Knitting in Transit

Monday, continued...

2012-01-08T21:00:00.000-06:00

Doesn't that sound awful? Monday continued...as though Mondays aren't bad enough already. Well, if you are in Madrid though, it isn't so bad.

We left the park. It was sad, but we had to do it. I really wanted to see the Plaza Mayor, and we had reservations for a Flamenco show that night that didn't start until 10:30, dangerously close to the "Michelle would rather be in bed" time zone. Okay, SMACK DAB in the middle of that time zone, so I was hoping to get in a nap in the afternoon.

That, and we were kind of hungry. When is that never the case? So, off we went. Here are some random street shots to tide you over.

A building in Madrid.

Another building in Madrid. There were far less people on scooters in Madrid than there were in Barcelona.

Getting to the Plaza Mayor involved another Metro ride. Yippee! I really did enjoy riding the Metro. I liked checking out people's shoes and occasionally there was a musician on board. Amplified and everything. When I really loved about the Metro though...was that one of the stops actually had a little art gallery, there below the city. An exhibit of photography. How cool is that? We only had a few minutes to enjoy this before the train came. Then it was back to checking out people's shoes.

Art gallery in the Metro Station. One of the best surprises I've ever had while riding public transportation. Sure beats the suspicious puddle on the bus the other day.

As I've said, we headed over to the Plaza Mayor. We almost missed it. We knew we had to head down a particular street. I think we sort of thought it would hit us over the head, but it's a plaza...surrounded by buildings...so you have to actually turn down another street and then there it is!

The Plaza Mayor, where now you enjoy a nice meal, but where once, if they didn't like you, you would burn.

Back in the day, they burned heretics here. Now, it is a square lined with restaurants. As you walk through, the waiters greet you and hold out their menus, hoping to lure you into their dining establishment. Frankly, any of them would have been fine. Outdoor dining, you can't beat that!

Did I mention they executed people here? Where is this morbidity of mine coming from?

I'm sure we picked the place we did because it looked just fine and we didn't want to walk all the way around the square. It's hard for me to say no to people and I didn't want to have to say no to a bunch of different waiters. Of course they all had a menu of the day (menu del dia), where you choose two courses and then either coffee or dessert. We also, of course, had wine with our lunch, because that is what you do when you are on vacation.

Honestly, I don't remember what we ate too much. I probably had gazpacho and I know I had the Spanish Omelet, which was okay. I'd had better. But just sitting in this plaza that has seen so much history, on a beautiful fall day, with the best companion ever...Nothing could be better than that. And...our waiter was delightful, as many Spanish waiters are. I'm not sure how much English he spoke, but he was very friendly. When it came time for the check, I nervously got his attention and then asked David how to ask "la cuenta or el cuenta"...and then looked at our waiter and said, "la cuenta, por favor" and he smiled at me, the most genuine smile, and said "Muy bueno" and bowed at me. Ah...so sweet! We left him a nice big tip. Maybe he didn't say "muy bueno"...but I am pretty sure he said, "very good" and was appreciative of my crappy Spanish.

The Plaza Mayor has also hosted numerous festivals and other happy events over the years as well.

Where to next? How about the palace? It wasn't something I had planned, but we were in the vicinity and I had heard wonderful things. The Palacio Real is supposed to be incredibly beautiful. By the time we got there, I was also looking forward to using the restroom!

Alas, when we got there it was closed. There was some sort of actual event going on. So, we just stood and looked into the great, big, huge gate. It was only closed for a bit, but we didn't wait around.

Oh dear, I had hoped to use a royal bathroom.

I really had to pee.

Let's get a picture and find someplace with a public restroom. Quick. Hurry.

Luckily, the map we had was apparently sponsored by the Golden Arches, so we headed to a nearby McDonald's, got a coke, and were on our way. I really should have taken the chance to order something unique to Spanish McDonald's, but I already was feeling a little ashamed to be in a McDonald's at all. They of course had some kind of Iberian Ham sandwich, which I suppose would have been lovely.

It's a HUGE palace. Really wish I could have seen the inside.

We wandered around a bit, but by this point we were kind of tired and decided to head back to the Metro and to the apartment. When we arrived back at the apartment, Alan, Erin, and Kelly were all in the little bard downstairs. I was sort of in the mood for a nap, but the ladies wanted to head over to El Corte Ingles to find an English-language book for Kelly to read on the way home. Since my sister's mother-in-law had highly recommended I go to El Corte Ingles, I joined them.

Kelly did find a book in the very small foreign language section. El Corte Ingles is just a massive, high-end department store. Most of what was sold in there I could never afford, but I did get a cute purple dress. Then, I'd had enough. Erin and Kelly did a little more shopping, but I tried to take a nap.

It was flamenco night, afterall. And I will write about that in another post! Ha! I know what you are thinking! Come on Michelle! It is January! You took this trip in OCTOBER.

Sorry, I can't help it. My writing attention span is very short tonight. Mostly I just want to crawl into bed and read Harry Potter. Yes, I have read Harry Potter before...but I am reading the entire series again because David is reading it for the first time. He's on the Goblet of Fire right now. I am reading the Prisoner of Azkaban. We are having a lovely time, pretending to be surprised ("OH NO! The goblet of fire is a PORTKEY!")

So, dear friends...you'll have to wait just a wee bit longer for the conclusion! And then I'll be blogging about cooking, eating out, the books I am reading, and maybe knitting.

Monday in Madrid

2012-01-03T11:48:00.000-06:00

I've gotten to the point in blogging about this trip where I have to actually go to my husband and ask him, "What did we do for lunch that day? Did we eat lunch? I don't remember eating lunch that day?" and then he has to really think and then say, "Oh...we went to that square, and there was the nice waiter". Oh, yes! How could I forget.? This is even more troubling since you all know how I love to eat. All in all, it is good that I have finally arrived at our final, full day in Spain. I think I will divide this post into two or maybe even three separate posts. We'll see how it goes.

This was one of my most favorite days of the trip. The others would be our first day in Lisbon; the tour of the winery and olive mill; that first day in Barcelona; and now this last day in Madrid. It makes me feel good that when I look back on the best days, there were days we spent with the entire group - days we spent with just a couple other people - and a day we spent alone.

I had really tried to keep the things I absolutely wanted to see in Madrid to a minimum. I knew we only had two full days there and I didn't want them to be jam packed. Since this was the last day and David and I were pretty tired, we planned only two daytime destinations: the Parque del Retiro and the Plaza Mayor. The Palacio Real was close to the Plaza Mayor so we added that to the list. The evening would be dinner and then a Flamenco show.

Several of the gang got up a little early and went for a run in el Retiro. They said it was an easy metro ride away and a very nice park. I had read a lot about the park and how busy it is on the weekends because many families come here to relax and spend time together. It was also on the list that a co-worker had given me of things to see in Madrid.

Hola from el Retiro! It's a lovely day in Madrid!

I don't recall exactly what time it was when we got there, but it was fairly early in the morning. Since it was Monday, the park was quiet and many of the little snack shops were not open yet. We hadn't eaten yet, so we were anxious to find a place for coffee and a pastry.

Those are Principe cookies we had for breakfast. Do they sell these in the states anywhere? We had them in Ireland too.

We did find a spot and got our cafe con leche and some cookies! Cookies for breakfast. What a great way to start the day...leisurely enjoying my coffee in the park, listening to a guy playing guitar (we later bought his CD for 5 euro. I am listening to it now). I wish we could have had more moments like this on our trip - where we weren't in any rush to get anywhere.

Eventually we felt we should get up an walk around the park. It's a huge park, and we weren't really sure where to begin. So, we just kind of started walking. One of the first things we saw were mermaid butts!

He he...Here is the entire statue.

I wasn't able to find any other information for you. This was obviously a fountain but it was not on. I'm not even sure if these are really mermaids and a merman...or just unfortunate people with eels for legs.

There are many fountains and statues in the park. Below is the Fountain of the Fallen Angel.

At the base were these crazy monsters which I thought were kind of cute.

I kind of like the one second from the left there...he's got these crazy eyes that kind of bug out. And then of course they are all spitting water out of their noses, which gives the impression they have all heard something really, really funny.

We kept wandering and came across one of those little parks with exercise equipment. I saw quite a few of these in Spain actually, and surprising to me, people actually used them. As David and I played around, there were about 5 or 6 people seriously using the equipment.

We were not serious.

Pretending to be on the balance beam.

Monkey bars! Fun!

Our daily exercise out of the way, we were now ready to seek some wildlife. We came across crazy ducks. These ducks were chasing each other off for some potato chips. No kidding. There is another video where you can see the guy just dump the bag in the water.

More ducks from Michelle on Vimeo.

Just in case you can't see the video, here is a picture of the crazy ducks.

We also saw some random cats roaming the park. Or sleeping as the case may be.

And this...this was a black cat in our path. And yes...we did go the other way.

David didn't seem to mind the black cats or the crazy ducks. He looks like a pretty happy guy, no?

We had seen the fauna of the park. Time for the flora. There is a lovely rose garden, the Rosaleda. I love rose gardens. We also saw a lovely rose garden at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver and of course the lovely Lyndale Park rose garden here in Minneapolis. I took many, many rose pictures, but I think these yellow ones were my favorite.

Of course, I had to get a picture of me with the lovely roses. Feel free to leave comments about how I am as lovely as a rose. ha ha.

Then we headed over to the Crystal Palace. We couldn't go in because they were setting up some kind of exhibit, but some nice women took a picture of us in front of the fountain.

Then we saw this group of three musicians. I cannot resist an accordion! We dropped some money in their box and then I was taking some video and a photo and one of the musicians offered to get one with David and I. That led to the funny video below the picture. "it's on video...video..."

Music from Michelle on Vimeo.

And then....we went rowboating! There is a small "lake" in the park in which you can rent rowboats for 45 minutes and paddle around.

David did most of the rowing. That's the Monument to Alfonzo the 12th behind me there.

The monument comes complete with its own cats.

I did take a turn rowing as well. It was fun. The problem with a rowboat is you cannot see where you are going. Where is the sense in that?

We really had a great time. It was so relaxing, we went in circles, high-fived some guys hanging out on the monument, enjoyed the music from a saxophone player.

Eventually though, we had to leave the boat behind. We were almost out of the park when I remember I wanted to check out this pathway lined with statues.

Here is David imitating one of the statues. This is always fun to do when statues are involved.

And here is a closeup of that statue. Don't you think something looks amiss with his head? Like they took the head off a different statue and stuck it on this one?

Well, I think this post has gone on long enough. There is still the entire rest of the day, including lunch (!) to blog about. And the Flamenco! Oh, the Flamenco!

I'm Lost in the Prado!

2011-12-31T12:48:00.000-06:00

Ah! Sunday in Madrid! David and I awoke in our rather posh hotel, cozy in our bed with a fluffy down comforter and crisp white sheets, king size pillows to match the king size bed. Apparently, the Melia Castilla has quite the conference center, and has an auditorium that can seat a million people. Of course, I am kidding. I honestly don't remember how many, but I remember being impressed and wondering where they would put them all. It was also fun to stay someplace that provided a bevy of toiletries: a dental kit complete with toothbrush, floss, and toothpaste, a razor, of course a shower cap, a comb! I was running a little low on shampoo at this point so all these items were tucked into my luggage for use at the apartment. Yay!

I also spied this interesting ad (?) in our room. Roughly translated it means something like, "anyone tell you like watching television". That's how google translate does it anyway. This baffles me. Is this an ad for a movie or something that Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton were in? Or just another example of how American movie stars do lots of ads in Europe and Japan? Why does Harrison Ford look so annoyed? And Diane Keaton...perky as always. What is going on here?

David and I were hungry and decided we should wander about the neighborhood and find some food. But first, I had some ironing to do. No, I don't think you really are interested in the minutiae of my day, but I do want to introduce you to the most annoying iron and board combo I've ever met. The iron was actually attached to the board - which makes sense in a deterring iron thieves. However, it makes setting up the iron incredibly difficult. You've got this heavy thing with a pointy end dangling and swinging around, whacking you in the thigh as you attempt to get the legs of the board fully extended. Ugh,

Ironing out of the way, it was time to find a little breakfast. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was one of those 20 euro or something crazy deals and we had declined the upgrade for the room to include the buffet. We weren't really sure where Lea and Amit were, so we headed out. It was a cool morning in Madrid, and David and I decided we would only head one block in each direction from the hotel and if we didn't see someplace nearby to get coffee and pasties, we would just go to the little cafe in the hotel lobby.

We didn't find anything. Our hotel, however, was surrounded by foreign embassies, which was kind of neat. I definitely saw some people in the lobby that looked as though they were foreign dignitaries. That and a lot of flight crew looking folks. We went to the little cafe and I did my "dos cafe con leches and dos....(point at a croissant)" and then we enjoyed our little morning snack. Lea and Amit joined us shortly thereafter. They had been a bit more adventurous and did find someplace nearby to get a more substantial breakfast. Jealous.

We had some time to kill before we had to meet the others so we chatted in the lobby and did some Madrid research on the internet. I think we were able to drop our stuff off at the apartment around noon or something. Kym and Kyle were going to head to the Prado first thing in the morning. I'm not sure what Alan, Erin, and Kelly were going to do. But, we all planned to meet at the apartment where we could drop our stuff before officially checking in later in the afternoon.

We all made it there safe and sound! It was great to see everyone. We had missed them.

I was in a pretty good mood. Our new apartment was just across the street from a Metro station and El Cortes Ingles which you may recall is a huge department store that also has a grocery store. There was also a little cafe/bar right next door.

All in all, it was a great location. We had a little balcony, plenty of beds for everyone, two bathrooms. And, it was an easy 15 minute Metro ride to the heart of Madrid. Perfect. Did I mention it was also dirt cheap? Yup. Look at Kym and Erin looking all cute in their boots.

We had to wait just a few minutes to be let in the building and then we pretty much had to drop our stuff and leave. Not a problem at all because we had a lot we wanted to see!

Madrid has an awesome subway system...the Metro. It is incredibly easy to navigate. Even though we were not staying close to the things we wanted to see, it never felt like we were far. Our first stop for the day was to be el Rastro, essentially this huge flea market that is held every Sunday. See some pictures here. This is another one of those places where you are advised to keep a close eye on your wallet as it is quite crowded. Was it ever! When we got closer to the park, the entire area was packed. We were all pretty hungry and decided to get lunch first. Finding a place where all nine of us could eat was a bit if a challenge. I'll admit - I doubted it could be done. But, we did happen upon a place that if we sat inside could accommodate all of us together.

It had this sort of weird blue and gold interior, with wrought iron chairs, sort of like it was trying to be some kind of French Victorian theme or something. But, the food was very good. David and I ordered way too much of it.

I started with the cold tomato soup - it wasn't really gazpacho, I think it was missing some key ingredients, but it had some ham and olive oil drizzled on top and was really amazing.

We also ordered this bread with tomato which was simply delicious. We didn't realize we'd get so much of it.

Nor did we think we'd get so much Spanish omelet...but it was delicious as well. One of my favorites while we were in Spain.

And I think this is actually what Alan had. I don't remember what it was called, but it was potato, egg, and tomatoes maybe? Oh my...it looked so good. I loved what I had, but I also wished I had eaten this.

After lunch was over, we headed back towards Parque del Rastra, but many of the booths were being shut down. I think the flea market was only open until 2:00 p.m. and it was close to that time when we wandered over. A lot of what was left was...not anything I would want to take home with me. Socks. Some old belts. Dolls with googly eyes. It will just be one of those things I'll see the next time I'm in Madrid.

The only other thing I really wanted to be sure I did that day was go to the Prado. If you do not know...the Prado is an art museum. They have quite an impressive collection with many works by Spanish artists. They also have the "best painting ever!" (note Kyle wrote on the map he and Kym gave us) and it is incredibly large and easy to get lost in. But more on that later.

First, we had to get there. Back onto the Metro to the Banco de Espana stop and then a short walk to the Prado. Spain is so lovely because as you walk through the city, there are all these lovely parks and green areas you walk through. Here in Minneapolis, it's just a lot of concrete.

Below are some more pictures of things we saw on the way to the Prado.

Remember how I mentioned when we were in Barcelona, we saw all kinds of street performers on La Rambla? And they had crowds of people watching and giving them money? They had that in Madrid too...lots of living statues, one of a guy who was like a creepy baby in stroller, another guy as Edward Scissorhands. But in Madrid, people kind of ignored them. It was a little sad. People just walked on by. Myself included, which is why I have no photos of them.

And then we arrived at the Prado! I think this is it anyway. I have to be honest. At this point, the trip was three months ago and it's all a blur. Must keep travel journal next time.

So, I think on Sundays, after 5 p.m. the Prado is free. We got there around 4:15. The Prado has multiple entrances and it was really unclear to us where you went for the free line. Then I saw that it was 12 euro to get in and David and I decided that rather than wait around, we'd just pay. I'd been under the impression it was like 24 euro to get in. For 19.50 you could get admission and the Prado Guide. I let the cashier know I would like this and she pointed me to a small stand a few feet away where a Prado Guide was sitting. She wanted to be sure I really wanted it. Why? Well, the Prado Guide is just shy of 500 pages and weighs about the same as a gallon of milk. It's huge. And on the cover, it has "the best painting ever!"

Of course I got it! I also have the guide for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian (which is suspiciously small...it would fit in my back pocket). I really recommend these as souvenirs. And...it will be very handy as I now tell you about some of the paintings we saw at the Prado.

We had to head to the gift shop to pick up the guide. We opted to not do the audio tour, although I think next time I would do that. Instead, we had the map that Kym and Kyle had used earlier that day and they had circled their favorite paintings and where they were. We decided to just stick to their plan.

I didn't take any photos inside and I'm not going to post actual pictures, but you can go to the links to see the painting.

Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights was fascinating. Click here for many images. There is so much going on...it reminded me of a "Where's Waldo" scene drawn for an adult audience by someone with a sort of creepy imagination. I am sure an art critic somewhere is just slapping their forehead right now. The Table of the Deadly Sins is similar in the sense that there is so much detail. You could spend hours on just these two works of art. Click here for images of the table.

We also saw Goya's Black Paintings, a series of works from the later years of his life.I believe many of these be painted on the walls if his house. I have no idea how they got them into the Prado. You may be somewhat familiar with the painting of Saturn Devouring his Son, which is genuinely disturbing. There is also a painting called The Dog in the same room, which I rather liked. It's a dog after all. I got my mom a bookmark of this image. Then I later read that the dog is drowning. That may be just one interpretation. I prefer to think he is climbing a hill in search of a treat.

Continuing with the theme of rather depressing art, The Triumph of Death by Peter Bruegel the Elder was another that I just couldn't stop looking at because there is so much detail and I really, really wanted to find someone on that painting who was kicking Death's ass.

Of course, it is not all doom and gloom. There is of course the "best painting ever!"...Las Meninas by Velazquez. Kyle had read someplace that this was the best painting ever. I'll just let you read the Wikipedia article. I find the whole scene charming. I also really liked the Adoration of the Shepherds by El Greco. The colors and use of light was striking (don't I sound like an art critic now?).

I am also reminded now that I am paging through my Prado Guide that I really wanted to learn more about Queen Joan the Mad as we saw a couple paintings that depicted her and I was very curious about her life.

I could go on and on. The Prado has no shortage of magnificent paintings. However, museum fatigue does set in after a few hours and David and I decided to head back to the apartment. The problem was....we were lost in the Prado. That led to this Facebook exchange with my brother:
Me: How do I get out of the Prado?
Matt: Did you try the door?
Me: But where. Where is the door?
Matt: It's right there behind you, straight ahead and to the side.

Ah---Facebook. Sadly, my brother was in MN and really didn't know what he was talking about, although in most other cases he is spot on. So, we wandered about a wee bit more and eventually we found our way out. I of course stopped at the gift shop and stocked up on magnets and considered getting my sister a puzzle of "the best painting ever!" but decided against it because the box was rather large and wouldn't fit well in my luggage which already needed to bring home about six bottles of wine. She got some magnets instead.

Back to the Metro, short ride to the apartment. I'm sure we then did the usual - enjoyed some wine on the little terrace, ate some cheese. Someone made pasta with pesto for dinner. Yummy! It was an early night to bed. The museum fatigue had done me in.

