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I flew back to New York on Tuesday for the first time in a couple of months.  I enjoy the city but don’t miss the hassle associated with flying into La Guardia and getting transportation into the city.  The drive was particularly long this trip due to all the traffic coming in to see the Christmas tree and decorations at Rockefeller Center.  The hotel is located between the iconic art-deco Chrysler building and Grand Central rail terminal.

On the flight I watched the film “The Children Act” starring Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci.  This is based on the Ian McEwan book of the same name and he wrote the screenplay.  I read the book a couple of years ago and so the story was still pretty familiar to me.  Thompson and Tucci give very good performances and the ending is just as saddening in the film as in the book.

I braved the bitterly cold weather to head out of the hotel for dinner and some brief exploration.  The Grand Central terminal building is really impressive after the renovation several years ago.

At peak times you can certainly see the origin of the phrase, “busier than Grand Central station”.  A nice part of the renovation is that there are many good restaurants at various price points throughout the building.  My boss and I enjoyed lunch at Cipriani on the main concourse on Wednesday afternoon as we prepared to present to our major investors and the analyst community on Thursday morning.

From the rail terminal, I headed up to Rockefeller Center to take a look at the famous Christmas tree.  It was still busy there at close to 11pm on a very cold night.

I enjoyed the light and music display at the Sak’s Fifth Avenue storefront and some of the characters milling around.

All this Christmas excitement reminds me of a sign that I saw at Eddie V’s last week and forgot to share in the post.  I’m hoping the Martini fairy might visit me once or twice this holiday season:

 

I’ve been enjoying the new solo album from Wilco front man, Jeff Tweedy, this week.  Here’s a good song from “Warm” and I’ll include one or two more at the bottom of the post.

Tweedy also released a memoir in the last few weeks that has been garnering positive reviews.  Maybe it’ll end up in my Christmas stocking.

 

 

 

 

Making a dinner reservation on Wednesday night in midtown Manhattan proved challenging.  My boss’s nephew is executive chef at a fancy steakhouse but they were fully booked with holiday parties and couldn’t get us in.  After many rejections, I found a Northern Italian place on 47th street, Allora, that could get us in.  The reviews promised a classic New York Italian restaurant experience and that’s exactly what we got.  Good food, waiters trying to rush us along with humor, finally giving up and buying us grappa on the house.  I enjoyed a couple of delicious appetizers (the waiter wasn’t listening and got them wrong before bringing us what we really wanted in addition) and then an excellent mushroom risotto – one of the best I’ve tasted.  I snapped this picture of the bridge outside the hotel with its holiday outfit on.

I would not choose to stay in midtown Manhattan during Christmas again.  The traffic (both cars and on the pavements) is crazy with folks in to see the lights and decorations.

Our presentations and meetings with investors on Thursday morning went well.  They seemed interested in new systems and applications that we’ve been developing.  Then it took over an hour to drive what should have been a twenty minute trip to the airport.

Friday and Saturday turned out to be very busy days – mostly entertainment busy, so no good reason to complain about it.  Friday evening began with Diana’s Christmas party at her office.  This was very nice with drinks and hors d’oeuvres and a pleasant group of folks.  We stayed for about an hour and then had to leave to drive down to the Elton John concert – Diana got tickets to the work box in recognition of her big project to create a new spin-off company that went so well.

On the drive to the concert, Diana asked me what songs I was hoping to hear.  My reply was, in this order, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Funeral for a Friend”, “Song for Guy”, “Rocket Man”, and “Daniel”.    Five out of six isn’t bad – only “Song for Guy” didn’t make the show.  Here are videos of my number one choice from the amazing “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy” album.

