A beautiful weekend on the Cape

A couple weekends ago I went down the Cape to see Jackie and Chris (we're still working out his nickname). If you have never been to the Cape, I highly recommend going there some time. It is a really beautiful place. I have been going there since I was a baby, and it is hands down one of my favorite places. I took Friday off from work and headed down in the early afternoon to try to beat the traffic.

Once I got down there, the hunt for a place to eat began. The Cape has very few chain restaurants, so I really rely on Chris to pick out a place to eat, and he seems to gravitate towards ethnic food. He wanted to go to this Mexican place called Ay Caramba, but he thought it might have closed. So he did what any normal person would do - he went to the kitchen and pulled the phone book out of a drawer, and started flipping through it.

This is presented (mostly) without comment. When was the last time you used a hard copy of the phone book to look up anything?

In the end, we went to DiParma, mainly because I was really craving some pizza. It's a pretty nice restaurant. We even found a buy one get one free coupon for pizza in one of those little tourist guides, so that was kind of awesome. After dinner we went to the Sundae School (omg, amazing). I've only ever been to the Sundae School in Dennisport, but we ended up at the one in Harwichport this time, and they have a 30 minute limit on parking there, which is kind of silly, given how long the lines can get!

Afterwards we went back to Jackie's apartment and just hung out and chatted for a bit. Here's me and Jackie. I met Jackie about a year ago. I was at a fundraising thing that Chris had signed up for, and he had to go and work at the sign-in table. Jackie was the neighbor of the woman who was running the event, and the woman was also working the table, so she told Jackie just to go and sit with me. And thus a friendship was born!

The next morning Chris made pancakes for breakfast. I had suggested the night before that we go to the Pancake Man for breakfast, but these were probably better. This is how I eat my pancakes. Cut them up into bite-size pieces, and push them all to the edge of the plate. Then pour a bunch of syrup in the middle of the plate, and dip the pancake pieces in. This keeps the pancakes from getting all nasty and soggy. Someone else eats them like this, too, right??

We decided we would go kayaking. Normally we go to the beach, so this was a nice change of pace for us. We headed over to Chris's brother's house to get his kayak, and went and said hello to his brother's chickens.

We ended up using Chris's neighbor's kayak in the end though, because it was a 2-person kayak, and the two single kayaks wouldn't fit in the car. We took the kayak out on to the Bass River and paddled around for a few hours.

We saw a couple great blue herons standing around, and we saw one fly, too. We actually spent quite a bit of time bird watching. It was a really nice day on the river, and the birds were out everywhere. Here's a blurry picture of one of the herons.

Here's my view for the duration of the trip. The weather was really nice - sunny out, but not too hot, and the water was fairly calm.

There was this huge group of college-age kids on giant, inflatable kiddie toys floating up and down the river. There were probably at least 50 of them. We were rather intrigued by them, and Chris kept referring to them as the "flotilla". You can see them here in the background. We saw them on our way out, and passed them again on our way back.

After kayaking we headed back home and had lunch. Chris's dad was really keen to show us this newspaper advertisement. Looks like someone is trying to be all uppity in the Cape Cod Times! This is a legitimate half-page ad that some rich guy took out to brag about his daughter's marriage to the child of some other rich people. The ad goes into a lot of detail, and is really quite ridiculous.

This is Luna (I think?), my new kitty friend. She is Chris's brother's cat that his parents were watching for the time being. She was super cute!

After we were done with lunch, we decided to go out on the boat. (Yes, this is the same boat that almost brought about my, Chris's, and Marek's imminent demise last summer.) I even got to drive the boat, which was wicked exciting! We put in at Barnstable Harbor, and just drove around. We drove out to Mayflower Beach, and then came back.

This picture below isn't showing up too well on the computer, but a little group of clouds looked just like a shooting star.

We stopped for a bit at Sandy Neck Beach, and headed back into the dunes (or whatever they were).

If you went back behind the beach, there were this big, old ruin-y type things. Chris thinks they were from an old lighthouse.

While we were back there, a huge swarm of swallows came flying by. This picture is only a tiny bit of them, there were a lot more!

Some seagulls chilling on the beach. The one closest to me looked like he was contemplating something.

Afterwards, we drove back towards the harbor and went past it, and just dropped anchor and sat and chatted for awhile while the sun went down.

When we pulled back into the harbor, we drove around and looked at the boats. There was a lone cormorant sitting on top of pole.

Isn't it so pretty? These are my favorite pictures from the trip. I was sad to leave, but I'm sure we'll be back again soon!

Read more...

The best Friday night (almost)

+

=

Very happy me!

Marek is going to the Red Sox game tonight, so it's just me and the puppy, watching last night's pre-season Colts/Bills game in Toronto, and then watching the rest of Transformers (started it yesterday).

I know.

Puppy can barely contain his excitement either.

