The Possibility of Quarantine

Our flight to Beijing leaves in 5 hours.
The H1N1 virus has been throwing a wrench into the travel plans of many Americans.
Apparently routine health checks of incoming flights goes something like this,
1. The plane lands
2. The door opens
3. In walks men dressed in white biohazard suits
4. They scan everyone with a wand that checks people's temperature
5. If no one is exhibiting any flu-like symptoms then people are free to go

BUT if someone does display such symptoms, and even if they do not show up for a few days the Chinese government will find and quarantine anyone sitting within an arbitrary radius of said person.
Quarantine can last up to seven days and involves being locked in a hotel room.
A person in a biohazar suit comes to the room three times a day and delivers a meal.

Jeremiah is not too worried about all of this and is openly hoping that it happens. He maintains that it would the ultimate vacation, free hotel, Chinese people waiting on you hand and foot, lots of guitar and cribbage time.
He thinks the chance of our being quarantined is slim to none, but even the possibility of it is making me nervous.
I wouldn't mind having to stay in a hotel for a few days or a week as long as we get put in the same room, but I am nervous about the prospect of being separated and unable to communicate for a period of up to 7 days! Come on.

Crazy.

Anyways, to make light of it we have decided to make a list of the top 3 people we would like in quarantine with and another list with the 3 people we WOULD NOT want to be in quarantine with. Present company excluded of course.

Jeremiahs list
Yes
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Tom Waits
3. Tom Brown
No
1. Barbara Walters
2. Jerry Seinfeld
3. Adolf Hitler

Sarah's list
Yes
1. George Washington
2. Edward Jenner
3. Mitch Hedberg

No
1. Rosie O'Donnell
2. Hannibal Lector
3. Fran Drescher

Day trip to Paris

Our first stop in Paris was of course at the Exterminator Store. Jeremiah went in and compared some notes. Apparently in France the regulations for the use of pesticides are pretty lax....sort of like their policies on babies and secondhand smoke.


Once we were done with the business portion of our trip we made our way to La Tour Eiffel



And then to Monpartre to visit le Sacre Couer




And then to Les Champs Elysees pour regarder l'Arc de Triumphe


After a long day of sightseeing we went out and played pool and bowling.
Jeremiah won every game of pool.


Jeremiah won one game of bowling and I won the other.






Either way you look at it, we spanked the French.

France.....

Here are some photos from our experience here in France.

We are staying with Jeremiah's friend Thomas.
Here is Thomas:
Thomas has a flat in a little town called Tournan en Brie. It's about 30 minutes from Paris and quite cute.
We arrived here on Wednesday and our first day alone at Thomas's flat proved to be interesting.
We haven't had to spend much time on our own because Thomas does not work that often. A long day of work seems to be no more than 5 hours with an hour long lunch.
But on Thursday we had some time to wash some clothes and explore Tournan a little bit.
To make a long story short, doing laundry proved to be more difficult than we anticipated. After putting a load in the wash we were looking for the keys to Thomas's flat and we finally found them. They were in the machine. Simple, just stop the machine and liberate them.
Here is a picture of Jeremiah trying to communicate with the washing machine.

After 30 minutes or so of talking to the machine and trying to understand all of the settings, we were able to stop the machine and get the keys.
We have eaten so much cheese. I think that I might literally burst from it all. Don't get me wrong, the cheese here is amazing and I want to eat it whenever it's available, but we literally eat cheese and or some sort of dairy for every meal.
On Friday we had cheese with breakfast, pasta with tons of cheese for lunch, dinner included the following: tomato and mozzarella salad, a quiche Lorraine, and then chicken cooked in a creamy white wine sauce. Dinner was followed by a plate of cheese that included chevre, camembert, and a cheese that looked like cheddar but tasted a million times better. And for desert, cheesecake. Bien sur (but of course).


Here are some photos from our experience here in France.
We have Jeremiah and Thomas playing music with Antoine. Antoine is Thomas's son. He is 6 months and the happiest little baby.






Dancing at Thomas's flat



Latetia, Thomas's girlfriend, holding Antoine.

Antoine's mum, Dorothee

Iceland to Paris

Bonjour! Nous sommes en Paris avec l'amie de Jeremiah, qui s'appelle "Thomas."