Elton is on an 18 month farewell tour and has stated that he will not tour again when this tour is complete.  The last time I saw him was in Edinburgh in 1984 – hard to believe it was 34 years ago.  I remember being hugely impressed with his band and the sound in the Edinburgh Playhouse.  The band on this tour is even better and the sound at the arena was the best I’ve heard – perhaps even better than the Eagles – certainly louder.  Here’s one of his best known songs, “Rocket Man” – with the lines about living on Mars that start to sound less and less fantastic as Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson race into space tourism:

“Funeral for a Friend” sends everyone into a melancholy mood but the music and performance were excellent after the very theatrical lead in:

You can tell that the stage set and the videography were very well done.  I particularly enjoyed watching the exemplar percussionist, Ray Cooper, on the top tier of the stage with his five timpani drums, tubular bells, bongas and multiple other percussive accoutrements.  He puts more energy into playing the tambourine than anyone that I’ve ever seen.

The second and final encore of the night was “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” and it was accompanied by a wonderful video showing Elton John from a kid through all of his crazy performance outfits.  It really did feel like a farewell performance at that point:

Elton came across as being exceptionally thankful for his career and fans throughout the evening and I was very happy to be able to participate in his final tour.  His music has meant a lot to me through the years and I enjoy attempting to play it on my own piano at home very much.  I will never forget his reinterpretation of “Candle in the Wind” as “Goodbye English Rose” for Princess Diana’s funeral.  They did so much for AIDS patients together and I have no idea how he held it together for that performance.

We spent the night at the downtown Omni hotel and I snapped this picture of the Pegasus outside with the downtown Dallas skyline:

Saturday was a warmer day than we’ve had in a while and I caught these pictures of the Dallas morning skyline before we headed for our workout.

The Christmas ornament balls out front are huge as you can tell from the person pushing a cart beside the large stack in he center.  We tried to have brunch at Hattie’s in Oak Cliff but they didn’t have their brunch menu on Saturday – only Sunday.  A quick regroup and we walked to Bolsa for a delicious brunch – this is such a relaxed and great restaurant that we continue to enjoy year over year.  From there we walked back to Wild Detectives (my favourite store of any kind in the Dallas Fort Worth area) and enjoyed a coffee with our crossword on their back patio.  I showed D a few books for my Christmas list while we were there.

After brunch we had several hours to kill before our Saturday evening plans.  I found a few good places to explore in the Uptown neighborhood, just north of downtown Dallas.  We started at the Standard Pour – a brunch and cocktail bar that looked very promising – we’ll have to check it out one weekend.  From there we walked through Uptown, had a coffee, and then visited the Bowen House.  This was the first “Prairie Style” house built in 1865, and now housing an excellent speakeasy style cocktail bar with a very interesting menu – we resisted as dinner was fast approaching.

A friend had invited us to see the 10th annual Ricki Derek Christmas Show at the Granada theater on Lower Greenville on Saturday night and we met for dinner at the Sundown restaurant prior to the show.

We enjoyed some ridiculously good tater tots before our friends arrived for dinner.  Tater tots are Diana’s favourite comfort food and these were a huge hit with both of us.

The Ricki Derek show was excellent.  He’s a classic crooner in the Sinatra, Michael Buble style and had a 16 piece jazz orchestra accompaniment.  I loved the campy nature of the variety style show with comedians, excellent guest singers, the Grinch, Frosty the snowman etc.   Here’s a video of a guest vocalist joining Ricki for “Winter Wonderland”:

We arrived home around 11pm with good leftovers from brunch and dinner to see us through Sunday.

The Cowboys could have clinched a playoff spot with a win on Sunday, but as usual had a huge let down against the Indianapolis Colts and will have to try again next week.  This amazing hurdling run by Zeke Elliott on the opening drive was indicative of the great Cowboys plays that ended up going nowhere:

We’ve covered a lot of musical ground in this post, and so I’ll save the new musical discoveries of the week for next week.

 

 

 

 

 

Monday and Tuesday were quiet, work from home days.  It was nice to be back in the routine of working from home with Diana, if only for a couple of days.  Travel to San Francisco on Wednesday was pretty quiet and painless and we arrived in time to meet up with Will and Christine for dinner at Sushi Plus in Redwood City (where  Will’s new apartment is located).  Will was able to give us a ride in the new BMW M240, but not the full experience since it had rained most of the day.  It was entertaining to have the live run down of all the special features that he had customized on his factory order.

