Shippy

Deck the Hall Ball 2009 and Muse Setlist!

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:35:57 GMT

Bonnie, Heather and I all headed to WaMu Theater last night for Deck the Hall Ball this year. It was my first time going (the previous lineups never really got me excited) and it didn't disappoint. After we parked, we had some dinner at Elysian Fields and headed in. We timed it perfectly to watch Metric. There were a couple bands on before them, but I wasn't really there to see them. I thought Metric put on a great show and her voice sounded nice. I wish I could have heard the words a little better, but I chalk that up to WaMu's inferior sound setup.

After that, the ladies discovered that actually standing further back in the room instead of trying to press closer to the stage offered a better view. So, we went into the beer garden near the back. It wasn't insanely crowded and I got to enjoy a drink at the same time.

30 Seconds To Mars then came out and sang songs. That's about all I remember. They're just not really my thing.

Then we get to Muse. Their set was only an hour long, but the entire setlist kicked ass. Not a bad song in the entire bunch. I would have loved to hear the latter half of United States of Eurasia and Exogenesis, but they're coming back on 4/2 and am hoping they'll play it then.

Without further ado, here's the awesome setlist:

MK Ultra
Interlude
Hysteria
Resistance
Supermassive Black Hole
Unnatural Selection
United States of Eurasia (w/o Collateral Damage)
Uprising
Starlight
Time Is Running Out
Plug In Baby
Knights of Cydonia

Bonnie and I went to Victoria!

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:58:45 GMT

This last weekend Bonnie and I headed up to Victoria, British Columbia for a mini-vacation. We had a great time! We got up Saturday morning and took the 2.5 hour boat ride on the Victoria Clipper. Once we arrived, we walked over and checked into our room at The Fairmont Empress. I was happy that even though we were pretty early (it was only around 11:30am), they were still able to put us into a room. We dropped off our stuff and started walking down the main street (Government Street) to find some lunch and get an idea of what the town has to offer, how it's laid out, etc.

We stopped into the Irish Times Pub and found a comfy spot. I got a local beer (it started with an S, but can't remember the name) and Bonnie, of course, got a sampler. Bonnie had a crab salad and I had the Irish stew since it was recommended by our friend Heather. The stew was tasty and overall we enjoyed the lunch. Once we left the pub, we walked through Bastion Square and stopped into a couple shops. I did find a Threadless t-shirt that I like, but didn't pick it up. I may end up ordering it, though.

After that we headed back to the room to figure out what we wanted to do that afternoon. We decided that we wanted to go and see the Bug Zoo. We saw several types of insects, scorpions, spiders, ants, etc. and had a good time. In the gift shop afterward, I was excited to see that they had some chocolate-covered insects. For some reason, I've always wanted to try both chocolate-covered and straight-up seasoned and sauteed insects. Bonnie questioned my sanity as I picked up a small pack of bugs. We started getting a hankering for ice cream so we went to a shop that had some open tables and shared a banana split. It was super delicious. It's hard to remember the last time I even had a banana split. I also ate the chocolate-covered insects (I'm sure pictures will pop up on Facebook soon). The worms were actually pretty tasty since they were wafery in texture. The full-grown crickets weren't quite as tasty because the wings were kinda tough to chew through. Getting Bonnie to kiss me at all for the rest of the day was a challenge since she kept imagining bug guts between my teeth. :)

After that we pretty much just wandered around the town and checked out some more stores. We stopped at the Central Bar & Grill to enjoy a couple of cocktails. We noticed that a friend had made a recommendation on a place to eat in Victoria so we called and made reservations. After leaving the bar, we went to a bookstore so we could pick up some magazines for the boat ride back to Seattle. At this point, we figured it would be a good idea to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner so that's what we did. We were still a bit ahead of schedule so we popped into a Blenz and had a quick cup of coffee.

When we showed up to the restuarant, Il Terrazzo Ristorante, we realized quickly that getting reservations was a super smart idea. The place was totally packed! Fortunately, we only waited a few minutes for our table to be ready. I ordered off the fixed menu whereas Bonnie picked out something from the main menu and we picked the bottle of wine that was recommended for her meal. This wine was really tasty! Fortunately we got a picture of it so we can try to find it again. The appetizer that was supposed to come with my meal had run out while my order was being run so they let me pick out a different appetizer. I picked out a salad that had bacon, capers, spinch, portobello mushroom and some other stuff. Holy moly, it was one of the best salads I've ever had. It all tasted super fresh, the mushroom had an amazing texture that wasn't mushy or too tough, and bacon is always a bonus. Our entrees were also very good and we traded at one point so we could try each other's meals. I was still supposed to be receiving a cheese plate so we didn't completely stuff ourselves with the main course. We managed to pack away the cheese, though! Cheese and wine is always a great combination. We walked out of there feeling very satisfied with our dinner choices. Thanks to Keith Logan for the recommendation!

We headed back to the hotel and decided to take advantage of the pool and hot tub. Not much to say about that. Pretty much we swam around a bit in the pool until the hot tub was free and then enjoyed that until we felt we were going to melt. That's it for the first day!

We took full advantage of the 11am check-out time and slept in as long as possible. We handed over our bags since we didn't have to be at the clipper until 4:30pm and hit the streets. The first thing we wanted was a breakfast so we started hunting around for that. We were having a bit of trouble finding somewhere that served breakfast that looked appetizing, but then Bonnie remembered seeing a bunch of restaurants in Bastion Square. We headed through there and found The Local Kitchen. We sat in a nice shady spot outside and enjoyed omelettes and mimosas.

We then wandered into Baggins Shoes which has tons of Converse and Vans shoes. We weren't necessarily looking to buy anything, but I did find some of the patterns on the shoes interesting. We were in the mood for some coffee so we walked down the main street and into Caffè Artigiano. I was really pleased to see that they had traditional macchiatos so I had to have that. We wandered around aimlessly for a bit before deciding we should go check out Miniature World. I scoffed at the price and we got outta there. It was $13.05/person and I didn't have enough cash or my AAA card on me that would've gotten a discount. Maybe next time.

Instead, we went through the gardens at The Fairmont and through the few shops they had inside. Bonnie found a really beautiful pink sapphire and diamond ring that fit perfectly, looked great, etc. etc. you know the drill. :) Unfortunately it was $2,500. A little bit out of our budget right now. *grin* We then headed over to the Royal BC Museum. We decided not to go in because we just didn't feel we'd have enough time to really see what all we wanted to see. That's another thing for the next time we're in Victoria. Instead, we wandered through the gift shop and the gardens outside. While walking along, Bonnie noticed a sign that indicated a children's zoo was nearby. She had read somewhere about a petting zoo in Beacon Hill Park so we headed that direction. Once we found the park, we had to ask a couple people to point us in the direction of the petting zoo, but we eventually found it. We spent a good amount of time in there and the baby goats were pretty darn cute I have to admit.

We headed back to the main part of town and ended up back at Central Bar & Grill to enjoy a couple Bellinis since we had seen them being served as we were leaving the day before and they looked tasty. Once we had those, we decided to finish off with a chocolate cake shot (Frangelico and Vodka with a lemon slice). Bonnie was fantasizing about getting a caramel apple at this point so we found the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company and picked one up. It was not only caramel-covered, but chocolate-covered also and had nuts and mini-marshmallows on it. It tasted really good. I was afraid it would have too much going on, but all the flavors went really well together. How do you go wrong with apple, caramel, chocolate, marshmallow and nuts, right?

We headed down to the clipper dock while she enjoyed her apple, got on the boat, and rode back to Seattle. We got in around 8:30pm and were home by 9pm. Overall, the trip was very reasonably priced and we had a great time just wandering around and seeing a new place. We look forward to going back again and doing some of the activities we missed the first time around or didn't know that were being offered. Being only a couple hour boat ride away, it's a great weekend getaway.

Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam 2009 - Part I: Paris

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:12:42 GMT

Here begins the summary of the trip aquafemme and I took to Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam in April of this year. I'll talk about the things we saw and did and include some nice pictures as well. I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Paris and a collection for the entire trip.

For this trip, we did it a bit differently. For the part where we toured Paris, we joined up with a group. This had its upsides and downsides, but was somewhat of a relief since we had just purchased a home and were super busy doing all that stuff rather than planning everything we were going to do while in Paris. We got to do things that I think we may have not had a chance to do if we planned everything on our own. It was a marathon at times, but we kept busy and got to see a lot. We were still pretty independent throughout the trip. At the beginning of the day we found out where we needed to be and when, got our Metro tickets from the tour coordinator and headed off on our own. We branched off from the group to see Bruges, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands when the Paris tour was over.

Day One: 04-Apr-2009

Not much to say about this first day. Typical for a trip across the pond, we had to get up really early. Aaron and Tiff were really awesome and picked us up and took us to the airport (and got us coffee!). We first flew to Chicago where we had a few hours to kill and then we got on the flight to Paris. Somehow we lucked out and got the seats that have a bit more legroom than the rest. Evidently, you're supposed to pay more for those (and we did on the way back), but got around it this time. Sweet. Once we landed, we were already at...

Day Two: 05-Apr-2009

When we arrived, we wandered around the airport a bit with Steve (the tour coordinator) to wait for a couple folks coming in on a different flight. After that, we got on the Metro and headed to the south end of Paris where our hotel was. We saw a clueless American businessman get his bag taken from one of the stops. Sucked to be that guy, but you just gotta know to keep your hands and eyes on everything while traveling. Since we arrived in the morning, our rooms were not quite ready yet. We left our bags in a secure room downstairs and headed out into the city even though we were dead tired. Steve had the good idea that we should go see the Arc de Triomphe, which is a monument to those who fought for France, mostly under the reign of Napoleon. Now, this thing is BIG. I've seen similar-styled arches in Italy, but this is much larger.


Bonnie and I standing in front of the Arc. To get over to it, you have to cross through an underground tunnel to avoid getting hit by cars in the roundabout.	*In the roundabout that goes around the Arc, the traffic entering* the circle has the right of way. You can see the result of that oddity here.**

The spiraling staircase that gets you up to the top. It goes for much further, but the camera couldn't capture it.	The view of the Eiffel Tower from the Arc. We will be visiting the tower on the next day.

No Speedos allowed on the Arc de Triomphe!	The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (pronounced "Shawz Ellie-zay", with a nasal sound on the "aw" part that almost makes it sound like "awn").

After this we walked down the Champs-Élysées for a bit and then hopped back on the Metro to head to the hotel. Our room was ready, so we put all our stuff in there, went to dinner, and then promptly got some much needed sleep.

Day Three: 06-Apr-2009

The second day started off with us heading off to the Louvre. We went in through the underground entrance you can access from the Metro stop and the line wasn't bad at all, especially since we already had tickets. Once we got in, we beelined it straight to the Mona Lisa since we figured that was going to get busy really quick. When we got there, there were only something like three other people in the room. It was pretty sweet since we were able to get as close as possible. I took a couple pictures, but since they keep it behind a big sheet of bullet-proof glass, it's hard to get a really great picture.

We wandered around the museum some more (mostly being lost) and checked out more paintings and sculptures. When we passed by the Mona Lisa again on our way out, the room was completely packed. We were definitely feeling proud of ourselves at that point. :) After leaving the Louvre, we found a small cafe near Palais Royal called Cafe Le Nemours. This place was awesome! We had wine, delicious sandwiches and wonderful desserts. I highly recommend this place if you find yourself hungry near the Louvre.


La Pyramide Inversée at the underground entrance to the Louvre.	The Mona Lisa, which is called La Joconde in French.

Our awesome lunch. The bread was perfectly crunchy yet chewy at the same time.	Our desserts were also super tasty.

After we ate lunch, we hopped on the Metro and went over to the Eiffel Tower. We went as the entire group so we were able to skip most of the lines because we had set entry times. We headed all the way to the top via elevator and took a bunch of pictures of the awesome view, and then took some from the middle deck. Instead of waiting for the line to the bottom, we took the stairs. We saw people walking up that looked pretty worn out. One person was even carrying a stroller!


The Arc de Triomphe.	The Seine River.

L'Ecole Militaire, France's military school.	Les Invalides. The tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte is located here.

After leaving here, we headed back to the Louvre because our tickets were good for the whole day and there was so much we didn't see. We went through the section that had artifacts from Mesopotamia and the apartments of Napoleon III.


