Adventure #11 - Eat a new ethnic food each month March 10, 2011

March is an appropriate time to eat a new ethnic food celebrating the luck of the Irish."  So Ginger and Julie joined me for an evening of fellowship and Irish fare. 
I ordered Irish Trio Platter which included Shepherd's Pie, Cabbage Casserole and Mashed Potatoes along with Irish Soda Bread.
The food was quite good but the fellowship made the evening.
Irish food had to be an item on the list given that some of my original ancestors in the states came from Ireland, although at this time we are not sure of the actual location due to a name change upon arrival in the states.
Unexpectedly, Karan and Natasia arrived to have dinner after attending an opera as Shepherd's pie is one of Natasia's favorite dishes.

Adventure - random places to sleep

This was suggested by a friend after hearing about several of the random places that I have had the opportunity to sleep in the past few months.  The fun part of this suggestion is that I did not try to have these things happen, these events just occurred and provided some rare sleeping locations!

I am officially a stranded airline traveler and it occurred at Christmas time just a week before Christmas.  Enroute to London from Geneva, my plane experienced an electrical failure in the instrument panel preventing a landing at London Heathrow and instead we were diverted to a small regional airport and bused to Heathrow where we arrived to utter chaos due to snow all over Europe.  Since British Airways forgot about our flight and did not make other arrangements for us, we were left to try to find our own way home and to rebook our own flights.  After hours in a line, British Airways closed their agent windows and left for the night, leaving thousands of passangers stranded.  So after rebooking my flight via skype to American Airlines in the States, Malia and I joined the other passangers in sleeping on the floor at Healthrow.  I slept on my bacakpack, holding my purse and covered up with my coat, fleece and other items and using my PJs as my pillow.  Finally, employees brought us British Airways blankets.  God was gracious as I was on the last flight out of London the next morning and all other passangers were stranded for days.



My bed for the evening the table in the RD office



Snow seems to be the theme of sleeping adventures.  February 2, 2011 was a major snowfall in the Peoria area.  At lunch time the snow began to fall and our offices closed.  I was asked to report to the manager of the dietitians and foodservice.  I was sent home to get my things and returned to work.  I was assigned to pass trays for dinner, pick up trays and work in the kitchen preparing for the next morning's tray line.  The dietitians decided to sleep in the dietitian office.  So I slept on the table in the dietitian office on my sleeping bag.  We ended up with 13-15 inches throughout the city and I was released to return home at 3 pm the following day. 



Dietitians hard at work in the kitchen preparing trays



Lauren, Km, Hannah and I are ready for bed - the RD office (a new kind of slumber party)