Will took care of most of the ordering at Sushi Plus.  The “fire roll” and “super duper roll” were very good and unique.  Clorinda enjoyed her left overs of “super duper roll” very much.

Christine has just started a new job and was clearly very pleased and excited about it.  Will told us a fun story of how Christine started working in the technology field – she was running the jewelry department at Nordstrom and one of her customers liked her service so much that she told her son (owner of a technology startup) that he needed to hire the lady  who helped her from Nordstrom to interact with his customers.

Adamo and Amy hosted Thanksgiving at their home.  We had a group of 13 and so it was good that they had just bought a big new table.  As usual, Amy, Adamo, Diana, and Clorinda created a delicious feast.  My favorite was the “French Onion Soup stuffed mushrooms”.

The little monsters above (my nephews, Luciano and Massimo) did their best to disrupt my quiet afternoon of football viewing before the meal.  The Cowboys pulled out a nice win over the division rival Redskins and I was able to watch some of it.  I like this picture of Clorinda making a key point with her neighbor Andy as he’s cooking up something for the feast.

On Friday we were lucky to have an early dinner with all three boys at Vino Santo in Redwood City – Will’s favourite Italian restaurant.  The food and service were both excellent.  We started with an off-the-menu appetizer sampler that Will apparently orders on each visit, then shared lobster ravioli and some delicious scallops.  By this time we were starting to get full and hadn’t ordered main courses yet.  Diana had a calamari steak and I had a beet salad.  Will, on the other hand, had plenty of room for a full size ribeye steak.  Clorinda enjoyed left over calamari later in the evening.  Dinner was really good and we had a very nice conversation with the boys.  Here’s a picture with Finn from the evening and one of all three from Thanksgiving day.

Saturday was an early start to the airport to fly home.  The airport was much busier than on Wednesday with lots of families flying.  We had a concert at the Kessler on Saturday night and so drove from the airport to a downtown hotel and then headed to the Bishop Arts district in Oak Cliff for a pre-concert ramble.  This is a picture of the Mobil pegasus outside the hotel (the pegasus atop the Mobil Oil building was a stalwart of the Dallas skyline for many years).

I enjoyed the movie “Pick of the Litter” on the flight.  This follows a litter of five puppies born at the Guide Dogs for the Blind facility as they progress through training and assignment to owners.  Only two of the five were placed as guide dogs with one retained as a breeder, one assigned as a PTSD support dog, and one finishing as a pet.  The training to have the dogs learn to ignore owners’ commands when they would put them at risk was fascinating – to be able to teach a dog to decide that traffic is unsafe and to not proceed across a street even though given the command is amazing.  I highly recommend this film.

Our Oak Cliff evening began at Macellaio – a new restaurant by the couple behind the fabulous Lucia Italian restaurant.  We enjoyed an amazing chicken liver mousse and delicious cocktails.  After that Diana’s new boots were given a good comfort test as we walked 1.1 miles to Nova for dinner.  They passed with flying colours.

We met Diana’s co-worker, Janelle, and her husband at the Kessler to see the Band of Heathens.  I think this is a band we’ve seen more than any other – the first time was when we took a trip to Austin several years ago.  The opening act was “Matt the Electrician”, also from Austin.  He originally worked as an electrician all day, rewiring houses and playing concerts in the evening.  We loved his voice, songs and between song banter.

The Band of Heathens put on an excellent show – the first half was a selection of their popular songs and the second a full performance of their latest album, “A Message from the People Revisited”.   This was a Ray Charles album from the 1970s that speaks to many of the social issues that are still relevant today.  We had a table in the front row and it was funny to watch McD “swooning” over the two lead singers.

Here’s a video of “Abraham, Martin and John”, my favourite from that album.

