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Torres Del Paine: The most beautiful place in the world

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Torres Del Paine translates to "Towers of Blue." Cradled deep within the Southern Andes, the park is known as the crown jewel of South America. Its glaciers, rock faces, lakes, plains and mountains leave nothing to the imagination. It's all there, resplendent with beauty no photograph can capture. Nonetheless, on Yoni's and my South American adventure, we tried our best. The story of how we actually got there is quite entertaining, but I'll save that for another post. For now, I hope you enjoy some of our favorite shots of this exquisite national park which is the most beautiful place I have ever witnessed. 

TORRES DEL PAINE: IF YOU'RE GOING to Torres Del Paine National Park, You can get more information here. We stayed and ate most of our meals here. We rented a car here. While we opted for a hotel but there is a 3-6 day hike (depending on your pace) called the W and a 5-10 day hike of the entire park called the Full Circuit. There are campsites and little hostels along the way to stay at. If you do the W, make sure to make time for some of the smaller trails. There is a short and easy hike out to Lago Grey where you can see amazing glaciers. Despite its relative ease and obscurity, the hike around the Salto Grande (Big Falls) up to and around Nordenskjöld Lake is said to be the most beautiful in the park and should not be missed. We flew this airline (6 flights, no lost bags and generally on time) and they served remarkably good food free of charge. You might want to tack a few extra days on to see this (which we did see. there is a similar glacier at Torres Del Paine, but the Perito Moreno gLacier is pretty amazing, nonetheless) or this.

What is the most beautiful place you've ever been? We want to know (and maybe want to visit!). Give us your travel tips! Either email them to us at fivetdsisters@gmail.com or leave them in the comment section below. Can't wait to hear from you.

 

 

 

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MEEEEEEMORIIIIIIEEEEES, ALL ALONE IN THE MOOOOOONLIGHT

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We're sitting on the steps of the Budapest Opera House, waiting for Charity to check whether there’s a matinee showing of Faust. She’s the only one who sort of speaks Hungarian.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

I actually don’t know the song. Liberty and Mercina learnt it in Tour Choir – the most advanced group in the Colorado Children’s Chorale – but they only remember the first two lines. I was in Chorale too, but I was never promoted to Tour Choir. They know a lot of songs I don’t.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

I’ve picked up the song by now – it’s only two lines, and most of the words are the same. I sing until I get dizzy and have to take a breath. Chary comes back. There’s no Faust. She sits on the steps and starts to sing too.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We sang a lot on that trip. Charity would sing O Mio Babbino Caro in public squares in Budapest and Vienna and make me walk around the resulting crowds carrying her sun hat. Pedestrians would throw 1€ and 2€ coins into it and I felt like a beggar, which was sort of the case but at least it’s a good story now. We’d use the money to buy lemonade at fancy cafes later on.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We’d sing along to My Hips Don’t Lie and Weekends & Bleakdays in our apartment when they played on MTV Europe, which still showed actual music videos most of the time back in 2006. We sang Hungarian folk songs when we went to tea with my grandfather and grandmother at Budapest’s New York Palace, which is still the most beautiful place I’ve ever had tea in my life. We would sing in English every Sunday at the international congregation and sometimes I’d look up from the hymnal to see if the bishop’s son was looking at me.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

Now Mercina is upset. She thinks we’re making a scene. Mia’s always had the most dignity of all of us, unless you catch her at 9pm – then something funny happens to her blood glucose levels and she starts acting totally sloshed. But it’s only 2 or 3 in the afternoon right now, and she stalks off into the cobblestone sunshine of the Budapest afternoon to escape our uncouthness.

               We’re sitting in the opera house, the opera house, the opera house. We’re waiting for the curtains to arise.

We can’t see Mercina anymore in the rush of city people running errands, so Charity makes us get up. When we find Mia, she promises us that we’ll go to a café for some lemonade.

{Memories : A - Very Pleasant / B - Rather Sad by Charles Ives on Grooveshark}

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Opium Pie




Sunday evening, the entire DC TD clan gathered at Mimo's house for a massive potluck. A missionary serving in another local congregation grew up in the same Hungarian village as our great-grandfather, so we decided to muster our collective culinary bravado to help him feel at home. Momo was in town, and she turns every gathering into a party. But, even by our spoiled standards, this particular night had a magic alchemy -- sour cream flowed like the Danube, the seven little cousins performed a mini concert, and we all sang Hungarian hymns. And then we sang a few bawdy folk songs. We laughed until we cried trying to decipher polyglottal puns and remembering happy times, people we love and endless fields of Carpathian sunflowers.

For the occasion, I made my take on classic mákos pite. A friend of my grandmother's once called this rich poppy seed cake "opium pie," and the name stuck. I twisted the traditional recipe a bit, adding cream cheese to the shortbread and abandoning the egg wash for a crumblier top. The results are pretty sophisticated -- my kids aren't quite sure yet whether they love it. But it was a home run with everyone over the age of seven. Which actually works out pretty well. 