One full day left in Spain. Check back in a few more days to find out how we spent it.

On to Madrid!

2011-12-30T19:41:00.003-06:00

So, when last we left off, we were at the Barcelona airport. Did I mention what a nice airport it is? And it has some great shopping. I picked up some fun things at the Nartura store, which is described on this website as "A home ware and gift shop offering everything from candles to incense sticks" but I got some jewelry there. Yay!

The flight to Madrid was pretty uneventful. We were on Vueling airlines again which was just lovely. They had a little catalog and you could order a keychain shaped like the airplane seat belt buckle. If they had actually come around and taken orders, I so would have gotten one.

I was surprised by how arid the middle of Spain appeared from the air...then again, they were having a drought. Eventually, I felt as though we were flying in circles. I kept seeing the same building below. Then the pilot came on to inform us that we were indeed flying in circles. So observant, am I.

Eventually we landed in Madrid. Nice airport. We got our bags. We got maps. Yay maps! Then we began our journey to the hotel which shall not be named. We'll just call it Voldemort.

Madrid has this nice airport bus that takes you and drops you at various places around Madrid and would get us quite close to Voldemort. And it was super cheap - like 2 euro or something crazy like that. Almost immediately I understood why. They packed you in so tightly, there was no way you could move. My bag on the rack was out of my view. I was right next to the back door and thus worried the door would fly open and fling me onto the streets of Madrid. To counter this, I laced my arms around the luggage rack and held on for dear life. I was then anxious the entire ride that when we got to our stop, it would take us too long to get our bags and the bus would take off before we had exited. These are the things that make me worry.

Luckily, with a bit of maneuvering and shoving, we were all able to get off the bus at the proper place and begin our short walk to Voldemort. Madrid has a completely different feel than Barcelona. More traffic. The streets are not as neatly laid out as in Barcelona. More people. But, it was beautiful.

Madrid was the only city where we were staying in a hotel (the aforementioned Voldemort). We had found a suite hotel though, where we could have a little kitchenette. Arrangements had been made ahead of time so that we would have a triple and a double suite. The hotel was aware that there were nine in our party (I saw the email correspondence) and assured us this arrangement would work. We were told that the double had two rooms and the triple had three rooms.

This was not so. The double had a bed for two people. The triple had a bed for two people and another bed for one person. Instead of having accommodation for nine, we had accommodation for five. Thus began about an hour of negotiations with the desk clerk who didn't speak much English.

The hotel was full, so no extra rooms were to be had. At first he said we could get some cots. Then he said we couldn't. Then when we showed him the email that clearly said there were nine of us, he said he could find us some cots. Then, and this is the most maddening, he completely changed his tune and said since there was only sleeping space for five, only five of us could stay there. Four of us would have to find someplace else to stay. So, even though Voldemort knew there were nine of us coming, the hotel absolutely refused to let nine of us stay there.

The wifi was iffy, so a bunch of us were huddled in the tiny lobby. Sure, Mr. Desk Clerk made a half-hearted attempt to find us other lodging, but it was all very expensive. It was Saturday at 6 p.m. in Madrid. Not too easy to find a hotel. By some miracle, Lea found an apartment that could accommodate all nine of us that would be available the next two nights. Then Lea and Amit did one of those, "name your price" hotel websites and we found a place to stay a short cab ride away. So, now all was well, other than being separated for the night. That and the fact that Voldemort had a great locartion in the heart of Madrid and the apartment was further out. Oh well. We were just happy that we would all be able to stay at the same place.

But now we had more important things to think about. Namely, dinner! Kym had read good reviews of La Trucha, and it was within walking distance of Voledemort.

We got there right when dinner started, I think around 8, and had a great table outside. It's close to a public plaza so there was a lot of activity.

Happy once more...drinks, food. The unpleasant desk clerk at Voldemort quickly becoming but a bad memory.

The guidebook recommended the asparagus so of course I ordered that and it did not disappoint. Grilled, with the right amount of salt. A little crispy on the end, but not too much.

I know this is a horrible picture. But this was the best asparagus I've had in my entire life. Also, I didn't take many photos that first night in Madrid, so you are stuck with poorly lit photos of food.

David ordered some sort of grilled pork kabob that was simply amazing. And the potatoes it came with! OH! Those potatoes. I believe I made a bit of a spectacle of myself enjoying them.

Pork and potatoes. If this is all I ever ate for the rest of my life, I'd be one happy girl. Probably tremendously unhealthy, but happy.

Kim had the trout, one of the specialties. And I ordered the garlic chicken, which also came with the potatoes. This was another amazing meal in Spain, and we had the most charming waiter. I would highly reccomend it if you ever find yourself in Madrid.

Another poorly lit food photo, but this was my yummy yummy chicken. Lots of little bones there. Clearly the boneless, skinless chicken craze has not taken over Spain.

And last but not least, Kym's yummy trout. I think it was trout. Very good.

Our dinner ended with me pinching the salt shaker. Random restaurant condiments make great souvenirs and are more memorable than a postcard. I'd been talking about wanting to take it and as we got up to leave I think maybe it was Alan who handed it to me and I quickly stuffed it in my purse. I then skipped away whispering, "run run run run run run run".

The pilfered condiment in question. It now has a place of honor in my home.

We headed back to Voldemort, Lea, Amit, David, and I grabbed our bags, shot a cold glance at the desk clerk on our way out, and then made our way to the main street to get a cab. Madrid was alive with activity. Our new destination was the Melia Castilla, about a ten minute cab ride. Our cab driver was quite nice and pointed out the Real Madrid stadium on the way. That thing is huge.

Finally, we were able to relax. It had been a long day...and the first major hiccup of the trip. But, we had plans to meet the rest of the group at the apartment the next day and then we could begin exploring Madrid. Only two more days left in Spain. Where had the time gone? It seemed like just the day before we'd been in Lisbon!

One Last Morning in Barcelona

2011-12-27T12:33:00.003-06:00

This is the lovely church just across the street from our apartment.

You may recall that on our first full day in Barcelona, we walked over to the Sagrada Familia to see that the line stretched clear around to the opposite side of the church. We decided at that point to explore elsewhere and perhaps come back later that day. We never did make it back that afternoon, we were far too tired, and I kind of thought it might just be one of those things I missed on this trip. You can't see everything, right?

Alan and Erin had been there...they had arrived before it opened and got in line. Alan said it was amazing and really worth seeing, so Saturday morning Kym, Kyle, David, and I woke up and got there about a half-hour before it opened. There were already people in line, but we were very close to the front. Kym wandered off in search of coffee (I believe she came back with Starbucks) which the rest of us waited in line.

One of the many problems with ATMs is that you always get larger bills. In Spain, our euro always came out in 20 or 50 euro bill. Here at home, giving someone a $20 bill is not a big deal. But in Spain, quite often merchants did not have change for a 20 euro bill, let alone a 50. At one particular store, David got some coins and chocolates back because the merchant didn't have enough change for him.

Waiting in line. Sigh. Where is my cafe con leche?

I thought the Sagrada Familia would be a perfect place to get rid of one of my 50 euro bills. After all, this is a major tourist attraction. Surely, they are used to the larger bills and would be able to break my 50. It was 12.50 euro per person to get in so I thought I'd pay for David and I and get 25 euro back. When I handed my 50 to the cashier, she immediately asked me if I had anything smaller or a credit card. I lied and said no. I wanted to get rid of the 50 for crying out loud. NO ONE would take it anyplace else. She grudgingly took it, but told me I would get my change all in coins. So, off I went with 25 one-euro coins. Similar to carrying around a roll of quarters. I could have stuffed them in a sock and warded off any criminals.

Crucifixion scene.

Detail of the Passion Facade.

I really liked these doors. See the first photo of these three for a description.

With a much heavier bag, we gazed for a bit at the Passion Facade and then headed to the right, under the little bridge, past the school, and into the museum to start. Alan had suggested this as a way to avoid some of the crowds. It also means you get to read all the history before you see the church, which makes sense.They have a rather informative video and all the exhibits were excellent. You can also look down on Gaudi's tomb - he was buried within the church (tragically, he was struck by a trolley and died before the church was finished. It still isn't finished, so he wouldn't have lived to see it completed anyway, but it is still sad).

Then you come outside again and you are on the side of the Nativity Facade. I think I mentioned once before that we called this the happy side and the Passion Facade is the sad side.The third side is the Glory Facade, which I don't think is finished yet. Or maybe it is and we just didn't have enough time.

The contrast between the Passion and the Nativity Facades is striking. Whereas the Passion has hard lines and is quite austere, the Nativity Facade is much more ornate and even has some color to it. There are happy angels, the shepherds, everyone you would expect to see at the Nativity.

The Nativity Facade. You can see the shepherds and wise men at the bottom.

You can sort of see the Tree of Life in this photo - towards the top. It is green and looks like a Christmas tree. Gaudi originally wanted the entire Nativity Facade to be painted.

Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus.

Next we headed inside, and the interior is simply amazing. Many cathedrals and churches are very ornate, with lots of gold and silver, intricate details, elaborate stain glass windows. The Sagrada Familia is not like this, but it is even more beautiful because of it. The columns are designed to give the feel of being in a forest, and the light that shines through the stained glass gives an airy feeling to the place. Many of the cathedrals we saw in Spain and Portugal were quite dark inside. The Sagrada Familia is bathed in light.

I found this photo (click link to see) on Wikipedia, and I think it just really captures the beauty of it. I really need a better camera. Regardless, here are some of the photos I took inside.

More pretty stained glass.

The altar at the Sagrada Familia.

There were four pillars that each had a visual representation of the four Gospels.

Close-up - I really liked these. I

I just like this picture because it shows how beautiful yet simple the space was.

OOH...the ceiling again.

Sadly, we didn't have as much time as I would have liked to wander around and I am sure we didn't see everything. We had to get back to head to the airport for Madrid. And first, I had to stop at the gift shop!

For such a major attraction in Barcelona, they have a gift shop the size of a postage stamp. You actually have to wait in line to get in. When people leave, they will let additional people in. When I got up to the front of the line, they didn't let me in right away, and the person behind me in line POKED me twice as if it say, "Hey, get in there!" Thank you very much, I think I will wait until they indicate I can enter. Impatient tourists.

Then, it was back to our apartment, some last minute packing and cleaning, and then off to the airport. Kelly, Kym, and I decided to take a cab. The rest of the group took public transport. Maybe I am a travel snob. Maybe not. But it sure was nice to not have to carry my backpack again. Our cab driver was the tiniest, cutest woman I've ever seen, yet she flung our bags around with ease. Wow.

We got to the airport and then had to wait around for the rest of the gang. As with many airports, there wasn't anyplace really to sit around the ticket counters, so we just sat on the floor near an escalator. We sat there for quite a while when a security guard came along and wagged his finger at us while speaking in Spanish (or maybe Catalan). He seemed to be indicating that we could not sit there. So, we stood instead.

The rest of the gang arrived, we got checked in, got our boarding passes, and then we had some time to kill. David, Kym, Kyle, and I settled on this cute little restaurant with tapas and beer. Really good Spanish Omelette! Some Iberian Ham. Very friendly waiter. Quite the pleasant airport eating experience. Much nicer than the lunch in the airport at Sevilla.

Salut! A little relaxation before the plane ride.

Then, it was off to Madrid, where we had quite the Saturday night adventure. But, I'll get to that later.

The neverending stairs

2011-12-23T13:20:00.001-06:00

Untitled from Michelle on Vimeo.

So, in Barcelona we were on the fourth floor...and it seemed like you the stairwell just went on and on and on. Watch the video to see what I mean.

To the Monastery!

2011-12-12T16:24:00.001-06:00

So, after we had some snacks and coffee, we got back into our little bus and headed to Montserrat (not to be confused with the island). To get there, you travel a long and winding road up into the mountains. As we drove, Marta told us the story of Montserrat - how some monks found a statue of the Virgin in a cave in the mountain. They decided a cave was no place for her to be, so they picked her up and started to carry her down the mountain, but as they carried her away, she became heavier and heavier, until they could no longer lift her. Finally, they decided to just leave her and build the monastery around her. Now, pilgrims come from around the world to visit her and touch her hand. More on that later...

The view.

What amazes me is how they managed to build this amazing monastery pretty much on the top of a mountain. I'm also fascinated with how cell phones work, television, and how what I am typing on my computer here will be seen by you, yes you!, on your computer in South Carolina (Hi Pauline! We got your Christmas letter today!). So, pretty much anything I cannot actually see happening boggles my mind.

The monastery.

Marta really wanted us to get there by noon so we could see hear the Boy's Choir. Click on the link and you can hear them too! In this video, you get a better sense of their cute little robes. Where did their arms go? We got there just barely in time...Marta asked if we wanted to see the Virgin as well. Sure, why not? I didn't really know what that involved, but she said she would get in line to see the Virgin and we should head into the chapel.

An adult choir was singing, and then it got to the point where someone checked and Marta was about to head to the inside portion of the line. So, we joined her. Luckily, the line runs along the side chapels inside so we were still able to hear them. They sounded like little voices from heaven. And when they are done one little boy says thank you or goodbye or something in a bunch of different languages...and then off they go. The file off in their little robes with their arms stuck inside, looking sort of reminiscent of wingless penguins.

On the first link above, if you look closely above the boy's choir, you can see people filing past on what appears to be a balcony. That is where the Virgin is. She is a Black Madonna, and the Christ Child sits on her lap. I didn't take a photo because that seemed disrespectful to me (although plenty of other people did). Not really disrespectful to her, but there was a really long line to see her. You can click the link to see what she looked like.

There is a lot to see while you wait in line though. It's just a beautiful place. I took a lot of pictures, but most of them looked pretty bad. I need a better camera.

Close up of some of the carving in an archway.

This is one of the martyred saints. I think there were two walls of women saints...one with virgin martyrs and one with non-virgin martyrs.I forget who this one was, but I think she was burned.

So, they say that you make a promise to the Virgin and then ask for a favor and touch her hand. The example Marta gave us was of someone she knew who told the Virgin that if she granted this person their wish for a child, she would climb up Montserrat on her knees. Shortly thereafter, she became a mother. And she has been crawling up Montserrat on her knees, a little bit at a time. 50 feet one day...get in the car. Come back a few weeks later, another 50 feet (or something like that). Sneaky! I did ask for something, but I don't remember what I promised. Oops.

Now, this is not the original Madonna that was found in the woods...Marta said no one has ever given her a straight answer about where she is. Hmmm.....

After we visited the Virgin, you walk through the Ava Maria passageway, which I thought was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Candles upon candles upon candles of prayers.

Then, there is this little room with all sorts of "stuff". A wedding dress, baby clothes, various doll parts (arms, legs), all sorts of things. Marta explained to us that when you ask the Virgin for a favor, and she grants it, many people come back and leave something behind to thank her. So for instance, you may pray for pain in your arm to go away. Obviously, you can't leave you arm behind, but a doll's arm represents that.

Then we wandered a bit around seeing nothing in particular until we headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Ham and cheese sandwiches again. Yum!

After lunch we walked down the mountain just a wee bit. We walked along the pathway a little ways that has art depicting scenes from the life of Christ. Each station has statue depicting that piece of Christ's life and there is information about the artist and who donated the money for the piece of art. The ones we saw were all beautiful. Then we took the funicular back up the mountain.

There was a wonderful little market going on. I bought some honey and fig bread? Date bread? Gah...I can't remember, but Marta said it was a local specialty.

I'd love to head back to Montserrat someday and hike all the way out to the chapel that stands where they originally found the Virgin, see all the statues, explore the gift shop, art museum.

But, we didn't have time. We had to head back to Barcelona.

This guy was obviously tired.

We had such a wonderful day with Marta. We were back around 4:00 or so. David and I headed to the little pastry shop I had been to with Kym and Kelly. We got cafe con leche, pastries, and sat there and pretended to read the Catalan newspaper. We headed back to the apartment where everyone was on the roof, deciding what we should do for dinner. All these choices, but what we really wanted was Chinese take-out. :-) Lucky for us, there was a place right next door. We enjoyed our take-out with some cava or course! For dessert, the fig bread from the market and this other equally delicious treat from the pastry shop.

Yummy!

Then, it was off to bed. Exhausted once more, but thoroughly satisfied with another amazing day in Spain.

See you tomorrow!

Off to the cava winery!

2011-12-06T16:09:00.001-06:00

I'm back! Where was I? Oh yes...we had just visited Valencia, where we lazed in the beach and ate paella and saw a preserved arm. Good times!

So now it was Friday and we had another tour arranged. Marta picked us up promptly at 8:30 a.m. or something like that. Marta was amazing. I'm not sure where Lea found her, but she was just a wealth of information for us. She told us so much about the history of Spain and Catalonia, about Barcelona, about the time period under Franco and how things have changed since he left power. She told us all about the city planning in Barcelona, and how at one time Barcelona had "turned its back on the sea" but hosting the Olympics changed all that. Really, she was amazing.

I don't know if I've mentioned this year, but in Barcelona the first language is not Spanish. It is Catalan. Then Spanish. Children do not learn Spanish until I think she said 3rd grade or so. When we bought all those boxes of cornflakes, they would be printed in Catalan and Spanish.

Our first stop for the day was the Freixenet Cava Winery. If you have ever wondered where to get a truck shaped like a cork, or a scooter or car shaped like a bottle of cave, this is the place for you!

They do sell this in the states. Cava is Spanish sparkling wine. They use this cute little boy in their advertising overseas, but as our tour guide told us (I think her name was Maria), he is not used in the United States because we are a bit more buttoned up about alcohol here. She shared with us that when she was a baby, her parents dipped her pacifier in cava. She didn't seem any worse for it.

He looks more like a creepy teenager as a statue.

She also said that they drink cava much more regularly than we Amaericans do. We tend to reserve sparkling wines and champagne for New Year's Eve, weddings, really special events. Over there, they have it for any celebration, birthdays, whatever. I think I'd like to try incorpiorating more cava into my life!

The tour was really wonderful. We started out with a little video, then she explained the process for making cava. Then down into the caves we went!

Our lovely Freixenet tour guide. She was great!

We were able to see bottles of cava at different stages of the process.

You can see the sediment in the bottles. In the olden days, they put the bottles at an angle in these inverted-v shaped holders and would turn the bottle a bit every now and then (I forget the detais) until the sediment had all run to the top.

We saw a whole wall of bottles that were about 35 years old and just COVERED in cobwebs. She said that these will never be sold, but are used for research.

Ick.

It was dark and dank in the caves, but it was so neat to hear about how cava is made and be able to see the MILLIONS of bottles of cava they have. Then we went through a little tunnel...

Kyle just barely fits in the tunnel. This is one of those, "Hey! Wouldn't it be funny to get a picture of the tall guy in the tiny tunnel?" moments.

and then got on a trolley for a ride through the warehouse.

Occasionally, bottles break from the pressure (the dimple in the bottom helps prevent that from happening more often) so as we zoomed by (okay...zoom might be exaggerating things) we saw quite a few broken bottles amongst them. So sad. No one will enjoy that bottle of cava.

Of course, this trip would not be complete without a cava tasting!

I am not sure what is happening with my picture placement here. Blogger has gone rogue!

We met some really nice women from Singapore while we drank our cava and they suggested that we really must visit Singapore. I'll have to look into that.

So, of course...we then did the obligatory gift shop shopping and purchased some cava to enjoy both while still in Spain and at home. Marta met us outside the gift shop and we walked over to the nearby train station for coffee and snacks. Then it was back into the van to head to Montserrat. I'll tell you all about that in the next post! Did you know they sell ham flavored Pringles in Spain?

Until my next post!

O, Valencia!

2011-11-22T09:19:00.001-06:00

The Decemberists have a song called "O, Valencia" but it seems to be more of a Romeo and Juliet story rather than about the city of Valencia. What can I tell you about Valencia, Spain? Well...it is the birthplace of Paella, which all of us on the trip love. Kym and Kyle have a big paella pan and make paella before triathlons and whatnot. Valencia is also the third largest city in Spain, after Madrid and Barcelona. It is also on the coast and has a lovely beach. And it's like a three to four hour train ride from Barcelona so you might wonder why we were going there.

In the original trip plan, we had two more cities included: Valencia and Granada. We decided that we would all still go to Valencia as a day trip. This involved waking up very early to catch the subway and then the train. This was painful. And of course the train station was super hot.