Read more...

Mini vacation in DC

A couple weekends ago we took a mini vacation down to Washington, D.C. to visit some family and a friend. We were pretty excited about the trip, because we haven't gone on a vacation longer than a weekend in a long time, so it was nice to get away for a couple extra days. We drove down to DC, and so like most road trips, this meant leaving at midnight.

We've driven to Indianapolis, Chicago, and Florida, so we've gotten pretty good at timing and taking turns driving. We figure out what time we want to arrive, and backwards calculate what time we need to be leaving. I take the first leg and drive until about 2 AM (drove till 3 AM on this trip, so very exciting!), and then Marek takes over until about 5 or 6 AM. He sleeps while I drive, and vice versa. We typically stop after Marek's turn and sleep for a couple hours. Then I wake up and drive for a long while.

Friday morning we arrived in Virginia, where we were visiting some cousins of mine. I always think of them as my dad's cousins because that's how we are related and he knew them growing up. (If you want to get technical, these are my first cousins once removed.) Marek and I stopped by and visited with them and had lunch. They were so kind - I haven't seen them since I was probably 10 years old or even younger! They really amaze me with their energy, too! They own a couple of stores and are very lively and just great people to spend time with. I reconnected with them after my Nana passed away recently, so it was really nice to see them again.

We stayed until about mid-afternoon, and then we had to head into DC. I was disappointed we couldn't spend more time together (and that I didn't get to hang out with any of my other cousins (their children, grandchildren, and even a great-granddaughter!)), but we'll be back soon, so I'm hoping to see them all then!

The drive into DC wasn't too bad (we'd been warned about it), and we stayed at my cousin Kate's apartment. Here's her adorable dog Addie, who is such a sweet, good dog. (Looking at you, misbehaving Claudius Weenie.) She is so friendly and was excited to hang out with us.

Friday night Kate was actually getting her haircut, so we hung out with Airport Chris. We went and got some Thai food and then some ice cream, and then we sat at Dupont Circle and people watched for a bit. It was a pretty nice night out, and it was nice just to relax, but Marek was falling asleep! (Which is funny to me, since he got about 4 more hours of sleep than I did.) We made it a semi-early night.

On Saturday morning, I got up in the morning and went for my long run for the week. I ran down to the National Mall and ran by the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool. I was supposed to go up past the Washington Monument and to the Capitol, but it was hot and I was tired, so I half-assed it and walked a bit, and then ran home. I did a little over 7 miles, which I was very happy with, because I was on vacation and still running! And it was wicked hot and humid down there, my least favorite type of weather, especially for running.

Marek and I went and sat at Starbucks for awhile (he had some work to do...some vacation), and I took Addie for a walk, too. In the afternoon, we met back up with Airport Chris to go do some sightseeing. We were supposed to take the Metro, but it was running late, so we decided to walk to the Smithsonian, and oh my God, did that take forever! I only forgot one thing when I packed, and that was my Birkenstock sandals, which are much better for walking miles and miles than cheap, Old Navy flip-flops (I love me some Old Navy flip-flops, but they are not good for walking and standing around all day).

Here's a statue of Andrew Jackson, aka Old Hickory. I don't remember much of my junior year American History, but he always seemed to be quite the character.

We decided to go to the National Air & Space Museum, which was okay. I honestly thought it was going to be a bit more interesting, but we still had fun. Here's a picture of Marek looking at the piece of moon rock. (Because US astronauts totally went to the moon!)

Here's a donation box...international tourists seemed to be a bit more generous on this day than US tourists.

I thought this poster was pretty neat. Can you imagine taking 48 hours to get from one side of the country to the other? The trip was a combination of planes and trains, too. That must have been pretty interesting, but I bet exciting at the same time. Early flight seemed pretty scary though. I liked some of the museum exhibits, but I was chastised by Marek for taking too long...I guess I was just supposed to be looking at the pictures, and not actually reading anything!

We left the museum to head back to my cousin's because we were all going out for some dinner. My feet and legs hurt so much! I had run that morning and then we walked down to the mall, and then walked and stood around the museum for a couple hours. :( Luckily Airport Chris suggested we take the Metro back (after he was done poking fun at my tired legs), and we only had to walk a little back from the stop.

The walk from the Smithsonian back towards the Metro stop was very nice. The clouds and sun were looking very pretty above the Washington Monument.

We walked past the National Archives on our way to the Metro stop, so I stopped and took some pictures. This (and the Library of Congress) was actually my vote for sightseeing, but I was outvoted. Last week my dad told me I could just have all his pictures from the National Archives since I didn't make it inside, haha. Next time!

The National Archives is a pretty standard building, I guess, but I always like taking pictures of building fronts and stuff like that. There's a couple statues on either side of the entrance, and the one of the left says What is past is prologue.