We arrived here yesterday after two days in Iceland and now we will reside here for 6 days.
We did a quick tour of Paris yestday and saw la cathedral de Notre Dame, la tour Eiffel, et beaucoup de cafes and persons Francais.
It was strange because so many of the signs, stores, and shops are American. Starbucks, Gap, Clinique (just kidding).


But posts about France will have to wait while we show you a bit of Iceland.

We arrived in Iceland at 630am. Our first order of business was to eat breakfast at a cute little Icelandic cafe in the airport.


After breakfast we waited for a bus that would take us to Reykjavik, the capital. The airport is in Keflavik, about 40 minutes from Reykjavik.

The bus that travels between the two cities stops at The Blue Lagoon, which is a geothermal seawater fed spa. The water is loaded with silica, microorganisms (including algae and bacteria) and is therefore very therapeutic for your body.
(You can check out the link below for more information.)
The Blue Lagoon
The bacteria that live in the blue lagoon are known as "extremophiles" because they are found in extreme environments. These types of microbes live in areas that are super salty, very hot, acidic and or basic. These particular microbes (in the Blue Lagoon) survive well at high heat and high salt concentrations, but the bacteria that cause most infectious diseases prefer body temperature conditions and also low salt concentrations. Because pathogenic bacteria can not survive in these types of conditions, the Blue Lagoon does not have any chlorine in the water, just hot and salty.
As you walk into the spa there are volcanic rocks everywhere.

The water is milky and blue. Our pictures do not do the lagoon any justice, but the picture on the website are fantastic.

While at the spa one can put on a silica mud mask that purifies the skin, you can sit in a steam and or sauna room, and if you wish to pay extra you can get a massage.
It's a great way to unwind after a flight when it's early in the morning and you can't check into your hotel room until 230pm.
After getting our money's worth at the Blue Lagoon we boarded the bus to Reykjavik. When we arrived it was still too early to check into our hotel room so we found a sweet little cafe where we could eat some lunch and stow our bags. Icelandic meat stew amd rye bread with lamb paté is the traditional lunch in Iceland and it was quite good. Their rye bread is sort of like that canned brown bread we have in the states. It's very tasty.

Below are pictures of our hotel. The proprietor was exceptionally rude to us and to all the other guests. I'm not sure why someone who is so negative and clearly annoyed with all humans would enter a field like "hospitality" but the hotel was clean, in a good location, and the right price, so we put up with him.


I have pictures of our hotel room that I have to find.
I imagine they are on our other camera.
I'll leave you with a few more pictures of Iceland.

Greetings from Iceland

We are at a small tourist internet kiosk, so I don´t have time to write too much.
Iceland is exactly what I thought it would be, everyone looks like Bjork, Sigor Ros is playing everywhere and everything is made of ice.
Ok,it´s nothing like that.
I will post pictures as soon as we get to France.
We leave for France at 400am tomorrow morning.
It´s never dark here during the summer, which is wild.
Last night we were up until 2am walking around in the brightness of "day," my body was ready for sleep, but my mind was awake.

All of the television channels play crappy American shows or cheesy British ones.

We have some fun stories and pictures to post and when we are chillin´in Thomas´s Parisian flat I will be sure to post them.

In the meantime know that Jeremiah has feasted on the "Icelandic Black Death," which is fermented (rancid) shark with a shot of Brennivan afterwards.

He´s also developed a taste for fish jerky and insists on eating it in our very small poorly ventilated hotel room.

Pray for me.

Thank you to all who have decided to follow our blog. We will do our best to make interesting, be happy that there is no "scent" feature.

-love s and j

Preparing for departure

Today is the day!!!!!!!
We leave for Iceland at 9pm and arrive at 6 am.
Our house is almost ready for our friend/dog sitter
who will be living here with Zucca for the summer.
Zucca. Oh man. That dog is watching our every move. He knows something is up and he doesn't look happy.
Dogs are funny like that. Having a dog is like conducting a study in non-verbal communication. One realizes how much can be communicated without uttering a single word. Dogs know when you're sad, mad, scared, anxious, irritated, and happy and respond to each emotion differently.
If I am sad, Zucca comes and sits right down and sidles up next to me.
If I'm in a good mood he wags his tail and plays with his toys.
And when I'm sad about leaving him for 3 months, I don't have to tell Zucca (not that he would understand anyways) but he knows.
He looks at me like, "your leaving me, aren't you."
I am sad to say goodbye, even if it's just for a little while.
In honor of the world's greatest dog I have posted some more pictures of the Z-boy.