We arrive in Valencia and wait for the shuttle.

The train ride was pretty nice though. We had assigned seating and Kelly got to sit next to a very attractive Spanish man. Very attractive. So much so that when they were both sleeping I considered snapping a photo under the guise of "Oh...ha ha...look, Kelly fell asleep. And OMG! Look at the hottie next to her!" But, I didn't. It felt weird. We arrived at the north train station in Valencia, so the first thing we had to do was ride the shuttle to the main train station. And of course once we got to the main train station the first thing we had to do was find some food, because there was a shortage of corn flakes that morning.

We found a little place called Cafe & Te and there was plenty of seating on the sidewalk. As with many places in Spain, you pay a little more to eat outside rather than inside. Cafe & Te appeared to be some sort of a chain...we saw several in Valencia. We had croissants, donuts, little sandwiches. Erin got something that instead of coming with butter came with a wee little bottle of olive oil (we never got butter in Spain with our bread). I had to take a picture. It was so cute!

Valencia is really a nice city. It had the narrow, twisty streets that Sevilla had. It also had the clipboard people! You know what I mean! The people that stand on street corners in the summer and ask if you have a moment for animal rights or the environment. They are in Spain too! There they were...on the streets of Valencia. Fortunately, I could pretty much say, "No Habla Espanol" so it was a short conversation.

We had picked up maps at the train station, but they were incredibly unhelpful. So, we just sort of wandered and followed the rest of the gang. Lea, Amit, and Kelly wandered off one way and Kym, Kyle, Alan, Erin, and I wandered another way.

The first place we wandered over to the was Mercado Central. We really just wandered around and gawked at all the food. I've included some photos below, but you could also check out this blog post I found that has lovely photos and they actually bought some food there. Sounds like they also got to go to the market in Barcelona, which we missed.

The beautiful domed window in the ceiling.

Jamon Jamon!

Fruit!

A beautiful market!

Cheese!

Not sure what these are.

Yes, those are calves heads. Shortly before our trip, I had read "How to Eat a Small Country" by Amy Finley in which she writes time spent in France and also mentions eating tete a veu, which is calf's head. And here was a calf's head. Well, a couple of them...and some other parts as well.

We wandered out and explored some paella stalls outside, selling pans, spices, and whatnot. Then we walked past what must have been the textile part of town. See that little group of women there? They are all knitting. The stalls across from them were filled with fabric, thread, yarn, and assorted other crafty goodies.

Our next stop was Valencia's Cathedral. This link has some nice photos as as well. I can't get enough of old cathedrals. They had a nice audio tour that described each of the chapels and the architecture. There is a statue of the Virgin Mary and pregnant women will come there and pray and they walk around around the cathedral nine times and that is supposed to give them a healthy pregnancy.

They also have some relics there - the skull and some bones of a saint (you could not see these very well as they were towards the back of the chapel), as well as the preserved arm of St. Vincent the Martyr. Yes. There is an arm in that box. Not being Catholic, I think I find this all the more fascinating.

They also have what is supposedly the Holy Grail there...yes! The actual Holy Grail.

It's in that little glass case...I'm not sure why they say this is the one. Valencia, Spain seems like a strange place for it to be, but maybe it is. I thought it looked pretty fancy, and I'm going to go with Indiana Jones and think that the cup of a carpenter would be more modest.

Where to next! Well, the bull ring of course! No, we weren't going to a bull fight, but Valencia has a bull fighting museum and we thought we would check it out. Plus, it was free. As part of the exhibit, there is a video of a bullfight, explaining the three stages and some of the history. I have to say - seeing that video was enough for me. I don't have any desire to see an actual bull fight.

The museum was very well done and you really get a sense of the history and culture of bullfighting. You also get a sense of all the matadors who have died. The outfit below was worn by a matador on the day he died. Many of the descriptions of matadors ended with, "and he died two days after being gored" or something like that.

By this point, we were all ready to head to the beach and to get some paella! It was very warm in Valencia (I'm not sure how warm but the weather channel said it was going to be 90 degrees). We hopped on the bus and headed to the beach front.

We of course stopped first for paella. We were able to sit outside, overlooking the beach, and although our waiter spoke pretty much no English, we managed to order paella for the nine of us and beer. He must have liked us because he brought us shots of something at the end of the meal.

Vegetable paella before.

Vegetable paella after.

And then we just laid on the beach. Ahhh. So nice. The water was very cold, so I just laid on my beach chair and read Sports Illustrated. I think I've mentioned that at this point in the trip I was just so tired. Laying on the beach for a couple hours was a welcome way to spend the afternoon.

Eventually, we had to head back to the train station. We had a little time to kill first. David and I headed over to Cupcake Valencia. That's me below in the train station with my cute little to-go cupcake box.

I also took this photo of the audiology center in Valancia for my sister. Always thinking of you sis!

Then we headed over to the bar in the train station where we met Kym, Kyle, and their little penguin friend.

Nothing says travel like cupcakes and beer.

There were also all sorts of other goodies there...look at those yummy olives. We had little baguette slices with brie and ham. Ham and cheese...what else?

Our train was late. Sigh. And we had another big day ahead of us tomorrow. But on the bight side, the return trip was in the first class car of the train.Unfortunately that doesn't mean much on a train. They never turn the lights on the train off, which made sleeping tough. Sigh. We arrived back in Barcelona about midnight. Time to stop at the store for more cornflakes and then straight to bed!

Oh, in Valencia we also saw this message from Anonymous. Wow. Anonymous is everywhere.

Exploring Barcelona, Part Dos

2011-11-16T20:59:00.001-06:00

When we left off, I was hot, tired, and I may have mentioned the need of a bathroom. We had just traveled one of the shadier parts of Barcelona, my feet hurt; I am sure I was thirsty. Sigh. Instead of heading back to La Rambla, we decided to head over to the Olympic park. Was it the '92 Summer Olympics that were in Barcelona? Why yes...yes it was.

To get to the park, which was up a hill, we took the Funicular Montjuic. What is a funicular? It's an inclined railway. Funicular sounds a lot more fun! We got to the top of the hill and I almost immediately turned into crabby "must-find-bathroom- NOW" Michelle. I'm sure that was fun for my travel buddies. Especially since there really didn't seem to be any place public with a restroom to use. We found a garden and on the map the bathroom looked miles away, down a billion steps. But, it was a pretty park and gave me the chance to practice my living statue.

Contemplating why there is no bathroom in sight.

Then we wandered over to the Olympic Stadium, which was pretty neat.

Olympic Stadium from outside.

You can walk right in...no entry fee and you can wander around. It was so cool to think about all the athletes that had competed there...Carl Lewis came to mind because I thought he was just the coolest!

Olympic Stadium inside!

We had a beer and snack and then decided to try and find the pool! David had a poster hanging in his room when he was a kid of the pool and someone diving and the mountains are in the background.

Another view of the stadium and a fountain. No...this isn't the pool.

We walked and walked and walked. And then we walked some more. At one point, David sort of motioned to us to follow him and I thought he had found it, but alas...we just walked some more. We wound up by a museum of some sort, but it was closed because it was a holiday. I think the museum had something to do with the history of Catalonia. We gave up on finding the pool and hopped on the bus back to Placa Carlos Ibanez (there was some confusion with the bus here as the first bus we tried to get on didn't understand what we were trying to say when we were asking if he went to the Placa Carlos Ibanez. The next bus driver didn't understand us either, but we got on anyway).

We did get to the right place.

The cable car in the air.

It was here that we were able to to catch the Transbordador Aeri del Port...a aerial tram that travels 230 ft above the port of Barcelona to Montjuic Hill (which is where we were by the way...Montjuic Hill). There was a French couple who in line seemed very nice, but got all bent out of shape when the tram attendants informed them they needed to fold up the stroller they had. Grrr...come on people! There isn't much space in the tram. They had a very hard time getting it in and I laughed inwardly.

Then I shut my eyes because in addition to being mean, I am also a scaredy cat. I was scared being up that high.

The beach! And a building that looks like a sail!

It dropped us off near the beach, which was very crowded. And why not? Dang! It was hot that day! By this time, we were also hungry and thirsty! Always hungry and thirsty. I think it was about this point that I realized that Spain was seriously kicking my ass. I don't mean to sound like I didn't appreciate the trip, but good golly...I was exhausted. We had just been so busy and there was so much walking and not enough just sitting.

So, it was a good time to just sit and get some sangria made with Cava and a nice snack. I had something sort of like a pizza with cheese and some green vegetable...maybe it was spinach. It was all warm and melty and really hit the spot. The sangria even more so.

mmmmm! Alcohol.

Suitably refreshed, we hit the road again to walk back to our apartment. I don't know what time it was. We walked up the Passeig de Sant Joan which was conveniently where our apartment was located. On the way, we walked under the Arc de Triomf.

Kym and Kyle. They look so hip and happy.

We had a really nice walk back to our place. Barcelona is a wonderful city for walking with very wide sidewalks, parks liberally interspersed along the way, and it is very organized with straight blocks. None of that skinny, twist road thing going on here.

By the end of the day, I really felt like I had triumphed! I am sure that by the time this picture was taken I was just exhausted, but also so happy. We'd had a great time hanging out with Kym and Kyle and Barcelona was just amazing. Most likely when we got back we sat on the roof and had a glass of wine and shared stories with the gang, but to be honest I don't remember. On a happy note, Kelly had bought a new suitcase to replace the one that got destroyed in Lisbon! Yay! Everyone seemed to have had a good day.

I just want to sit down.

Now, another plus that had happened that day was that we figured out where a restaurant I wanted to try was located. Remember the conference I was at just before we left? There was actually someone there who was from Barcelona. He made several recommendations, one of which was for Cerveseria Catalan. All I knew was that it was on the Carrer Mallorca, which wasn't very descriptive. I was very excited when I saw that it was written up in my guide book! Yay!

Me, Lea, and Kym. Ready to hit the town.

The name means "Catalan Beer Tavern" and there are many cerverserias in Spain. The review was good but said to expect a wait. This place is popular. When we got there, it was fancier than I expected, and there was a small mob waiting outside in the street. Ugh. This did not bode well. We were a group of nine. I imagined it would be hours before we were seated.

The man outside told us to go inside to check on seating indoors. The next thing I knew, we were being seated. Yes. Immediately. Turns out being a group of nine worked to our advantage. They had two large round tables and one was empty. I'm sure if a smaller group had gone we would have waited much longer.

Lea and Kym enjoy some beer and wine.

So, there were were. Wine. Tapas. I had these amazing little green peppers that were seasoned with just salt and a little pepper. The worlds tiniest hamburger. We had cheese. Ham and cheese croquettes. Of course we tried the Spanish omelet. Patatas Bravas which was sooo good - it's basically potatoes with hot sauce but that description does not do it justice. There was a brie with roasted peppers. All so very very good. For those of you keeping score, I am two for two with my recommendations that I received from people!

And then...it was back home. The next day we had to get up early...like 5 a.m. early to catch the train to Valencia. Were we really going to rise so early on our vacation? And why? Stay tuned...there is still more to come.

Exploring Barcelona

2011-11-15T20:59:00.001-06:00

Okay, so where was I? What day is it? Wednesday? That sounds about right....It was October 12th. Thank goodness I can look back over Facebook or and get somewhat of an idea of where we were.

Our apartment building. Isn't it lovely? We were on the fourth floor...one of those turrets was ours. Well, not the entire turret. Just one floor.

So...it's Wednesday morning. During the evening, David and I discovered that the nightlife in Barcelona never really stops. It is also a city full of scooters and people seem to ride them all night long. Around 2 a.m. David suggested we head over to the one empty bedroom that was on the other side of the apartment, away from the street. What a fantastic idea! So nice and quiet. About 6 a.m. I suggested we head back to our room and things were fairly quiet until two women on the street below started screaming at each other. What a way to start the day!

It wasn't all bad. The apartment was great, plenty of space for all of us. After a breakfast of cornflakes, the obligatory modeling what I was wearing that day photo (seen below), and some coffee we headed out to explore the city with Kym and Kyle.

ooh! I am so cute!

The Sagrada Familia was only 2-3 blocks from our apartment. Way to go Lea in finding the lodging! The Sagrada Familia, for those of you that don't know, is an amazing church designed by Gaudi that has been under construction now for about 100 years.

Note construction cranes that nicely accentuate the lovely Sagrada Familia.

Gaudi's life was cut short by a trolley, but obviously he would not have seen it finished anyway. I had been prepared for an incredibly tacky looking building, but I have to say...it is amazing. AMAZING. And I didn't even see the inside this day. The line stretched down the street, around the corner, down the other street, and around another corner. Yes...it essentially wrapped around the church. We weren't really in the standing in line mood, so off we went!

But we didn't go far. This is the back of the Sagrada Familia.

Around back is a charming little park so we wandered through there and enjoyed the view of the church.

My talented hubby took this cool photo of a reflection of the Sagrada Familia in the pond. Neat, eh?

What we really wanted was coffee and some pastries, so we just started to sort of wander towards Las Ramblas searching for a place along the way. We some some beautiful pastries, but did not find just the right combination of charming shop, pastries, AND coffee until we stumbled upon this little place.

My favorite, Cafe Con Leche

I'm not sure if the name on the cup is the name of the cafe. What I DO know is that there was a husband and wife running the place and they were so charming and so sweet. I don't even know what the pastry was that we ate, but he told us it was very good, and HE WAS RIGHT! His wife showed us to a little table and they brought us pastries and coffee and it was heaven. The coffee was the best coffee. All the coffee in Spain was the best coffee.

Oh, I forgot to mention - we passed by the bullring on the way to the coffee. Bullfigthing was recently banned in Barcelona. More on that later. Apparently, there is a museum, but it wasn't open. Or we just couldn't figure out how to get in.

Nourished with the elixir of life (cafe con leche), we continued our journey to Las Ramblas. I can only assume we passed through a wealthier part of town because those were some mighty expensive baby strollers I saw in the shop windows in what I can only assume was the part of the city where you shop for baby stuff. Later in the trip we drove down what seemed to be the bridal central...store after store of wedding gowns. But, I digress.

Look! In Spain the food walks hand in hand! So Happy!

Before we hit La Rambla, I spied the official store of the Football Club of Barcelona (Barca). I went in and spent an obscene amount of money on a soccer jersey for the Little Guy. I passed on spending even more to put his name on the back. Was that the right choice? Hmmmm....next time.

So, La Rambla, or Las Ramblas, depending on which website you use, is basically a big outdoor market/promenade. It is full of people, so watch your wallets folks! It is also full of street performers and they draw quite a crowd!

You too can have a photo of yourself and a golden woman for just a few coins.

We also saw some poor guy who appeared to be getting scammed by the whole, "which cup is the ball under" trick. I'll say this about the living statues. They were quite good and just a lot of fun. We saw a lot of living statues in Madrid too, but no one seemed to care about them there.

At some point, we wandered over to an old hospital which is now a library. There was a neat looking little cafe there, but they were power washing the courtyard so we passed that up.

Our next destination was the Cafe Viena, wherein resides the best sandwich in the world, according to Mark Bittman of the New York Times.

It's pretty inauspicious. We walked past it a few times until I spotted a tiny sign on the door that said something about the New York Times. In we went, grabbed a seat at the bar, and ordered us some ham! Of course we got the Iberian Ham sandwich - the best in the world. And it was...uh...kind of small. But, I have to say. Very good sandwich. Of course, when you are talking ham that can be upwards of $96 a pound (and YES...I did see it for sale in the market and it DID cost that much), you expect a damn good sandwich.

We are happy, for we are about to eat the best sandwich in the world.

Then we tried to go to the Boqueria, which shows up on all the "DO NOT MISS THIS WHILE YOU ARE IN SPAIN" lists. And it was closed. Because of Columbus. Yes...October 12th. It's a national holiday. Grrrr. So disappointed.

So, back to La Rambla! A few blocks off La Rambla was a really old church...the oldest in Barcelona. So we wandered down a side street (Saint Pau) that quickly took on a shady feel, and I don't mean trees. At first it was just the presence of crappy looking hostels...then the guys gambling in the street...and then that woman in fishnet stockings who looked a little rough, but surely she isn't a prostitute...but wait a minute...and then the intersection with a hooker on each corner. They were DEFINITELY hookers. So, from the nice part of town where you can buy a baby buggy for $1,000 to the bad part of town where you can buy...never mind.

We found the church. And it was closed. Or, we just couldn't figure out how to get in. I can't remember at this point. I was hot. Spain is hot.

This seems a good point to stop for now. I leave you with a cliff hanger! It's hot! I'm tired! I am getting cranky! Maybe I have to pee! What will happen next? Stay tuned for the rest of Wednesday (it was a really long day. No need for it to be an even longer blog post).

Travel Day: Off to Barcelona!

2011-11-07T17:10:00.001-06:00

Tuesday was another travel day! We were off to Barcelona. Although I was sad to leave Sevilla, I was excited to see a new part of Spain. I was also particularly pleased that we would be flying to Barcelona. No horrible bus ride.

Before we left town, David and I and Kym and Kyle decided to head over to Mailboxes, Etc. and ship some things home so we wouldn't have to lug olive oil and stuff all over Spain. We had done this on our honeymoon as well and it worked out great. Well! All I will say is...shipping anything from Spain - very expensive. Note to self: in future buy light weight gifts.

After that little adventure, we stopped at a pastry shop for some sweet treats. I wish we had more shops like this in the Twin Cities. Sure - there's Woullet and Cupcake and Sweets Bakeshop, but nothing like the bakeries and pastry shops I saw in Spain. I miss them so. If anyone knows of a good one in the Twin Cities, let me know.

Fortified by pastry, we finished packing up and headed across town to the bus stop where we would then catch a ride to the airport. Oh, how I wanted to take a cab! I felt like I was going to fall over backwards with my pack on, and I needed a second person to help me even lift it to my back. My plan to get everything in there so I didn't have to carry a pack on my back and pack in front (see Ireland) was a bad plan. The pack on front helped with the balance.

Much sweatier, we arrived at the airport. Check in was a breeze. Security was a breeze. Yes - you heard that right. It was easy. Our flight in Vueling Airlines was quite nice. Overall, a very good travel experience.

Much to my delight, when we arrived in Barcelona, Kelly decided she was going to take a taxi to the apartment and Lea was going with her. Oh joy! I happily agreed to forgo the hour of public transportation and contribute my euro to the taxi ride.

A short cab ride later, and we arrived at our lovely, lovely apartment. Completely furnished in Ikea. Six bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a kitchen the size of a bread box.

First order of business was food. And wine. Well, first order of business is really wine. Since we had some time before the rest of the gang would arrive, we started to wander. Smart women we are, we wandered in the right direction and found this lovely market.

Multiple stands of fruit, meat, seafood. It was so fun!

We had actually passed this in the cab and it appeared from the outside just to be a flower market. I was wrong! I had my first experience pointing and buying and did pretty well, although I bought a single banana instead of a bunch. I was too embarrassed to ask for more.Then we headed across the street to the supermarket and stocked up on wine and beer. Next stop was this amazing bakery with fresh baked bread and some equally amazing looking pastries. The woman working was so so friendly and we got little mini-croissants for free.

We came back home with bread, cheese, a little pizza, strawberries, grapes, bananas, and some other peach/apricot thing I didn't recognize. We had a nice little spread. Oh, tomatoes too because Kym made an amazing bruschetta which is not pictured.

The people at the market were so friendly as well. Catalan is the first language in Barcelona and I speak none of that, but we managed just fine.

Kym and I headed back to the market later to get some food to make dinner, as well as some breakfast items. Cornflakes. I believe dinner was pasta with pesto. We had gotten into a comfortable routine of eating in on travel days.

The apartment had a nice rooftop terrace where we hung out, drank wine, and made plans for the following day.

We also had a view of the Sagrada Familia from the roof top. As you can see, it is still being built.

And then I got busy uploading photos to Facebook!

Another great day. On tap for Wednesday, exploring Barcelona!

Olives, and Wine, and Food! Best Day Ever.

2011-11-06T12:52:00.002-06:00

Happy travelers!

