Archive for June, 2009

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Southern Africa

Monday, June 8th, 2009

My husband Jake and I went to Southern Africa for our honeymoon in October 2008. We had heard so many great things about the area, our expectations were set very high. I was worried that nothing could live up to the descriptions we had heard and that going on safari might kind of be like visiting a really big zoo.

In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. The region was absolutely incredible and the six days we spent on safari in Botswana and South Africa were the highlights of our trip. Suzanne would have loved the adventure of it all and the beautiful glimpse into the untouched wilderness, as well as the wonderful people we met at the lodges. We saw giraffes, zebras, lions, cheetahs, leopards, hippos, antelopes, and our favorite–the baby rhino.  It was the trip of a lifetime, and Suz would have loved every minute of it.

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While we were in Cape Town, we did visit an ostrich farm. I tried to see if I could ride one and also check off #66 on this list, but there were some safety issues. We’ll have to keep working on that one…

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- Carolyn Chao Sabat, friend from Princeton

Posted in Go on a safari. | 177 Comments »

Learning to knit

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Both my mom and my grandmother get to take credit for this one. I first learned to knit in high school when my mom helped me make a sweater out of grey mohair which I still have somewhere. It’s a little itchy, but it’s still holding together. Then Grandma Enright wrote out detailed instructions for me about the art of knitting hats, which was way over my head. I did get the hang of scarves, though, and here is a picture of my husband Scott graciously wearing the scarf I made for him on our honeymoon in Vienna, Austria, in February of 2008.

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- Julie Enright Furlan, friend from Princeton

Posted in Learn to knit. | 149 Comments »

Speaking French and Spanish

Monday, June 8th, 2009

I took French in middle school and high school and learned enough to be able to get around Paris with Suzanne, Mary Kitazono, and Dan Zook during a trip we took our junior year at Princeton. Then, I moved to Los Angeles for medical school and figured out that French wasn’t going to do me a lot of good taking care of the patients at the LA County hospital.

I decided to go to Guatemala for three weeks in 2003 during my last summer break to learn Spanish. I managed to learn the basics at the Spanish school where we studied for five hours a day and then went on field trips out into the countryside to practice speaking with the locals. This is a picture of us going on one of these trips–that’s me in the middle of the huddled mass, bracing myself for another adventure in our luxurious means of transportation:

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We went out to remote villages where the kids had never seen cameras or Americans before.

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Since then, I’ve traveled extensively through Mexico (picture below) and have been speaking Spanish everyday in the hospital in LA and now in Dallas. I’m so glad I learned both languages.

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- Julie Enright Furlan, friend from Princeton

Posted in Become fluent in French and Spanish. | 166 Comments »

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