Here's the front of the building. It was such a nice day!

And here's a picture of the columns. I found out on the ride home that Marek and Airport Chris were totally making fun of me for taking pictures. :( Marek blabbed that omg, hahaha, we were making fun of you because you were taking pictures like a tourist after making fun of all the other tourists. I IMed Airport Chris about it, and he said, oh no, we were just making fun of you for taking so many pictures. Gee, thanks, guys! Whatever, I like taking pictures of buildings. I don't pretend to know anything about architecture or anything like that, but buildings are always interesting to me.

We went out later that night for dinner, and then we met up with my brother and some of his friends for some drinks. Here's me and my "little" brother! This was my first trip to DC, so it was nice to get to see him for awhile, and meet his friends.

Here's Kate and I. Did you know if you put your hand on your hip and stick your arm out like we are doing it looks thinner? Nice trick! I hate when my arms look fat and flabby in pictures. I'm going to have my hands on my hips, sticking my arms out at an angle in all of my wedding pictures, no doubt.

I'm not really sure how this happened, but we decided to try to take pictures looking all serious. My cousin we saw on Friday mentioned how in olden pictures, no one is ever smiling. Kate and I tried, several times, but something about this exercise (I've tried to do it before, here) just makes me laugh a LOT. The boys said it really shouldn't be this hard, and here they are, demonstrating how easy it is to purposely not smile in a picture. Maybe I'll master this amazing skill someday.

Here's Marek, Airport Chris, and I before we all split up for the night. Hooray for airport friends! Also, I'm very short. I know this, but sometimes seeing it in pictures feels like a revelation.

On Sunday morning, Marek headed back to Starbucks to work, so Kate and I took Addie on a walk and then we walked down to the National Mall ourselves. We had some food and then walked past the WWII memorial. All these people were just chilling out, putting their feet in the pool, even though there is a big sign that says no wading. I'm not usually all uptight about this kind of stuff (many other things, yes), but that's kind of disrespectful. There are plenty of other bodies of water in DC to put your dirty feet in; you don't have to do it at a national monument.

For dinner we went to Texas de Brazil in Fairfax, because it's pretty much our favorite restaurant EVER. Seriously. This was our 5th different TdB we've been to (Aruba, Orlando, Denver, Chicago are the others), and I'm not going to lie - a small part of the reason behind his trip was because we wanted to go to TdB! We've been wanting to go to the one in Fairfax for awhile (it's the one closest to us), and we're lucky enough that we consider anything within about 15 hours to be "driving distance".

Here's Kate and I at dinner. This was before we started eating. If you ever make it there (if you live in Texas, lucky, lucky you!), I highly recommend the cheesebreads (I'm pretty sure these are just their version of gougeres) - I could eat these all day. (Now I want some. They are very easy to make, so maybe I'll make some tomorrow, hmmmm.) Also, their "signature" meat is picanha, which is freaking amazing. It's pretty much the only meat I eat there, and I wait until the meat guy comes around with all the ends intact, and just ask for all the end pieces. Honestly.

And here's Marek and I outside! We love spreading the TdB love to all our friends and family!

After dinner we drove back to DC and said good-bye to Airport Chris, and then just hung out at Kate's apartment for the rest of the night. It was nice to chat and catch up, especially since we live so far apart now.

Monday morning I got up and ran and then Marek and I headed back home. On our way home we stopped at a real Chick-Fil-A (not one at the mall), which made the trip totally complete! The drive home always stinks in comparison to the drive down, especially when you get stuck in traffic going over the GW bridge in New York, but oh well. (And especially when you get stuck and someone has to pee really badly because he guzzled down an enormous coffee and keeps saying how badly he has to pee for like half an hour even though there's nowhere to get off the bridge so he's just going to have to hold it or pee in a cup, which he doesn't want to do.)

It was a really nice trip, and we had a lot of fun. Although I don't know how people live down there in the heat and humidity! Right now we're planning on going back in October, so maybe it'll be a bit nicer then. Thanks to all our family and our friend for being so hospitable and showing us a good time! :)

Read more...

On my bookshelf (come and judge me, because I'll judge you)

Remember back here, when I waxed poetic about books? And I told you that I'd totally judge you based on what's on your bookshelf? Well, here, now you can judge me back. Up there is my "main" bookshelf (minus a shelf that I didn't get into the picture), and down there is my other bookshelf.

(I know plenty of bookworms out there can recognize many of these books based on their spines, but if you want a closer look, click the picture and then click it again to zoom in a bit.)

Read more...

Fun with Photoshop (and what's to come)

We've been lucky enough to go on a couple trips the past couple of weekends (well, I guess I've been lucky, because the trip this last weekend was just me), and here's some of my favorite [minorly Photoshopped] pictures from the trips, just a peak of what's to come. I'll get to the posts on these this week sometime, and then I'll finally be all caught up, hooray!