Remember way back when I started writing about our trip? I mentioned I had been at a conference that turned out to be really good for the trip? Well, one of those reasons was Monday. I should say that prior to going to Spain, I told pretty much anyone who would listen that I was going to Spain. I recommend in the future you do the same as well. Don't worry about feeling like you are bragging. You never know who has traveled to the same destination and will have a suggestion that turns out to be one of the best days of your trip.

At the conference I met Kathleen, who told me about Roger with A Question of Taste. She said she and a friend had the most wonderful tour with him several years ago. She spoke very highly of the experience and said she would e-mail him and me and maybe we could work something out. Even with the short notice, we were able to arrange for a day visiting an olive mill, a winery (with lunch at the winery), and a visit to Ronda, one of the "white towns" of Spain.

Roger picked us up at our apartment and there was mini-bus waiting not even a block away. What service! Really! To be picked up at our door and have a private tour for just our group! This was very fun. Roger was an amazing tour guide. He is originally from Wales and he had wonderful stories to tell about his life and Spain. He was just a pleasure to chat with as we drove to the olive mill.

First up, we stopped at a reservoir on the way. I've never seen water so blue before, and the white towns dotting the landscape in the distance were simply picturesque. It was also incredibly windy, but what a view!

Such blue water!

We continued on our way to the olive mill. What a beautiful day we had! Blue skies, and just look at that beautiful landscape. On our way, we passed grove upon grove of olive trees. Depending on what the olives are for, the trees may be pruned to stay smaller in stature (to allow for handpicking for olives you eat) or taller (for olive oil where the olives may be shaken from the tree). I may have this completely wrong - this was three weeks ago after all. Regardless, Roger really knew his stuff.

Olive grove.

We were given a little tour by one of the owners. To live and work in such a beautiful place - how lucky they are!

I wish I worked here.

We learned that the weather had not been good for olives. The lack of rain had resulted in smaller olives and some were already looking a bit dried out. At this olive mill, they grow some of their own olives, but also press olives for other growers. The two olives they grow are Manzanilla and Lechin olives.

Manzanilla olives

Lechin olives

Since we have been back home, David and I have looked in the grocery store for Spanish olive oils, with very little success. Such a shame.

Once the tour was done, we were able to sample two different olive oils. Several plates of oil and baskets of the most delicious crusty bread were laid out in this bright, sunny room. Roger explained the differences to us and then we were free to taste.

Roger passes around blue cups for us to smell and experience the fragrance of the two types of olive oil we will sample.

Yum! One was a coupage - made up of oil from both the Manzanilla and Lechin olive. The other I think was from a single olive variety. Both were wonderful, but what I brought home was the coupage. It had a lovely peppery finish. I think David and I are pretty much through one bottle already.

David and I and a lot of olive oil.

After we all made our purchases (olive oil makes a great gift), we headed back into our van and headed to the Chinchilla Winery. The photo in the link shows Gemma, one of the owners of the winery and also an amazing cook, but I'll get to that in a bit.

Being a small winery, Gemma was helping with bottling when we got there, so we had the time to enjoy the scenery and the affections of a friendly dog.

Awww! Who's a good doggie?

Grapes!

I love this picture.

We got to wander a little bit amongst the grapes (we even ate some!) and see the operation at the winery. It's a small winery so we were able to get really up close to everything. David even helped put some labels over the corks. He he.

I will take this entire barrel home with me, please.

Of course, no winery visit is complete without a tasting, and Chinchilla really raises the bar here. We didn't just have a tasting. We had an entire lunch, with wine samples paired with most courses. And there were many, many courses. Bear with me, because photos aplenty are coming!

I must say, this may well have been the highlight of the trip for me. As you all know, I love to eat. Dining out is really my preferred entertainment. This meal was so amazing - it really justified, for me, the entire cost of the tour.

So, let's begin. First of all, I believe Gemma made most or all of this food. I believe it was all cooked from scratch. Below you can see her finishing up getting the table all set for us. Roger was able to join us as well, which was really fun.

First up, gazpacho. We ate a lot of gazpacho in Spain, and this bowl ranked up there as one of the best. Perfect blend of flavors and spices, a sprinkle of cheese. Yum! I think I need to work on my own gazpacho skills.

There was also this amazing dish on the table that was made up of eggs and tuna and a cream sauce. This was really good. I wouldn't have thought of putting egg and tuna together, but this was gobbled up pretty quickly by the nine of us.

After the soup, two dishes were brought out. Tomato slices with sardine filets on top and the amazing potato salad pictured below. Best potato salad I have ever had. In Spain it is called Salada Russa (?), and this was the best I had while we were there. It means Russian Salad, I think. If you order this in Spain, you'll get a salad of mostly potatoes, so I call it potato salad. This had some ham in it, and the best part...little pickles. I think I could have eaten the entire bowl myself. I also ate several of the tomato slices with the little fillets. They were dressed simply with some olive oil, perhaps? Quite good and the tomato was excellent. We had not had too many fresh veggies on the trip thus far.

Now, I am not much of a fish person, so the next dish to come out initially worried me. At least the heads were cut off. As you can see, we did pretty good as a group. These were little fried sardines. Reluctantly, I tried one, and wow! Loved them. Not fishy at all. I ate a couple.

We were not done with the fish yet! Next came the breaded anchovies. I've never eaten an anchovy and have always said I wouldn't, but I felt I should try them and I was glad I did. Also delicious.

Next up, Spanish omelet. First Spanish omelet of the trip, but definitely not my last.

There was also a platter of zucchini and cheese croquettes. I'm not sure that is the proper name; I just didn't want to call it a zucchini and cheese "thing" because they were so much better than that. When Gemma brought these out we asked Roger what they were and he asked Gemma and told us they were zucchini and we all went, "Ooooh" as though he had told us it was Kobe beef or something. I guess were were all really craving some veggies.

But wait! There is still more to come! Pork au jus (again, obviously not the proper name, but describes it well I think). Oh...this pork. This pork was so tender and flavorful. This pork has ruined all other pork for me for the rest of my life. It was just so good. I really thought the meal was done with the Spanish omelet, so when this arrived I was overjoyed.

And of course, we had to have dessert. Pears poached in red wine with cream. Simple. Delicious. Perfect ending for such a wonderful meal.

Next stop - shopping of course. You can't go to Spain and not bring home some Spanish wine.

With full bellies, we headed off to Ronda. Now, both my dentist and someone else I met at the conference told me we should go to Ronda, but I didn't think we'd make it there. They both told me about the amazing bridge and gorge. It did not disappoint.

Love the white buildings, blue sky.

Below is the "new bridge". It was built in the 1700s. Check out the link here. The photo is quite impressive.

I would love to go back sometime and have more time to explore. I would love to just get lost in the winding streets, have a glass of wine at a little cafe, enjoy some tapas.

Lea and Kelly explore Ronda.

I would have loved more time to enjoy views like this.

Alas, it was getting later in the day and we needed to get back to Sevilla. It was about a 2 1/2 hour drive or so from Ronda and most of us used that time to nap. We were dropped off once again close to our apartment. Door to door service!

Everyone talked about how much they enjoyed the tour and how it was the best part of the trip so far. Roger has a blog here that you can check out and read about some of his other tours.I would love to do a tapas tour with him! Exploring on your own is fun, but I think going on a tour with someone who really knows their way around adds so much to a trip. I'm not talking big bus with 50 other people, but arranging a private tour is definitely worth it.

So, how does one answer such a wonderful lunch? With pizza of course. We weren't feeling too adventurous and just walked across the park from our apartment to Il Solito Posto for dinner. The pizza was actually quite good...more a Neapolitan style. And they could seat all nine of us together, which was a plus. One of the things I loved most about Spain was eating outdoors most evenings. A glass of wine, a hot slice of pizza, my friends. An end to another wonderful day!

Sunday in Sevilla

2011-11-02T19:23:00.003-05:00

Well rested and ready for another day in Spain!

On Sunday, I slept in until 10 a.m. What a treat! We didn't really have any plans. This was one of those days where everyone kind of did their own thing. Once David and I were up and had eaten our cornflakes, we headed to the center of town to tour the Alcazar. Like many things we saw in Spain, this once belonged to the Moors as a fort. Now it is a royal palace, and Spanish royals still stay here when they are in Sevilla.

A few things I noticed. First of all, it is large and beautiful (real descriptive, I know).. You could spend a day there and still not see all the gardens. We had a map and I still occasionally was not sure where I was. Second thing, large tour groups are sort of annoying. They make it difficult to move around. Grrr.

David and a pot. Lovely, no?

We did the audio tour. I love audio tours.

What's that you say? You like my shoes?

I really think you get so much more out of it. A few things I may not have realized: we sat in the room where Magellan's voyage around the world was planned; we also stood in the room where Isabella and Ferdinand were wed. It was so fascinating to be in Spain where everything is so old and to be in places that you have read about, or stand in places where people you have heard of have stood. I know - the same thing could be said for the United States, but everything is so much older in Europe. I just found it fascinating. I also thought it was interesting that Isabella and Ferdinand were referred to as the "Catholic Kings". I'll need to look into that a little more.

We had a wonderful little lunch at the Alcazar before we wandered around the gardens. This was the point in the trip where we realized that as long as we could count and point, we could pretty much transact business entirely in Spanish. We were so proud of ourselves. We also realized how friendly everyone is. They really did seem pleased that we tried to speak their language.

We got a little lost in a maze (wound up breaking through the bushes to get out). Dodged some more large tour groups. Then we decided it was time to see something new. So, where did we go? The Cathedral. Yes...the same one we went to the day before. Only this time we paid to get in..

Why? Well, I really wanted to climb the Giralda. And I wanted to see Christopher Columbus' tomb.

Most disappointing bells ever.

The Giralda is now the bell tower, but back when the cathedral was a mosque, it was a minaret. I love how the Spanish re-purposed things. So very environmentally friendly of them. You have to walk all the way up...it's a series of 35 ramps. Not very steep, and there are windows and some exhibits along the way. Seems they took a cue from Disney. It's very crowded at the top, but the views are spectacular.

This is Spain.

While we were there, the bells chimed for quarter of, so we decided to wait until the hour thinking there'd be something really special. Well, not so much. Just "bong, bong, bong" and that was it. Not even enough time to get my camera ready for a video.

Waiting for the clock to strike 4!

Christopher Columbus' tomb is also in the cathedral, although I do not think it has all of his remains. Regardless, it is quite impressive.

Not a very good picture, I know. Sorry.

As a side note, the first day we were in Barcelona it was a National Holiday. Turns out they celebrate Columbus Day when the United States does...although they don't call it that. It's the Fiesta Nacional de Espana. It is their National Day. It seems that there are also some people in Spain that look on this day in a less favorable light.

I actually took this photo in Barcelona - this is actually Catalan, and roughly means that the12th of October is nothing to celebrate. October 12th was the national holiday,

We exited through the orange grove - this orange grove has been around since the Moorish times, although I can't say if these are the same trees. By this time, we were ready to head back. Maybe for a nap. Or maybe just for a cafe con leche!

Happy travelers.

We headed over to Las Columnas with Lea, Amit, and Alan. Beers and coffee were enjoyed. Life was good. We heard about the others adventures for the day -walking along the river, checking out the bull fighting arena. Kym and Kyle had gone to Granada for the day and we decided to wait for them to return before we headed out for Tapas.

We found a nice little place around the corner.

It was in a courtyard with a church and we watched lots of people stream out after services. Had some delicious pork sandwiches here, patatas bravas, wine and beer. Then we headed to a place on the Alameda de Hercules. I don't know the name, but the tapas were very good. Unfortunately, I ordered something with shrimp because I didn't have the sense to bring a Spanish/English dictionary with me. Gambas apparently means shrimp.

Before the unfortunate shrimp incident.

No bother. David likes shrimp.

And that was that. Another wonderful day in Spain! We weren't even a week into our trip yet!

Stay tuned for my account of Monday and once of the best meals I've ever had.

This is just a really cool looking building!

Welcome to Sevilla!

2011-10-30T17:27:00.001-05:00

A pretty picture to start the blog.

Ah, Sevilla! We made it, bright and early on what day...oh yes, Saturday. On vacation all days tend to blur together. Spending the night on a bus doesn't really help with that.

As I said, we arrived in Sevilla at 5 a.m. at a bus station, so I can't say my first impressions were anything memorable. It was very dark. A little chilly. We were outside and the restroom was very sketchy. As we were trying to get ourselves situated and refreshed, Lea realized she had left her iPad on the bus, which had just recently pulled away. Well, crap. Fortunately, despite the somewhat deserted nature of the bus station, there was a security guard around who informed Lea that the bus would go to the next station in Sevilla. Lea, Amit, and Alan grabbed a taxi and off they went to rescue the missing iPad!

The rest of us hung out at the bus station for about an hour. What did we do? Gosh...I don't remember. Stared into the darkness? Wondered why approximately 15 teenagers were at the bus station at 5:30 a.m.? Considered opening some bottles of wine?

And...about an hour later...the iPad was rescued! Lea, Amit, and Alan informed us the Sevilla was beautiful in the dark. They walked along the river, saw lots of people heading home from the clubs, and spotted a churro stand a bit away which was to become our little spot for the next hour and a half or so.

Mmmm...napkin holder

We couldn't drop our stuff at the apartment until 8:30 a.m., so we needed something to do until then. That something was coffee and chocolate pastries. Yum! We ordered like this, "Dos cafe solo y dos...those things".

We all look a wee bit tired.

It was a little windy, a little cold, but we survived. There was a surprising number of people up at that time. It was hard for us to really tell how early it was because the sun doesn't come up until after 8 a.m. in Spain. The people could have been clubbers headed home, early risers, or maybe just normal risers. I didn't feel like checking my watch. It was dark. That was enough info for me.

It looks like the middle of the night, but it was really almost 8 a.m. at this point.

Finally, it was late enough that we could put on our packs and navigate the winding roads to our little apartments on the Alameda de Hercules. It's a nice little park, which were were later informed has been cleaned up quite a bit in the last 20 years. It used to be full of prostitutes and there was a market on Sundays where you could buy things, such as the car radio that was stolen from you on Wednesday. Now it is the "Soho of Sevilla".

Lookin' pretty good for someone who slept on a bus!

From what we could see, the apartment was beautiful (the foyer anyhow) and the little park was charming. But, we could not stay. We could not actually check in until 3 or 4, so off we went again.

Not too far though. Just across the part was a little cafe that was open...Las Columnas.We got croissants, toast and ham ( we would eat much ham in Spain), coffee. We actually visited this place several more times during our stay in Sevilla.It was just across the park and a nice afternoon respite.

Jamon Jamon!

Fortified with some coffee and food in our tummies, we were off to explore Sevilla!

First stop...fruit!

We headed to the main part of town, found the tourist office, got some maps. Oh, Sevilla! So charming! Beautiful buildings! Horse drawn carriages! A bike sharing system! Old guy playing accordion on the street. I fell in love with the city. So, so charming.

This is actually from later in the day, in the Barrio Santa Cruz, I think. Note the sun shades spread between the buildings over the street.

We headed over to the Catedral de Sevilla. This is the largest Gothic Cathedral and the third-largest church in the world. We snuck in. Yes! We did! There was a side door open and we just wandered in and had a look around. You are supposed to pay 8 euro to get in. Needless to say, it was awe-inspiring. I didn't get any decent photos, but it is huge and so full of fancy ornamentation. We were not able to see all of it...there was a service going on so we did get to hear the organ and see some of the clergy filing out. Christopher Columbus' tomb is in this cathedral. I really encourage you to go online and see some decent photos. Or just go there and visit.

This was one of the SMALLER altars at the Cathedral.

After that, we sat and rested and planned where to go next, while some of us went to Starbucks because they have a restroom. Starbucks in Spain is just like Starbucks here. We rarely went there, preferring the smaller cafes we saw. The coffee there was better too. I mean, the coffee at the little cafes was better...not Starbucks.

Every trip needs to have one photo of people puzzling over a map.

We wandered around through a park. Didn't really have much of a plan. The weather was beautiful and we weren't in a hurry.

Me and my best friend.

Eventually, we came upon the Plaza de Espana, which was amazing. Such detailed tile and brick work. I would have loved to have gotten back here later or spent more time, but I think at this point we were all a little hungry and looking for food, and also a little tired.

What a beautiful day in Spain!

We did manage to avoid the gypsies. The guy in the photo below was not so lucky. I had read a blurb in one of the guidebooks about these gypsies that will approach you and give you a "free" sprig of rosemary for good luck. Then they grab your hand and tell your fortune and expect a tip. The guidebook advised, "Don't make eye contact, say "No Gracias", and keep walking". I don't know what happened to the guy below. I'm sure he was out 5 euro.

Don't make eye contact with the gypsies!

We stared heading back towards the apartment and headed into the Barrio Santa Cruz. Narrow winding streets, little cafes, it was all very lovely.

Oh, you could get lost in here and be perfectly happy.

We found a wonderful little place to stop and have lunch.

Happy to be sitting after a long day and still no sleep.

At first we only planned to have wine and snacks because the waiter told us they didn't have anything on the menu. About 15 minutes later, they had everything on the menu. Apparently, we crossed some threshold in time where the food appears.

The English side of the menu.

Lunch was wonderful. I had a beet salad, ham and potatoes, and some dessert, I think.

Beet salad and yummy gazpacho.

I might have just had coffee. This was our first experience with the "menu del dia", where you choose from two courses and then finish up with coffee or dessert. We did this a couple other times in Spain and it was usually pretty good.

There was a little hotel right across from the cafe and I told David I wanted to stay there the next time we came to Sevilla. This little area was just so cute and charming. How could I want anything else? Well, once we got to our apartment, I decided that was where I will always stay in Sevilla. Kelly did a wonderful job finding our home away from home. I can't imagine that is easy when you have nine people.

The apartment was amazing. Actually, we had three apartments. There were four total in the building, so it was pretty much our group. There was also a wonderful rooftop terrace from which we could watch all the evening activity and daytime activity in the park. Lots of dogs!

Hi Lea! The lovely stairwell of our building.

Most of us napped for a bit. I chose to spend an afternoon in frustration trying to upload photos to Facebook. Eventually I succeeded, but missed my napping opportunity. In Sevilla, as in many of the cities we stayed in, the supermarket is in the lower level of the department store, El Corte Ingles. It's a pretty high end department store - Prada, Coach, etc. Imagine if Nordstrom had a Cub Foods in the basement. I headed over with Alan, Erin, Kym, and Kyle to get groceries for dinner. Since there was only one way in and out of the market, we had a bit of trouble, but once inside we were able to get everything we needed, including lots of wine.

Kym made a wonderful dinner, sort of a stir-fry veggies with noodles. We enjoyed our dinner on the rooftop while we listed to all the activity down below. A wonderful evening with wonderful friends. I couldn't ask for anything more perfect.

Our lovely chef, Kym.

When all was said and done, this is all that was left. Lots of empty wine bottles. Full tummies. And a restful night's sleep. It had been a long day, but it was everything I had hoped our trip would be.

A small representation of all the wine that was consumed on our trip.

The Bus Ride

2011-10-30T13:09:00.000-05:00

Yes, we took an overnight bus from Lisbon to Sevilla. No, I would never do this again.

Getting from Lisbon, Portugal to Sevilla, Spain is not as easy as you may think. I suppose we could have flown, but I don't think it really occurred to us. There is no train from Lisbon to Sevilla, and renting a car to cross into another country was problematic and pricey.

So the bus it would be. An overnight bus seemed like a good option. It was a seven hour bus ride and it just seemed to make more sense to spend that seven hours traveling over night than during the day. One less night at a hotel or apartment to pay for AND we wouldn't waste precious sightseeing time.

I should back up a little bit here. We returned from Sintra and while we walked back from the bus station to our apartment, we passed the Metro Station where we would catch the train to the Oriente Rios bus station where you can catch international trains and buses. David asked me if I wanted to head down there and check out how much the ride would be. Actually, I really DIDN'T want to. I just wanted to get back to our apartment. But, I said sure and we proceeded into the station.

We went down a flight of escalators. And then another flight of escalators. And then another...and then another. Four flights total. I felt like we were traveling to the fifth circle of Dante's Inferno and it was certainly hot enough to feel like it. Why are subway stations always so hot?

As we traveled down, David said, "You've got a key for the apartment, right?" Well, no actually I didn't. When we got back, we stood on the street for a minute or so yelling up to our fourth floor apartment. Turned out the door wasn't locked anyway.

