Tag: travel

Skol! Our Trip to Scandinavia Day #9 “Fjords Ahoy!”

by reissmd, posted in Balestrand, Norway

We had an early morning start today.  The buffet at the Grand Hotel was fantastic again. I noticed some chocolate chip cookies.  I had one and later went back for another.  A fellow traveler (Deb) asked me if they were good.  I told her they were excellent “…but not as good as my sister, Annette’s”.  Deb said “Oh, how sweet, you should put that in your blog.”   So there it is. 

The early start required us to have our bags ready for pick up at 7 AM and we had to be on the bus by 8 am.  Tauck is quite militaristic when it comes to the schedule.  Some vacationers might not like that but I love it.  If our schedule calls for us to leave at 8 and I’m on the bus at 8 it would irritate the heck out of me if we don’t leave until 8:15 because someone else is late. 

That reminds me of one of our fellow travelers, Marshall, who has been very fun to talk to.  He told me the 3 main life lessons he has tried to teach his children, grandchildren, and apparently anyone else who will listen.  That would include me so here they are:

1.  If you’re not early you’re late. 

2. Leave things as you’ve found them. 

3. Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story (my personal favorite)

All good lessons to live by. And here is a picture of the sage person who shared them with me. 

I’m taking life advice from this person?

Today we headed to the fjords.  This was one of the main reasons I wanted to take this vacation. During today’s road trip, our tour guide, Dean, relayed a number of interesting facts and stories.  For example did you know the name Bjorn means bear?  Or that the Vikings didn’t wear horns? (I guess Marshall isn’t a Viking after all).    

Today’s trip was very long so we had some bathroom stops.  The first was at 10:00 AM at this roadside restaurant with a very interesting roof.  

This is called a sod roof and I don’t think it will become popular in Southern California.

Lunch was in Gol, Norway where the  average high temperatures in July are 60° and in August 58°.  In spite of these “high” temperatures they have this in Gol. See below. 

A water slide when the high temperatures in the summer reach 60°? No thank you.

We finally approached the fjords and then we were just two ferry rides and a short drive away from our hotel for the night. I could not believe the ferries. They were incredibly stable and exhibited no sway at all. I didn’t realize we were moving and then saw we were about to arrive. Very nice.

We are staying at the Kviknes Hotel (Kviknevegen 8, 6899 Balestrand). The hotel looks just average and the room is nothing special either but the buffet was something of which I don’t think I have ever seen before. We were told to get to the dining hall 15 minutes early for a lecture. I was prepared to hear a boring lecture about vikings or some celebrity who spent a night at the hotel 25 years ago. Oh no, not at all. Instead we were introduced to the head chef who walked us around the entire buffet and explained every dish. I am sure you are thinking, no big deal, he described 4-5 dishes and said “Bon Appetit!”. Uh, no. I can recall the following: Herring in mustard sauce, tomato sauce or pickled. Crabs legs, shrimp, seafood salad, Caesar salad, potato salad, cole slaw, tomato and cheese salad, crayfish soup, smoked and 2 other types of salmon, trout, halibut, venison stew, cold cuts (ham, roast beef, salami, et.al.), grapes and other fresh fruit, cauliflower, broccoli, root vegetables, olives (yuck), potatoes, a variety of cheeses, blueberry pie, ice cream, cheese cake, eclairs, creme brulee, flan, panna cotta, cookies, crackers, brownies, etc. Just writing this sentence is making me feel stuffed.

I am tired and need to get to sleep. We have another early start tomorrow. Speak to you then.

ACP Meeting in NOLA Day #1 “On the Road Again”

by reissmd, posted in New Orleans, New Orleans (NOLA), Uncategorized

We are off.  After a relatively long hiatus we are traveling again.  I must admit it has been quite gratifying to hear from numerous people “When will you be traveling?  I miss your blog.”   Well that day has come.  At my previous job, I was only working 1 day per week and had 8 weeks of vacation.  My current job with UCLA is a bit more restrictive so other than a couple of weekend trips to visit the grandsons we have stayed at home a fair amount of the time. I recently found out that I’m allotted educational leave that doesn’t count against vacation.  When I realized that the American College of Physicians meeting was in New Orleans this year I had to go.  Patrice agreed without hesitation since some of our best meals on trips have been in NOLA.  Some of our friends heard about our plans and said they look forward to hearing about the trip when we get back.  I told them, I’d send them an email everyday instead.  Just check out REISSTRAVELBLOG.COM 

As usual the trip to the airport was a breeze. We use the Ride Yellow app for trips to LAX. The Yellow cab drivers almost always arrive early (as opposed to Uber drivers who seem to have trouble finding our house).  They don’t charge you extra for reserving the taxi in advance. They also know how to get to the airport.  The charge is quite reasonable so I suggest you use them. 

The flight to NOLA was uneventful except for some occasional mild turbulence.  I have to admit I was a little unnerved when I saw this. 

737 MAX? Yikes!!!

In spite of being on one of the most dangerous planes in the sky at least we weren’t going to one of the most dangerous airports. That being Reagan in DC. And I am not talking about the air traffic issues in DC. Oh well, we landed safely in NOLA, got our bags and headed to the hotel. 

People have expressed concern about my blogging.  “Aren’t you worried that someone will rob your house knowing that you are out of town?”   Not at all, I tell them.  The reason is that we have Bruce and his pet dog, “Daisy”, house sitting for us. 