The stele containing the Code of Hammurabi. It is constructed of basalt.	A close-up of the text. It is the Akkadian language written in Cuneiform script.

The Napoleon Apartments were full of lots of very opulent chandeliers.	Me standing in front of the dining room giving my best "King of the Castle" look.

We wanted to do another bike tour with the same company that we used when we were in Barcelona and realized that this was probably going to be the best night for our schedule. We were also leaning toward the night tour since Paris is beautiful at night. So, after dinner, we roped Brian (a fellow tourist) into coming with us and headed back to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with the group. We had a good time on the bike trip. It was a bit more hectic than the Barcelona tour since I found Paris to be less bike friendly and a huge city so we had lots of ground to cover. We got some ice cream at a nice place near Notre Dame and the tour ended at a boat ride that went up and down the Seine River and included free wine! It was a great way to see the nighttime lights and cover many major sights.


Paris looks gorgeous at night. My camera can't even do it justice. It became harder and harder to take pictures as it got darker.	Some interesting face sculptures on the Pont Neuf bridge over the Seine River. It means "New Bridge", but is, ironically, the oldest crossing of the Seine in Paris.

The Cour Carrée in the center of the Louvre complex. I thought it was the most serene place in all of Paris we went.	Another view of Cour Carrée. It's hard to capture the really neat way the buildings gently glow.

We managed to get a video of Bonnie and I standing in front of the Eiffel Tower while it was sparking (it does this once every hour). In my wine-induced state, I'm trying to say "J'aime le vin", meaning, "I like wine". Inspirational stuff.

After this, we were pretty beat so we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep.

Day Four: 07-Apr-2009

Today the big thing planned was visiting Versailles, the seat of power for France from 1682 until the French Revolution in 1789. We started off by taking a bus tour through Paris. This was nice since it was sprinkling a bit that morning. We got to see lots of neat neighborhoods and learned some interesting stuff about the city's history. Our tour guide, Thierry, was very entertaining and made the whole tour very enjoyable. After the tour, we got on the highway and headed to the Chateau.

Once we got there, had some lunch and got organized, we were given these "Whispers" which were basically cordless headphones that the tour peeps could talk to us through. It didn't take long for us to decide we wanted to go at our own pace so we turned them off and wandered around. I'm putting a few pictures here, but we took way more. Check out my full collection on Flickr if you want to see more.


Bonnie standing in front of the front gates. That's real gold leaf they're covered with.	The many chandeliers in the Hall of Mirrors.

Looking at the gardens from the Hall of Mirrors.	The garden facade. The tall windows on the second level is the Hall of Mirrors.

Me standing in front of the garden facade.	Looking out at the gardens. They are huge! We didn't have a lot of time to wander through them, unfortunately.

Once we returned to Paris, we got on the Metro and headed to the Marais district. We started at Place de la Bastille, where the Bastille used to stand, and headed west toward the Pompidou Center. Along the way, we passed by Hotel de Sully and Place des Voges, went through the Jewish district, and decided to pop into a bar to relax until dinner time. Once we sat down we realized pretty quickly we were in a gay bar. It had some cool music playing, pretty comfy seats, and what turned out to be decently-priced drinks. The bartender handed us a menu and had a bit of trouble deciphering it because it was all in French (at most places they'll see you and hand you an English menu). From what we could tell, it was happy hour and they had some drink specials. What's kinda funny is that it was more like there was one "unhappy hour" since happy hour ran all but one hour. It was €7.50 for a cocktail which didn't seem like much of a deal, but we were comfy and enjoying the music so ordered our drinks.

Once we were finished and Bonnie walked to the bar to pay, the waiter started pointing to the menu and said "appy our" followed by something with "deuxième" in it. Bonnie said "je ne comprende pas" (I don't understand) and the waiter tried asking another patron if they spoke English, but no such luck. This was actually the first time (and probably only time) we encountered a place that spoke zero English. After a while of struggling, the waiter got a resigned look on his face and wrote down the price. We were confused and sat down for a couple minutes contemplating the menu. We started thinking maybe it was supposed to be a 2-for-1 special based on some of the text so Bonnie ventured back up to the bar and said something like "Une boisson et une boisson gratuite?" (literally "One drink and one free drink?"). The bartender got this huge smile on his face, threw his hands up in the air and said "Oui! Oui!" and then a bunch of other stuff in French that we assumed must have meant "That's what I've been trying to tell you!". So, she asked for two more of the same drink and the guy was, like, "uh huh" while already starting to get the glasses ready. So, now it two drinks for €7.50 and didn't seem like such a bad deal after all. We decided we'd probably have to come back again sometime.


Place des Voges. These super green trees are really common in Paris and we really like them. Not sure what kind they are.	This is the cool bar in the Marais district that we ended up at with the endless happy hour.

After we drank our next set of drinks, we realized that we were running late for dinner so we hoofed it toward the restaurant since we were somewhat close. We had a bit of difficulty finding the place, but weren't too concerned about arriving a little late. Once we got there, we noticed Steve (the tour guy) standing outside and being so relieved that we showed up. Evidently, he told us the wrong place to go for dinner (we were supposed to go there the next night) so we flagged a cab and he got us to the right spot.

After dinner, we wandered around a little bit, but were feeling pretty beat so ended up heading back to the hotel and getting a good night's sleep.

Day Five: 08-Apr-2009

Today is the day we took the infamous Loire Valley trip. To sum it up, we thought we were going to be touring the countryside tasting lots of wine and seeing lots of beautiful scenery while being told great stories and history. What it ended up being was almost zero wine and beautiful scenery, but the we had the most booooooring tour guide ever. I swore this lady was reading straight out of a history book to us it was so dry, but nope! It was all in her head. She was a nice lady, but just had zero personality. Both Bonnie and I think that French history is actually very interesting, but it was presented in an extremely boring way. To top it off, she would trail off halfway into a thought and then just suddenly pick up, full of life, like 30 minutes later. wtf?! Needless to say, we were rather frustrated at several points through the trip. It wouldn't have been so bad, but we essentially had paid $200/person on top of the normal tour cost and we felt for that amount of money, we could have had a heyday in the city traveling around and trying lots of wine (since we want to try wine while we're in France!).

Anyway, on to what we saw. :) The first place we hit up was Chartres. It's not in the Loire Valley, but was on the way. The main thing to see here is the cathedral, which is considered by many to be the finest examples of Gothic architecture in all of France. It's a nice cathedral, but after seeing the Seville Cathedral it just doesn't seem as impressive. However, although the church was not as large, the stained glass was very impressive. The Seville Cathedral doesn't actually have much in the way of stained glass.


An example of the impressive stained glass.	More cool stained glass.

After checking the place out, we left the group and headed over to a small place where we grabbed a bit of food and had wine. It was still something like 10am, but we were bent on trying wine and we could already see the writing on the wall when a batch of highschoolers got on and took up the rear portion of the bus.

The next place we headed to was the Chateau de Chenonceau. This was a place we thought we'd actually get to try some wine, but unfortunately the cellars have been permanently closed for some reason or another. So, we spent our time wandering around and taking some pictures.


The Chateau de Chenonceau... or at least a part of it. It's pretty big and was difficult to get the full picture.	No wine and boring tour guide make Shippy something something...

Bonnie and I happy inside the Chateau.	And our reaction when we found out the cellars were closed.

Our trip to the Loire Valley had one last stop, Amboise. The main thing here is the Chateau d'Amboise where Leonardo da Vinci lived in his final years and passed away. We checked out the Chapel of Saint-Hubert where the tomb of da Vinci is and then headed down into the town to find some wine. I think a few people on the trip with us had the same idea since a few folks managed to find some tasting and bought some bottles. We ended up in a candy store and then a bar. We had a glass of wine and ate our candy. We then found found a wine shop and managed to communicate the situation that we were getting back on a bus and had no corkscrew. He was kind enough to recommend a nice half-bottle of wine and then corked it for us, but stuffed the cork back in for easy removal later. While we were at it, we bought a mini of Armagnac since we'd never tried it before. It's similar to Cognac, but made in a different region and with a slightly different process. We enjoyed both on the bus ride back to Paris. :)


Looking down from the Chateau on to Amboise.	The wine that we picked out. It was very tasty!

Wine and candy! The hazelnut ball was the best.	Bonnie pleased with our end-of-day success.

We get back to Paris and the bus drops us off at the dinner location. As we're heading in, we see Theresa, who is the coordinator for multiple group all in Paris at the same time. When she sees us walking in she asks us how the trip was. I said "good" and continue walking in since I didn't really feel like talking about what I truly felt about the trip. At this point I start thinking "Don't ask Bonnie. Don't ask Bonnie." Of course, she then asks Bonnie what she thought. For me, everything went into slow-mo at this point because I know that Bonnie can be brutally honest and so I can tell what's coming. "Waste of a day!" is what she says. I had to hold back my laughter and instead just continued heading into the restaurant. It definitely took Theresa off guard because she said "reeeeaaallllyyyy?!" in her Spanish accent. As she stood there confused, Bonnie wandered in with me and we had dinner and a chuckle.

Once we were finished, we talked Brian into coming with us back into the Marais district to that same bar we had gone to the night before. I wish it wouldn't have been so late by the time we went there because I would have also liked to check out a couple more places around there as it looked like things were hoppin'. Definitely an area to go see again.

Day Six: 09-Apr-2009

Today was pretty much a free day so we took advantage of it by finally getting a chance to sleep in a little bit. After we got ready we headed off to breakfast. We went to a crêperie-café called L'Ebouillanté for breakfast. It was situated on a sunny square with lots of locals enjoying food and conversation. Bonnie and I split a crêpe that had cheese, ham, tomato and some other stuff in it and a salad. It was my first time having a non-dessert crêpe and it was absolutely amazing. It was perfectly crispy and delicious.

We then headed over to see the famous Notre Dame. We spent some time in the park just outside since it was a really beautiful day and then headed toward the entrance. We saw the line for the tower, but it stretched all the way around the building so we didn't bother. The line to get in didn't take very long at all. The entryway to the cathedral has some pretty cool sculptures and the stained glass is pretty sweet. There's a ton of gargoyles all the way around and one of them looks comically bored.


Our awesome breakfast that morning.	Part of the park behind Notre Dame.

These really pretty trees were all over the park.	The exterior of the apse on the eastern side of the building.

The western-side entrance to the cathedral.	An example of the really nice stained glass we saw inside.

The gargoyles that go around almost the entire cathedral.	And the bored gargoyle hiding way up on the nortwest side of the cathedral entrance.

We left Notre Dame and headed over to La Sainte-Chapelle, another gothic cathedral that we heard had amazing stained glass. We had to wait in line for quite a while and were confused about the right line to get into, but once we got in we saw what everyone was talking about. This was the most amazing stained glass I had ever seen and probably will ever see.


The upper chapel of the cathedral.	The upper chapel again, but trying to get as much of it in the picture as possible.

Looking up at the altar to try and give an idea of how tall the windows are.	Bonnie heading back down to the lower chapel.

After leaving Sainte-Chapelle, we had some dinner. We then had some time before heading to Musée d'Orsay. We wanted to go in later that night because we heard that the crowds get much smaller so we'd have an easier time seeing the paintings. We wandered around a bit and found this really amazing chocolate shop. The chocolates weren't cheap, but they looked so delicious so we picked up a few. After leaving there we looked for a place to eat those chocolates. We found a nice cafe on the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Plaza and had some wine, cheese and our chocolates. The temperature was perfect out there so we just kinda people watched and chatted while enjoying our snack. We then headed over to Musée d'Orsay and enjoyed the art there.


Now that's what I call a snack! It was a lot of cheese, but sooooo tasty.

We saw this while walking around and thought it was pretty funny.	Looking down from the top of Musée d'Orsay.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for some sleep.

Day Seven: 10-Apr-2009

Today we did one of the coolest things while on the entire trip. We got on a bus (just our group this time!) and headed out to the Épernay region of Champagne and visited Champagne Mercier, which is the number one brand in the domestic French market. They actually originally owned the rights to the Dom Perignon brand, but sold it off at one point. This place was amazing! They took us down to the cellars where little roller coaster-type carts drove us around and they explained the champagne making process to us.

After the little tour was over, we went into a small room and their sommelier then presented us with 18 small dishes of food broken into three groups of six. Each of those groups was paired with a different type of their champagne. It was so good! The food was delicious and the pairings were oustanding. They would go around and fill up your glass if you were getting low to make sure that you had enough to try everything out. At my Flickr collection, we have pictures of all the dishes we ate.