After checking out of the apartment, we headed back to the Metro station, the four flights of escalators, and after some disagreements with the ticket machines, we were on our way.

The Oriente Rios station looks pretty cool, but when you get there and don't really know where to go, and there does not seem to be any kind of an info desk to go to, it's just a wee bit frustrating. The bathrooms are also gross. I read someplace that this station is as busy as Grand Central, but now I cannot find the link. Regardless, it was one of two stations at which we could have caught the bus, and I picked the wrong one.

Turns out, we were the second stop, so by the time we got on the bus there were only single seats left. You of course have the people that are already asleep sprawled across two seats, the people that need a seat just for their plastic bag, and the married couple that each need two seats to themselves and will wave off anyone that tries to sit with one of them. I found a nice seat next to a woman who at one point tried to ask me or tell me something. Unfortunately, I have no idea what she said, so from that point on I tried to sit as still and quiet as possible so that nothing I did could possibly be a problem. She seemed very nice, but I had no idea if she was trying to ask me not to do something, or do something, or compliment my bag. No clue.

On the plus side, the seats reclined very far. On the negative side, an hour or two into the ride a woman got on who decided she was going to be the only person on the entire bus to have her overhead light on. She also gestured to me that I should not recline my seat so far. Argh! It is 2 a.m. lady! You are the only person awake on this bus! Your light is keeping other people awake! Invest in a personal book light! Eventually, she did turn her light off, at which point I attempted to recline my seat further, but it appeared she had placed a curse on it. It would not move.

In addition, the woman next to me decided she would try to sleep sideways so that her hip and leg were encroaching on my seat space. :-(

And since I am complaining, it was NOT a smooth ride. Overall it was pretty bumpy, and since the seats were leather or pleather or some such thing, sudden stops would leave you sliding further and further towards the floor. Oh, and I really think there was a point there where the driver was lost - we seemed to be going in circles in some little town for quite some time.

No one else really enjoyed the bus ride either. All my friends commented on how hot it was. My seat was actually chilly, so I must have chosen somewhat wisely. There was about a 20 minute break at some sort of travel plaza, at which we all stood around in the cold complaining about the bus. Oh, and then there was the family that got on and when it was suggested that the little boy would not be able to sit with his mom, he started to wail. I had earplugs in at that point, but I could still hear him. Fortunately, someone did offer to move...another husband and wife I think that were trying to monopolize seats, I think.

Overall, bus ride...not so great. I wouldn't recommend this unless you have no other choice. Crowded, uncomfortable, bleck. At least it didn't smell weird, although my friends might disagree with me.

We arrived in Sevilla about 5:00 a.m. Yay! Someone left their iPad on the bus! No! What happened? Check back for more.

Friday Friday!

2011-10-24T20:29:00.001-05:00

Me, a door, and some graffiti. My Lisbon glamour shot.

Just a pretty picture for you to enjoy.

Ah, Friday! Another day to enjoy some cornflakes and the Lisbon sunshine! Except today we were headed to Sintra, a favorite summer retreat of the Portuguese royal family for centuries. Now a Unesco World Heritage site and a short train ride from Lisbon. If you can find the train - which we did after a bit of searching.

My new Portuguese sunglasses!

I should say, David was not feeling well this day. He looked quite green on the train and many times I thought maybe we'd be better off just getting off the train and heading back to Lisbon. I'm not sure if it was the cod or the firewater. Our party was also short one as one of the late night revelers decided to stay in Lisbon.

Well, hello! Care to join us for a little castle hopping?

The main attraction in Sintra is the Palacio Nacional de Pena. It boasts the first shower in Portugal, as well as sort of a candy-confection of a castle with yellow and red walls, walls covered in tiles, and all sorts of creatures carved here and there. And the view - let's just say it's no wonder why the royal family stayed here. Sadly, they don't allow photos inside so you'll just have to trust me that it was as lovely inside as outside.

Why yes, I would love to have my summer vacation here.

Another view of what my guide book called "pure pastiche".

These people look familiar.

Our next stop was the Moorish Castle (Castelo dos Mouros). We had a lovely walk through the woods to get down there, although we did seem to take a wrong turn somewhere. For a bit there, I thought we were going to have to scale a wall. Fortunately, we found our way. Most of the group walked up to either of the turrets, but I stayed in a nice sunny spot closer to solid ground.

It looks all warm and sunny, but was rather chilly actually.

At this point, we were all pretty hungry. Sightseeing does that to you. We hopped back on the bus and to the train station where we found a little restaurant with the most amazing chicken empanada things. First Amit had one...then David and I went back for one...then Kym...and then Alan. The guys working there thought we were pretty funny. We also had these yummy desserts called "Queijadas". They were so very very very yummy. I might have to try making these.

Kym with the empanda-y goodness!

And then...time to head back to Lisbon. We had a bus to catch! We were taking the overnight bus from Lisbon to Sevilla, Spain. This turned out to be a mistake, but that's a story for another day.

More empanada goodness!

Day Three...also known as Thursday!

2011-10-23T16:02:00.003-05:00

Finally, I get to our first full day of vacation. A normal day of waking up, eating breakfast, and then walking all over a city I've never been in before. Okay, maybe not so normal. But no airplanes, no boarding passes, no trying to sleep in an upright position.

Here is what I wrote in my sole travel journal entry from the entire trip. I wrote this early Thursday morning: "Without a doubt, the hardest bed I have ever slept on in my entire life. I am up - the sun is up - I have no idea what time it is. Maybe 8:30?" That's it. I never wrote another word. I sat on the terrace for a bit, ate my cornflakes, and then we got going on a very full day.

First stop: The Praca do Comercio, right along the River Tagus. As you can see, it was an absolutely beautiful day in Lisbon. I don't have a picture, but in the square is a statue of Dom Jose I, who was king at the time of Lisbon's great earthquake. The arch behind me is the Arco Triunfal which marks the entrance to the Rua de Augusta which is full of shops and other fun stuff. We'd be back there later.

Hello from Lisbon!

The river was really beautiful too. The water was pretty cold though. No swimming for us.

Less than an hour of sightseeing and already we are resting.

Our next stop was to get on Tram 28, which is one of those stereotypical street cars....think Rice-a-Roni...only a little smaller. It was fun to ride, and easier than walking up the steep hills of Lisbon. It's known for pickpockets, but our tram seemed pretty tourist heavy. Our pockets were safe.

We were on our way to the Miradouros de Santa Luzia. Miradouros are lookout points in Lisbon. Being so steep and hilly, there are lots of these around the city. This miradouro had a lovely cafe where we had lunch (gazpacho, melon and ham) and also a little church, the Igreja de Santa Luzia, which was not open. I was disappointed, but need not have been. If there is anything in Europe, there are a lot of churches. Plenty of them awaited.

David with a Superbock, the common beer in Portugal which was neither super nor a bock.

Lunch was yummy, and our waiter taught us how to say "Thank you" in Portuguese. Obrigadah if you are female, Obrigado if you are male. We now knew one word in Portuguese.

Next we wandered up to the Castelo de Sao Jorge. Great views of Lisbon up there and well worth the admission price. My brother had posted on Facebook that we should see this and who am I to not follow the advice of my older brother?

There were also a lot of peacocks there. A whole flock of them it seemed.. And lots of little baby peacocks. Ever seen a baby peacock. Now you have!

After we left there, we just wandered back down the hill. I wanted to find this cathedral I had read about. On the way, we passed what appeared to be a woman who was chasing a guy who may or may not have stolen her purse. She was following him, they weren't moving very fast, and she was saying, "you can keep the money, I just want my purse back". Weird thing was, she was holding a purse, and he wasn't so...who knows what was really going on.

We got a little lost, but that was okay because we stumbled upon some Roman ruins and that was really cool. Then we stumbled upon the Cathedral. Yay!

It was really beautiful. One of many many cathedrals and churches we were going to see on our trip. David suggested we light a candle for my grandma while we were in there (she passed away the day before) so we did that. This was one of many cathedrals we saw that were built on the site of former mosques. The pictures at the link above are much better than any of the photos I took.

By this time, I was feeling pretty tired, but in a good way. The weather was beautiful and we were just enjoying the winding roads. We wandered our way over to the Elevador de Santa Justa.

Just an elevator built at the end of the street.

We didn't actually ride it, but we did make our way via streets up to the top, where the views were really amazing.

Since it was so hot, we of course had to stop for gelato. Yum! We went to a place called Santini which seemed quite popular. You choose two flavors, and somehow the servers twist them together. Amazing.

At this point, we then wandered back up the Rue de Augusta, stopped into H&M (there were like three H&Ms in Lisbon...if you want to go to H&M here you have to go all the way to the Mall of America. In Lisbon they seem to multiply), and gave some spare change to this living statue. Yes, that is a guy dressed as Mozart's tombstone (I think...he may have taken some poetic license). He winked at me.

There were several more items on out itinerary, but we were pretty tired. We walked over by the Convento do Carmo but didn't go in. It was destroyed in the earthquake and will be on my list of things to see when I return to Lisbon. After a full day of sightseeing, it was time to head back to our apartment on the Rue de Hera.. I think we were in the Bairro Alto neighborhood. Kym had some leads on dinner options! Yes! Dinner!

Our first stop was the Port Institute, which seemed pretty swanky. I do not like port, but I did like the cheese and crackers.

Then we wandered up the Rue de Atalaia which had lots of restaurants and bars. Some of the bars were so funny....they looked to be the size of a large closet. Enough space for just the bar and maybe a couple stools. As such, much of the festivities were out on the street. Very vibrant and seemed like a lot of fun.

But, I was hungry! We settled on Bota Alta, which means Old Boot and there was a lot of boot decor inside.While we waited for them to have a table ready for nine people (no small feat), I believe each person in our party was approached by either a man in purple pants who appeared to be trying to eat the cast on his hand, or a guy in a gray hoodie, asking if we wanted to buy some cocaine or pot. They were charming fellows. Just so charming - guy in the hoodie totally looked like a meth head. Eventually they left, wandering down the hill towards someone rolling a keg up the hill.We were seated shortly thereafter.

Our wine was served in these fun jugs and there was plenty of cheese and bread on the table. David and I each ordered the special for the night which was cod with caramelized onions and fried potatoes. Lots of potatoes. Cheese, bread, and potatoes were to be a common theme on this trip.

After dinner, our waiter offered to bring us "firewater", which was essentially paint thinner. More on that later. Tomorrow.

Kym, Kyle, and Kelly all opted to hit the bars after dinner while the rest of us headed back to our apartment where we sat on the terrace until the poor woman below us asked us to please go inside as she had to work the next day. Ooops.

Overall, a wonderful first day of the vacation...I know - it was really day three, but the first day was all spent traveling and doesn't count at all. The second day was mostly traveling, so that only counts a little.

Even after only one day in Lisbon I wanted to come back. I loved the skinny, windy roads, all the outdoor cafes, people dressed as someone's grave. Other than the purple-panted guy and his hoodied friend, everyone was very friendly.

More to come about how we overcome the ill effects of the firewater, find the train station, and head to Sintra to see more castles and ruins.

The trip continues!

2011-10-21T15:50:00.000-05:00

Lisbon. A lovely city.

Picking up with Day 2 - after the nightmare at the Amsterdam airport, I was happy to buy my souvenir "I AMsterdam" magnet and get out of there. David and I weren't able to sit together on the plane, but I was directly in front of him, so we were able to touch hands over the top of the seat. So romantic.

The flight was a nice one for sleeping - the kind or sleep where every few minutes your head falls forward and wakes you up and you realize you are drooling all over yourself. Lovely.

Before I knew it, we were landing in Lisbon. Yippee! Now, there were six of our group on our flight: me and David; Kim and Kyle; and Alan and Erin. Lea and Amit were on a separate flight. They were scheduled to arrive in Lisbon first and Kelly would arrive from Texas shortly thereafter. I think the plan was that they would go to the apartment first and perhaps have wine and cheese waiting for us.

I was eager to get a Portugal stamp for my passport, and was upset when I realized no stamp was coming. Apparently, once you are in the European Union they don't give you a stamp again until you leave. Total bummer.

Well, as we left the baggage claim, we were greeted by the warm smiles of Lea and Amit. Immediately, we knew something was wrong. Kelly was missing.

Not really, her flight was just delayed and no one really knew when she would be arriving for sure. Fortunately, there were eight of us, and a couple people actually had phone and or internet access and it was quickly decided that a small crew would wait at the airport for Kelly, in the wine bar...and the rest of us would take the Aerobus to a location someplace approximately close to our apartment.

Waiting for the Aerobus.

We would then navigate on foot through the windy and steep hills of Lisbon to our happy home for the next few nights.

Lisbon - where the sidewalks are made up of little white tiles. It is also much hillier than I thought it would be. And graffiti everywhere, which pretty much summed up most of the trip. There is a lot of graffiti in Europe.

These pretty flowers contrasted nicely with all the graffiti.

It was quite warm, but David navigated us expertly...although we discovered we had to go up quite a ways, just to go down, and then back up...and then up four flights of stairs to the apartment. No elevator, but that was okay because it was early in the trip and I was not yet carrying around bottles of wine and a small arsenal of magnets.

The apartment was really nice...five bedrooms, two and a half baths, a kitchen with a refrigerator with a strawberry on it.

There was also this odd painting of a woman eating a baloney sandwich.

Alan, Amit, and David went to the little grocery store up the way and came back with wine (1 euro a bottle!), cheese, pasta, tomatoes, and corn flakes. Yes, corn flakes would be the breakfast of choice on this trip.

Eventually, Kelly and the others arrived and we all relaxed on the terrace with wine, cheese, bread, and guidebooks aplenty.

Where's all the wine?

While David and Kym prepared dinner, we planned our course of action for our first full day of sightseeing.

We all went to bed a little early, full of good wine (well, for 1 euro a bottle I'm not sure how good it was) and good food.

We were all very tired.

Check back tomorrow to hear about our marathon day seeing the best of Lisbon and our experience with Lisbon drug dealers.

Spain Portugal, Day 1

2011-10-20T14:58:00.009-05:00

Well, hello readers! Readers who may be wondering...where have you been? And why haven't you written anything about your trip?

I'll be honest...Spain was exhausting. Most nights I just wanted to sit on the rooftop terrace with my friends and drink wine and eat cheese. And really? Who WOULDN'T want to do that? I decided early on that I would just wait until I returned home to write about my adventures, and hopefully would not have forgotten everything that happened.

Here goes.

(Attention to my brothers who may choose to read this account with their children: there are some mentions of the more, ahem, "unsavory" aspects of Amsterdam below. Proceed with caution.)

Day 1: A Travel Day
We departed the Twin Cities on Tuesday, October 4. I spent the morning at a conference (which by the way, led to some stellar Spain recommendations). David met me at the bus stop around noon. It was hot in the Twin Cities...in the 80s and I was attired more for the anticipated cool weather in Amsterdam the next morning. Needless to say, it was a warm bus and train ride to the airport.

David and I had decided to get to the airport early so we could go to Surdyk's flights and have lunch and wine. We each ordered the "Taste of Spain" flight and then settled in for some cribbage before Alan & Erin and Kym & Kyle arrived. I was totally kicking his butt, but we stopped playing when our friends showed up.

I think every trip should start out this way. Wine, cards, food, friends.

With friends this pretty, who wouldn't want to hang with them at the airport?

Our flight left at 3:15 p.m. Minnesota time. It was about an 8 hour flight and we were scheduled to arrive in Amsterdam at 6 a.m. My plan was to try and sleep all the way to Amsterdam. This did not happen. I did get to watch the movie "Bridesmaids" which just seemed to drag on forever. I also tried to watch Jane Eyre, but I found the Japanese subtitles distracting and quickly shut that off. Sleep continued to elude me. Sigh.

Since it was an overnight flight, we quickly find ourselves on...

Day 2: Amsterdam and then to Lisbon!
We arrived at Amsterdam's Schiphol (pronounced like "ski pole") airport at about 6 a.m. I was so excited to be in the land of my people, and quickly disappointed when I discovered how awful their airport is. We were directed to little kiosks to check in for our noon-ish flight to Lisbon. When those did not work, we waited in a long line with a bunch of disgruntled Americans. We were repeatedly told to use the kiosks. The nice women from the airline seemed a bit weary to be telling us this, until we triumphantly showed them our little cards that the kiosk had printed out telling us to go wait in line. Take that, Dutch ladies!

The one shining moment was when the woman who helped us noted to me, "You have a Dutch name" to which I proudly stated, "Yes, I know. I am so excited to be here". She then sent me to another line.

Despite this, I felt that my decision to not change my name when I got married had been vindicated. I had been recognized by my people!

Eventually, we got our boarding passes, being informed that we would not be able to sit together on the flight to Lisbon, and we made our way to the train station to head into Amsterdam for a few hours. Our carry-on luggage safely stored in an easy to find locker (HA!), we were ready to go.

David and Kyle enjoy the ambiance of the Dutch train

I must say, there isn't much to do in Amsterdam at 8 a.m., which is what time is was by then. I don't think the McDonald's was even open. We did have coffee and pastries and then wandered quite aimlessly.

David and I and one of the ubiquitous canals

We saw canals. And lots and lots of bikes. Most people ride bikes in Amsterdam.

A parking ramp for bikes

No walk signal! It's a bike signal!

I should say, there is something do in in Amsterdam if you wander the red light district, and we did see some nice looking young women in windows that would have been willing to help us find something to do. Yes, even at 8 a.m. It was a little awkward passing them by...sort of like a train wreck. You don't want to stare, but...you don't see women in windows here in the U.S.

Red lights! For real!

A canal. I felt this picture really, really needed the caption to avoid any confusion.

Eventually we headed back to the airport and began what was surely the most frustrating airport experience I've ever had. We went through security and then discovered we could not get to our locker. We actually had to go OUT through passport control, get our passports stamped again ("where do you plan to go in the Netherlands?" "um...we're just trying to get to our stuff"), get our stuff from our lockers, and then go through passport control AGAIN (hence I have three stamps from the Netherlands in my passport) and then through security again, which was a nightmare.

Despite there being about 5 or 6 lines for passport control, there were only 2 lines for security. A surly gentleman from Australia or England or someplace created a bit of a ruckus and then a few more lines were opened. He was later frisked. Despite this, I stood in one spot not moving for a good 15 minutes. Then, it took them about 10 minutes to finally inspect Erin's bag after they pulled it off the conveyor. I believe there was a time when it just sat neglected on the floor.

Those Dutch may be all forward thinking when it comes to pot and prostitution, but when it comes to running an airport...well, there is some work to be done.

At last, we made it to our gate. And I don't remember much of that. By this point, I was just so tired, I wanted to get on the plane and take a nap. Which I did.

Check back tomorrow for the rest of Day 2...our arrival in Lisbon, a city that is much hillier than I was led to believe by my guidebook.

Well, hello summer!

2011-07-25T11:02:00.003-05:00

My family has encouraged me to not give up the blog - even though I have not posted anything since April. They are so sweet to tell me I should keep it up.

So, what have I been up to the last few months? A little of this, a little of that. A triathlon here, sheep and wool festival there, travel to AZ here, knitting there.

Highlights:

trying out clipless pedals on the road bike. Do not like. Three falls and a lot of anxiety later, I am thinking of giving them up. I know, I know...stick it out, don't give up, it takes time. But, I feel it has come down to: Do I want to enjoy riding my bike and feel safe? Or keep trying to use these pedals that I have started to feel tense just thinking about them? Hmmmm.

5-year old birthday party injury. Yes, I got "slide burn" on my elbow while in the bouncy slide thing at the Little Guy's 5th birthday party. It goes nicely with the crazy ankle scar from when I fell off my bike the third time.

Tour de France: so sad for Andy Schleck. Really wanted him to win this year. Sigh. But, good on you Cadel Evans!

MN Twins: yay! Argh! Yay! Argh.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Class: I am not my thoughts.

Friends and Family: the best ever. ever. ever.

Recently, I had the chance to play catch with the Little Guy, D, and Gigi. What fun and the perfect way to spend a summer afternoon. I would post pictures, but as I went in to get my camera, he got hit in the face with the ball and that was the end of that. He hasn't quite gotten the whole, "move your arms, move your body if needed" thing down yet.