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My Phobia Has A First Name

It’s B-O-L-O-N-E-P-H-O-B-I-A

Going to the travel clinic before we left the country was not my idea.

Sarah stated that she thought it would be important that we not contract a life threatening diseases while abroad. I, belonging to another school of thought, posited I would rather be infected by any number of diseases than pay money to have a nurse shove a pointy piece of metal under my skin.

After a brief discussion about the topic (and after some petty name calling on my part), wiser counsel prevailed.
Sarah and I both received ten shots each over three different occasions (Hep A, Jap E (three shots), Meningococcal, PPD, Polio, Tetanus, Typhoid and Rabies (three shots)).
Everyone who has a fear of needles must swallow their fear, roll up their sleeves, and be stabbed time and again. Here are a couple tips for those of you who hate shots that helped me get through:
1) talking incessantly about nothing (The Iliad, tracking animals, roast beef, etc)
2) having you wife hold your hand
3) having your wife promise you an ice cream of the flavor of your choosing if you just sit still.

When getting vaccinated, Sarah doesn’t even flinch. I think the needle might be scared of her instead of the other way around.

The official term for the fear of needles is bolonephobia. Although the word bolonephobia sounds like it should mean “an abnormal fear of lunch meat”, etymologically it comes from two Greek words; bolone (which means needle), and phobia (which means phobia).

Here are some other fun phobias:

Gynophobia is the fear of women. Aulophobic is the fear of flutes. Peladophobia is the fear of bald people. Pogonophia is the fear of beards. Taurophobia is the fear of bulls.

Malaria

When preparing for an excursion that involves visiting anywhere from 8-12 different countries, there are a number of things to consider:
climate
visas
currency
accommodations
culture
disease
Disease? Definitely. Southeast Asia and its tropical rain forest is the perfect home for Anopheles mosquitoes,the causative agent of malaria.
As you can see from the map below, malaria is endemic to Asia, particularly the parts that we plan on visiting.

The Anopheles mosquito (featured left), is the vector for malaria.
Malaria is from the Italian for "bad air," mal (bad) aria (air). Malaria earned it's name due to ignorance of how the disease is actually transmitted. People acquired malaria in swampy, damp, warm, and humid environments.

Of course the air in such places feels heavier and logically people deduced that it was the bad air that was making folks sick. Historical records of the disease can be found dating as far back as 2700 BC, but determination of the mosquito as the vector of disease did not occur until 1897. Ronald Ross of the British Navy in India discovered that the parasite that causes chills, anemia, fever, and ultimately death, is transmitted to humans and animals via the Anopheles mosquito. This parasite called Plasmodium and is injected into a human or animal via the mosquito. The parasite's life cycle involves an all expense paid vacation in an unsuspecting host (see left) and then can be transmitted to another host via another mosquito. In the body of the host the parasite causes liver and red blood cells to burst, toxins are released into the blood stream and a person can sustain any number of symptoms, including aches,sweats, fever, anemia, jaundice, spleen enlargment, and death.


Historically there have been many different treatments for malaria. The Chinese used wormwood, an herb, upon their arrival to the new world the Spanish discovered quinine from the Cinchona tree, and currently malarone and mefloquine are prescribed for prevention and treatment of the disease. My personal favorite treatment for malaria is the "Gin and Tonic." You laugh, but it's true. When the Brits were in the east they drank tonic water (contains quinine) to help fight off the disease. Tonic water by itself is somewhat unbearable, but as the saying goes, "a spoon full of gin helps the medicine go down."


We will not be relying on gin and tonic to keep us safe, the Travel Clinic at Beth Israel Hospital has prescribed us with plenty of malarone. Malarone prevents the formation of folic acid, which is a necessary step in the reproduction of the parasite. No folic acid, no Plasmodium babies, no malaria.