Day Two In Newport

We had a delightful day in Newport.  The weather was perfect -- mid 60s and sunny -- and we had a new town to explore.  After a wonderful breakfast at the Malbone House we went out to The Breakers (the Vanderbilt summer home) for a visit.  It's huge - more than 70 rooms -- and ornate.  But also confused. --  they had Roman, French and Italian styles all at the same time.  Still a great place to see, if only to understand the excess of the Gilded Age

age and think about that kind of conspicuous consumption. 

After that we took a walk along the Cliffs -- it is always humbling to see the power of the waves crashing against the cliffs.   Katy, as always, looked marvelous as we climbed down the rocks.

Lunch was a pleasure -- we joined Don, Trudi, Ed and Giulia for a meal at the Black Pearl.  What can be better than New England Clam Chowder in New England??   And this was some of the best chowder we'd ever had. Add a little shopping (where else can Katy find shoes in her size?) and a visit to the oldest synagogue in the US and the day is complete.  Next up -- fine dining ....

Off to Newport ....

We are off to Newport for the weekend.  Paul will be doing some rugby evaluation at the New England Championships and Katy will be touring the city, seeing the mansions, shopping and hanging out with her friends. 

If the first night is any sign, we'll have a great time.after a spooky drive across the fog-covered Narragansett Bay bridge we arrived at the beautiful Francis Malbone House where we will spend the next 4 nights.  It was late, but we still enjoyed a dinner at the Clarke Cooke House Restaurant where we shared a 1/2 bottle of Sancere and had some great fresh cooked fish (Halibut for Paul; Sole for Katy) along with fresh beet salad.  Nice way to start the long weekend.

Pinch us --- We Are On the West Coast

OK ... so pinching isn't really necessary.  But sometimes you have a great few days that really "sing" and you wonder how it is that you are so lucky.  The last few of these have been like that.

It started Thursday with a flight to San Francisco.  Paul had been invited to participate in a symposium on cybersecurity being sponsored by the Stanford Journal on International Law.  It was really quite a prestigious invite.  The keynote address was delivered by the Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, Dr. Hamadoun Toure.  The ITU is at the center of some political controversy over its efforts to "regulate the internet."   To be honest, Paul went to the meeting very skeptical of the ITU's efforts, but both he and Katy came away rather more impressed with Dr. Toure than before.  He may be wrong, but he seems quite sincere.  That's Paul and Dr. Toure in the photo.

Other attendees at the conference included Howard Schmidt, President' Obama's first CyberCzar and, most amusingly, Marc Rogers, whose claim to fame is that he is the Chief Security Officer at DEFCON.  [For those who don't know, DEFCOM is the uber-Hacker convention, and being chief of security there is a little like being the bouncer at a bordello -- very challenging indeed.].   Overall, the quality of the discourse was high and we enjoyed ourselves greatly.

Of course, no trip to the Bay area would be complete without good food, and the Standford journal did not disappoint.  We had dinner Thursday night at Tamarine which featured a nouvelle Vietnamese tasting menu.  The tamarind shrimp was truly special.  Then on Friday night we went out with colleague/friends, Brian and Cynthia, who took us to their favorite restaurant in San Francisco -- Kokkari.   Kokkari is an upscale Greek place -- Paul had goat stew and Katy had the brazzino.  You can tell we liked it -- we lingered for 3 hours drinking wine, eating and chatting.

But the highlight so far, at least from an intellectual perspective, was breakfast Saturday morning at Coupa Cafe.  Not because the food was good, though it was, or that the coffee was truly excellent, though it was as well.  The highlight was our chance to have a nice engaging chat with Whit Diffie, who we had met earlier at the Standford conference.   If you don't know who he is -- click on the link!  Suffice it to say that if you use on-line banking or credit card services, its secure because of him.  In the cryptology world, he is a big deal.  But he is also, in the end, a really fun fellow to talk to -- full of off-the-wall ideas and stories.  It was just delightful to have breakfast with him.