This weekend D and I head to Lanesboro, MN to celebrate our first anniversary. Yay! I'll be sure to update you with some pics of the wonderful food we will eat at the Scandinavian Inn!

Hats and Whiskey

2011-04-20T19:59:00.007-05:00

It is a well know knitter-fact that if you handknit a gift for someone (a baby in particular), that gift will be the "best gift" of the day. That or a bottle of whiskey. David and I scored on both counts this past weekend. While I enjoyed a baby shower for the mom-to-be, he headed to a beer-n-brat event for the dad-to-be.

My gift: Aviatrix hats for the twin girls
His gift: whiskey

We received a lovely note from the soon-to-be parents "...you two won the "best gift"award - twice. The knit hats are ridiculously adorable and the perfect style for our twins - right down to the Hello Kitty aviators on the buttons. And of course a beautiful bottle of whiskey is what every man really wants to get no matter what the occasion. Thank you, thank you."

It made me smile...and wish I could write such a lovely note.

Without further ado, here are the Aviatrix Hats.

I used Malabrigo worsted in a garnet color. This was the yarn I won from Orinda5 whenI donated to the Roseville String Ensemble. This yarn has yielded a sweater for me and three baby hats now.

I of course warned the mother not to put the hats in the washer and dryer.

The buttons are just perfect. I don't keep many buttons on hand, but I happened to have some with Hello Kitty in an airplane. What could be more perfect! They look just great with the garnet yarn. I am so pleased with how these turned out.

As for the pattern, a definite winner! These hats knit up SO fast. You can easily finish one in an afternoon. They are knit flat with short rows, no seams...just wonderful. I think this will be my new go-to baby hat. I hope I will get to see the twins in them this coming winter.

3,2,1

2011-03-22T08:51:00.005-05:00

(I started this blog post in March...I figured I would publish it anyway)

I think my blogging days may be numbered. That, or I need to come to terms with the fact that the focus of my blog may change. It may not be so much about knitting anymore, and certainly not about riding public transit (my bus commute is now about 10 minutes each way; hardly time to witness any crazy antics). Am I okay with that? Do I want to blog just about random, everyday stuff? Sure, I already do that, but am I prepared to give up the knitting blog charade?

Life has been pretty busy lately. D and I have been getting up at 5:10 each morning and heading to the Rec Center to work out before we work. I love this arrangement. It gives me more flexibility with my evenings and I can fit it running, swimming, and biking better. We do still go to the Rec Center after work occasionally...in fact you can find us there this afternoon for spin class. Yay!

In addition, we are taking Total Immersion swim classes. I am bad. Very bad. I've got a long way to go before I feel comfortable doing freestyle. Sigh. I find it slightly depressing that my swimming just seems to get worse.

I've also been running more now that I can run outside after work. It stays light until about 7:30 now so I can get home, get in a good 3-4 miles, and be home well before dark. Oh happy day.

We've got a lot of fun stuff coming up as well. In April, we are taking advantage of a Groupon and heading to Cove Point Lodge in Beaver Bay, MN. In May, we are taking advantage of the Twins schedule to head to Phoenix to see them play the Diamondbacks and also visit my brother and his family. Then, it will be summer!

We don't have any big plans for the summer because we will be in Spain and Portugal for two weeks in October.

The Year So Far

2011-02-06T15:12:00.004-06:00

Since I haven't been doing much knitting, what have I been up to?

Getting back into the hang of working out: After the last tri we did in...ahem, SEPTEMBER, I kind of stopped going to the gym. There were a few Saturday runs but overall I got quite lazy. With the new year, D and I are heading to the gym more often. We've gone to a few spin classes which we are really enjoying and we've been getting back into the pool. Starting this week we are taking a Total Immersion swim class with Michael and Kym. I think this will really help me with my form and should improve my swimming overall. Can't wait. The one thing I need to pick up the pace on, literally, is my running. I registered for a 10K at the end of April. Unfortunately, it looks like the only way I'll be able to get some running in is to get up early and do it before work. Yuck.

Some baking, some cooking: Months ago I bought an Aebleskiver pan and I finally used it a couple weeks ago. I had to make several substitutions since I realized I didn't have any baking soda or buttermilk, but I still think they turned out okay. Aebleskiver are a Danish treat...sort of a round pancake.

I also baked a cake yesterday completely on a whim. I was reading Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cookbook and there was a very simple recipe for "Cockeyed Cake". It looked so easy that I got out of my chair, went to the cabinet, mixed it all up, stuck it in the oven, and 30 minutes later had a yummy treat. We have already eaten the entire cake.

Videogames: Hate to say it, but I got sucked back into Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter, Lego Indiana Jones...HA but not Lego Batman!!!

I am working on another marshmallow hat and have been scouring the pages of Ravelry for ideas to use up my yarn stash. I've got a few good ideas rolling around and will post as soon as something is on the needles.

Cupcake Fail

2011-01-21T20:51:00.002-06:00

I woke up this morning to discover that the cupcakes had taken a turn for the worse during the night. The frosting had either slid off the cakes or been absorbed into them. Since they were red cupcakes they looked rather ghoulish. I decided to spare my co-workers and leave the poor things at home.

It's just as well. Afterall, all but the eggs and water in them were expired. Yes, even my cooking oil has a sell by date of last July. It got me thinking about the powdered sugar in the cabinet. Should I be desperately making all sorts of sweets to use it up? Does powdered sugar go bad? Do people really want to read about the contents of my cabinets?

The bread on the other hand...fantastic! I'm using the recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. As I explained, perhaps a bit too vociferously (I really wanted to use that word) to David, this doesn't mean that you pop in the dough and five minutes later you'll have a loaf of bread. Five minutes refers to your hands on time. I think today it was more like 7 minutes since the smoke detector went off and after David recovered from the shock he had to climb up on the table and shut the darn thing off. Two minutes of excitement!

The bread was yummy. We gobbled up the whole loaf almost fresh from the oven even though they say it would be better if you let it cool entirely. Who can resist still warm bread? Not us!

Happy weekend everyone!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-20T19:49:00.003-06:00

Well hello blog readers! So nice to see you here. David and I got a very nice Christmas letter from his Aunt Pauline and Uncle Jim in which she mentioned reading my blog. And how do I say "thanks"? By not posting in over a month!

So, hello Pauline!

I have to say, I absolutely love holiday letters. I get a little bummed out when there is no letter with the Christmas card. The newsier the letter is, the better. Every year when I am out at my dad's house around Christmas, I dig through their rather large pile of Christmas letters (seriously - those two know A LOT of people) and pull out all the letters. I know Christmas letters get kind of a bad rap, and occasionally you do come across one that has a bit too much of bragging, or even worse, the "woe is me" letter, but I just love to be able to hear about what people have been up to. I hope people enjoy hearing what I have been up to.

And now it is a new year! Our first full year as married people! What are we looking forward to this year? What resolutions have we made? I don't know about David, but I haven't made any - I have set some goals though, mostly to complete the triathlons I have registered for and perhaps a 10K or maybe even a half-marathon. Of course, I would love to do more knitting. This fall we will be going to Spain and Portugal (mostly Spain) with Kym, Kyle, Alan, Erin, Lea, Amit, Shawna, and Kelly. I don't really know those last two but I'm sure I will after two weeks traipsing about Europe.

I'm also going to get into baking bread this year. I've got some dough rising as we speak. I also made cupcakes tonight, but since the frosting and the cake mix were both past their "best if used by" date, I'm not sure we will actually be eating them. I'll give one a try and see.

Well, that seems to be enough babbling. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to write about next time.

Marshmallow Bonnet

2010-12-13T20:28:00.003-06:00

I finished up the Marshmallow Bonnet yesterday! As with most of my knitting projects, I didn't check my gauge, so the sides seem a bit too long to me, but I still think it is pretty cute. I might do another one one in pink with white puffs.

The specs:
Pattern: Marshmallow Bonnet from Itty Bitty Hats by Susan Anderson
Yarn: Cashsoft Baby DK and Kidsilk Aura
Needles: Some good old aluminum size 7 (would use size 6 next time)

I LOVE the way the Kidsilk Aura gives the hat a little loftiness. It's so soft and fluffy.

I'm not sold on the bobble as a fastener...I think a button might be easier. I may try that with the next one. It was a fun knit and I think a pink one with white accents would be cute. I'd also like to try some changes other people on Ravelry have suggested.

It was really hard to get that container of salt to sit still for the photo!

Let it Snow!

2010-12-12T14:19:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was Snowmageddon! The snowpocalypze! The Snownami! A Snowicane! A Snownado! The roof of the Metrodome collapsed under the weight of all the snow! Crazy!

Well, we got a lot of snow. And a lot of wind. And a lot of cold. It was great. Why? It meant we were stuck at home and I was able to get my knit on! Finally! I almost finished the Marshmallow Bonnet from Itty Bitty Hats. I just need to get the right sized crochet hook to make the little loopy things. So, pics to come.

D and I did venture a block up to Cupcake, just to check out how bad it really was. It was bad. It sealed the deal that we would not venture to Lea and Amit's house to meet with the On Tap group to start planning our fall trip to Spain and Portugal. Instead, we stayed in, ate cheese and crackers, watched movies and SNL, and I got some organizing done.

One of my projects was to organize my yarn stash. Wow. It's pretty bad when you have yarn you forgot buying. Like this blue stuff I got from Austin's Mohair and Gifts in Harmony, MN when we went to Lanesboro right after our wedding. Pretty, eh? Just sitting in a bag, neglected all these months.

I also made some new purchases when my mom and I went yarn shop hopping the day after Thanksgiving. What a fun day we had! It was fun to hang out with just my mom.

We went to Three Kittens where they were having a massive sale! I got this Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette, 10 skeins....

And this King Tut cotton, also 10 skeins.

I guess I was in a pink mood that day.

I also bought some yarn to make the marshmallow bonnet, and some secret gift stuff, at the Yarnery, my favorite place.

As I organized my stash, I found several odd projects from years ago. One of the very first knitting classes I ever took was knitting mittens in the round on DPNs. Took the class at my other favorite place, Crafty Planet. So, this was back in the day where I had the attitude that I was taking the class to learn a skill, not to get a finished product, so I used the cheapest yarn I could find. And now, I have some really ugly mittens.

What to do with them? Donate? They are kind of ugly and misshapen, but they still work. I dunno.

I also found a bunch of zippers I ordered from a zipper place in New York for my Ribby Cardi - like 5 zippers (got some different sizes to try) that I couldn't use because I ordered the wrong kind. Woops! Those, along with a bagful of yarn are ready to be donated someplace. My mom is going to take my pile of GGH kid mohair off my hands, the rest...who knows. I feel pretty good getting my stuff organized.

And now, since the roads are plowed, we are off to those greatest of all places, Target and Best Buy! Let the shopping begin!

Alas, the honeymoon had to end

2010-12-12T14:00:00.005-06:00

We wrapped up our honeymoon in Vieques, Puerto Rico. This is a small island off the coast of the main island...about a 20 minute flight. We took one of those little 10-seater planes, where seat #1 is the pilot. I didn't really like that. ONE pilot? What if something had happened to him? Yikes!

Anyway, we got to Vieques and it was beautiful. Wild horses everywhere.

Beautiful beaches.

Laid back bars and restaurants.

This crazy tree.

I almost wish we had had more time to spend there. It was while we were there that I realized that I really am one of those people who just wants to lay on the beach on vacation. We stayed at a place called Hector's by the Sea, which I loved.

They have three casitas, are right on the water, and were just the friendliest people ever. They provided a cooler and beach chairs for us so each morning we headed to the store, filled the cooler with beer, and then just laid around the beach. PERFECT!

We headed back to San Juan for one more night before we had to come back to what was the iciest night so far in the Twin Cities. It took us an hour to get home from the airport (this is normally 20 minutes tops for us).

And, now...here it is three weeks later and we have just experienced Snomageddon. As my tan fades it is hard to believe we were ever on a beach, beer and book in hand, the biggest worry where we would go for lunch.

Knitting related content coming soon! Afterall, we were snowed in all day yesterday!

Let's try this again...

2010-12-05T12:51:00.006-06:00

So, we left Dominica and headed back to Puerto Rico. After a long wait going through customs, A LOT of traffic in Old San Juan, and a bit of drizzly rain, we made it to the Hotel El Convento where we stayed the two nights we were in Old San Juan. Beautiful hotel, lovely service. We made it just in time for the nightly wine and cheese reception. There was a pretty obnoxious group there, but we still enjoyed the wine and snacks after the traveling. We had dinner at the tapas restaurant at the hotel, more wine, yum!

The next day we went to the two forts (or castles as they call them), San Cristobal and El Morro.

It is about a 20 minute walk between the two of them.

It was a great day. It was really hot, but there was enough shade here and there to cool off and we had plenty of water. The castles were so fascinating. Old San Juan was just really cool. I'd love to go back and explore some more, try some different restaurants.

We also found a geocache while we were there!

It was near the militant sheep, as I called them!

The large breakfast we had sustained us until about 2:00 in the afternoon, and then the big question was: go get lunch now, or go back and sit in the pool. We opted for the pool and it was a good choice. We were so hot and sweaty. The cool water was very welcome!

Then we headed to La Bombonera which has been around for about 100 years and had good food cheap!

Made it back to the hotel just in time for the wine and cheese reception and then zipped over to the Sheraton to meet Debbie for a nighttime walking tour of Old San Juan. We'd enjoyed the Dublin walking tour so much that we thought we would give this a try. It was great! Learned a lot of history, met two other very nice couples. As we walked to different parts of the city she had us imagine we were soldiers or tradesmen or slaves.

That was over with my 9 p.m. and then we went to the tapas place across from the hotel for some snacks and drinks. The next day, we would head to Vieques! Stay tuned!

More Honeymoon!

2010-11-22T17:53:00.003-06:00

But before we get there....Baby Goat!

As we left Dominica, we saw the baby goat again. Isn't it cute?

We had to check out of the hotel at 11 a.m., but our flight wasn't until about 4:00, so we had some time to kill. We stopped at this beach by the airport to catch a photo of David recreating a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean. Several scenes from the second and third movies were filmed on Dominica. Then we headed over to the Pagua Bay Bar and Grill where we had ceviche, fish tacos, and rum drinks. It was a nice place to relax for an hour or so before we headed to the airport. Great view, too.

Pagua Bay from Michelle on Vimeo.

Home Again!

2010-11-21T19:16:00.002-06:00

And I thought the roads in Dominica were bad! D and I got back to the Twin Cities last night about 10:30 but didn't get home until 12:30 because the roads were so bad. Sheer ice. I don't think our cabbie had ever driven on roads like that before. It doesn't instill a lot of confidence when the guy driving you keeps talking about how scared he is. We made it though! Home!

So, I sort of dropped off the face if the earth for the second week of the honeymoon, blogwise. We had iffy WiFi at our hotel in Old San Juan, and then on Vieques, no WiFi at all. So....no blogging. I'll work on getting you all caught up over the next week.

We loved Old San Juan and loved Vieques even more. The great thing about Vieques is that it has so many beaches, and they are all kind of in a row, so you can kind of beach hop all day long. It's a totally laid back place. And Old San Juan has so much history. We had a really great time.

More details to come!

Off to Puerto Rico

2010-11-14T05:35:00.006-06:00

By popular demand, I bring you:

Goat. Sadly, the baby goat was not out. We haven't seen the baby goat again. Oh my! It was so cute! Baby goats are just the cutest thing ever.

So, here in Dominica, as you drive around you see goats and cows tied up on the side of the road. A goat here, a cow there. I'm not sure the protocol here...does someone bring the goat or cow out in the morning and tie it up? Do they come back for it that night? They MUST because it is so dark on the roads at night I would think a goat especially would get run down. Although, when David and I came back from dinner the other night, there was a goat sitting in the middle of the road and it got up and lazily moved out of the way.

I really wish I had a picture of the cow we saw on the drive back from Chaudiere Pool. It was a pretty cow and David had to get out of the car and coax it to the other side of the road because the rope was stretched across the road about 2 feet high. My hero...the cow wrangler.

I thought I had another cow photo, but can't find it right now, so here is a closeup of of cow and duck.

Some other random pictures

Pretty flower outside our home away from home for the week.

Brrr! It is cold! Must be 70 degrees!

We are heading back to Puerto Rico later today. We have really enjoyed seeing all the pictures of the snow back home. Seems they everyone on Facebook has posted a comment about or photo of the snow.

We are pretty excited to go to Puerto Rico. We are really hoping we will sleep better once we get there. Last night it got really windy for about 15 minutes and then stopped. It was a little bit scary. David said it was his worst night for sleep so far. We are hoping at the the hotel in San Juan, with real windows and the lull of the AC that we will sleep like babies. Can. Not. Wait.

Last Day in Dominica

2010-11-13T13:31:00.003-06:00

Sigh. But, we have a whole week of vacation left! Yay!

This morning we walked down to the beach. When we went there Monday, I called it the most disappointing beach in the world. But, go there when the tide is right, and it was pretty cool! Black sand beach, warm water, gentle breeze, dude with machete walking our way...wait, what?

I had read not to be alarmed by this, that many men carry around a cutlass for agricultural purposes. I said this in my head as D and I stood on a pretty much deserted strip of land with a guy with a very big knife walking towards us. I couldn't help but feel nervous. Turns out, Red Shirt Machete Dude was pretty nice. We chatted a bit and then headed back to our place to get the kayak.

We saw Red Shirt Machete again as we kayaked. We kayaked from the same beach and they had a little camp set up there. Said hello again and we were off.

We kayaked over to Treasure Island, which Red Shirt Machete Dude had told us you could also swim to. We hiked about there a bit, which freaked me out. Wait! How many times I have been freaked out in Dominica? Roads, rocks, guys with knives. Is this the way one should spend their honeymoon?

Then we kayaked into some huge waves and I was thrown from the kayak, which D seemed to think was pretty funny. I'm pretty much on board with that assessment
now, but WAS NOT when it happened. It...wait for it...freaked me out.

We kayaked back to the beach and Jenner, from the place we are staying, came to get the kayak. Then we stayed and swam around some more. It was pure bliss. Floating on the waves, sun shining down on us, clear water. There were two other women swimming as well.

When we left, Red Shirt Machete Dude informed us he had kept an eye on our car since the young boys we had seen earlier could be "trouble". Then he sort of guided us to get the car turned around in the mud. Then has asked for some change for a beer, which we were all too happy to give him. He wasn't really that scary after all, but...I still think that if you want to talk to strangers on the beach, you should leave the machete behind.

More scary roads and friendly people

2010-11-12T14:38:00.005-06:00

Well, Hello! So nice of you to visit the blog!

Sadly, I have no photos from today (Friday). I neglected to put the card back in my camera, so I cannot show you any photos of the mind-boggling scary road we drove on today. I really wish I could. Although the road really freaked me out, the hike at the end was lovely and there were some nice views along the way. Oh, and cows as well. And a baby goat (although I may get a picture of that later).

So I will intersperse this blog post with random photos.

So today we decided to hike to Chaudiere Pool, which we had heard many wonderful things about. After getting really good directions, we set out. We left the main road and climbed up through a little town, asking several times if we were going the right way. Then we got to a dirt road that got worse and worse and worse. We knew we would need 4-wheel drive, but I didn't really think it would be THAT bad. Deep ruts, up and down, one lane, bushes coming in through the car windows. I freaked out and made David turn around because I was sure this was not the way.

We stopped a really nice woman balancing a bucket on her head and she assured us that it was the road and it was about a 15 minute drive to the trail head, since the road was "not so good".

Understatement of the year. It made the road from Tuesday look good.

But we made it and the hike to the pools was very nice. We swam a bit and then headed back to our place. We stopped at the tourist center in town and bought some postcards and chatted with the nice women there. We could hear the kids singing at the school next door.

People in Dominica really are so friendly, and it is true that to really get the most out of a visit here you have to be able to go out of your comfort zone and talk to strangers. I don't think I am quite there yet, but maybe the next time we come back to visit I will be!

Tomorrow is our last day here. Sounds like we will go kayaking. The guy who was going to kayak with us got really sick (he was also going to take on us the Boiling Lake hike) but I think we'll be able to paddle around the bay on our own.

Another beautuful day

2010-11-12T09:03:00.002-06:00

It is another beautiful day here in Dominica. 84 degrees, lovely breeze from the Atlantic, blue sky, white puffy clouds, and another day full or opportunity.

