day discovering the city, she had our two evening strolls planned without a squandered step.  Known as the “the gastronomic capital of the world,” Lyon’s setting at the meeting of the Rhône and Saône rivers made it a beautiful place to spend a summer evening relaxing at an outdoor café.  By the time we headed north I began feeling a hint of nostalgia, as the longer we stayed, the more familiar the food, smells, and overall surroundings seemed.

Needing to be in Brussels by Monday morning, we rented a car Friday and journeyed north to Paris for the weekend.  However, since Esmei and I get antsy after a few hours in the car, we decided to make a couple stops in route. Our first stop was Château de Chambord, the hunting lodge for Francis I and the largest château in the Loire Valley (Also, and probably better known as the inspiration for the Beast’s castle in the 1991 animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast). With a Leonardo da Vinci design, 1,800 workers, and a twenty-eight year schedule the pad was impressive to say the least.

Wishing we had more time to spend at the castle, but excited to make one more stop before Paris, we pushed north to the Chartres Cathedral, where between 1194 and 1260, three hundred craftsmen were able to create one of the finest examples of architecture in the world. The facades and structure were worth the trip, but experiencing the original stained glass windows from the interior was incredible.

Exhausted we rolled into the “City of Lights” with a sleeping baby and ready to hit the hay before our big day in Paris.  In the morning, we began our day in the true heart of the city with Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris. Next we headed west to the Musée du Louvre and home of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. At twelve years old, it’s understandable that I couldn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of what I was experiencing all those years ago, but being the first time I have had the chance to revisit a foreign place, I began to understand the old adage about the real voyage of discovery consisting not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. If anything doing a trip like this reminded of the person I once was and allowed me to better judge the person I have become. In short a boy with an attention problem who dreaded setting foot in a museum, to someone that would just assume spend the day staring at old buildings.

Next on the agenda was a stroll up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe.  Luckily for me nothing caught Jennilou’s eye as I charged along.  The coolest part of the day was our walk to the Eiffel Tower.  Even before it came into sight, I remember letting Jennilou know that it was just around the corner to a large set of steps overlooking the tower.  Until that moment, I had forgotten sitting on those very steps with my parents one evening when I was twelve years old.

With a just a half day at our disposal before needing to head north to Belgium, we were up early for the train to the Palace of Versailles.  Roving the grounds and wandering the halls made it easy to understand how the chateau came to symbolize a system of absolute monarchy.  How can you blame the citizens for inciting a Revolution, when Louis XIV could fund a war by sending his silver chamber pots to mint?

Keen at finally seeing the NATO Headquarters project in person, we took the Sunday evening train to Brussels and settled into our hotel for my upcoming week of work.  Between Monday and Friday I was tied up with the incredible 245,000 square meters of office space set on a 41-hectare campus.  Designed to symbolize eight fingers in a clasp of unity, the building would be the future home of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 28 member countries and 19 partner nations.

NATO Headquarters

NATO Headquarters

Again, Jennilou explored the city by day and took me to the highlights at night.  With our limited time together, we made the most of it by hitting a local restaurant each night mixing in evening strolls to the Grand Place, Manneken Pis, St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral, and the Royal Palace of Brussels.

The highlight of our trip was getting to see an old friend on our last evening.  Finishing up work in the morning, we took the afternoon train to Bruges, where we met up with our former Beijing hostel roommate Bert Vermeesch.  It turns out Bert was born and raised in Bruges and operates a fledgling tour guide service.  Reconnecting with our friend as we strolled through town listening to his quirky local perspective to the Belfry of Bruges, Church of Our Lady Bruges, Market Place reminded us how funny and weird life can really be.   We lose touch with a lot of people due to geographical reasons, but that’s not an acceptable reason to lose a good friend.  Great people like Bert are hard to come by.

It turns out nostalgia is a beautiful feeling.  Reconnecting with a childhood place or a long lost friend reminds us of the way things once were, the happiness that we experienced growing up, and all the wonder.  If anything, I would do it again in a heartbeat just for the sake of the smile it brought to my face watching Bert change that diaper.