Read more...

This freaking book...

...has been the bane of my reading existence for I don't even remember how long. I started reading it months ago, and let me tell you, it was a struggle. I'm very much opposed to not finishing books that I've started, and I generally only read one book at a time. I took special exception with this book though, and started not one, but two other books while mired in this one.

I'm not typically a slow reader (for reference: I read the 7th Harry Potter book in less than 12 hours, and half of The DaVinci Code in less than 8 hours), but this book? It is SLOW. The story itself isn't so bad, if you're into the whole epic-poem-used-to-legitimize-the-Roman-Empire's-existence thing (or just classical Antiquity and history in general), but in the end, it's a poem. It's a poem that was written in Latin and translated into English.

I read the Fitzgerald translation because that's what I had. I was cleaning out some old boxes of books from college, and I thought, hey, I only read half of this when it was assigned for class (remind me to tell you about my spotty, yet departmentally legendary, class attendance history), I should read it now!. According to Wikipedia, Fagles did a translation within the past 5 years, so maybe I'll check that out after I've aired out my mind with some less heavy reading.

There are two issues with The Aeneid that in my opinion, can make it very difficult to get through. The first being the names. The ridiculous, endless, interchangeable names. All of the major players in the story have multiple names, which can be confusing until you figure out who is who (or until you realize there is a short reference in the back clearing it up). And then there are passages that just list name after name after name, and maybe the reference guide doesn't tell you who those people are. Unless you're dedicated to looking up every name you don't know (and there are a LOT) or you're a classical scholar, then be prepared to be confused.

The second issue is that it's a poem. It's a long book, spanning multiple "books", and it's thousands of lines long. Reading a poem in and of itself isn't so difficult, but it took me a few pages to get back into the rhythm of reading the poem as the story, and not strictly as lines. In addition, going too long in between reading the book made me forget whatever the heck they were doing when I last left them. (Likely candidates: crying or fighting, gods wreaking havoc.)

I did enjoy the story itself, but it was a challenging read. Every night I'd go to bed, and there'd The Aeneid be, silently mocking me from my dresser. But I'm happy to say that I was able to power through the last couple of books this weekend, and finally finished last night! A very epic moment, indeed.

Read more...

*Sigh* (of content)

Chris and I went out on the boat yesterday.

And it was beautiful.

Read more...

Friday night with my BFFs

A few weeks ago I was having a really horrible week, so luckily my best friends were around to cheer me up! We decided to go to Wings and then go do some karaoke. After work, Marek and I met up with Chris by the Pike (what a disaster...thanks a lot, Route 9 traffic!), and we headed out to meet Jeremy and Pawi at Wings.

Wings is pretty much my favorite place to eat, ever. (Yes, even more than Red Robin and Chick-Fil-A, if that's possible.) They make the best chicken "wings" (I always get boneless), no lie. Whenever we head back to our college area, we always try to stop by, and we've even driven out there just for wings! It's always nice to go in the summer because a lot of the college kids are gone, so it's a little easier to get a seat. We got one of the nice big tables along the wall when we went, which was nice.

Here's Chris, Jeremy, and I outside Wings. Really, I cannot say how much I love this place. It always brings back such great memories, and we always have a great time there. Plus, the food.

Jeremy and I originally met at Stop & Shop, so it's not uncommon for us to stop by when we're both in the area. This particular Friday we stopped in to get bobby pins. Yes, this is me, making fun of Twilight. Sorry, Twilight fans.

We headed over to the "club" to hang out and do some karaoke. On Friday nights they have karaoke and alternate it with dancing. It's fun, but it's soooo loud, especially during the dancing parts. Our group was pretty low-key. We just staked out an area by the bar, and had some drinks. Oh, and we watched some people get in a verbal fight, which was pretty cool. We were kind of pulling for an actual fight, but it didn't happen. In fact, the girl made her boyfriend apologize to the other guy in the end.

Jeremy and I got to sing 3 times each - we each sang 2 songs by ourselves, and then we sang a duet together. We put our names down as "Boomer + Chief" for the song we sang together. (Any Battlestar Galactica fans out there?) We sang "The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing, and halfway through the song, this other couple even came up and started dancing in front of us. We had our own groupies! Plus we got to close out the night, which is always a karaoke honor.

After karaoke, we headed back out, and I somehow ended up explaining to the boys about the calf to thigh ratio, and how to make your legs look longer. Here's Chris giving it a try with his shorts! See, his legs look longer already!

Boomer loves Chief. :)

Here's the non-karaoke-ers.

Everyone but Marek.

I was really glad we were all able to get together. I'd been feeling so down for the entire week (and had to work all day both days that weekend), so it was nice to get out and spend some time with friends. It really made me feel a lot better, and I was really grateful they came out to play!

Read more...