And here’s the encore performance of “Hurricane”:

Another in a long list of great concert experiences at the wonderful Kessler theater!  Here’s the full set list, courtesy of the swooner:

On Sunday morning, we took advantage of being downtown to visit Smoke for breakfast.  I enjoyed my usual pulled pork benedict and Diana ordered a bacon burger so that we’d have leftovers for dinner.  Breakfast reminded me of some pictures Finn sent this week of his latest breakfast creations.

 

 

We (ok, mostly Diana) put up a small Christmas tree on Sunday afternoon.  Much smaller than usual since we’ll be gone over the holiday and couldn’t face hauling the regular tree down from the attic.  I always get a kick out of how much Diana enjoys unwrapping and placing the ornaments on the tree.  That’s the famous angel that Adamo and Amy repaired last year on top.

Two great new albums were released this week by Roseanne Cash and Mark Knopfler (I read this week that he was born in Glasgow).  Here are tracks from each and a closer from Matt the Electrician.

 

We decided to make a quick overnight trip to Edinburgh on Monday.  There was some family debate about the pros and cons of taking the train versus driving.  The hotel we chose didn’t have onsite parking and Edinburgh has a lot of pedestrian only zones and one way streets – so I decided that the train was a better option.  What have you heard about the reliability of trains in Scotland?  I don’t remember any issues when I used them regularly many years ago.  We were not lucky as the train we planned to take from Stewarton to Glasgow never showed up.  There were a few folks on the platform who were equally confused about the lack of any notification and one lady with a mobile app said the next few trains had been cancelled with no notice or explanation.  A quick call home and my Mum and Dad came to the rescue and shuttled us up to Glasgow to catch a train there.  It’s interesting that all the station signs have a Gaelic translation as I don’t think there’s anyone in Stewarton who speaks the language or ever did.

We parked in Buchanan Galleries and my Mum was on a mission to get us to the station for Edinburgh and on a train as quickly as possible.  I struggled to keep up dragging the suitcase behind me down Buchanan Street.  We sprinted to a train that was just leaving the platform and less than an hour later were making the short walk from Waverley station to our hotel.  We left our luggage and went out in search of lunch.  The terrace at the Dome on Rose Street was just a block away and we enjoyed a very nice pizza and salad al fresco.

Suitably sated, we set out for a walk around Edinburgh – down into Princes Street Gardens and then up Castle Terrace to the Castle Esplanade.

This is a picture of the General Assembly building for the Church of Scotland and this is where my graduation ceremony was held back in 1985.  Interestingly we went for a celebration lunch at the hotel that we stayed at on George Street.

We walked down the Royal Mile as far as Jeffrey Street, where I lived in a flat at number 21 in 1984, with Andy Bull and Stuart Johnson.  On the way I pointed out the phone box where I would come to call home and McD forced me inside for a picture.

I chuckled to see the Baked Potato shop, the “Tempting Tattie”,  still in operation right across the street from the flat.  My Mum and sister had a story to tell about coming to pick me up when we vacated the flat and spending hours cleaning while I sat on the couch eating a potato from that shop – funnily enough I don’t remember that at all.

We headed back to the hotel to change for dinner at the Witchery at the top of the Royal Mile.  The views out over the Firth of Forth to David’s homeland of Fife from the hotel room were quite impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

We weren’t sure what to expect from the Witchery – it got great reviews but we were worried it might be very touristy with less than great food.  The setting is amazing with lovely old dining rooms and décor.

Our waiter was quite terse to begin with but we were able to warm him up and he gave some great recommendations.  We started with steak tartare and then Diana enjoyed a beautifully cooked lobster thermidor while I had scallops.

We walked down the Royal Mile after dinner to the Malt Shovel, a pub that Andy Bull and I frequented when we lived on Jeffrey Street.  It still has a similar feel but the bar area inside has been completed reconfigured – not what I remembered at all.

To cap off the night, we took a taxi to a speakeasy I had read about on Rose Street.  It’s called the Bryant and Mack Detective Agency and is the perfect 1920s style speakeasy inside.  The menu is delivered in an envelope marked “Confidential” and the bill comes in a “Case Closed” envelope.