Here is a picture of Bruce.

And here is a picture of his sweet dog, Daisy.

Isn’t Daisy a dear?

Tonight’s dinner was at Muriel’s (801 Chartres St, New Orleans, LA 70116).  We’ve eaten there twice before and tonight was just as wonderful as we remembered.  They had a wonderful offer that we took advantage of. You could choose an appetizer, main course and dessert for $55. The meal was amazing. I don’t think we could recreate the food we had for twice that cost in Los Angeles. Just take a look at our choices.

My appetizer was the wedge salad. It was perfect.
Patrice had the Tasso Carbonara. She thought it was great.
My main course was Shrimp and Grits.

I have a rule never have Shrimp and Grits north of the Mason Dixon line. Well we are south right now, and this meal did not disappoint me. The only thing I thought was odd was that there were only 5 shrimp. Don’t they usually serve 6 shrimp with an entree?

[Patrice here. Don’t say anything but as you can see in the picture there were 6 shrimp. Someone grabbed one when Robert was busy using his phone. Serves him right.]

Patrice’s entree was the Pecan Crusted Drum.

I never had heard of a fish called a Drum. I Googled it and found out that Drum are members of the Sciaenidae family. Sorry but that did not help me at all.

Bread pudding for dessert. Patrice’s favorite. Almost as good as Massa in Los Angeles.
I had the Crème brûlée 

The crème brûlée was delicious. It was just as good as the crème brûlée that I make and a lot better than my friend, Gary’s. By the way, as a doctor I am a bit embarrassed to promote and make crème brûlée. After all it has to be one of the most unhealthy desserts ever made. It has sugar, heavy cream, vanilla (that’s not bad), and egg yolks. The healthiest part of the egg (the white, which has all the protein) is discarded. Very unhealthy but oooohhhhh soooo good.

After all that food, I am exhausted. Talk to you tomorrow. 

New York City Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation Day #3 “Lobster” 3/25/19

by reissmd, posted in New York City

I have not adjusted to Eastern time yet and not sure if I am on Pacific or still on Australian time. Whatever time zone I am on doesn’t matter since my usual pattern continues, not getting enough sleep while Patrice sleeps like she is an Olympian sleeper.

Last night we were looking for a place for dinner and Patrice said let’s go to someplace close to the hotel. That sounded good but then she said “How about “Palm Too”, it is very close?”. The last time I remember eating at The Palm in Beverly Hills it was in 1979 to celebrate finally selling my 1974 Fiat. The car was a wreck and I was happy to unload it. As I recall the dinner pretty much wiped out most (if not all) of the money I got from the sale of the car. I asked if the Palm Too was related to the The Palm in Beverly Hills and when I was informed that it was I started to get severe pains in my back pocket where my wallet is stored. I remembered that I still need to convince this woman to travel to Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee for baseball so I quickly said, “Sounds great!”.

When we went to the Palm in Beverly Hills we saw Kareem Abdul Jabbar. We saw him again at Palm Too but this time it was just a picture on the wall. No other celebrity sightings except for these guys.

Two orders of 4 pound lobsters.

The menu was great but there was one item that was like a light burning into our retinas and that was of course the lobsters. We had a choice of either 3 or 4 lbs. Patrice opted for the 3 pounder but our waiter said that they only had 4 or 5 lbs to offer us tonight. We both chose the 4 pounders and neither of us were disappointed. We had Brussels sprouts to add something green to the table and were not at all impressed by those guys. I am happy to report that Patrice and I have replaced our search for the perfect bread pudding with a search for the perfect Brussels sprouts. We have declared Masa the winner in the bread pudding search and so far the leaders in the Brussels sprouts derby are Zane’s, The Standing Room, and Tin Roof (the first two are in Hermosa Beach and the later is in Manhattan Beach). The Palm Too had excellent lobster but their BS (Brussels Sprouts) needs some work.

Today Patrice suggested we go for a walk. We heard that the Vessel at Hudson Yards was worth a visit. After 16,000 steps we are back at the hotel. The structure is made of 154 interconnected flights of stairs and almost 2,500 stairs. It just opened days ago (March 15, 2019) and you need to get a timed entrance ticket which is free. I am glad they stagger entrance to the structure because having crowds up there would be scary. The views of the city are great. You also get a great view of the Hudson River but I hate to be a negative kind of guy, but who wants to look at it. It is not a very pretty sight from this direction.

The Vessel as viewed near to the entrance.
Patrice and I on the Vessel. Much too close a photo for me. I need a selfie stick. Do they make one that extends about 10 yards?
We stole this idea from a couple of guys from Massachusetts. For a guy like me who is frightened of heights this was a major sacrifice for the enjoyment of my followers.

After the Vessel we headed to the adjacent Hudson Yards mall. This is very upscale, with stores like Cartier, Van Cleef and Arpels, Kate Spade, Tiffany’s, Neiman Marcus, et al. They have some beautiful artwork including this wall piece where you were encouraged to move the sequins to create your own art.

The picture of our art was a blurry. So we stole someone else’s artwork.

The mall also had some upscale ice cream. We loved Van Leeuwen and found out they had a number of outlets in our area of the country.

Good thing we walked 16,000 steps today. After this “lunch” we will need another 30,000 steps to break even.

Today would have been the 103rd birthday of my loving mother, Irene Reiss. Without her, this blog wouldn’t exist. Gone but never forgotten. Today and every day is dedicated to her. xoxoxo