The Champagne Mercier sign at the entrance to the cellars.	Me enjoying some champagne.

Bonnie and I enjoying some post-champagne espresso.	Us standing in part of the vineyard.

Upon returning to Paris, we decided to head to the Montmarte district to check things out. While there we went through Pigalle, which is where Moulin Rouge is located (not to mention tons of sex shops). We checked things out a bit and then headed to the Rue Cler neighborhood for dinner. We had made reservations earlier in the day at Café le Bosquet. We had decided that this final night was going to be on our own for dinner instead of the group and we were gonna eat some really awesome Parisian food. This place did not disappoint! We got ourselves a nice bottle of wine that was recommended by the waiter and started off with escargot. I don't think it was really Bonnie's cup of tea (she had one), but I happily ate the rest. I think the stuff is super good. After that we got our entrées which consisted of a delicious steak (was it filet mignon? I can't remember.) and the best potatoes au gratin I've ever had. We followed that up with some french onion soup, crème brûlée with a glass of cognac, and finally espresso. We were at this place for about two hours and loved every minute of it.


Moulin Rouge.	Escargot! C'est délicieux!

At this point, our time in Paris was coming to a close. I have to say that I love Paris. I would have happily spent more time there enjoying the food, sights and culture. The Metro system is totally awesome and is such a great way to get around. It's cheap, fast and comes by really often. The French definitely have their own way that "things are done" and the people stick to it. I like having a consistent system like that which is efficient. It's a place I could actually see myself living someday. It would certainly help my French speaking. :)

That's about it! The next morning we are heading to Belgium.

Depeche Mode @ Key Arena Setlist

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:13:36 GMT

Saw another kickass Depeche Mode concert tonight. Here's the setlist:

In Chains
Wrong
Hole To Feed
Walking In My Shoes
It's No Good
A Question of Time
Precious
Fly on the Windscreen
Jezebel
Home
Come Back
Policy of Truth
In Your Room
I Feel You
Enjoy the Silence
Never Let Me Down Again

1st Encore:
Stripped
Master And Servant
Strangelove

2nd Encore:
Personal Jesus
Waiting for the Night

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part VI: Rome and Travel Home

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:03:11 GMT

Here is the sixth and final part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Rome and a collection for the entire trip.

Day Nineteen: 21-May-2008

We got up the next morning and headed to the train station. We were sick of that walk so we decided to grab a cab. The train station in Rome was huge and hectic. We didn't plan very well and needed cash for a taxi. It was hell trying to find an ATM with our heavy bags, but we eventually found one. The taxi stand had a group of unsavory looking men around it. They swarmed around us saying, "Taxi? Taxi? Taxi?" None of them seemed to actually have a taxi but they sure wanted to call us one. They would ask us questions and when I'd answer it in very little detail, they'd just repeat my answer to eachother like parrots. It was very odd and I was sure that they were just trying to figure out how they could rip us off. I eventually decided to just ignore them and walk over to the official taxi stand. They stood there parroting to eachother for a couple more minutes before going away.

We felt paranoid when a taxi did pull up, but after some conversation and looking around it all looked on the up-and-up so we relaxed. Bonnie tried to ask him about the pushy men. We speak hardly any Italian and he didn't speak much English so all we really got from him was something like, "With them, NO taxi."

As for the taxi ride itself? Wow. There was enough room for about 4 lanes but there didn't seem to be any actual lanes marked and cars just weaved in and out of eachother from every direction. It was nuts. Italians are good at drivers but only because they have to pay so very much attention to the chaos. It didn't seem very efficient to me.

Our hotel was in a great location and it was minded by a sweet woman named Vera. Vera told us all about the sites in Rome in somewhat broken English. I smiled and nodded. I think she was trying to tell us how much a taxi to the airport would cost at the end of our trip and we weren't sure if we heard her right. She tried to correct her English. The conversation went something like this:

Vera: "Is it fifty or fifteen?"
Us: "fifty."
Vera: "Oh okay. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, one hundred! Now I got it!"

It was so cute. I didn't have the heart to correct her and I could tell that Bonnie was trying very hard not to giggle. After that, we walked across the bridge to Vatican City, picked up our Roma Pass and had some pizza. We were constantly eating either spaghetti or pizza.

We did a bit more walking around that day, but I forgot to charge the camera battery so it died a couple of pictures in. So, for your enjoyment, the two pictures we took that day:


Piazza Navona. We walked through here often since it was nearby the hotel and on the way to most things we visited.	A fountain inside the plaza.

It started getting dark before too long so we had some grub and headed back for some sleep.

Day Twenty: 22-May-2008

We woke up and took a bus to the Colosseum. A nice Italian lady said (in Italian) that she could help us. She showed us on the sign what bus # to take. Then she pointed at the bus when it came. The bus system in Rome is awesome actually. They post every stop right on the sign and many times there is an digital clock that tells you when your bus will arrive. This seems to be real time, not just a scheduled time. It's awesome.

The Colosseum came into view and it was right out of Gladiator. I know that sounds dumb but it was hard to see it in its reality. I kept feeling like I was on a movie set. There was a HUGE line to get into the colosseum and we had read that our Roma Pass would help us bypass the line. We snaked behind a guardrail and went right to the front of the line like we owned the place. Then we realized that the huge line was actually for the metal detectors and we were supposed to bypass another line past that. We kind of felt a bit like jerks but we were already at the front of the line and nobody was assertive enough to say anything to us so we sheepishly enjoyed our lack of waiting. Here are a few of the pics we took inside the Colosseum:


Inside the Colosseum there many old coins on display.	A sculpture that was on display.

The view on the inside of the Colosseum.	Looking in the other direction.

After seeing the Colosseum, we walked over to The Roman Forum. Yet another huge line and we weren't sure if we were allowed to bypass it. After standing in the sun for a bit unsure of ourselves, we decided to go for it and this time we were supposed to bypass the line because of our Roma Pass. The others standing in the hot sun were fools for not planning ahead I guess.

Once inside The Forum (ruins of Roman buildings), we read about a handful of sights and it began to rain. We cursed the heavens. The rain got worse and worse and we had no umbrella (the day had been so beautiful before). We couldn't read the guidebook without getting it ruined and didn't know what to appreciate without it. We tried to wait out the rain but it seemed that it was just going to keep on coming. Fed up, we left The Forum. As soon as we did, the skies cleared to sunshine. It was really frustrating!


Me trying to make my best angry face.	Bonnie trying to make her best pouty face.

After giving up on the forum, we hopped on a bus and cruised up to Piazza del Popolo and went into a cafe for a warm espresso and relaxed for a bit. The weather couldn't make up its mind and so we were steal dealing with bouts of rain. When it started raining again, we ducked into a church (Santa Maria del Popolo)and checked things out.


I can't remember what this was a part of, but I thought it was kinda creepy and neat.	We were surprised to see some pretty neat paintings in the church. This one is Assumption of the Virgin by Annibale Carracci.

Conversion on the Way to Damascus by Caravaggio.	Lots of cool carvings in this church. This one was just under the organ pipes.

The rain decided to let up yet again so we walked around inside the plaza for a bit.


An obelisk of Ramesses II from Heliopolis in front of the twin churches Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto.	Just trying to make the most of our rainy day!

We decided to take a leisurely walk back to our hotel room, hitting major sites on the way. After another 30 minutes or so, the skies cleared up for good and the rest of the day was beautiful. Here are pictures of the things we saw on our walk:


The Spanish Steps. Can you spot aquafemme?	More of the Spanish Steps. Can you spot me in this one?

The Trevi Fountain. The water from this fountain travels to the fountains in Piazza Navona near our hotel, which is at least a couple miles away.	Another picture of the Trevi Fountain. This one actually shows the water coming out.

We saw several more obelisks while walking. The detail that some of them had was really cool.	*The Pantheon. The text, when expanded and translated from Latin means "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul for the third time, built this."*

This gives you an idea of how large the columns are. Each of them are a single, solid piece of granite.

Day Twenty-One: 23-May-2008

We woke up and brought two umbrellas with us to go see The Forum (Attempt #2). The Roma Pass gets you into two sites free and the Colosseum and Forum count as one site. We bypassed the line as before but, when the gatekeeper scanned the passes, they beeped Red. Red is bad. The exchange with the gatekeeper went something like this:

Gatekeeper: "Have you used the Roma Pass before?"
Me: "Yes."
Gatekeeper: "Did you see The Colosseum?"
Me: "Yes."
Gatekeeper: "Was it yesterday?"
Me: "Yes."
Gatekeeper: "Proceed."

I answered all of her questions truthfully, but failed to mention that we sorta kind of already saw The Forum yesterday as well. This time around, our preparation with two umbrellas from the hotel kept the rain away, and we were able to enjoy the entire Forum. We saw the place where Caesar's body was burned and a (German?) choir sang into the Senate house to try out its acoustics. It sounded pretty cool.


The remains of the Temple of Vesta.	The remains of the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine. Today it is still used as a place of worship. I think watching a concert there would be awesome.

I believe this is the eastern side of Palatine Hill.	The Arch of Titus.

Palatine Hill from the front.	View of the Roman Forum.

The Temple of Julius Caesar. His body was burned on this spot after his assassination.	I'm definitely liking this weather!

Later that afternoon, we took a taxi to some catacombs and checked out where Christians buried each other in ancient times when land was too scarce for graveyards. After that we took a bus back to the city and just walked around and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Day Twenty-Two: 24-May-2008

The last day of our trip, we did a tour of the Vatican. At first, we had trouble finding the meeting spot for our tour group and it was pretty stressful. It worked out in the end though. There was a HUGE line to get into the Vatican which we bypassed being in a tour group. There were a lot of amazing things to see and it was basically a sea of humanity clamoring to see it all. The paintings on the ceiling were fantastic because they looked 3D but it was only an illusion. Being told they were flat could not make the impression that they were carved disappear. It was all so stunningly impressive.

Unfortunately, the Sistine chapel was actually kind of letdown. There were guards shouting "Silencio!" while tourists gaggled like geese, literally packed together like sardines. You couldn't even take pictures because some company paid for all the rights to the ceiling. That's just ridiculous, in my opinion. I just want a picture for my memories. I'm not planning on selling them or anything. Whatever. The room and ceiling were amazing, but it was so hard to really appreciate it with that many people around.

Once that was over, the tour guide gave us a verbal walk-through of St. Peter's and left us to see it on our own. As soon as we entered the basilica, Bonnie and I argued about whether we should go clockwise or counter-clockwise. I lost my patience and said something that certainly shouldn't be said in a church, let alone this one. Bonnie spent the rest of the time in the basilica pissed off at me. :P Eventually we made up -- mostly because we were the only people we knew within a 5000 mile perimeter. We took a ton of pics at the Vatican (check my Flickr page for lots of great pics). Here are a few of my favorites:


The wall surrounding Vatican City is quite impressive.	*A sculpture in the Courtyard of the Belvedere called Sphere Within Sphere.*

This piece of the ceiling looks 3D, but it's actually a flat painting.	Every single ceiling is as beautiful as this. Every room leading to the Sistine Chapel looked amazing.

Saint Peter's Square.	Michaelangelo's Pietà in Saint Peter's Basilica.

Then we had spaghetti at a tourist trap. It started off okay but then they kept offering us meatballs for our pasta and when asked how much it cost (in Italian), their reply was "Venti". 20 euros. So, adding meatballs to a 7 euro spaghetti turns it into a 20 euro spaghetti. Not a good sign. Then there wasn't a service charge on the bill (which is pretty standard in Italy) and we were going to leave a reasonable but not great tip. The waiter tried to tell us that we had to leave a 20% tip and we argued with him about it. As a compromise, we ended up leaving about 10% but, actually, we should have just told them to piss off.

Anyway, things smoothed out the rest of the day and we saw an awesome little museum that has the bones of 1000 monks in intricate patterns on the floor, walls and ceiling. It even had chandeliers made from vertebrae. Sure, it was morbid but it was also completely awesome. That night we heard cars honking joyfully until 3am because Rome beat Milan in a football game. We finished our time in Rome by walking around and going to a bar that had this really awesome wine named Fragolin that tasted just like strawberries.

