My New Social Network

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Posted by wendy | Posted in blog | Posted on 28-12-2007

As I was working one late night, I decided to start a new Social Network.

It was a lot of fun and super easy to set this up. Learn some about CSS as well. I did all these in about 20 minutes. (Not because it was hard, because I am slow and got caught up doing other stuff. And had to ask the designer guy a question about CSS.)

if you are a fan, here’s the URL: http://judgejudy.ning.com

Judge Judy Fan Site

Travel and Sickness

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Posted by wendy | Posted in blog | Posted on 28-12-2007

I had the good fortune of never getting sick when I travel. I have been to India, China, and various other place and never managed to pick up any special friends along the way.

Yesterday as I was driving into work, I heard some woman brought back from her travels, a dangerous string of TB. TB is one of those disease that you hear about that kills people way back when. One of Mr’s relatives died young of consumption (aka TB) back in like the 20s. But Mr says I always gotten his stories wrong. Anyway, one of his relative died of consumption long time ago.

The story in itself is pretty unremarkable, and how does it relate to travel you ask? Well, she got on a flight of packed passenger for an over seas flight back to the US. Since TB transmitted via cough/sneezes the people around her basically are toast. And the TB is not one of those ordinary TB, it’s one of the new mutations.

I feel bad for people who sat next to her, seeing her sneeze and eating their meals next to her, not knowing that they are being exposed to TB. Talk about ruining someone’s Holidays! Spending NYE in hospital just doesn’t sound as glamorous as it should.

It would be pretty socially irresponsible of her if she knew she had TB prior getting on the flight. But maybe she didn’t know. But I suppose if you are coughing up blood you would go to the Drs. before going on a long journey.

Happy Holidays!

If you see people coughing up blood on your next long flight, better to ask someone on the flight to switch seats with you.

Why Relics?

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Posted by wendy | Posted in blog | Posted on 18-12-2007

I blog a lot about relics in the past few blogs.

I really didn’t know much about them until I read “Magnificent Corpses” by  Anneli Rufus.  She traveled around Europe to look at all the lesser know relics. She would give a bit of background story about the Saints and talk about what form they are in in her visits.

I remember having a discussion with Mr about relics. He told me that his grandma had them around the house. I never met anyone (except the Mr.) who know someone who owned relics.

The first relic I saw was in Legion of Honor when Mr. and I first started dating.  They had St. Francis of Assisi’s relics.

My dream is to do a tour like the author did of Europe.   And this first trip to Europe prove that it would be something fun to do.

Euro Trip 2006 – Part 3

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Posted by wendy | Posted in blog | Posted on 18-12-2007

 

Destination 3: Dijon
Yes, that Dijon! It’s the birth place of the Dijon mustard.

 

By the time we got to this leg of the trip, we are all getting really tired of hanging out with each other. I find myself starting to miss the Mr.

 

 

 

I also realized, it’s one thing to be friends with someone but quite another traveling with them. When you travel, you are basically hanging out with them 24/7.

 

Back to Dijon. Dijon is about 3 or 4 hours away from Paris in Burgundy. Stacy had rented this awesome van (a van that’s more like a bus!). We took off early and drove to Dijon.

 

van

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed the trip. The country side is quite beautiful. I think I was also glad to be getting away from the city for a while.

 

We had grand plans, a little wine testing, a little muster factory touring, and see the sights of Dijon. Well, we did 2 out of 3 which was pretty amazing. The factory tour was closed by the time we got there so we had to stick with the wine testing and see the sigtes of Dijon. Marianne, Joe D’s friend, did most of the arranging. So going in, I had no idea what we were going to do.

 

Marianne took us to see her parents in law’s house. It’s gorgeous. It’s next to a street that looks kind of industrial, but when you drive into the little gate, it’s like a cute little cottage. It’s like a picture out of one of those sunset magainze looking house. I always feel strange taking picture of people’s house without them knowing, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures.

 

Their garden looks beautiful, even with the ladder in the middle.

 

 

the house

 

 

Then it’s off the Hospice we go. Hospice is one of those name everyone know. But I never thought about where it came from. It was nice to able to see the first real thing.

 

 

Burgundy region is famous for it’s pretty roofs.

 

 

 

hospice

 

They have all sorts of awesome instruments that one can use to cure illnesses. I am not sure what they were curing using these tools, but I am pretty sure I would not like being the subject of these cures.

tools

 

 

 

 

 

And of course the hospital has a church in it, and when there’s a church, there is, you guessed it, RELICS!

 

relics

 

 

Then we went to the winery. It was super nice, you walk to caves with tons and tons of wine sitting there. It’s a real wine celler so these wine are not display wine. It’s quite different than Napa. It seem less Disneyland like than Napa.

 

As we walk by the old dusty wines, we saw some wine graffiti. The dust was quite heavy on these bottles.

 

wine

 

 

The next day, we took a walk around town.

 

This is the famous Dijon Owl. If you touch it and make a wish, your wish will come true. The owl seem to have granted a lot of wishes!

 

owl

 

This is one of my favorite photos from city center Dijon.

houses

Before we went back to Paris, we met up with our tour guides for one last time. We all thought Francois and his brother (the 2 guys at the end of the table) were mighty cute.

crew

 

 

 

It was a fun fun side trip. It was definitely more fun when you know people from the city you are visiting.

 

On the way back from Dijon to go to the airport, we decided to go get some food. The brother and I went into a kabab place and we tried to order. They just told us they didn’t speak English and are not willing to like help us order. That was weird. For the most part, peopple still try to help you out even though there’s the communication gap. So we just went to antoher place.

 

Next time, meeting with the Mr in Morocco!