For the shortbread crust:

1 stick butter  
2/3 c. sugar
1 block cream cheese

2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/3 c. flour
1 tsp. Kosher salt

Cream together the butter and sugar, then beat in the cream cheese, vanilla and salt. Mix in the flour until it's just combined into a soft dough. Split your dough into two uneven discs, roughly 70/30, cover them with plastic and pop them in the fridge while you make the filling. This is probably also a good time to preheat your oven to 350*.

 For the filling:

 1 1/2 c. poppy seeds
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. cream

2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
1/3 c. dried fruit (I used a mix of Craisins and apricots)

Since Hungarian sweets use poppy seeds in such massive quantities, it's really important to grind them. I used my BlendTec, and it did a great job. If your blender happens to be less powerful than a lawnmower, I think you could probably use a wheat or coffee grinder, or maybe a food processor with a steel blade. Whatever your weapon of choice, give the poppy seeds and the sugar a whirl until it is ground medium-fine (you should see it change color to a lighter, dustier purple). Put this in a medium saucepan, add everything else except the fruit, and turn your burner to low. While that heats up, give the fruit a quick spin in the blender, then add it to your concoction on the stove. Turn up the heat to medium, and simmer for a few minutes, stirring constantly until you get a rich, black jam-like mess. If it doesn't taste awesome, tweak your mixture with more sugar, lemon, cream or something else delicious...

 While the poppy seeds cool a bit, press your larger lump of dough into the bottom of a well-greased 8"x8" baking pan. Spread the poppy filling in a nice, thick layer on top, leaving a 1/4 border around the edge. Crumble the remaining dough, and smush in an additional 2 Tbs. soft butter, and 1/4 c. sugar, so every morsel has some sparkle. Scatter these frosty bits over the top, and pop that baby in the oven. Check them after 30 minutes or so -- you want the top to be slightly browned, but the bottom crust as pale as possible. I ended up lightly broiling mine for a couple minutes, because I was worried the bottom would burn. Let it cool, then slice into squares. For maximum enjoyment, you should do this between bites.

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A nice end to the evening. . .



I'm trying to think of a good way to describe this. . .Carl's dog died that morning. A cherry red Mack truck deprived Rover's shallow grave of most of its due, and the crazy neighbor lady saturated what was left of man(more specifically, Carl)'s best friend with high proof urea. After the poorly attended service, Carl went into the freezer to find his pint of Chunky Monkey empty, with a comforting post-it from his roommate shoved inside promising to "cover the next one." Carl's mother called him that afternoon, wanting to give him some good news over an early dinner -- he was to meet her on the other side of town because she didn't feel like leaving strip mall where she attended water aerobics. An hour and a half later, Carl walked into a suburban Chile's to see her soggy head nestled between the brawny arms of his despised high school math tutor. "Kyle understands my needs much better than your father ever has. Don't you, Kyle? We met at zumba." Kyle and Carl's mother left the restaurant to get some air right before the check came. Carl paid and hightailed it to nowhere in particular. Needing a moment to process his day, he pulled off to pace across a lot simultaneously vacant and threatening. On his third pivot, his nose was greeted by a large flat fist, which then proceeded to introduce itself to his wallet, cell phone, and keys. As he propped himself up to watch his car speeding down the road to irretrievability, Carl couldn't help but say aloud to himself "Damn. Now that's a sunset."This was that kind of sunset.







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Happiness and a cup of tea

Premal and I spent a few days in the highest village in India south of the himalayas. The area is famous for the lush green patchwork of tea gardens that blanket the hillsides. The plantations look like something out of a fairytale. They're too green, and the fog is too perfect, and the crisp mountain air is too welcome a retreat from the oppressive heat of the cities to be real. The town consisted of a clump of rainbow colored shacks, each hung with an immaculately carved door and a sari or two drying out on the line. Children and goats rambled about the ragged road with equally impressive dexterity, and girls walked to their one-room school house with books in their arms and jasmin blossoms in their hair. 

And yet, I kept my camera down. Because as stunning as my surroundings were, I couldn't shake the feelings of guilt the welled up in me every time our jeep rolled through town. When grown men and kids alike would come and peer into our windows at the tourists from the big city. I became acutely aware of what I had, and what they lacked, and all of the small things I could have done to brighten their world. I started a running list of small items I might bring to give to strangers on our next trip: chewing gum, chocolates, glow-bracelets...

 But it did little to ease my mind. 

One night, as we sat by the fire in our little cottage, we decided to watch a TED talk Premal had downloaded before we left. The subject of the talk was happiness, and I felt like it was written especially for me in that moment. I know I won't do the talk justice here, so I really encourage you to watch it for yourself. But essentially what Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says is that human beings like being happy. In fact, we're engineered to be happy, especially when there's nothing we can do about it. So, don't pity people, and don't feel guilty, because that doesn't help you and it certainly doesn't help the objects of your emotional patronage. 