Day Twenty-Three: 25-May-2008

Time to head home! The flight home pretty much sucked I have to say. I tried to bring home a bottle of Limoncello. They put it in a sealed duty free bag and we thought we were good to go. When we got to New York, they told us that we had to recheck our bags and go through security all over again. We specifically asked about the Limoncello and the customs guy kept saying, "We aren't interested in that." We got confirmation from a second official that the Limoncello was just fine becuase it was in a sealed bag.

Then we went through security and the lady was like, "Maam, you know you can't have liquids on the flight etc." and we explained that the customs officials said it would be just fine and she said they were mistaken and that we needed to check it (by this time we had turned in our luggage). Then we tried to check the bottle and they said they couldn't just check one bottle. It had to be in a box or something but there was no box available. So we asked, "Well, what do people do then?!" and she said they either give it away or throw it away. So we threw away the stupid bottle of Limoncello and were totally depressed about it. Now I know that, if possible, I should fly directly from Europe to Seattle if at all possible (plus flying over the arctic is kinda neat).

When we got home, we reveled in how large our bedroom seemed compared to the European hotel rooms and how much we had missed our "Little Miss Meow Meow" and we were just oh so very very glad to be home.

That ends our time in Spain and Italy. It was a great trip and I really enjoyed getting to see another part of the world (it was my first time to Europe). Out of all the spots we saw, Barcelona and Venice are the two that I would certainly like to visit again. I'm going to try and not take so long to blog about our next trip (which we just returned from) so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading. :)

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part V: Florence, Pisa and Lucca.

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 02:10:51 GMT

Here is the fifth part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Florence, Pisa and Lucca and a collection for the entire trip.

Day Fifteen: 17-May-2008

We hopped on a train in the morning and headed to Florence. It turns out we were technically at the wrong station but the information teller helped us understand how to get around that by hopping on the train a bit earlier than our ticket said. We had first class seats and were sitting next to a nice older couple from England. The ride was smooth and we had lots of nice scenery to look at. It was pretty uneventful, but we played cards and stuff to pass the time. The walk from the train station to the hotel was hot and we were super paranoid about pickpockets. It was a pretty long walk with heavy bags and not much fun. We ended up walking further than we needed to because we were completely turned around. After we settled into our hotel (which was fine but not great), we walked to the Accademia. It was raining. :P Florence wasn't really off to a very good start. If I remember right, we had about a half an hour to kill before our tickets were good so we found a pastry shop and had a latte and a little fruit pastry. I think it was peach. It was divine. We thought the shop was so nice and pretty; we took a picture of the window.


That's a big version of the little pastries we ate.	So many goodies... we will be back again!

Once we got our tickets for the Accademia, there was some confusion. There were lines of people everywhere trying to get inside. At first we just got in the back of the line but we were very unsure because our tickets had a very specific 10 minute timeslot. When it was our time, we ended up just walking past the entire line and Bonnie unhooked the red velvet rope and pretty much walked in like she owned the place. I don't think that's how things were supposed to work, but we needed to get in darnit! :) We went through a metal detector (which seemed to have no purpose) and Bonnie then tried to hand me some old guy's belt. I managed to find my belt and the old guy found his and Bonnie and I headed inside.

Once in the museum, we went to the right and checked out the musical instruments. There was a huge metal bowl with water in it and heavy handles on the side of the bowl. The instructions said to dip your hands in the water and rub the handles to make a beautiful tone. We watched a handful of people try and fail to produce any sound. Bonnie commented that she bet I could play it so I gave it a shot. Sure enough, after a few seconds the water began rippling really cool and a low melodious chime hummed throughout the room. It was like Sword and the Stone or something because, after demonstrating, everyone wanted to try and nobody else could get the damn bowl to do anything. Muah.

Then we saw Michelangelo's David. It was quite amazing. Hard to explain, but it's just so tall and so perfectly sculpted. I've never seen such a perfect statue. We spent the rest of the day just wandering around checking things out. We didn't take too many pictures that day because of the rain and we were just kinda taking everything in.

Day Sixteen: 18-May-2008

Today, we spent most of the day at the Uffizi Gallery. To be honest, it was mostly a blur. Lots of people and lots of art. The hallways were lined with sculptures of Roman leaders and then there was a maze of rooms off to the sides with all of the artwork. I don't know nearly enough about all of this stuff to truly appreciate it, but some of the artwork was amazing and I think it's cool how they were able to keep it in such great condition for so long.


View of one side of the Uffizi.	Section of the Piazza degli Uffizi which is just outside the gallery. Lots of sculptures here, too. This plaza was the original location of Michaelangelo's David and a replica (not nearly as large as the real one) sits around here as well.

After leaving the Uffizi, we grabbed some lunch and then while reading our guidebook, noticed an entry for the Santa Croce Church so we headed over there. It was a nifty place. Many tombs of famous Florentines including Michaelangelo and Galileo are here. We were definitely glad we didn't miss it during our time in Florence.


The Basilica di Santa Croce.	The church had a lot of really cool stained glass like this.

So many people are buried here. It felt a little disrespectful walking on the tombs and I tried to avoid walking on them, but there were so many that, oftentimes, it could not be avoided.	The tomb of Galileo Galilei.

The tomb of Michaelangelo Buonarroti.	The tomb of Dante Alighieri.

When we left the church, the skies opened up and it started dumping buckets so we ducked back into the hotel room and watched a DVD. A couple hours later it completely changed course and got beautiful outside so we decided to walk around and see some more of the city.


Bonnie being statuesque.	Palazzo Vecchio.

The Arno River.	Bonnie in front of the Arno River.

After walking around for a while, we started to get hungry and we wanted to have some Italian pizza! We found this one place on the river and when we walked in we noticed that the place was really fancy and I wasn't sure if we were under-dressed or not. We sat down in the lounge and were told that we'd have to wait because we didn't have reservations and there weren't tables yet. Because the place was a little intimidating in its atmosphere, we almost took off. A minute later, though, a waitress came by and offered us a free glass of champagne so, we decided we'd stay for a while. ;) We actually only ended up waiting around 10 minutes before being seated. We got a bottle of the house wine (cheaper than water and perfectly tasty) and ordered our pizza. It was essentially a good ol' pepperoni pizza, but in Italy 'peperoni' is the equivalent of green bell peppers. If you want American pepperoni there, it is 'salame picante' and tastes a little spicier.

Our pizza was absolutely delicious. The cheese tasted so fresh and the spicy salami was totally awesome. We scarfed it down with our wine and then topped off our dinner with a macchiato for each of us. It is here that I fell in love with the caffè macchiato. I have been able to order them back in the States, but it just doesn't taste the same because usually the person making the coffee will only add a bit of foam on top when it should also have a little milk in it. In general the coffee in Italy also tastes way better than the coffee here.


Getting ready to eat my awesome pizza.	The caffè macchiato that got me hooked.

That was the end of our day!

Day Seventeen: 19-May-2008

We decided that we had some extra time on our hands so we planned a little day trip to Pisa and Lucca. It was pretty easy to figure out the train schedule and the ride itself was pretty quiet.

We arrived in Pisa and took a leisurely 45-minute stroll from the train station to the tower checking things out on the way. Our book had a self-guided tour that helped us spot things as we made our way through Pisa.


Palazzo della Carovana. This is the Scuola Normale Superiore main building where Galileo was once a professor and studied the solar system.	The bapistery and duomo that is next to the leaning tower.

Bonnie holding up the tower.	I helped hold it up, too.

Once we got the obligatory tower shots out of the way, we headed back to the train station and headed to Lucca. This is a cute little town with a medieval wall all around it. These days the wall is used as very nice bike path. We grabbed some pizza and a glass of wine and then headed to a place where we can rent bikes. We did a 20 minute loop around the city on top of the wall, taking pictures along the way. We planned to do two loops but, at the end of our first loop, the wind picked up and it started raining (shocker). We headed toward the bike shop and the skies just opened and it was dumping buckets! Drenched, we watched the skies pour and, during a brief respite, we hightailed it to the train station where the skies proceeded to pour and pour some more. We hopped on the next train heading to Florence.


Bonnie and I sitting on the rampart.	The Lucca train station. We are standing on top of the rampart.

Part of the rampart. We are looking out of the city. The train station is in the background.	One of the gates on the inner side of the rampart.

We got back to Florence, had some grub and called it a night.

Day Eighteen: 20-May-2008

We went back to one of those awesome bakeries and had breakfast. Then, we headed over to the Galileo museum and saw Galileo's finger bone and telescope as well as a bunch of other cool astronomy stuff. Part of the museum was under reconstruction so it would be nice to revisit it when that is complete.


A hearty Italian breakfast! I could get used to this.	Galileo's finger. Not quite as appetizing as the previous picture. :)

A bust of Galileo.	One of the many telescopes we saw in the museum.

Not really sure what this is, but I thought it'd be cool to take a picture through it.	Definitely my kind of snack.

We didn't really have much planned for Florence at this point and the weather was still being kinda cruddy so we didn't do much more for the rest of our trip. We drank some wine, watched some DVDs and walked around when the weather did happen to let up. I must say that what we did like about Florence the most was the food. It was the best that we had during our entire time in Italy.

That ends our time in Florence. The next morning we are leaving for Rome!

Quick Life Update

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:33:00 GMT

Well, I haven't written in here in quite a while so I figured I would do a quick life summary for the past few months:

November

At the beginning of November I went to the Cartes Conference in Paris, France to learn about the industry trends in Smart Cards and Identification Systems. I was there during election day so it was interesting seeing it from another part of the world. I went to sleep when the first results were coming in from the east coast and by the time I woke up to check on things around 6am, Obama had just been projected as the winner. I was definitely in a positive mood for the whole next day. :) Unfortunately, I got a cold at the very end of the trip, but the plane ride was nice (I recommend Lufthansa for your international flights) and I got to make a lot of new connections with vendors and put some faces to names.

We also finished up taking French I at the nearby community college. I used a tad bit of my French while I was there, but not a whole ton since I was still pretty new to the language.

December

At the beginning of December I went to the INCITS B10.12 Working Group meeting in Washington, DC. This was my second time to Washington, DC, but I didn't get any time to see the sights. Fortunately, aquafemme came with and was able to check things out. She'd never been to DC before so it was great that she was able to get around and take some really great pics of the monuments and stuff. Unfortunately, I think she picked up my cold from Paris and it developed over the course of the trip. She was a real trooper, though, and didn't let it slow her down!

We got back to SEA and that night was Mark and Mat's Annual Holiday Party. Due to Bonnie's cold, she unfortunately had to bow out around 11pm, but I stayed until around 6am... a new record! They always throw such a great party and sitting in a hot tub when there's snow falling around you at 4am is always a blast. :)

The next night was the Microsoft Core Operating Systems Division Holiday Party. We didn't watch the show that was playing, but we did have fun listening to the band, having a couple drinks and catching up with friends. I wish we would have had someone take our picture because we looked HOT!

The next weekend was the Trubion Holiday Party. It was at the same place it has been for the past few years. They really can't go wrong with the same formula. The drinks are tasty, the food is to die for and it's a really relaxed environment with nice people. My only wish would be that they go back to a DJ instead of a live band. I like the ambiance the live band provides, but nobody really dances except for maybe one song. After we left the party, we headed to a nearby restaurant (can't remember the name) and saw a couple friends from the party. So, we sat, had a couple more drinks and talked with them for a while. That was a great way to end the evening.

The next week, the skies opened up and we got the worst snow I've seen here since moving here. I've heard it was the worst in many, many years. In Redmond, I would estimate we got a couple feet. Other areas, especially in the Cascade foothills, they got much more. Now, a couple feet isn't much for places used to this type of weather in the wintertime, but this is not one of those places. We will usually get a day of snow and then it goes away. We got three rounds of lots of snow. The Dept. of Transportation also has a no-salt policy (which has changed after this season) which caused even major roads to be unusable for quite some time. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was annoying, but it was certainly memorable.

The snow definitely interfered with our Christmas plans. We were supposed to head to Aaron and Tiff's for Christmas dinner (Heather has a Jeep which was our savior for getting around), but that morning they lost power. By the time they got power back in the late afternoon, there was not enough time to cook the bird we were having for dinner. So, we ended up pushing it to that Saturday. We ended up having tacos with Heather, Tonya and Steve on Christmas evening. It was certainly different for Christmas dinner, but it was a lot of fun and the tacos were tasty. Most of us were able to make it to Aaron and Tiff's on Saturday and we had a lovely dinner and a fun white elephant gift exchange. The snow also messed up all mail delivery so we had to push back our "Christmas" until New Year's Eve. We got together with Heather and Tonya right before our New Year's Party and opened up presents. I got some really great presents. The ones that stick out are Rock Band 2 and the Rock Pedal. It kicks ass! Our New Year's Eve party was a lot of fun. We picked up a bunch of champagne, had noisemakers and all that goodness, and partied the night away.