Yesterday we went with a guide to Victoria Falls, Glasse Trail, and the Kalinago village by the sea (think of any park you have been to that recreates life in a bygone era...this of the original Amerindian population of Dominica).

Victoria Falls was beautiful, but the hike freaked me out. We had to cross the river 5 times, which wasn't so bad. It was climbing up and over rocks, sometimes quite steep, that really freaked me out. We got to the falls and swam a bit, but the force from the falls was so strong it wasn't ideal for much swimming. We did see some freshwater crabs on the way, one of which was a female...the guide lifted up a little flap on her underside and we saw her babies scurrying around!

By the end of it all, we were completely soaked. I hadn't expected to get quite so wet on the hike (I knew we would at the falls). So, I spent the rest day wet. Oh well.

Then we headed to Glasse trail, a beautiful hike through the forest down to the Atlantic. Yes, down. Which meant we then had to go back up. But, it wasn't so bad and the view was amazing and we were able to soak up some sun in a little pool that the ocean carved out of the rock.

By then, we were pretty tired. We stopped for fresh bread and cokes in this little village and then headed to the Kalinago village. It was quite interesting. We learned a lot about the history or the original people of the island. Got some souvenirs while I was there ( you will like them Gigi) and then we headed back to home. Exhausted. This morning I am still sore from the hike. We just had a big breakfast and will soon head out for a little hike, if we can find it.

I should note, D and I have been up by 7 a.m. at the LATEST every morning. We have not slept well here (the insects at night are very loud) and are pretty much up when the sun comes up. Then again, we are usually in bed by 9. So, I have many lovely sunrise pictures.

I am getting excited about heading back to Puerto Rico. I can't believe we have a whole week left!

Midway through week 1

2010-11-10T14:16:00.004-06:00

The hubby and I are midway through the first week of our honeymoom. Dominica is lovely. It is called the Nature Island for a reason.

(note...we are on the island country of Dominica, NOT the Dominican Republic)

The island is mountainous and green, with many rivers and waterfalls. Today we went to Emerald Pool, where we also some some German butts (after the German tourists got out of the water they would change "discreetly" behind their towels) and boobs.The pool was beautiful and we had a nice drive arund the interior of the island. It was a much nicer drive than we had Tuesday when we went to Fort Shirley. We took a road on the way back that crosses the northern part of the island and it was VERY steep and VERY twisty. I kept my eyes closed quite a bit and reminded myself that people seem to make it up and down the streets of San Franciso which are also very steep. Seriously, some of those roads seemed like they were at a 45 degree angle. Even though my eyes were closed, I could feel it. I didn't like it.Each day though, it has been a pleasure to come back to our little home away from home, take a dip in the plunge pool, read, knit, and just relax in the breeze. The weather has been great and each night we head up to the roof to stargaze. We have seen Pegasus, Pisces, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Andromeda, Perseus, Jupiter (not a star, obviously!), and a bunch of sattelites. We can see the island of Guadaloupe from our place and can see the lights twinkling across the ocean.

Tomorrow we are off on a tour with a guide. We'll do a hike, see some waterfalls, etc. So far we have not had the best luck finding stuff in Dominica (no signs) so I'm hoping we will have a lot of fun!

Cow and duck

Greetings from my honeymoon!

2010-11-08T07:06:00.003-06:00

.
I know, I know. I shouldn't be blogging on my honeymoom. But, I don't get cell phone reception here in Dominica and since I want to update my sis on all the fun, blogging it is. Yup, no cell phone, but there is WiFi here!

We left Saturday morning and spent a day and a half in San Juan. It was lovely. We swam in the ocean, shared a hammock while we read, had sushi for dinner.

We left Sunday morning in a rainstorm for Dominica. I suppose for some people a flight that resembles a roller-coaster holds a certain appeal, but not for me. Fortunately, it was warm and sunny when we got to Dominica. We got our car and drove the skinny, windy roads to our home for the week.

We had a lovely dinner of jerk chicken and then went up on the roof and gazed at the stars. It was amazing. So many stars!

The guide book the owners left us stated that the sun rises "triumphantly" around 6 - 6:15 a.m. And so it did!

That's all I have to say for now. I'll update more in bits and pieces. For now, it's time for sunscreen, bikini, and the roof! Then a dip in our plunge pool.

Ginger Leaves Shawlette

2010-10-17T10:58:00.003-05:00

Well, look at me. I actually knit something. It isn't quite done yet. Obviously, it still needs to be blocked. I may take it over to my mom's house to do this, since our condo doesn't really have any space at the moment to spread out even this little shawlette.

It is quite small, and yes, I do intend to wear it backwards around my neck like a kerchief. Then I can pull it over my face and...INSTANT OUTLAW! Can't wait.

I'll post details once it is actually blocked and looks less like a scrunched up straw wrapper before you've dripped water on it. Less like ramen noodles before you've boiled them. Less like those crazy shirts that were all the rage several years ago (and are still sold at airports) that start out tiny yet can still be worn by adults of all sizes. Thank goodness I never gave in to the pressure and bought one of those.

Life is humming along nicely here at Casa de Knitting in Transit. We are now the proud owners of a storage unit (Well, I guess technically we are leasers? Lessees?). That should help with the lack of space to block shawls problem. We are planning the final pieces of our honeymoon in three weeks. We still head out along the river or around the lakes for a run every now and again.

I'm off to pick my next knitting project. With the cooler weather and more indoor time, it's time to get serious about this hobby of mine again.

Today

2010-10-02T17:45:00.004-05:00

Today I totally wiped out on my bike. Not my new bike...the "white Porsche" as one of my co-workers called it. No, I wiped out on my "old" bike. Perhaps this was its way of asserting its jealousy, but one minute I was riding peacefully along and the next I was sliding across the pavement.

It's funny how those things happen so fast. Upright one minute, the next the feeling of, "oh...I'm falling. Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. My hands! My head! Oh good...my head didn't really hit the ground. owowowowowowow."

Then I sat up and used a different word to describe the experience. And then I was just kind of pissed off.

Ten minutes later as the hubby and I biked through campus I was laughing about it. And now I sit here, not even a scratch to show for all my trouble since it's October and I was wearing a lot of clothes. My elbow took the brunt of the impact and I am hoping tomorrow it will have a bruise or something. My way of saying to the world, "Look at me! I am a biker!"

Prior to all this excitement, we had been at Target Field watching a very exciting Twins game. We won! Wednesday we will be at Game 1 of the American League Division Series. I cannot wait. I've got a good feeling about the Twins in the post-season.

In other news, ever seen four-year olds play soccer? We went to the Little Guy's soccer class last week. So cute and funny. Lots of falling. Some tears. The Little Guy said it was "awesome". Perhaps he'll be the next Renaldo, although I am hoping he'll get into baseball.

Yes, I Have Fallen Off the Face of the Earth

2010-09-22T08:04:00.003-05:00

It's true!

It's the busiest time of year at work and there are many baseball games and such to attend.

Here's a quick rundown for anyone who cares on what's been happening.

I started knitting a shawl. I made a mistake and ripped it out. I haven't started again yet.

I completed both the St. Paul Triathlon and the St. Croix Valley Triathlon.

I bought a road bike. It is this one, only mine is white and I got it at a great sale so I did NOT spend that much for it. It is a Specialized Ruby Elite Compact. It's a carbon frame and light as a feather. Love it.

That's about it! I've been doing more cooking, D and I are still trying to get our house in order, still have thank you cards to write, and are finalizing honeymoon plans. Hopefully more interesting content to come!

A Very Etsy Wedding

2010-08-22T20:22:00.012-05:00

Now that it has been several weeks since the wedding, I should probably get around to posting about all the cool wedding stuff we got on Etsy. It started with the invitations. I hadn't spent too much time on Etsy, but once I got the invitations there, I started checking it just about every day. So many wonderful, beautiful things! A few weeks before the wedding, I had to stop myself from looking!

I've already shown off the invitations we got from Stelie Designs. They were the olive tree wedding invitation. She also did programs for us. I was so happy with how they turned out, and glad I followed her advice to only order one per couple/party. We still had a bunch left over.

I particularly enjoyed shopping for my bridesmaids on Etsy. The showcase on Etsy is a great place to browse and find some of the best of Etsy. That's where I found tagodesign. This shop is located in Japan. In addition to her bags being lovely, how cool was it to get gifts from Japan? I bought mini Granny bags for all the gals. They were beautiful and well received.

Each bag was stuffed with some Japanese newspapers! They enjoyed reading those...so much that I had to point out that there was more than just newspaper in the bag!

Inside was also a necklace for each from Pear and Peacock. I heart this shop. I first bought a necklace at the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago. After David proposed, one of the first things I decided was that I wanted to get necklaces from Pear and Peacock for my bridesmaids. I also got one for my friend Molly who did my makeup for me. Each necklace I opened was more beautiful than the last. The next Renegade Craft Fair is September 11th. If it weren't for the fact that the St. Paul Bike Classic is the next day, I would be mighty tempted to go to Chicago to thank her in person.

Speaking of necklaces, my sister found these lovely necklaces from it's beautiful. They were perfect! Not too dainty...the black matched the dresses...the orange matched the flowers. I was so excited to find these and got very lucky that she had three. She put two more up for me to order, and before I could get to them, someone swooped in and ordered one. She had one more, and I got it! Yay!

Then of course, there were the owls! You must check out the shop for Pink Perch. I think she may still be on vacation, but if you check out the sales on her shop, you will see the cutest mobiles ever. By the time I got around to ordering the owls, I noticed that they weren't listed on her shop anymore. Turns out she was going on vacation, but she still made two owls for me to use for our owl tree. I'll post more about the owl tree soon...I'm waiting to get a decent picture from someone.

As I started this post, I realized I didn't get pictures of our water bottle labels! We ordered them form Natalilly Designs. Ours were like the one in the picture (click on the link), only with yellow and orange dots. We got the little mini water bottles, which I think is the way to go. We got larger water bottles for the picnic last weekend and there were a lot of half-full bottles laying around.

Last but not least, we ordered our wedding bands from Titanium Knights. I don't have a picture, but those are the ones we ordered (click on the link). We love them. David really liked the idea of continuing with the Etsy theme and getting our wedding bands there too. He also liked the price! We got them about three days after ordering.

Actually, I lied. I do have a sort-of picture of them on the ring-bearer bowl that we ordered from Paloma's Nest. I'll admit, I didn't put much effort into making them look pretty on the ring bearer bowl (I used the string that came with it and my dad tied an easy to remove knot). I've posted about the bowl before. It said "Two branches, one tree" which fit in nicely with the unity tree ceremony we had.

And doesn't the Little Guy look handsome carrying it down the aisle? He did a great job! And look - he let someone put his tiny boutonniere in his pocket. Before the wedding, he was having none of that. He absolutely refused to let the florist pin it on him. His little flowers are still sitting on my computer.

That's it! All the wonderful Etsty finds I made while planning the wedding. Please check out their shops if you are so inclined. Each was so easy to work with and really does make lovely items.

What a Perfect Day!

2010-08-02T06:57:00.005-05:00

We did it! We got married. Saturday was perfect. Here are some pictures and snippets of memory.

A lovely setting.

With my dad at the rehearsal.

The Little Guy gives me a wedding present.

Me and the ladies.

Reading A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton to the kids at the ceremony.

After the first kiss as husband and wife.

All done!

Three Days!

2010-07-28T15:45:00.005-05:00

WoW! I really cannot believe the big day is almost here. My owls are on their way and hopefully will get here in time. David and I both took the entire week off, and quite frankly, today I am kind of sitting around wondering what to do with myself. David is too.

I'm still really glad we took the whole week. We've done a little bit each day and I think if we were trying to cram it all into two or three days we'd be feeling really stressed out.

So, yesterday we biked about 20 miles. We headed over to the Tin Fish on Lake Calhoun for lunch and were very disappointed by this sign.

I really, really wanted the fish tacos. But, it was over 90 degrees yesterday and 70% humidity, so I don't blame them for not wanting to cook.

Today, Gigi and I did some girly shopping and then had lunch at Sea Salt. I had the catfish po-boy and she the crabcake sandwich and we both had gazpacho. I would have taken a photo, but by the time we got our food I was so hungry I just devoured it.

I did get a picture of Minnehaha Falls and my lovely sister.

Then Gigi took David to Cupcake (it is his birthday today) while I did some prep on his wedding gift. Tonight we are going to head to Sapor for a little birthday dinner.

I know the next two days will not be this relaxed. Tomorrow the tent and other rentals arrive, Lori, our officiant comes to town, we have to set stuff up and rehearse. That's when I think we'll remember the little things we have forgotten. I think it will be a beautiful day though. I can't wait!

Monday we saw this random rainbow in the sky. It hadn't rained and it was just sort of a rainbow piece. Strange, yet beautiful.

One Week!

2010-07-25T09:48:00.004-05:00

Well, it's now 6 days. I missed the one week mark, but came close enough, I think.

Yesterday, after enjoying watching the Tour de France at the Birchwood Cafe with friends, D and I loaded up the Jetta with A TON of stuff and headed to my dad's house. Lots of beer, wine, games, napkins, cups, and a bunch of other random stuff.

The car was pretty full.

After running all over town to find tissue paper for those pom-poms, we finally made it out there, poured some champagne, and got to work.

This is when the pom-pom plan was abandoned.

When I made the practice pom-pom, I had some pretty high quality tissue paper. It was thicker and stronger and made a pretty nice looking pom. The stuff I bought yesterday was pretty flimsy, plus the only orange I could find was Halloween orange.

As I sat there with my champagne, folding and fluffing the paper, I thought, "This kind of sucks. And then I have to hang them all up." Then the finished product was not good. The cheaper tissue paper made for a cheaper pom-pom. I did not like them. I told my disappointed niece that we would not be making these and I would be returning the rest of the tissue paper.

One less thing to do for the wedding! Yay! We spent the afternoon making little tags for people to sign and hang on one of the trees in the yard as an alternative to a guest book. We also put together bags of crayons, stickers, and canvas puppets to color on for the kids. So, it was still a pretty productive day. We are going to head out again today and bring over a few things we forgot and also do some yard work.

OWLS!

2010-07-16T17:21:00.001-05:00

I am going to get my owls! Yay!

You can see them here. Those aren't my exact owls, but you get the idea.

Wedding Wednesdays

2010-07-14T19:47:00.007-05:00

17 days and counting. I prefer not to think about how close the wedding is and would rather lull myself into a false sense that I have all the time in the world to get stuff done! Whenever someone mentions how close it is, I freak out just a little bit inside.

That being said, there is a lot that is done. Our wedding bands arrived today. We have most of the beer and wine. Details are finalized with the caterer. And I might be getting some stuffed (plush...not dead) owls any day now...but maybe not.

I thought I'd focus today on something that has been done for some time: our wedding invitations! I know I posted after they were mailed, but I never showed them off. Warning: as with all photos on my blog, picture quality leaves much to be desired. Click on the picture to make it bigger - it looks better that way.

We ordered these from Stelie Designs through Etsy. This began a long wedding love affair with Etsy and after the wedding I'll blog about how much stuff I wound up getting there. I only wish I had started searching there months earlier.

I love these invitations. I love the two owls sitting in the tree, I love the heart with our initials carved on the trunk, I love that they are simple and capture the mood that I hope will prevail at our wedding: fun, festive, and full-of-love (had to go for the alliteration there).

David and I had a whole wedding invitation plan, and it didn't involve owls or trees. But after much frustration, I sat down one day and read a website that linked to a cool invite with bicycles and that linked to a whole google images search page of invitations with bicycles and that linked to Etsy and that linked to lots of other invites...and there were these owls.

What I really liked was the tree. Since the wedding will be in my dad's yard, surrounded by trees, I got excited about going with a tree themed invitation. I bookmarked a few different Etsy possibilities to show David. We browsed through them and when we got to the owls, he got a little excited. As excited as a guy would get about wedding invitations, but they were the first ones that he actually seemed to have a strong opinion about. He liked the owls.

I was surprised, and a little skeptical. I was not sold on the owls. BUT...I did not tell him this. We'd had a conversation about being open to each other's ideas and I thought this was the perfect time for me to try out my new "not saying no right away" tactic. So, I told him I wanted to think about it, I sat in the chair and knit for about 15 minutes, and then said, "Ok. Let's go with the owls".

I contacted Stephanie to check on colors and I ordered a sample invite which arrived about two days later. And I LOVED it. It was perfect! And better yet, she is local and I felt good about supporting a local business person. And here is my little plug: if you need invitations or something, check out her Etsy shop. The whole process was so easy and I love the invitations. She also made mailing label wraps that wrap around the envelope and those were pretty cool, although my attempts with the first few were a little crooked.

She also did our wedding programs, but you'll have to wait until after the wedding to see those.

I liked the wedding invitations so much that when we needed some invites for the joint reception we are having in August with David's brother and his soon-to-be wife Rebekah that I contacted Stephanie. I picked the Tyler invitations and here they are! Click the picture to embiggen.

They look great. My pictures don't do either justice, but if you go to Stelie Designs on Etsy you can see the samples.

I'm sure the wedding will be as lovely as the invitations. Now, I just hope I get those plushie owls.

My Grandpa Al

2010-06-29T16:04:00.004-05:00

My Grandpa Al passed away on Saturday at 99 years of age. He was really an amazing guy. I posted a bit about him in the post just before this one, telling you all of the marriage advice he gave David and me. I also blogged about him here.

I'll write a more complete post soon about him, but for now I'll direct you to my big brother's blog post about Grandpa. A lot of good memories in that post!

http://shallowtrollthoughts.blogspot.com/2010/06/remembering-al.html

And I love this picture of him. I think he looks so happy!

You can also read this article that was in the Waunakee Tribune News this past January.

Another Wedding Wednesday

2010-06-23T07:54:00.004-05:00

My sister suggested I update my blog, so here goes!

This past weekend was my very fun bachelorette party! Yay! Look at all these lovely ladies that came to celebrate with me!

We had dinner at Subo and you can see our very cool waiter, Neil, in the picture as well. I love this place! They have an amazing drink called "Grounds for Divorce" which is Jameson and ginger liqueur on the rocks. That drink was one of the main reasons I wanted to go there...the other was the amazing food.

One of the other stops was Nye's where we sang a few tunes at the piano bar and danced the polka with some guys from a bachelor party.

My friend Carrie made really fun little gift bags for everyone, complete with name tags, and my friend Kym rented a limo for the night. So, we had a wonderful, wonderful time. David has his bachelor party this weekend. I wonder what kind of fun the guys will have?

Wedding plans are going well. Every time I am out at my dad's house I am struck by how beautiful it is and I am so happy we are getting married there.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but over Memorial Day weekend we went to Madison, WI (Gigi, The Little Guy, David, and I). We visited with my grandpa and I asked him for marriage advice. He is now 99 years old and he and my grandmother were married for 73 years. His advice: Don't argue. He said he and my grandmother never argued. They would discuss things if there was a disagreement, but not argue about it. Good advice I think. People often say that arguing is healthy, but David and I don't really argue. I've often wondered if that was a problem, but if that is the advice from my grandpa, I'm going to stop wondering.

Wedding Wednesday

2010-06-16T09:42:00.006-05:00

Well, as you can see by the ticker at the top of the page, the big day is about six weeks away. David and I have this great list of things to do, divided into A, B, and C priorities and divvied up as to who is in charge of what. I'll admit, I have slacked a bit on some of my "A" responsibilities. I hope to rectify that situation today.

I have been in major Etsy shopping mode for the last few weeks. As you know, the invitations were purchases on Etsy. I have also bought some gifts for my bridesmaids and right-hand-woman on Etsy as well. Recently, I purchased this ring-bearer bowl.

What the heck is that? Well, I heard about these from some forum I was reading about alternatives to ring bearer pillows. The Little Guy will be the ring bearer, so we need something for him to carry. I am not a fan of the pillow. What would I do with it afterward? I heard about these bowls and love the idea. There is a ribbon at the top to tie the rings on. After the wedding, it's a keepsake and has a practical use as well. I keep most of my jewelry in little bowls, so this is perfect.