 

Breakfast on Tuesday morning was back on Rose Street.  We found a little pub with a cozy restaurant in the back and  I enjoyed black pudding and eggs.  I enjoyed the mural on the wall which included a caricature of the great Scottish comic Billy Connolly.

The rail trip back to Stewarton in the afternoon was smooth and uneventful – showing Diana how it should work.

Tuesday night took us to Braidwoods outside of Dalry for dinner.  This is a restaurant located in a small farm house in the middle of the countryside and has only 7 or 8 tables.  It has a Michelin star, the only place in Ayrshire with that award, and has retained it for 19 years, making it the longest running such recognized restaurant in Scotland.

What an amazing meal we had!  Most of us had roe deer for our main while Diana chose lamb – both absolutely delicious.

I got a bit ahead of myself and forgot about the amazing appetizers – parmesan tart, pea soup, a beautifully arranged quail breast, and salmon terrine.  You can zoom in on the menu for more detailed descriptions of all the ingredients.

We got a decent view of the Dalry church on the drive – the same church where my Mum and Dad were married 55 years ago.  A big thanks to Elspeth for being the designated driver for our group.

While commenting on Elspeth and David’s wedding picture, I remembered the pictures of Will in his kilt and my Mum pulled out the album with these pictures.  Didn’t he look great in his wee kilt?

Wednesday was our travel home day.  The plane from Heathrow to Chicago was one of the 380 double deckers and it took a bit longer than expected to board.  Just long enough for us to be impacted when a fire alarm caused an evacuation of the air traffic control tower.  Diana decided to take advantage of the delay to get a nap in and seemed to think it was fine to have all her electronics spread around on her table prior to take off.

The delay was just long enough to cause us to miss our connection in Chicago.  British Airways did a great job of having a hotel booked for us and onward flight reservations confirmed.   We left the hotel at 5am to catch our 7am onward flight and of course that was delayed another 4 hours due to a tire change.  We got home just in time for me to participate in a meeting that I had hoped to join.  It wasn’t all bad – I appreciated the chance to stretch out and relax for a while after the transatlantic flight.  I liked this champagne piano in the Chicago airport and we did enjoy the sunrise over downtown from the lounge.

And then it was back to the baking temperatures of Dallas after such a nice respite.  We returned just in time for the record breaking hottest days of the year.  Penelope registered 108 degrees at 6pm and we had  6 consecutive triple digit days.  Whew – that’s hot!

All the travel downtime allowed me to finish “The Chessmen” by Peter May.  This is another of my birthday books from Mum and Dad and I enjoyed it a lot.  It’s a murder mystery set on the island of Lewis (where they do still have a lot of Gaelic speakers) and centers around a group of friends who were in a Celtic band in university that became quite famous.  I enjoyed all the Scottish references and felt the remote island life was brought to life very well.  The Lewis chessmen that play a role in the story are a real thing – they are carved from walrus ivory and were discovered in 1831 on Lewis.  They are one of the few complete, surviving medieval chess sets and have very distinctive characters.

The band in the novel reminded me of the Scottish band Runrig that I haven’t listened to in several years.  Many of their songs are sung in Gaelic as well and they have been popular for many years.  Here’s a song from their 1981  album “Recovery”.  I really enjoyed reconnecting with this music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can it really be 30 years since we graduated from University?  Hard to believe until you review all of life’s journeys since those graduation ceremonies.  We spent the weekend in California to attend Diana’s 30 year Santa Clara University reunion.