January

January was quite the busy month for us. We started off by beginning our French II class, which we are still in through the end of March. We took Moxie in for her annual examination and found out she had a couple of bad teeth. So, we had to take her in and have those extracted. They had to anesthetize her and she was pretty out of it for the next couple days. We had to feed her antibiotics for the next 10 days, which was not very pleasant.

The big thing that happened this month was aquafemme and I bought a house! Our offer was accepted on New Year's Day so we spent most of January getting that all locked down and we closed on the 29th. It was definitely a stressful process between getting our down payment in place, getting the appraiser to stop being stupid, and make sure we could close on time. In the end, though, we were able to get into the place when we needed to (cable hookup, fridge installation, moving, get out of old apartment, etc) and we were all moved in by the the last day of the month. Here's a picture of the place:

It's the perfect size for us and is in a great location in Redmond. We have been thoroughly enjoying living there, although now we're experiencing what "house poor" feels like since we've had to buy so many tools and doodads for the place. We're also trying to get used to spending some of our time on the weekend to do stuff like sweep the deck, sweep the roof, clean the gutters, etc. It's really satisfying to know that everything we're doing to the place and all of our mortgage payments are directly for increasing our quality of life and it's not going to pay someone else's mortgage. I'll have more pics of the place once we feel like we're all moved in and ready for the housewarming party. :)

February

We've spent most of the time in February getting unpacked and used to our new place. We are to the point now where we have our day-to-day stuff unpacked, but haven't done things like hang up paintings, etc.

That first weekend of unpacking, we took a bit of time off and went to a Super Bowl party at Keith and Abigail's. It was a great way to unwind, have a couple beers and hang out with friends. The food was so excellent; I totally ate way too much. I especially loved the chicken wings. They had this chipotle barbecue-type sauce on them that was so good I couldn't stop eating them.

Bonnie and I spent the next weekend at the Gottman Institute Weekend Workshop for Couples. While I wasn't too excited about using up the entire weekend (it was two full days 8:30am-5pm), I did enjoy the workshop overall. Bonnie and I aren't having problems or anything. For us, it was more about finding better ways to communicate with eachother and understand each other's feeling and reality in a situation and validating that for your partner so (s)he can feel assured that you understand him/her. The methods they told us are really helpful and sometimes we're able to de-escalate a tense situation and at the end, instead of getting in an argument, we're giving eachother kisses. Not a bad thing, I say! :) It was in Seattle for both days so we took a bus downtown and stayed in a hotel Saturday night. That was really fun because we were able to walk around the city a bit and have some cocktails and food downtown, which we don't do all that often.

Work has been going great for me and I've been starting to run each weekend (and sometimes once during the week). My goal is to do a half marathon this summer. This weekend will be my first 8-mile run, which is the farthest I've run at any point in my life! At the end of this month is Puzzlehunt. This year Bonnie and I started our own team since we know so many people that wanted to join in. We're sad to no longer be with our previous team (they were really great), but it's also fun to introduce new people to Puzzlehunt.

That's about it!

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part IV: Venice

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:39:34 GMT

Here is the fourth part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme also has a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Venice and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

Day Twelve: 14-May-2008

We took a flight from Barcelona to Venice and then a boat to our hotel in Lido. As mentioned before, we were stuck doing some laundry in the sink in Barcelona so we were fairly desperate to do some laundry. When we spoke to the concierge, he was less than understanding. The hotel didn't have a laundry service and he tried to explain to us that people come to Venice for the sightseeing and romance, not for laundry. We explained that we have been traveling for over 10 days and we weren't able to do laundry in Barcelona. I asked how tourists do their laundry and he answered that they plan ahead to not do it in Venice. Then Bonnie asked how locals do their laundry and he said that the Italian women wash all the clothes by hand and have everything all ready for the men. Well now, isn't that swell? Finally he told us that there is a laundry mat and he would call a cab for us but he acted as though it was dreadfully far away and probably closed. We took the cab and found the laundry mat just fine and it was open. It wasn't a great first impression of Italians, but once we got our clothes cleaned up, things improved immensely. We debated over the choices but finally decided to get the vaporetto pass that would allow us to board as many times as we wanted for the entire duration of our time in Venice. That was a very good choice as we ended up riding the vaporettos a lot; sometimes just for the heck of it. Our hotel was actually on Lido island because it is cheaper and drier - I heard a lot of the hotels in Venice are muggy from having the bottom floor flooded. It was a snap to take a beautiful boat ride to and from Venice whenever we liked. We hopped on a vaporetto and started heading through the Grand Canal. We got off around the train station just to see what the area was like and we found a bar where we had our first Italian lattes. In Italy, a bar is our version of a coffee shop, but some of them also have light food and wine. You can even get a shot of booze in your espresso (they call it "caffè corretto", which means "corrected coffee").


The hustle-and-bustle of the Grand Canal.	Our first Italian Latte. They serve them not quite as hot as they do here and in this tall glass. The coffee in Italy is super tasty.

Me on a vaporetto in the Grand Canal. Riding the vaporettos never got old. I love getting around by water.	Bonnie on a vaporetto in the Grand Canal.

Another picture of the Grand Canal with the Rialto Bridge in the background.	A picture of the Grand Canal as the sun began going down. I don't think it's possible to take a bad picture in Venice. This place is beautiful.

We walked from there to a restaurant that I believe was somewhere near the Rialto Bridge and had our first Italian dinner which was fabulous. aquafemme was still in Spain-mode and, when the waiter approached our table, she greeted him with a sly "Hola." He replied, "Hola" and she realized that she spoke the wrong language. She laughed and told him we just came from Spain and he asked, in Spanish, if we speak Spanish. We replied, "un poco" and he replied, "yo tambien." With our first Italian dinner, we had our first mezzo litro which is 500mL of wine or about 2/3rd of a bottle. The wine is literally cheaper than water and often wonderful.

Day Thirteen: 15-May-2008

We woke up, got ready and walked to a small bar just across from our hotel. The sun was shining and we were greeted by little begging finches while sipping a cappuccino and a chocolate-covered croissant.


Our delicious (and I wish it was nutritious) Italian breakfast.	One of the cute finches flying around us.

We took a vaporetto to Venice and checked out St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge Palace. Our Rick Steve's book totally came in handy for St. Mark's. Instead of waiting in this huge line, we checked our bookbag at this little shop and then bypassed the entire line. I kept expecting someone to stop us and send us to the back of the line but it worked splendidly! It was amazing to think that some people actually wait in a line for that long when they don't have to. I would've been burned to a crisp and half our day blown if we would've had to get in that line.


The view as we approach the Grand Canal from Lido.	I want one.

Arriving at St. Mark's Square.	There are so many pigeons here it's crazy. I even saw a couple albino pigeons. Lots of people buy bread and feed it to them.

The intricate artwork on the outside of the Basilica.	The Basilica from the middle of the plaza.

The Basilica and Campanile from the museum.

That evening we went bar hopping where you grab a little bite here and there along with a glass of wine. Our guidebook called this "giro ombra" where ombra means shade and it comes from when winecarts would move over as the shade moved with the sun. We had a great time getting lost in Venice and going on a scavenger hunt to find bars in the guidebook. At this one little place, a group of Italian men were joking around and having a great time. The waitress brought out a heaping plate of spaghetti with what looked like crawfish on top. We were eyeing the plate and the gentlemen because they were so full of mirth - it was contagious. They sent over a little plate of their spaghetti to us and I thought that was just so kind and charming. We ended the night sipping montepulciano and nibbling on a cheese plate on the Grand Canal while couples danced the waltz under the stars. Our last stop was a hip bar where we tried a spritz with prosecco (tasted like cough syrup) and they were playing groovy music which turned out to be St. Germain's album, "Tourist". We have that album now and it is awesome. We're considering picking up another St. Germain album.

Day Fourteen: 16-May-2008

We had breakfast at the same cafe as the day before. It was across from our hotel and had a nice place to sit outside. I had a sandwich and Bonnie had caprese which turned out to be huge, but she managed to eat most of it (I helped out some too and it was tasty). Then we made a point to take a vaporetto down the entire Grand Canal and read about the sites along the way. Here are some pictures from the canal:


One of the side canals.	Turkish "Fondaco" Exchange, one of the oldest houses in Venice.

Rialto Bridge.	This was part of some advertisement for a show of some sort, but I'm not sure what it was supposed to signify. I thought it was cool, though.

We got off the vaporetto and one stop and saw police boats halt the traffic so that a fire boat could careen through there. It was really cool to see and we talked about how the firefighters probably just have to run through the alleys to get to the actual fire. Then we had the "best gelato" according to the guidebook and didn't argue. After that, we just hung out in a cafe sipping a mezzo litro.

Mezzo litro and some pistachios. Not a bad snack in my book!

Bonnie noticed there were a lot of people walking dogs so we turned that into a drinking game and listened to a guy jam out on the steel drum for Euros. We also found Venice's fire station and took a few pics.


Venetian police boat.	Venetian fire boat.

Then we had another mezzo litro at a snack bar. I think we weren't quite sure what to do with ourselves so we just drank wine and relaxed by default. During our giro ombra the night before, we stumbled upon a restaurant that appeared to be tucked in an out-of-the-way corner and smelled amazing. It was really dark when we saw it, but Bonnie really wanted to find it and somehow I managed to retrace our steps and find the place. It turns out that it wasn't at a dead end at all like she remembered and we were directed to a patio in a plaza that screamed tourist trap. Maybe it was the wine or maybe we were tired, but we let the waiter seat us and then we proceeded to pay too much for a terrible meal. Afterwards, we had crepes and sweet wine at another restaurant that seemed tremendous and we grieved for our poor dinner choice. The restaurant is called Casin dei Nobili and we will definitely be getting dinner there when we manage to make our way back to Venice. We finished off the night with yet another scoop of gelato.

That ends our time in Venice. The next morning we are leaving for Florence!

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part III: Barcelona and Figueres

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 02:00:16 GMT

Here is the third part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Barcelona and Figueres and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

Day Eight: 10-May-2008

In Granada, we had the hotel's breakfast buffet. It wasn't great. Afterwards, we took a taxi to the airport and flew to Barcelona. It was totally raining when we arrived. We took a bus to Plaça Catalunya and, after being a bit turned around, walked to Hotel Silken Ramblas.

It was Saturday evening and we figured out pretty quick that there is no laundry service on Sunday (which was expected), but what wasn't expected is that there was a little known fiesta happening on Monday so we were out of luck for Monday as well! We were leaving for Venice on Wednesday so we couldn't drop off our laundry Tuesday for next day service. In short, we felt kind of screwed. Bonnie ended up washing our clothes in the sink. It worked great for her technical fabrics (traveling and running clothes) but my socks ended up smelling pretty rank and we sometimes had to resort to using a blowdryer to make it so I'd have an outfit that day.

I knew that the blowdryer wouldn't cut it for my pants so I took a couple pairs to the front desk to see what they could do. They didn't sound confident that they would be able to get them back to us until Tuesday evening. We walked down to El Corte Inglés and I bought a pair of pants that were kinda spendy, but at least I'd have something to wear. It was kind of a frustrating experience because in Spain even guy pants are a single-number size and it was some sort of metric measurement of some dimension of my body I couldn't figure out. We narrowed down what fit and managed to find a decent pair. I actually like the pants, but they could use some length adjustment. Then, to top it all off, the hotel was able to clean my pants that night and so I got a stack of pants back a couple hours later. D'oh!

After that, we cheered up by sharing a bismark and apple ring pastry. Then we went to a place called Elisabets and filled up on manchego with tomato and stuffed olives. Afterwards, we went to Taverna Basca Irata and had pintxos and sidra, which is an alcoholic apple cider. We really enjoyed the food here and were kicking ourselves over eating as much as we did at Elisabets. We ended up eating crab on a croissant, hot roasted pepper and gravy (perhaps?) popper, mini-hamburger and goat cheese. When I return to Barcelona someday, I will definitely be coming back to this place for more pintxos!