The next morning we went out for a hike, armed with a new resolve to see the best in my surroundings through my camera. We took an absurd number of pictures of the hills, and ourselves, but when we came upon a group of plantation workers I put my lens down. Soon they all started to point at me and my camera, clicking their tongues and yelling at our guide in a language neither Premal nor I was familiar with. Like a bolt of lightning the guilt was back, and I felt my face flush hot with shame over being "that insensitive tourist." Premal asked our guide something in Hindi, then looked at me and laughed. "They want you to take their pictures" he said. So I slowly lifted my camera, and as I did, these women of the field stood up proud and strong and smiled. And my guilt washed away, and I'll be damned if it didn't leave a solid dose of happiness is its wake.

Since the beginning of our relationship, chai--or "cha" as they say in Gujarati--has inhabited a special place in my heart. On weekends, Premal will brew us big mugs of the spiced tea, and we'll sip it and pretend that there's nowhere else we have to be. I used to be completely terrified at the notion of making cha from scratch, but like lots of the best things in life, it's best if you don't complicate matters.

Simple Cha:

  • 2/3 C water
  • 2 t loose black tea
  • 2 T fresh ginger (grated) OR 1 sprig fresh mint OR 3 pods green cardamom
  • 1/3 C GOOD FATTY milk
  • sugar to taste

add the tea and spice to your water and bring to a boil for a couple minutes. Add milk and bring back to desired temperature. Strain. Sweeten. Be happy!

Notes on sugar: In India they drink their cha so sweet your teeth will sting. About 2-3 tablespoons of sugar and you'll be authentic. I tend to use slightly less than a teaspoon in mine.

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Something came in the mail today......

As Glorianna mentioned last week, I've decided to take the next year and a half to serve a mission for my church.

One of the crazy things about going on a mission is that you have no idea where you'll go until after you submit your application. Family members and friends usually try to guess where you'll end up, but no one really knows until the big, fat, white envelope with all of the official details arrives. Well, mine came today.

Out of the 75+ official guesses, no one guessed the location correctly. Crazy, huh?

^^^^^^^^Clearly I was pretty surprised!^^^^^^^^

I never expected I would be going to

TOKYO, JAPAN!

I'll write a more thoughtful post about my motivations, my church, my reservations, etc., later, but for now I give you:

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Thoughts on India

ELEPHANT!
In the weeks before going to India a couple words kept coming up in conversations related to our trip. The first, echoed most commonly among our American friends, was “colorful.” As in “Oh my word India! All the colorful saris and spices and flowers, be sure to take lots of pictures!” or “India! I love Bollywood, such a colorful culture!”  The second word, more frequently employed by family and friends from India was “uncomfortable.” As in “Why are you taking her to India now when it’s the middle of summer? The poor girl is going to be terribly uncomfortable!” or “Be sure to bring toilet paper with you everywhere, lest you get into an uncomfortable bathroom situation.” and “You must take your malaria medication. It will make you very uncomfortable, but the alternative is even worse!”

As the conversations started piling up, my mind compiled a sort of rough sketch of what I ought to expect from my trip. I tried to wrap my head around what all this color and discomfort would be like, and every so often I’d catch a brief vision of Technicolor mosquitos and gorgeous women dressed in saris dancing around a primitive bathroom.

So, here I am, two weeks, four (Indian) states, seven cities, thousands of miles and one elephant ride later, and what have I learned? I know it sounds basic, but I’ve realized that asking someone to describe India as a whole is an even more cumbersome task than whittling down our own US of A to a unified notion. You see, in the States we at least have the luxury of a common tongue and a more or less agreed upon national narrative going back a couple centuries. India however, combines similar geographic diversity, with countless dialects, distinct governing bodies, and millennia of foreign occupation. Attempting to package it neatly into an idea that can be communicated in a couple of sentences is enough to make anyone’s head spin, I might even go so far as to say it’s impossible (baring testament to this is the 700-page history of India Premal picked up—my husband and his “light” reading—with graphs that cross this researcher’s eyes).  

And now, as I’ve worked—and failed—at writing a post that is comprehensive and compelling and pays appropriate tribute to each station we stopped at along our way, it has finally dawned on me why these words kept cropping up in conversation. The labels given to the nation by people I love were less about the country itself, and more about their hopes and dreams for my adventure.  They were little blessings, put out into the world as vague ideas and loving caution. And it seems they worked. The prayers for beauty and color delivered abundantly. And somehow all that talk of discomfort must have hardened me for the adventure. And  Premal and I had a magical time.

Premal's parents' old clinic
Ahmadabad night market
a beach near Mumbai


vegetable market in Mumbai 
the Tata tea gardens



walking into Tamil Nandu



lake punnamada
the gates of the old synagogue in Cochin 


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