I was able to meet up with Will and Finn while there.  Here’s Will enjoying a drink with me at Puerto 27 in Pacifica.  We laughed about the 27 (Will’s age) on the pisco sour cocktail.  Having a 27 year old son is one of those life journeys that makes you realize that it certainly has been 30 years since graduation.  The food at this Peruvian restaurant was very different and good.  Will had an excellent paella and I tried these “causa masaki” – like sushi rolls but wrapped in causa which is yellow potato puree infused with lime and Peruvian ahi – yum.  I met Finn the next day at one of my favorite places on Santana Row in San Jose, the Straits cafe.  Singaporean food and all delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday we met up with Diana’s college roommate, Anna, at the Santa Clara campus.  I was a tag along as they wandered the campus reminiscing.  We saw the house they rented right across from the cafeteria where they worked and listened to stories about what had changed and what hadn’t throughout the campus.  I enjoyed their long walk down memory lane.  That evening was the reunion block party on the grounds in front of the Santa Clara mission (lit up in the background behind the girls).  It was organized by year with 1986 being lightly represented – good fun nonetheless.

Saturday was the main event – a dinner dance in the University rose garden.  Dinner was in tents throughout the rose garden area.  Very pretty and we were joined by Anna’s husband Bill.  Diana ran into a few old classmates – one, Simona, who was a first year roommate in the halls of residence – they could point to the exact location of their room.   I enjoyed watching reunions of friends that hadn’t seen each other in 15 or 20 years. The band in our area wasn’t playing music that we particularly enjoyed and so we investigated the other areas – the class of 1971 seemed to have the best music and be having the most fun and so we joined them for a while.

A leisurely coffee with Anna (and ultimately Bill) on Sunday morning and then it was off back to San Francisco airport for the trip home.  Here’s a picture of the view from Diana’s Mom’s house on Gypsy Hill in Pacifica (about 10 minutes over the hill from the airport).

This was a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable week in Scotland celebrating my Dad’s 80th birthday.  We flew through Paris to Scotland on Wednesday – ask me about the interesting security options at Charles de Gaulle airport when you see me.  Here’s a picture of Diana and my Dad enjoying our arrival celebration champagne.  As usual I was thoroughly spoiled by my Mum with great cooking – Stornoway black pudding for breakfast, steak pies, fantastic deserts.  On Friday the fishmonger comes to the house and delivers “Fresh Fish” – delicious and now known as “Fresh Fish Friday”.  We had a nice trip over to the beach at Irvine where the wind blew out any remaining cobwebs from our jetlagged heads.

My Dad’s 80th birthday was on Saturday but we had the fancy celebration dinner on Friday since my neice was moving to Toulouse, France for her year abroad early Saturday morning.  We started in the Lounge of the Lochgreen House Hotel with canapes and champagne as everyone arrived.  Here’s our family group in the gardens outside the hotel.  That’s my tiny nephew Struan on the right hand side.

My favorite feature of the arrival lounge was the “Malt Room” in the corner.  Several hundred fine single malt scotches and bourbons nicely arranged in a circular room.  Heaven!

Lochgreen borders the Royal Troon golf course where the British Open had just been played.  We were lucky enough to get to choose from the full fancy menu from the Open for my Dad’s dinner – delicious all around.  Diana had lobster for both her appetizer and entree which always makes her happy.

We had a perfect private room for dinner looking out on the grounds.  My Mum and Dad’s friends the Dunlops, the MacArthurs, and Mrs. Roy joined the family to make a very entertaining group.  Here’s the group, my Dad with his balloon and his excellent cake highlighting his gardening and art hobbies.

  My Mum gave my Dad an iPad for his birthday present.  It was loaded up with pictures from the dinner (see selfie of Diana and my brother in law, David, below) and pictures and videos from the family.  We were quite nervous about the technical challenges that the gift might present, but are happily surprised with the ease that Dad places facetime calls on Sundays.

On Sunday we made a trip through to Edinburgh so that I could torture Diana with a tour of my alma-mater, Heriot-Watt University.  It’s changed a lot since I was there 30 years ago.  My halls of residence appear to have been torn down and there are many more buildings to accommodate the move of the entire University from central Edinburgh to the Riccarton campus on the outskirts.  I really like the quote from Alex Salmond we found on a rock while strolling around the campus.

Time to get packed up and ready to fly to Paris on Monday.  Life is good!

 

 

 

This was a very busy week visiting with the CIOs and CEOs of our businesses in Japan.  Bouncing between offices every day in taxis with drivers who only speak Japanese added to the complexity.