Next, we went to an Irish bar and had snake bite with red bitemarks in the foam. We decided that the Irish bars feel too much like almost any Irish bar you can find in the States so we wandered off and found a bar/restaurant called Rita Blue. The atmosphere was cool and we enjoyed the decor and drinks. There was a blue room with a mirror made from pieces that looked liked fish bones and adjacent to that room was a colorful orange room to contrast nicely. We actually got pretty lost after that because I... kinda sorta took a wrong turn. When we got to the end of the road, I realized it was no good so we told someone where we were trying to get to and they said that we need to turn around and go back the way we came. Impressive that we were able to communicate in Spanish even when we have a few beers in us! Poor Bonnie had to pee this entire time, but we made our way back to Rita Blue so she could use the restroom and then we got our bearings back and headed to the hotel.

We didn't take many pictures on this day because of the rain, but we made up for it on the later days.

Day Nine: 11-May-2008

We woke up to the sounds of music and Bonnie realized that Sunday morning is when they do the Sardana dance so, despite being hungry, she made me navigate us through the Barri Gòtic to the cathedral as quick as possible in order to see it. We weren't quite sure if it was going to happen or not since it turns out the music we were hearing was some other people playing. After a few minutes, though, people started forming circles and doing the dance. I managed to snag a small video of the dance in action:


Carrer del Bisbe Irurita.	Remains of the squared Roman Wall which can be seen in the Barri Gòtic.

Afterwards, we were starving and pretty much desperate to eat anything that was NOT a bocadillo. We were having a tough time finding a place that looked good and had tables/service. At some point, a chunk of mud fell from the building above us and splashed all over our shoes and pants. At first, we thought someone did it on purpose. We looked at the architecture of the building and concluded that it's probably common especially considering how hard it rained the day before. We finally found a pizza/pasta place and had some grub. I had spaghetti that I loved because it was finally something different, but Bonnie's pizza kind of sucked. Something about the cheese was weird. We definitely should've waited for the Italy part of our trip to start eating pizza! Anyway, we went back to the room and cleaned ourselves up from the mud splash and things started looking up. The sun was shining and we walked down Las Ramblas.


At the top of Las Ramblas. You can see the Canaletes Fountain on the right-hand side with the street lamps on top.	Plaça Catalunya.

We decided to get a couple cafés con leche at Café Zurich, which sits at the top of Las Ramblas.	Us at Café Zurich. This is about as artistic as I get with my pictures. ;)

Bonnie drinking from the Canaletes Fountain. Legend says that a drink from this fountain ensures that you'll return to Barcelona one day. Sounds good to me!	Me drinking from the fountain. It actually took me three tries because I kept having my hand in the way of the picture. So, I have to come back three times.

A Roman necropolis that was discovered during construction of a building. These tombs used to line the road leading into Barcino (the Latin name for Barcelona when it was controlled by the Romans).	We stopped in Café de l'Opera, directly across from the Liceu Opera House to have some of that delicious orange juice already mentioned.

The Liceu Opera House.	Plaça Reial, which sits between Las Ramblas and Plaça de Sant Jaume.

Palau Güell, designed by Antoni Gaudí. Unfortunately, it's closed through 2008 so we couldn't go inside.	Bonnie standing in front of one of the large lions that adorn the monument to Columbus.

Mirador de Colom (Columbus' Lookout), a large monument dedicated to Columbus.	Mirador de Colom from the front. This is the side that looks out over the Mediterranean Sea.

Rambla de Mar. This is a walkway that goes out into the harbor and onto the waterfront.	A neat sculpture we saw while walking on Rambla de Mar.

Once we reached the bottom of The Ramblas, we took a taxi to the Picasso Museum. By the time that was done, our feet hurt. We soothed ourselves with some gelato (Ferroro Rocher for Bonnie, trusty Mint Chocolate Chip for me). We ate it sitting underneath a piece of modern art and then had sangria at Taller Tapas which was a fairly swanky little bar where we sat on stools and watched the bartenders serve up tapas and beverages. After a taxi back to our hotel, we re-found Rita Blue for dinner. We shared some ceviche and Bonnie ate lambs kabobs while I had a tasty steak with fries. To drink, Bonnie enjoyed a pina colada and I had jager in OJ (which was interesting but not exactly good). We walked back to the room and wanted to try out the pool but it was on the roof looking dark, cold and very uninviting. We gave up on that and just hung out in the lobby surfing the net a bit and sipping ron y cokes.

Day Ten: 12-May-2008

We started out the day by walking to Plaça de Sant Jaume because we wanted to do a bike tour of Barcelona.


Plaça de Sant Jaume.	Casa de la Ciutat (city hall).

Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya (presidential palace).	Cool sculptures like this were throughout the plaza.

When we arrived, there were several bike companies to choose from. We gravitated toward Fat Tire Bike Tours and we think that was the best choice. The guides were really laid back and funny and we got to ride these cute and goofy bikes around for about four hours. It was a great way to see the city.


Bonnie and I getting ready for our bike tour!	The Barcelona Museum of Archaeology. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what the building used to be, but I think it looks cool.

These gargoyle statues on the side of the museum were used to pour burning pitch on the Jews during the Spanish Inquisition.	Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music). It is quite an amazing-looking building and there was not enough space to back up to get a picture of the whole thing. The inside of it is supposed to be quite elaborate, but we didn't have a chance to go in.

A large archway at the entrace of the Parc de la Ciutadella (Citadel Park).	A view of the park once you go through the archway.

The moat surrounding La Cascada.	La Cascada, currently under restoration. It consists of an arch with waterfall and fountain. Antoni Gaudí, still a student at the time, assisted the architect with the project.

Torre Agbar, a skyscraper that has 4,500 LEDs that allow for the building to create colorful, flowing images at night. The guy running the bike tour joked that it's the largest dildo factory in Spain.	Plaza de Toros Monumental de Barcelona, the bullfighting ring in Barcelona.

The front (and oldest) facade of Sagrada Familia, also known as the Nativity facade. The church has been under construction since 1882 and is expected to continue for another 30 years at a minimum.	The passion facade of Sagrada Famila.

The northern facade. Notice the numerous lizards in the middle band just above the windows. The whole church outside had many details like this (frogs, snails, etc).	The front portal sculpture on the Nativity facade. Notice the immense detail put into it. This side is much more detailed than any other side and this has caused controversy over whether Gaudí's vision is being truly realized in the other facades.

Me standing in front of the Mediterranean.	aquafemme standing in front of the Mediterranean.

The beach in Barcelona. We ended up going down to a small restaurant on the beach and enjoying a sandwich (with mustard!) and sangria (without mustard).	A fancy scultpure thing at Hotel Arts, the Ritz Carlton property inside the Olympic Village in Barcelona. The cheapest room runs about $1,000/night.

After that, we walked to the Block of Discord and saw Casa Milà (better known as La Pedrera) and Casa Batlló.


Casa Batlló. Locally it is called Casa dels ossos (House of bones) because of its skeletal look.	Casa Milà. The roof of the building is supposed to make you think of ice cream. You can see that a bit in the picture. We thought about going up, but the line was insanely long (at least over an hour).

Then we dined on mini-hamburgers (these are sooo yummy), pork flautas and cava. The food in this area of Barcelona was wonderful. That evening, I bought a Cuban cigar (just because I could) and we visited the Museum of Erotica (this was really cheesy, save your money!). Then we ate ice cream (yes, again). I had lemon and aquafemme had caramel. We also bought some coke bottle gummy candy and ended up having rum and cokes with our candy. Bonnie started getting the urge to have a real dinner so she made me take her to a restaurant late that night. I just had a salad (wasn't very hungry, it was good) and Bonnie had (regrettably runny) scrambled eggs. There's a bread fee that is common in Spain and Bonnie joked that they would charge us €4 for the one tiny piece of bread they gave us. It turned out to be true -- suddenly her joke didn't seem very funny. :( I tried out my Cuban cigar and then we konked out.


Cava, a sparkling wine that comes from Catalonia.	Mini-hamburgers. These were super delicious.

Day Eleven: 13-May-2008

We got up and walked to the train station to head off to Figueres to see the Salvador Dalí museum. Unfortunately, we weren't real sure how things worked. We expected to see a conductor to confirm that we were on the right train but there wasn't one. Bonnie asked someone on the train if the train was going to Figueres. He said it wasn't so I asked the guy where the next stop was and how close it was. A few minutes later we hopped off the train somewhere on the outskirts of Barcelona and nobody spoke any English.

We pretty much pieced together that the next train would be coming in 2 long hours and there was nothing to do but wait. There was a brief moment of entertainment though. We saw many many trains go by but this one must have been a bullet train. It screamed through the station blowing us sideways and making papers swirl. Bonnie really got a kick out of it and exclaimed, "Whoa! That was sooo fast! Did you see that train?! It was soo fast!!" It was also amusing seeing the locals give us funny looks because we were getting so excited over something they probably see a lot. During that time, we also figured out that there was some miscommunication between Bonnie and the guy on the train. She asked "a Figueres?" and evidently he took that to mean "are you going to Figueres?" so he said he wasn't. Weird interpretation, but just goes to show that translation can be interesting. Well, turns out even though he wasn't going to Figueres, the train was and we were sitting around for no reason. We learned our lesson.

Once we got to Figueres, we were hungry and getting pretty homesick for American food (it's weird to say that) and were delighted to see a restaurant that had hamburgers and fries. It was everything we wanted it to be and tasted so good! We then headed over to the museum.


Statue of Dalí outside the museum.	An... interesting piece of art also outside the museum. Yes, those are baby doll heads inside the eye sockets.

The crypt of Salvador Dalí.	The boat enjoyed by Dalí and his soulmate, Gala. When she died, the boat was made into this which has blue tears (made of condoms) dripping below the boat.

This is an amazing painting that was on the ceiling of one of the rooms. It was difficult to capture it all with the camera, but I thought it did a pretty decent job.	The Face of Mae West, which is constructed of various living room items.

The Face of Mae West viewed from the side.	This is a piece of jewelry in a separate exhibit not in the main museum. Jewelers created this based on designs drawn by Dalí. I especially liked this one. It reminds me of the mouth from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When we got back to Barcelona, we ended up returning to the place where we had flautas and cava the day before. We were pretty nutzed up about the mini-hamburgers. It was starting to get pretty late by this point and we still had to get ready to fly out the next morning so we headed back to the hotel, packed up and went to sleep.

That ends our time in Barcelona and the Spanish portion of our trip. The next morning we are leaving for Venice!

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part II: Granada

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:12:22 GMT

Here is the second part of the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures.

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Granada and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

Day Six: 08-May-2008

We checked out of our hotel in Seville and went to the train station via taxi. Getting a ticket was not too much of a hassle. We went to one line and the guy directed us to another. Evidently, the line you get in depends on if you want to depart today or another day. We took a train to Granada and then, after being really turned around and torn, took a bus. We missed our bus stop near the cathedral somehow and the language barrier made it hard for us to figure that out. We pretty much weren't on the map we had so people couldn't really point and explain where we were. Anyway, we got that figured out and it's funny how it just goes "click" and everything on the map comes into perspective. After we checked in our hotel, we had dinner. Bonnie ordered calamari relleno (or something like that). She wasn't a fan. I'm pretty sure I had something with pork in it. No big surprise. :)

We then set off to find the Royal Chapel, which has the tombs of Queen Isabel, King Ferdinand, Philip the Fair and Juana the Mad. We also had a run-in with the rosemary gypsies. They want you to take a rosemary twig that they hold right in your face and then, apparently, demand money from you. We just ignored them (since we read about them beforehand) but they were aggravating, especially in the large crowds. On our way back to the hotel to find out what we wanted to do next, we walked by Plaza Isabel La Católica. There's a large fountain here above which a statue of Columbus and Isabel sit.


Plaza Isabel La Católica. Here you can see a depiction of Columbus unfurling a long contract with Isabel that lists the terms of his voyage.	View from the side that shows the fountain better.

Then we took a crazy little red bus to Mirador de San Nicolás (San Nicolás Viewpoint) where you get a great view of Granada and La Alhambra. This little bus takes up the whole road and rushes through the tiny alleyways like it's in a race.


Granada.	La Alhambra.

Bonnie dragged me to a little restaurant in the Albayzín that was recommended by Rick Steves' guidebook and we had this crazy fruit salad and the eating of it went something like this:

What is this thing?!

I have no idea!

OM NOM NOM!!

