We have been observing spring in the Northern hemisphere. We left Peru on March 31 and stayed for a week in Wheaton, IL. The weather was cool but the flowers were emerging.

Hemos estado observando la primavera en el hemisferio norte. Dejamos Peru el 31 de marzo y nos quedamos una semana en Wheaton, IL. El clima era fresco pero las flores estaben emergiendo.

From Wheaton we went to Syracuse, where the grass was starting to turn green. The moon was full and we watched it rise over  the forest at Green Lakes State Park.

De Wheaton fuimos a Syracuse, donde la hierba empezaba a ponerse verde. La luna estaba lleno y lo vimos subir sobre el bosque en Green Lakes State Park.

Six deer picked their way across the grass to graze while we watched.

Seis ciervos recorrieron su camino a traves de la hierba para pastar mientras miramos.

We took a trip to Penn Yan and another to Seneca Falls, where we visited the National Women’s Hall of Fame. https://www.womenofthehall.org

Visitemos a Penn Yan y tambien a Seneca Falls, donde visitamos la National Women’s Hall of Fame (Salon Nacional de la Fama de Mujeres).

It was intriguing to learn about the women who have done so many surprising things. Did you know that a woman invented Kevlar (bullet-proof vest material)?

Fue intrigante conocer a las mujeres que han hecho tantas cosas sorprendentes. Sabia usted que una mujer invento Kevlar (material de chaleco a prueba de balas)?

At the end of the week we drove to New York to spend a few hours with Lyra at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central station.

Al final de la semana fuimos a Nueva York para pasar unas horas con Lyra en el Oyster Bar en la estacion Grand Central.

From there we headed to JFK airport and our flight to Rome. We plan to return to the US on Nov. 1, 2017.

De alli nos dirigimos al aeropuerto de JFK y nuestro vuelo a Roma. Planeamos regresar a los Estados Unidos el 1 de noviembre, 2017.

When we left Wheaton last year in April, all our possessions were packed in our Prius (and the storage unit). We went to California for 3 months and stopped on our way to the airport to drop off a lot of stuff with Amanda, since she’s in CA. We left for Barcelona with 4 suitcases.

Five months have passed since our return from Barcelona, and we are hitting the road again and Voila! we are down to one suitcase each. Plus generous carry-ons. Advice to travellers: Avoid driving through the NY area. Yes, it cost less to drive from Syracuse to JFK, even with the $250 drop off fee, but the tolls were a shock. $15 to cross the George Washington Bridge, and $8 more to cross the Whitestone. I was glad to turn our car in.

We had to hug Lyra a lot, since she was the only daughter available for hugging. She was a champ to brave the traffic to come and see us at the airport. This may never happen again.

Traveling business class makes the best of a long night.As I mentioned on Facebook, the business class lounge for Iberia in Madrid is excellent. We whiled away the time until our flight to Marrakech. The day was perfect, and we could see Ceuta, the Spanish enclave in North Africa (left), and Gibraltar (right).

We landed in Marrakesh and were collected by a taxi from our hotel, Riad Selouane. The driver got a man with a cart to take our suitcases from the taxi to the riad, because it is in the Medina where cars are not allowed. The streets are only one lane, and very narrow.

My mother is going into her third year in an independent living setting and has just turned 91. She claims that there are all kinds of wonderful stories among her neighbors. In addition to the 23 retired priests (there’s a story there), and a retired ambassador (another), artists, intellectuals, she says everyone has a story, and she proved it by inviting her friend Florence to have lunch with us. Florence is 95, and came to the US from China in a cargo ship in the 1930s. She had a lot of adventures before she arrived (carrying a rifle among them), and a lot more when she settled in the US. Florence taught cooking at the China Institute in New York, and after meeting her, Craig Claiborne (long time food critic of the NY Times) wrote a full page article about her that led to her writing a cookbook about Regional Chinese cooking, long, long before anyone in the US knew there was anything but Cantonese food in China. Jonathan had her cookbook on our kitchen shelf for many years and was thrilled to meet her.

Florence is charming and wonderful to talk to. She invited us to her apartment to see her books and she had some beautiful souvenirs of China that she showed us. When she was young, women had to learn to embroider with fine, silk thread to decorate their trousseau. She still has some of the pillow cases she embroidered, and according to my mom, Florence is still skilled with a needle. We had a lively discussion over lunch and our visit. My mom is (once again) right, everyone seems to have a story and don’t let a mild gaze keep you from asking about what people did before they hit age 90. You’ll probably be surprised. I was.

L-R: Jeanne Creamer, Florence Lin, Jonathan Haas