The flight over was very comfortable – a new business class configuration with only 4 seats across and lie-flat beds meant I was able to get some good sleep.  I watched the movie “Money Monster” with Julie Roberts and George Clooney and directed by Jodie Foster – I give it a B-.  Much better was “Born to be Blue” starring Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, “the James Dean of Jazz”.

The video system had a large collection of music as well.  I really enjoyed a New Orleans jazz CD by Al Hirt , “Strutting Down Royal St”.

Another CD I enjoyed was by Charles Lloyd and the Marvels.

I was able to enjoy a couple of good nights out in Tokyo with our excellent hosts.  Here’s Deepak with his model of the “Black Ship” that Captain Perry sailed to Yokohama in 1854, and began opening up Japan to the West.

Our first adventure was at Gonpachi, a restaurant featured in the movie Kill Bill that had very good barbecued food.  It was also apparently the place where George W. Bush was hosted by the Japanese Prime Minister in 2002 and got food poisoning.

 

Our second outing was to Mixology, a craft cocktail bar in Akasaka.  This is an area of Tokyo with a lot of small and very unique stores.  The cocktails were excellent and watching the precision and detailed work by the bar tenders was very educational.    
I had a cocktail that was mixed with smoke in a skull vodka bottle – very good – almost like a Talisker peaty scotch from Islay.  The food was very creative as well – here’s a picture of an egg with a syringe of Sauterne wine that was injected after the soft boiled egg had cooled for a few minutes.  I can’t imagine this dish would be allowed in the United States.

Another highlight of the trip was getting to stay at the excellent Andaz hotel again.   Below are pictures of the view from the gym and the 35th floor pool.

The flight home was smooth and uneventful.  Just a few days to rest and get time zone adjusted before heading to Scotland for my Dad’s 80th birthday celebration.

 

 

 

July 13-18 at the Intercontinental El Presidente resort in Cozumel was thoroughly refreshing and relaxing.  Lots of beach time spent reading, relaxing and forgetting about everything else.

This was our packing joke – all you need for a trip to Mexico:  bathing suits, mask and snorkel, sunscreen, hat, and your favorite beverage.  Not to forget the stealth escapee stuffed penguin.

Our New Orleans based friends Denny, Anne, Alex and Laura joined us and that certainly added a lot of fun and entertainment to the environment.  They finished their diving certifications on Thursday and Friday.  Here they are hitting the beach after certification dives on Thursday while we relax under an umbrella with Blood Marys.  We joined them on the boat on Friday as they finished up the checkout dives.

That meant that on Saturday we could all dive together.  We headed out on our own small boat with Oliver as dive master, and Nancy as photographer/videographer.  The private boat was fantastic.  It was small and so we executed the back-flip water entry maneuver for the first time – much preferred to bumbling across the larger boats to the rear platform. Here’s a video that combines some of my G0-Pro footage with Nancy’s amazing photos and videos.

Didn’t Nancy do a great job?  You can tell I’m a rookie with the Go-Pro – a number of good lessons learned for the next time.

Sunday was an uber relaxing beach day.  In the evening we rented powerful underwater flashlights and snorkeled the reef in front of our rooms.  An amazing variety of marine life just a few feet from the shore – ocotopi, king crab, lobster, hermit crabs, and huge shoals of tiny neon tetras.  That was followed with a hyper competitive game of Jenga on the patio by the beach.  On a previous evening we played Apples to Apples with equally entertaining results – lesson learned – know your audience when selecting the card to play.  The “lobotomy” card is picked by Laura the neuro-science researcher regardless of the topic.

Here we are enjoying the sunset on our last evening.  I head the question, “Can’t we just stay one more day?”, several times throughout the day.

Ceviche and octopus were popular dining choice throughout the trip.  We also had a joke about getting “inked” by the octopus on our night dive.  So it was funny when one of our Blue Apron meals on returning to real life was a squid ink pasta with shrimp.

Back to the real world again.  Let’s do that again soon…