That night, we bar hopped near our hotel and had lots of tapas and wine. In Granada, when you order drinks at a bar you get free food! We got mussels and a brie and honey platter. The brie and honey was so good, we ended up buying more. Everything was cheap and pretty fabulous. The place we liked best is called Navas 14. We called it a night around 1am.

Day Seven: 09-May-2008

We woke up kinda hungover and very hungry. We pretty much were really craving a good ol' American breakfast: eggs, toast, bacon, hashbrowns - that kind of thing. Anyway, that kind of thing isn't really to be found in Spain. They are more of a coffee and dry toast kind of place. We did manage to find a little cafe and had a semi-American breakfast. Bonnie had toast and jelly and mine had bread with finely diced tomato and oil spread over it. Anyway, what we ate isn't what's important. What we drank was phenomenal. All over Spain they have these orange juice machines. You can see the oranges plunk down from the top and get squeezed into fresh juice - the rinds spit out the side. The orange juice in Spain is to die for. I have never tasted OJ that was so good.

That afternoon, we went to the Hammam Baños Árabes. It's very relaxing. We had made an appointment the night before because they only let 16 people in at a time and you get 90 minutes in the baths. There are three pools (cold, warm and hot) as well as a steam room that is FREAKIN' HOT! The lady at the front desk said never to stay in more than five minutes, but we couldn't last more than a minute. Basically you just lounge around in the pools and occasionally drink sweet tea in the sitting room. We had a really nice time. Then we went shopping in the Alcaicería, a Middle Eastern market, where Bonnie bought a shawl.

Afterwards, we got back on one of those crazy red busses and took it to La Alhambra. We were only able to take about two pictures before the skies opened and there was thunder and rain just dumping. We could barely hear each other over the noise. There were rocks falling from the cliff above us and it took us quite awhile in the deluge to figure out that we weren't going toward the entrance at all.


It looks like an entrance... but it's not.	Just before the thunderstorm hit. After the rain, water was shooting out almost horizontally it was so fast. We later determined we were supposed to be inside that wall. :P

We had to backtrack quite a ways in the pouring rain and were just absolutely soaked by the time we found the ticket stand. There are lots of little roads around the Alhambra and the map we had wasn't quite zoomed in far enough so we could make sense of the roads. It was a frustrating time finding out where the actual entrance was, but once that was figured out, all was fine. The skies even decided to clear (for a while).

The first thing we saw was Charles V's Palace. This palace was built on the Alhambra grounds when he defeated the Moors and took control. The palace was evidently supposed to have a dome on it, but never got one.

Charles V Palace.
The next thing we saw was the Alcazaba, which is the fort and the oldest part of the complex. It has quite a few passages and several areas to explore. It also offers exquisite views of the city.


La Alcazaba.	Plaza Aljibes.

Granada from La Alcazaba. In the distance, you can see the churchtower that rises over Mirador de San Nicolás that we were at the night before.	Palacios Nazaries.

Lush greenery surrounds La Alhambra.	Bonnie in La Acazaba.

Me on the lookout of La Alcazaba.	The middle of La Alcazaba. We aren't sure what this was used for.

After wandering around checking things out, we got in line to see Palacios Nazaries: the Moorish royal palace and the jewel of the Alhambra. It's so popular that it costs extra to get in and you only get a 30-minute entry time slot. If you miss it, you're screwed, but once you're in you can stay as long as you want. The palace is huge and the architecture is amazing.


A prayer room that faces towards Mecca.	There are several elaborate ceiling designs throughout the palace.

Most of the walls have Arabic writing carved into them.	The Court of Myrtles. Notice how hard it is raining.

The elaborate entryway in the Courtyard of the Lions.	The star-shaped dome in the baths.

Another elaborate entryway.	Fountain in the Partal Gardens.

Bonnie being resourceful in the face of rain.

We didn't spend too much time in the gardens because by this time we were hungry, wet and our feet were really worn out. Plus, after seeing the gardens at the Alcázar in Seville, no other gardens could really compare. We hopped on the red bus and headed back down into the city and to our hotel room.

We got cleaned up and revisited Navas 14 because Bonnie was in love with their honey brie. Also, we just liked the bar's atmosphere from night before. Then we ended up going to this hookah/tea cafe - it's not what you think! They had many kinds of tobacco for sale in cork shapes that you plug into the hookah. We tried some strawberry-flavored tobacco but couldn't finish it. We also had batidos (kind of like chocolate milk but many different flavors) and orange tea.

We were exhausted by this time and decided to go back to the hotel and order telepizza (you have to say it like tele-pee-tha -- I just love the Castillian ceceo). This ended up being kind of a fiasco as far as paying for the pizza because the hotel room was supposed to put it on our room bill like room service, but they messed it up. It involved a bit of arguing with the hotel front desk (in Spanish!), but we got it all worked out. We ordered it with pepperoni, green peppers (which turned out to be green chile!) and mushrooms. It was funny because when I asked the lady on the phone "¿Sabe los ingredientes?" ("Do you know the ingredients?") after finishing the order the first thing she said (in a strong accent) was "Haaaam?". I was like "No! No ham! Pepperoni!" and internally thinking "for the love of God, no ham!" It didn't end up coming with ham, though, so we were very happy. We ate our pizza, watched The Wire, and conked out.

That ends our time in Granada. The next morning we are leaving for Barcelona!

Spain and Italy 2008 - Part I: Travel, Seville, and Pueblos Blancos

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 02:51:15 GMT

Here begins the summary of our trip to Spain and Italy. aquafemme is also keeping a separate log of our events and mine will probably plagiarize greatly from her summary, but add pretty pictures. Hopefully she'll make an LJ memory entry that I can link to here so you can get to her entries eaiser. *nudge nudge* ;)

I'll always put these behind a cut because there are lots of pics. I'm not putting all of them here, though. At Flickr I have a set for Seville and Pueblos Blancos and a collection for the entire trip that will be growing as we continue going through our pictures.

Day One: 03-May-2008

Not much to say about the first day of our trip to Europe. We had to get up at the butt crack of dawn and Heather was nice enough to drive us to the airport (and even got us Sbux!). Our first stop for our trip was in Seville, Spain. To get there, we flew from Seattle to Chicago where we had a 3-hour layover, then to Madrid where we had a 4-hour layover (ugh), then to Seville. The last layover really sucked because at that point we had been traveling for 24 hours and were insanely tired. We fought our hardest not to fall asleep on the one hour plane ride to Seville in order to minimize the effects of jetlag, but we lost that battle. This brings us to...

Day Two: 04-May-2008

Once we landed, we grabbed a cab from the airport to the hotel. It was during this ride that we had our first taste of European driving. The roads are narrow, bumpy, loaded with people and the drivers just speed along happily while pedestrians jump out of the way. Bonnie and I couldn't help but give eachother that "holy crap" glance as we were riding along.

We arrived in the Plaza Virgen de los Reyes, which has an impressive fountain, the largest gothic cathedral in the world, and our hotel.


Me standing in front of the fountain in Plaza Virgen de los Reyes.	The façade of the Cathedral of Seville.

Giralda Tower.	The view of the Cathedral and plaza from our hotel room.

We had a minor mixup when communicating with the concierge and our room had two small twin beds instead of a single queen bed (great start, d'oh!). It was quickly rectified and we were finally able to drop off our bags. We decided that we would go ahead and take a couple hour nap at this point (it was around 2pm). Just long enough to get some rest, but (hopefully) not too long to extend our jet lag. We felt great afterwards so we showered up and headed out into the Barrio Santa Cruz.

While walking around we saw several adobe buildings that are all very close together. Some buildings are so close together that you can actually touch both buildings with your outstretched arms. The places that are the closest are called the 'kissing lanes'. No cars can get anywhere into the Barrio. We saw several lost tourists lugging around their bags trying to find their hotel. We stumbled upon Los Gallos, a flamenco show, and reserved tickets for the following evening.


Bonnie touching the buildings on each side of the 'Kissing Lanes'.	Orange trees we saw in a smaller plaza while walking through the Barrio.

Day Three: 05-May-2008

I was fortunate enough to not have problems with jet lag and I ended up sleeping for 13 hours on this first night in Spain. Bonnie wasn't as lucky (as she discusses the cathedral bell system in her blog), but fortunately she was sleeping normally within a couple days.

We went and grabbed some lunch in the Barrio. We ended up in this small sandwich shop and we got a couple bocadillos. For some reason, the Spanish eat these crunchy-ass bocadillos with nothing on it except a tiny bit of meat and (maybe) a slice of cheese. I'm someone that hates dry bread so eating was frustrating at times. I learned the word for mustard (mostaza) while on the trip and found that while rare, some places would have it. Mayonnaise (mayonesa) is also rare. I would always get funny looks when I asked for it. They just can't believe that someone would want to put a condiment on a sandwich!

The sandwich place also had ice cream and we just couldn't resist grabbing some because it looked so creamy and it was really hot outside. We would return to this place multiple times for an ice cream fix during our time in Seville.

Yum!
We then headed to the Cathedral of Seville. As the Wiki article says, it's the largest Gothic and fourth largest cathedral in the world. Yes, this thing is BIG and the ceiling inside is jaw-dropping. It took 120 years to build. Here are some photos of the inside of the cathedral.


Some of the elaborate stained glass in the cathedral.	Part of the choir's organ that consists of a total of 7,000 pipes. There are several sections of it and we couldn't even capture an entire section with the camera because it's so huge!

The main choir area. You can see the pipe organ sections in the upper corners.	The high altar which has the largest altarpiece ever made -- 65 feet tall with 44 scenes from the life of Jesus carved out of walnut and chestnut and covered with gold leaf.

The gilded fresco of the Virgin Antigua. This is the oldest art in the church and it used to be the prayer niche of the (much smaller) mosque that used to be where the cathedral is today.	The tomb of Christopher Columbus.

The Corona de la Virgen de los Reyes. It consists of 11,000 precious stones and the torso of the angel is the world's largest pearl.

There's a bell tower attached called the Giralda Tower which was originally a minaret. Climbing the tower, there are no stairs. Rather, it has an ever-upward-spiraling ramp that the Moors used to ride horses up to the top for the Muslim call to prayer. We could see the little pool on top of our hotel from the top of the tower. The view was really amazing from the tower.


View of part of the cathedral from the Giralda Tower.	View of Plaza Virgen de los Reyes.

View of our hotel (the one with the pool).	View of Barrio Santa Cruz.

View of the Parque Maria Luisa.	Another view of Barrio Santa Cruz.

Me standing underneath one of the many large bells at the top of the tower.

After the cathedral, we walked around until we found this little hole-in-the-wall shop called El Torno where nuns sells little cookies. We bought some that looked like they had apple and macademia nuts. We were a little wrong on both counts (sweet but not apple and hazelnuts) but they were scrumptious. We ate them with some coffee from this fabulous bakery, but unfortunately I cannot remember the name. Right across the street from the bakery, we saw our first European Starbucks!

Starbucks in Spain!
Once we left the bakery, we set off on a quest to find shaving cream and razors. I was starting to feel pretty scruffy at this point. The hotel had some shaving cream and a razor, but it suuuuuuucked. I was afraid I was going to cut my face off if I used it. On this quest, I discovered El Corte Inglés. They really had a bit of everything in there. It's a combination of department, music and drug stores. We started off in the right direction thanks to a lady at the farmacía, but after a while we just didn't know where we were going or what to look for. So, I ask this guy at a newspaper stand "¿Sabe usted dónde está El Corte Inglés?" and he kinda gets this grin on his face and says "a cerca" (rough translation is "nearby" or "about") and points his thumb behind him over his shoulder. So, we walk behind the newspaper stand and sure enough there it is. *smacks forehead* Once getting into the store, it was fairly easy to find shaving cream (crema de afeitar) and razors (maquinillas de afeitar).

That night we went to Los Gallos and saw flamenco. We had a tasty cup of sangria while we watched the show. It wasn't quite what we expected. It involves a lot of intricate stomping and, yes, often the women wear beautiful dresses and hold castanets. Other than that? I guess the singing from the male counterparts kind of threw us off. It has its roots in the Muslim call to prayer and seemed to contrast with the melodic nature of the guitar. Some of those ladies really did dance impressively, though.