And now, we are in Napa.  We spent the afternoon at two wineries -- our old favorite, Casa Nuestra, which is a nice "hippie place" and a new one for us -- Alpha Omega.  The AO bottling of ERA (their name) is really special.  We had a chance to taste a barrel sample and ordered 3 bottles on the spot.  That's Katy taking the barrel sample.

Now we are happily ensconced in our delightful B&B (the Oleander House) and relaxing waiting for dinner.

A Perfect Day in Washington DC

Yesterday was a perfect day here in the District.  It started off with the family (Mike, Debbie and 3 of the boys) coming over the night before and joining us for dinner, along with Katy's cousin, John Higgins.

The next day, Mike, Debbie and Josh got up at 5 AM to go volunteer for the Cherry Blossom run.  The rest of us slept in a little, but at 6:30 AM we go up (Paul, Katy and the other two grandsons, Ryan and Kyle) to go for a walk down to see the cherry blossom trees.  We were joined by our neighbor Nancy and her daughter, Joselyn.

A brisk walk took us down to the Tidal Basin just as the race was starting.  We saw a bit of the race and some of the trees (which were still not in full bloom) as we walked over to the Jefferson Memorial and then back around the basin.  A quick Metro ride home took us to Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast.  Nothing is better than a hot cup of coffee, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, and a salmon and chives omelet after a long, invigorating walk.  Katy discovered a new bread spread called "Speculous" with cinnamon in it that was just wonderful.

After that it was back home.  Ryan and Kyle left first and then the others swung by just to catch their breath heading home.  After lunch, we went into the backyard and started a fun few hours of clean-up.  It's always a great day when we open up the back yard, pull out the outdoor furniture, hang all the art and bring the fern out from indoors.  It says "spring is here" like nothing else.  And the weather warmed up perfectly -- I did most of my dragging and lifting in a t-shirt.

The day ended as well as it had begun.  Dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, Zest was, as always, just cozy.  We both had the Kale salad with butternut squash.  Katy's catfish and Paul's duck were well-prepared.  Add a glass of wine each and what could be better?

Only one thing -- finishing the night with the last episode of the BBC's Sherlock, season two.  If you haven't seen the show, go get the DVDs now.  We can't wait for Season Three this Fall.

Cooking for Passover

Katy's first effort at Sephardic Leek Patties

Luang Prabang

Luang Prabang is a small town in northern Laos that reminds us of nothing so much as Taos, New Mexico. It is a bit of a hippie/backpacker place e with 43 Buddhist temples and 1000s of monks. Each AM the monks walk the streets begging for food and the tourist ritual is to buy food to give to them. We did that this morning.  There is a fun cafe culture here too with lots of great crafts. Katy bought a new dress and we died some silk shopping too. Besides a boat trip on the Mekong the other highlights were some great food and a dance concert by the Laotian national ballet.

From here it is back to Hanoi tonight and then homeward bound. A great trip -- totally different from our others,

Siem Reap

Here we are in Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat, and other temples.  I imagine Camboida is a lot like Vietnam was 10 or 15 years ago.  Still just coming out of its slumber.  One of the drivers of change is going to be tourism at Angkor and the other temples.

Today we went biking in the heat (95+) while everyone back home was watching the Super Bowl.  We saw two temples, Te Phom (the famous tree root temple from Laura Craft tomb raider).  They have a great debate going on whether or not they should kill the trees -- they make great photos, but they are very bad in the long  run for the temple).  I personally like the nature v. man theme and would keep the photos in place

We had a great lunch, on a Khmer dish called Amok (kind of a curry dish but drier with more meat and veggies and less rice).  And the Angkor beer is really quite fine.

The other temple we saw was Banyon, named after the Banyan tree under which the Buddha taught.  The entire complex was build by the Khmer king Jamarayam (I know I'm not spelling that right) to commemerate his conversion of the entire country from Hinduism to Buddhism -- hence the name.

Overall, another great day!