This is from Paloma's Nest. We picked this particular one because there will be a tree used as part of the wedding ceremony. Also, we will be surrounded by trees in my dad's backyard and there is a tree on the wedding invitation. It just seemed to fit. It's a beautiful little dish and my photo really doesn't do it justice.

In other wedding related news that I know isn't very interesting to most of you, I have my wedding shoes, wedding headband, wedding unmentionables, and David went suit shopping last night. I think he'll look spiffy.

Over half the invitees have responded! At first I was sad that we couldn't invite all the people we really wanted to. I'm still sad about that. But so far the responses have been overwhelmingly "yes", so I know we will be surrounded by close friends and family. I can't wait!

I did it!

2010-06-15T09:44:00.015-05:00

I finished my first triathlon! I now can say that I am a triathlete. How did it go, you ask? Well, let me tell you!

First of all, the details. I participated in the Trinona triathlon, held in lovely Winona, MN. I did the sprint course which was a quarter-mile swim, 11.5 mile bike, and a 5K (3.1 miles). I signed up for this because I thought it would be nice to do a shorter swim before I do the St. Paul Triathlon in August which has a half-mile swim. Boy, am I glad I did. More on that later.

We left Saturday morning and made our way to Winona, stopping in Rochester to have lunch with Kyle and Kym at John Hardy's BBQ. Yummy! Most tender ham I've ever had, pulled pork with BBQ sauce that had the right amount of heat, and a huge mound of Jo-jo fries that I barely made a dent in.

When we got to Winona, we checked into the hotel, headed over to HyVee for bagels and peanut butter, and then picked up our race packets at the bank. I got a lovely hot pink swimming cap, signifying that I was in the "novice" group.

After that the four of us went to check out the course. Kym and Kyle got in the water and reported back on the weed factor. Weeds - lots you had to swim through before you got to open water. David and I thought maybe we should get in the water too so we went back and got our suits. Kym and Kyle rode some of the bike course.

The water was chilly at first, and murky always, but didn't seem so bad. I was feeling pretty good about things. We talked with some people about the 3 W's: wetsuits, weeds, and water temp. They were all so friendly. Are all triathletes this nice?

Michael arrived and off to dinner at the Jefferson Pub and Grill. I kept with my southern theme and had the Cajun chicken creme pasta. Yummy! After dinner we drove the bike course and I thought, "oh no...this is hillier than I expected". I started to feel a little nervous.

And then it was bedtime.

David and I were up bright and early at 5 a.m. We met the rest of the gang at 5:45 and we biked the two or so miles over to the race. The transition area was just starting to fill up and I got a nice spot between two other women also doing their first tri. One asked me if I was wearing a wetsuit? No. The other asked if I was wearing goggles? Yes. I got my stuff set up and then got marked with my number on both arms and my left calf, strapped my timing chip around my ankle, and then we just milled around.

My wave was at 7:45. Kym, Kyle, Michael, and David were all in earlier heats. Once they were gone, I stayed close to the other pink caps. We talked about how slow we were, one lady said she'd probably do the dog paddle, the woman who had her bike near me was complaining about the tightness of her wetsuit. I was feeling nervous, but ready. I knew I could swim the distance, I'd been in the lake the night before, I felt like I was ready to go!

Now, before I go any further, I should tell you that I felt pretty confident in my swimming abilities. I was planning to do the breaststroke, which I knew I could comfortably do much farther than I needed to. One of the things I had told myself was that if I enjoyed the two tri's I did this summer, that next summer I would get a road bike. Nothing fancy, but something that would be a bit speedier than my hybrid.

They sounded the horn and the pink caps started for the water. I stayed to the back. The water was cold, but not alarmingly so. I jumped in and started swimming. The water was murky...there were the weeds...I couldn't really spread out too much...I was kicking someone behind me. And then I panicked. Absolutely panicked. I couldn't breathe. When I put my face in the water, I freaked out. I started swimming leaving my my face above the water. My breath was heavy and ragged. I tried again, breathing with my face in the water, and COULD NOT DO IT. I was already exhausted. Other pink caps were swimming like me, so I didn't feel too bad. But I was scared. This was not fun. This was horrible. Would I make it? I couldn't go back! The first buoy approached and I made my turn. I tried to breathe in the water again, no luck. I started doing the side stroke. That calmed me down quite a bit. I rolled back to my front and panicked again. My chest and throat tightened up. I panicked even more. I started sidestroke again.

At this point, I thought, "No way. Never doing this again. No road bike for me".

I considered swimming over to the kayaks to rest. But, I thought, I have to swim out of my way to get there! And then I still have to finish. I decided that wasn't an option and kept going with the sidestroke. I was about 2/3 of the way done, and then I could hear the people from the wave after me approaching. Splash! Splash! Splash! I could see a sea of red caps, coming right at me, ready to run me down. Crap.

Fortunately, they didn't, and I could see the end getting closer and closer. I tried to see if I could stand yet. Not quite. Now? Nope. Here are the weeds again. Now can I stand? YES! Thank goodness! Never have I been so happy to be upright. People were cheering and I smiled as I made my way over to the transition area. I was alive! I did it!

Over to the bike! I grabbed my shoes and socks, brushed the grass off my feet, slipped on my shoes, strapped on my helmet, had a quick drink, and I was off. I was breathing pretty heavy, but I wasn't as cold as I expected to be. I was thirsty though. I should have had more water. I have never once, while biking, actually reached down and grabbed my water bottle, and I didn't think during a race was a good time to try for the first time. So, thirsty I would be. After a few minutes, I settled down, my breathing was normal, and I enjoyed the ride. I even passed a couple people on some of the uphills, including someone on a nicer bike. I told myself that the bike was just like riding to work from my old place, only doing there and back all at once. The woman who had her bike next to mine in transition and I chatted a bit when we passed each other. She said she'd never wear a wetsuit again. I guess it didn't suit her (hahahahah!). Overall, the bike ride was very good and I started thinking, "Hey...this is kind of fun!"

I got back to the transition area and hopped off my bike. As expected, my legs felt like jelly. I left my bike, grabbed my hat, more water, and strapped my Garmin on so I would know my pace and how far I had gone (it has GPS...I'll post about it another day). Then I was off again! Slowly but surely! I got some more water and started the run course. It was an out and back and I passed both Kym and David as they were on their way back. I also passed my friend from transition and said hello. Everyone was so friendly and I was feeling pretty good. After a minute or two the jelly leg feeling went away, and after about 5 minutes I felt like I was in a pretty good groove. Other racers said "good job!" when I passed them and I did the same. Halfway through was another water station and I walked for a bit while I drank and then ran the rest of the way back. The Garmin helpfully beeped after each lap (which I have set to 1 mile), so I had a good idea of how much more time I had left.

As I approached the finish, I looked for Kym, Kyle, David, and Michael. I knew they were all done (I had actually seen Kyle, already with his finisher medal, as I was leaving the second transition). And there they were, doing the wave for me! I smiled all the way to the finish and heard Miss Minnesota International read my name! Yay!

A volunteer put my medal around my neck, another took my timing chip off my ankle, and then I gulped down some Gu Brew and a cookie. I had done it!

My overall time was 1 hour, 39 minutes even. Even with my crappy, crappy swim my time was 13:37 which I was happy with. On the bike, I average 13.8 mph, which gave me a time of 47:49. On the run my pace was 10:57 (I told you it was slow and steady) which is about what I run when I haven't just swam and biked. Total time for the run was 32:50. T1 was 2:42 and T2 was 2:05...so I can work on that too.

My goal had been to finish in less than 2 hours, so I definitely met my goal! And, Kym and Kyle both took third in their age groups! Yay!

After a yummy lunch and the awards ceremony, we headed back to the hotel and then back home. David and I went to Gigi's for dinner, where the Little Guy was decidedly unimpressed with my medal. I asked if he wanted to try it on and he said, "Um, no". Oh well.

So, will I do another tri? Well, I HAVE to. I'm already registered for the St. Paul tri. I'll admit...I'm a little scared about the swim, but I'm going to try and spend a lot more time in the lake between now and then. Hopefully I'll be ready.

And maybe, just maybe, a road bike is in my future.

That's it. The story of my first tri. Maybe more bits and pieces to come.

Done!

2010-05-31T17:46:00.004-05:00

Pattern: Helena by Alison Green Will, Knitty Summer 2008
Yarn: Knitpicks CotLin in Kohlrabi

I finished the baby sweater, just in time for delivery tomorrow. It's much to large for the wee one now, but I know a thing or two about babies and know that she will grow into it.

I did make an error on the last row of the pattern, but by the time I noticed I didn't want to go back that far. I think it turned out very nice. As an added bonus, I used up quite a bit of my stash!

Almost Done!

2010-05-23T19:45:00.003-05:00

I am almost done with this little baby sweater! I've just got the finishing around the edges to do.

This is Helena from the Summer 08 Knitty. I'm using Knit Picks CotLin in Kohlrabi. I bought the yarn to make a sweater for me and then decided I would never wear that color. Into the stash it went.

This sweater has been somewhat of an adventure, as I started it shortly after I moved in with D and most of my knitting stuff was hiding in boxes somewhere. I managed to find needles, but nothing to tell me what size they were. So, I just started knitting. And I didn't knit a gauge swatch. All seems to be well though, as it is definitely a baby size!

It should be done by the end of the week and there will be more pictures to come!

55 of 56

2010-05-19T20:16:00.004-05:00

56 wedding invitations! Ready to be mailed. I got an e-mail yesterday afternoon that our wedding invitations were ready and I could pick them up if I wanted to. I dropped everything (which was a plan to go for a run and then tap class) and D and I drove to Richfield. I spent part of today stuffing envelopes, affixing stamps and mailing labels, and just plain admiring how lovely they are.

We walked down to the mail box on the corner and dropped them in tonight Well, 55 of them anyway. The 56th is going to Denmark and requires some special handling.

Martha Stewart would have told me to go to the post office and ask to have them "hand canceled" but I was too excited to get them in the mail. I was quite disappointed when I saw that they won't be picked up until 4:00 tomorrow. With any luck, maybe a few people nearby will get them as early as Friday. Yippee!

Going Crazy at the Craftstravaganza

2010-05-09T09:50:00.009-05:00

The Shepherd's Harvest was a lot of fun, but I've completely forgotten to post about the event I can hardly wait for each year...the St. Paul Crafstravaganza. Ever since I got engaged, I've been waiting patiently for this event and refused to allow anything else to mess with my calendar that day. I knew that I would get many of the gifts for the special people doing special wedding related things for me at this event. No Yankee candle gifts from me!

I have nothing against Yankee candles. In fact, my sister gave me a Yankee candle as one of my thank you gifts for one of her showers. I loved it.

I post these pictures with some reluctance. I'm fairly certain that most of the people I bought stuff for don't read this blog, but I won't say who gets what.

My mom, Gigi and I got up bright and early and headed to the St. Paul Craftstravaganza right when it opened. I got the last free goodie bag and all three of us got a free pound of Peace Coffee. Score!

I went just crazy buying stuff. Well, crazy for me anyway.

Firs stop, the Clean Bee Soap Co.

The soaps smelled so good! Soap seems to be my weakness. Perhaps it is because it is something I know I will use but I always seem to leave every craft show with a bar of soap. This has to stop as I only have so much space to store it. But, since today was all about other people, I picked up two of the best smelling bars. I'm accessorizing the soaps with the glass dish from 7two7 Glass. The recipient can use this as a soap dish, jewelry dish, or whatever she wishes.

I was super excited to get over to Adam Turman's booth. I bought a few prints from him a few years ago. I think wall purchases are now something I should make in conjunction with D so I didn't actually buy anything, but I love to look. Right next door to him was Giraffe . They were selling coasters using his artwork and I bought two sets.

The bicycle themed set.

The Minneapolis themed set.

Once you find out who I gave these to you will think I am so clever!

Nearby was Marti Nelson Potter. I love pottery. My dream is to someday have a set of dishes that are all pottery. I suppose registering for dishes at Crate and Barrel defeated that purpose. Oh well. I purchases a necklace and little dish from her. It's called a soap dish, but I think it could serve other purposes. I use little bowls to house my jewelry. The recipient of these two gifts is very creative. I'm sure she'll find a fun use for it.

Gigi and I were both drawn to the work from Lawrenz Jewelry. We each got a necklace from her. This necklace is made from neck of a wine bottle. It was tumbled and polished and voila! Lovely. This one's all for me.

My last purchase was a bergamot, pink grapefruit and mango scented candle. Each layer is a different scent. This is from cibio candle. It smells delicious.

By this point, we were hungry but it wasn't quite lunch time yet. We headed over to the Longfellow Grill and shopped at Corazon until it became a respectable lunch time (11 a.m.). Corazon is my favorite gift shop in the Twin Cities. The greeting card selection is fab. These earrings will soon belong to someone else. I'll admit...they are for my sister. She picked them out. No surprise come wedding shower day for her.

I still have some more gifts to buy but the St. Paul Craftstravganza was very good to me. Next year I won't have the wedding as an excuse to go nuts buying stuff, but there is always something coming up. I can't wait.

Sheep and Stuff

2010-05-08T17:06:00.005-05:00

My mom, Gigi, the Little Guy, and I all headed to Lake Elmo for the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival today. Once again, it was a cold, windy day. That did not deter us. My lack of a camera did prevent me from taking any photos of the sheep, llamas, alpacas, and the incredibly cute 3-day old goat.

Here's the loot I picked up.

My first purchase was this lovely blue yarn. The color just caught my eye and I had to have it. 463 yards of superwash merino/nylon blend. The color is Blueberry Patch and it is from Karen Berglund. I also bought some yummy rhubarb leather from her (think fruit roll-up). So good. I could eat that all day.

The next stop was Jennie the Potter. I love her work. I purchased a lovely necklace and some stitch markers.

Then I splurged and bought this knitting bowl. The yarn comes through the opening so your ball of yarn stays in one place. It is already being used.

Other than some fudge, that's all I bought. Once I added that bowl to my purchases, I knew I was done for the day. My mom bought me this fun soap though.

I love how it has its own little nest.

The rest of the weekend will be quiet. It's sort of a wedding planning hiatus weekend. We have a Twins game tomorrow, to which I plan to wear long underwear. I was so cold today and Shepherd's Harvest and at the Twins game on Wednesday. I just don't want to be cold anymore.

Gigi has Wednesday off! I can't wait to spend some time with my Maid of Honor and hopefully do some fun wedding shopping!

PS - I apologize for the crappy photo quality!

Wedding Wednesdays!

2010-04-28T09:30:00.002-05:00

After much invitation angst, near meltdowns, snooty paper store employees, and clueless Best Buy printer salespeople, I have moved on from the idea of making my own wedding invitations. Had I started getting serious about it several months ago, I probably would have had the time to find someone to help me design them and a pro printer to take care of that. But, I didn't and I have moved on.

Last week I discovered that there are many people on Etsy that design and sell wedding invitations. Who knew? And what I was seeing filled me with joy. I saw so many ideas that fit in with the "feeling" I want our wedding to have. I can pick the wording I want, choose colors, etc.

I pulled D over to the computer and made him look at a bunch of different designs, all with trees. Since the wedding will be in my dad's backyard, I thought something with a tree would be appropriate. It's not hard to find a wedding invitation with a tree, either.

D really liked one we saw from Stelie Designs. What's really cool is that she is local and the mother of two sets of twins! You can see the design we picked here. Aren't they cute? I'm just waiting to hear back from her about the next steps for actually ordering. I am very excited!

She also has a blog you can check out here.

So, now D and I need to decide on the invitation wording! I've been searching for different wording ideas and leave to Offbeat Bride to have a post titled, "Wedding invitation wording that won't make you barf". That's what I am going for.

We're about three months out from the wedding. It still feels weird to me to say "my wedding". Eeek! I can' wait!

Holy Cow! Is that Yarn? On Needles?

2010-04-24T14:13:00.005-05:00

Yeah. It's been a while. Oh, knitting. How I have missed you so.

I got started on a little raglan baby sweater yesterday while I stayed home sniffling and coughing from work. Above is the progress thus far. I hope to finish it up within a week or two and deliver it to the new mommy I know. Here is a link to the pattern in case you want to see what it is that green blob will turn out to be.

Knitting really has been taking a back seat lately to wedding planning, triathlon training, and sadly...video games. I've once again been sucked into the world of Lego Indiana Jones. Now that I have something started, I think it will be easier to resist the lure of the Xbox.

I did the Lifetime Fitness Indoor Triathlon last Sunday and finished comfortably in the top of the bottom third. I feel a little more confident about the other two tri's I am registered for this summer.

As far as wedding plans, it's going great! I just sent a message to someone on Etsy about invites. We booked a place for the rehearsal dinner. The tent lady was out at my dad's this week and we decided to get a bigger tent and more tables and chairs. It's all coming together.

Back to knitting!

My Life Right Now

2010-04-07T07:19:00.003-05:00

I thought I should update the blog, even though I have nothing knitting or transit related to write about. I feel the name of my blog has become a joke. Knitting? Transit? Huh?

I've just been really busy lately. If I'm not at the gym, I'm in my new home working with D on consolidating the accumulated "stuff" of two people on their mid-30s. Do we need two crockpots? Two ladles? Where should we hang these pictures? Bookshelves! Bookshelves! We need bookshelves!

We are also deep into honeymoon planning! We will be going for two weeks in November to Dominica and Puerto Rico. While in Dominica we will be staying here. In Puerto Rico we plan to spend a few nights in Old San Juan and a few nights on Vieques at this place. We are very excited for our trip and now I've got a wedding planning binder and a honeymoon planning binder. Woo-hoo! Airfare is booked, some of the lodging. So far, so good.

The big wedding things left to do are invitations, which need to get done this month, the rehearsal dinner, and the August reception we are planning for some of D's family (this will be a joint event with his brother who is getting married about a week before us). I'm a wee bit stressed about the invites. Lately I've been tempted to go the Wedding Paper Divas route for the ease of it. Then I think, "No! Make your own. You don't want to do anything fancy so it will be easy!" We'll see.

Knitting, not so much. I'm sure it will pick up here soon. I'd like to knit a baby blanket for a co-worker who is due any day now. I've been using the fact that she doesn't know if it's a boy or girl to put off starting anything. Nice way to buy some time.

That's all I've got for now!

How is the Wedding Planning Going?

2010-03-21T16:40:00.010-05:00

David and I just got back from a very quick trip to New Jersey to meet with my friend Lori to start planning our wedding ceremony. Lori works at Princeton Theological Seminary and we thought that meeting in person would be much more effective than trying to do this over the phone.

We had a wonderful visit and I believe we have the beginnings of a wonderful wedding ceremony underway. Lori did a nice job of challenging us to think about what elements we really wanted as part of the ceremony and why. What were the messages we wanted to convey? What tone did we want to set? What did we want to be sure to say to one another and our guests?

It also has made this all seem much more real. Actually reading through vows out loud to one another gave me chills. Yup! It's for real...we are getting married! It's not about the tent or the invitations or the flowers or how many chicken skewers we need or who is providing the ice. It's about the vows and making a commitment and celebrating with family and friends and asking them to share the day with us and support us thereafter.

On a lighter note, we also got to wander around Princeton University a bit and around the the town and of course I spotted a lovely yarn shop called Pins and Needles. Lori and David were more than willing to pop in with me. What a wonderful shop! The women working there were so friendly...I felt so welcome even though we were there very briefly. It was definitely a place that I would love to call my own LYS.

I bought this lovely yarn...Hacho. 100% hand dyed Merino wool from Peru.

I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm sure it will be beautiful as just about anything. The women at the store suggested a particular scarf pattern, and now I don't remember which one. I think it may have been the Dropped Stitch Scarf by Christine Vogel.

Did I mention the weather was lovely in Princeton? The Magnolias are in bloom.

Love This

2010-03-21T16:07:00.000-05:00

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/grownups.png

Triathlon Tuesday

2010-03-16T09:14:00.002-05:00

Well, I am getting back in the swing of things getting ready for the tri-tri's I am doing this summer. Three tri's...get it?

Yesterday was so beautiful that I was able to run outside along the river. At alternate times my hip, knee, calf and foot hurt. I also need new running shoes as I am getting blisters again. My left knee is still a little sore today, but that's nothing new. It's always a little sore. Maybe I should get that checked out.

The swimming is going well and pretty soon I'll be able to get on my real bike and feel the wind in my hair. I can't wait!