The Los Gallos Flamenco Show.
Once we left the show, we dined on shrimp (camarones) and roasted duck leg (can't remember what they called it) with a bottle of wine at 6 Calle Agua. There were cute little tables with pink tablecloths and we sat outdoors on their patio while petals floated down from the trees. Dinner was complete with a lovely wine-poached pear for dessert. It made me think of a dessert Layla made when she first moved out here. The entire dinner was delicious and was one of the best I had while in Europe.


6 Calle Agua had really delicious food.	The restaurant's next door neighbor had a very impressive garden.

After dinner, we wandered over to a bar called El Tamboril. We ordered cuba libres and, after awhile, managed to snag a couple stools at the bar. A man with a guitar was just hanging out with his friends and strumming out flamenco music. If it got too quiet, the petite bartender would start clapping staccato and the flamenco would re-commence. aquafemme asked the bartender for a "pequeno..?" and mimicked doing a shot. She smiled and answered, "chupito?" And chupitos we did. We ended up having some sort of Spanish rum (ron) that tasted good enough in our intoxicated state. :) Turns out that "chupito" is one of the most handy nouns I learned on the trip. ;) Around 2am, we stumbled back to the hotel and conked out.

El Tamboril. The source of muchos chupitos!

Day Four: 06-May-2008

As expected, we woke up the next morning with a bit of a hangover. We went and found a lavandería so we could get our clothes cleaned. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find and the service was great. It was €6 for each load (we had two) for a full wash and folding and they had it done that evening.

After this, aquafemme and I went to find chocolate and churros because we heard it's one of those things you gotta try. You get a little cup of chocolate for drinking and dipping the churros into. Sounds decadent, right? We picked a hole-in-the-wall place and placed our order. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. The chocolate was kind of flavorless and the churros were super greasy. I don't really like super fried foods so it just didn't really do it for me. I was imagining a churro like what you get at Costco and these were really small. It ended up tasting like greasiness. I think it was probably just not a good place to get it from.

Ever since we arrived in Spain I had been having problems with allergies. I don't really know what I'm allergic to (I need to get to an allergist), but it never fails that in late spring, I get all sneezy and it was especially bad here. We went back into El Corte Inglés to find a Claritin equivalent. I think this was the first time I had to resort to charades in order to get the point across because I knew how to say I need something for allergies ("necesito algo para alergias"), but I didn't know how to say that it was supposed to be a pill and they kept trying to sell me lotions. If I would've known the spanish word for the Claritin active ingredient (turns out it's "loratadina") I would've been set. I mimed popping a pill into my mouth and they directed me to the farmacía and they had exactly what I needed.

Since our breakfast didn't really cut it, we went into a cafe and had -- you guessed it -- ham bocadillos. At least they had mayonnaise! After this we headed to the Alcázar which is basically next door to the cathedral. I'm not really sure what to say about it except it's absolutely beautiful. It has an interesting mix of moorish and gothic architecture and the gardens are massive. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.


There is lots of greenery throughout the Alcázar.	Part of the gothic wing.

Numerous large and impressive tapestries fill this room.	An example of the numerous differences in each section of the Alcázar.

I thought this fountain was cool. This is just one of many fountains.	Bonnie in front of a fountain in the gardens.

Another part of the gardens.	You can see that the gardens are very large.

Los Baños de Doña María de Padilla.	A view of the cathedral and tower from the Patio de Banderas.

After the Alcázar, we walked to the Torre del Oro mainly because that was our meeting spot for the next day's tour. We wanted to get a feel for how long it would take us to walk there the next morning. On our walk back to the hotel, we stopped by a Starbucks. It was nice to have that little piece of familiarity when you're 5,300 miles away from home.

We left starbucks and decided to splurge on a horse and buggy ride. It was a good decision to go on this 30 minute clip-clop because it gave us an opportunity to see some of Seville that we hadn't seen before. We saw Parque Maria Luisa which is very serene and beautiful. We also saw the Plaza de España which looks very impressive.

One of the numerous horse and buggy rides you can find in the Barrio.
After this we didn't do much besides wander around while the sun went down and had some tapas and sangria. It was another beautiful night outside.

Day Five: 07-May-2008

Our main event on this day was to go on the Pueblos Blancos tour through Andalucía. This aussie named Paul McGrath, who has lived in Seville for close to a decade, shows up with his mini-van and we pile in along with five other people. We find out that of all the people on the tour, only one of them wasn't from Seattle! He was from Billings, Montana and we all got a chuckle out of how close we all live on the other side of the world. I have to say, this tour kicked ass. It takes up the whole day and we saw so much of the countryside that we wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. Paul is a great guy and we really enjoyed ourselves at a reasonable price (€48/person).

The first place we went was Castillo de las Aguzaderas, which is a crumbling castle that sits alone in the countryside. It was the first castle I had ever seen. I thought it was pretty spiffy. :)


The external wall of the castle.	Me standing in the door way of the keep.

An entryway to the castle that was sealed at some point.	The main courtyard of the castle.

Next, we headed to Zahara de la Sierra, the first white hill town on our tour. It was absolutely beautiful. It's perched on the side of a mountain and has a great lookout over the valley and lake. There are some more castle ruins as well, but we didn't walk up there since it looked like a bit of a trek and we were thirsty. So, instead we took some pictures and had tinto verano for the very first time. It's a delicious drink and Bonnie and I have been working on replicating it so we can share it with our friends. Of course during this process there is lots of taste testing. :)


Zahara de la Sierra.	View of the lake and valley. In the distance, you can see the dam that created the lake and you must drive over to get to the town.

Bonnie and I on the lookout.	Here I am enjoying my first tinto verano!

We left that town and ended up in an olive mill. It was cool because we were able to just show up unannounced and check out all of the equipment and stuff. We tried a sample of the olive oil and it was delicious. It actually tasted like olives! We're getting a raw deal here in the States when it comes to olive oil. If it wasn't for the fact that we had just started our three week trip and the stupid flying restrictions pertaining to liquids, we would have bought some up. Another thing Bonnie and I need to do is find a way to import this stuff (or another brand that is equally authentic).


Some of the equipment used to process the olives.	They press the olives in-between a bunch of those cloth discs to filter out the seeds and other impurities.

We left the mill and begin snaking through the mountains on a very windy and narrow two-lane highway. I can't remember the name of the highway, but Paul told us that it has a very bloody history. Franco's fascist army used a ton of slave labor to build it. There are some impressive views as you head up the mountain.


The highway in the mountains.	The view during our drive was amazing. Check out all the olive trees in the distance! The entire countryside is like this.

After a bit of a journey, we ended up in Grazalema (be sure to say the 'z' as 'th'!). We stopped here to have some lunch. For once it wasn't a ham bocadillo! I had chicken breast and aquafemme had a pork chop.

Grazalema.
We hit the road again and ended up in Setenil. It was another Moorish fort when the Muslims controlled southern Spain. The town is named for the seven times the Moorish stronghold that sustained attacks from the Christians before it fell ('Sete' -> seven, 'nil' -> nothing). The town itself is built under a huge rock outcrop. It helps keep things cooler in the hot summer weather. One of the shops had part of the rock as a wall.


Setenil de las Bodegas.	The outcropping that part of the town is built under.

Another street underneath the outcropping.	This is the shop we were in where the ceiling is the rock.

We ended up buying a small shot glass that says "Estuve en Setenil y me acordé de ti", which translates to "I was in Setenil and I remembered you". I suppose it's more fitting if we gave it to someone else, but whatev. :) The guy then tried to sell us some of his plates, but we're not much for knick knacks and it would most certainly break in our luggage during our travels. Bonnie joked after we left that "ya tenemos demasiada mierda", meaning "we already have too much shit". I got a kick out of that.

The last place we ended up was Olvera. We went into another Moorish castle that is built on top of a strategic rock. The full 360-degree views from here were amazing. I got pretty sunburned standing up there. Getting to the top of the castle was interesting too since you had to climb up stairs that were so narrow and tall it felt like you were basically on a twisty ladder with nothing to really grab on to but the walls.


Olvera.	Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación which sits next to the castle.

A really cool picture of the countryside from a castle window.	Bonnie in the castle.

Me on top of the castle.

We were pretty beat after this and began the ride back to Seville. Most of the people dozed off during the ride back. When we arrived back we had paella mariscos, but it was too salty and just didn't seem to have the true essence of paella. Plus, all of the seafood was still in its shell and I really don't like picking at my food. We didn't have luck finding good paella on our trip to Spain, which seems weird. We then walked around and found another bar in the Barrio. I had some sangria and bonnie had a mojito. Some locals were very intently watching a soccer game. We headed back to the hotel and got some sleep as we were pretty exhausted by this point.

That ends our time in Seville. The next morning we are leaving for Granada!

Randomness

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:10:16 GMT

So, I was watching "So You Think You Can Dance" with aquafemme the other day (yeah yeah, shut up... the women are cute ;)) and I noticed that one of the songs being played had a super familar beginning. The song is called "Hov Arek Sarer Jan" by New Age Armenia (sample here). It was really bugging me for a couple hours so I started digging through my iTunes and was immediately drawn to "The Wall" by Pink Floyd. I listened to the tracks, but couldn't find the piece. Bonnie said she thinks it's from the part where Pink shaves off his nipples. So we grabbed our DVD and popped it in. Sure enough, she was right! I went back to my MP3s and found where it is. It's about 1:20 into the song "Is There Anybody Out There?" (sample 2:30 into this video).

I know this seems really random, but I was really happy to find the song and I'm posting this in case other people noticed it too and it's bugging them.

Pink Floyd is awesome.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:43:56 GMT

Created by OnePlusYou - a Free Dating Site

Nerdiness

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:18:35 GMT

Back from Europe!

Mon, 26 May 2008 18:59:35 GMT

aquafemme and I returned last night from our 3-week vacation to Spain and Italy. We are still unpacking and getting things in order, but I'm hoping by the end of this next weekend to have a travel log with pictures posted up. Stay tuned!

Personality test

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:46:18 GMT

Got the link from tonberrygrrl. The Neuroticism is higher than I would attribute to myself.

My Personality


Neuroticism	63
Extraversion	46
Openness to Experience	6
Agreeableness	19
Conscientiousness	68

You very rarely feel depressed and are usually in a good frame of mind, however you feel enraged when things do not go your way. You are sensitive about being treated fairly and feel resentful and bitter if you think you are being cheated. You get overwhelmed by too much noise and commotion and do not like thrill-seeking activities. You tend not to express your emotions openly and are sometimes not even aware of your own feelings. There are times when you believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary, however you are mostly candid, frank and sincere. People find it moderately easy to relate to you, however you feel superior to those around you and sometimes tend to be seen as arrogant by other people. You take your time when making decisions and will deliberate on all the possible consequences and alternatives.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report.

Rock Band Craziness

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:42:38 GMT

aquafemme and I have officially passed the point of Rock Band craziness. We have completed the Endless Setlist on Medium!

Crayon Physics Deluxe

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:32:53 GMT

aquafemme forwarded me a link to a demo of the game Crayon Physics Deluxe. Simply put, it is really cool.

Rock Band

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:38:19 GMT

I have recently discovered the awesomeness of Rock Band and now I'm addicted. :P

Life update

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:46:31 GMT

Not much has been going on the last couple of weeks. Bonnie and I tried going skiing again on the 2nd, but due to Snoqualmie pass being closed for most of that week, the summit was closed so we couldn't go. We ended up moving the trip to yesterday. The pass was closed on Saturday so we were afraid we wouldn't be able to go again and get our second lesson in, but we woke up early in the morning and the pass was wide open. We got there around 9:30am and noticed a big difference in the number of people that were up there. We couldn't understand why there were so few people. We got our equipment and lift tickets in 15 minutes where the first time it took an hour longer than that at least. The pub didn't open until 11am so we decided to go up the green lift and give it a shot. We then discovered why there was nobody there: the snow was pretty hard to cut into with the skis because it was kinda hard. It was nice not having to deal with the crowds, though.

My first time down the hill was rough. I was having trouble getting my ski legs. After one run down we went to the pub and had a couple beers and some spaghetti. It was then time for our class. They separated the people into two groups based on how well we could do turns. I ended up in the bad group. :P We did lots of practice going down the bunny hill trying out different turns and such. I improved a ton which is really awesome. We went up the green hill three more times and on my last two times I just kept remembering to lean forward no matter what. When I did this, I found that I could do lots of turning at a decent speed and I made it down the hill without wiping out! Twice in a row!! I am so stoked about this.

Each time we go up to the summit, we also learn how to improve our trip a little more. This time, we brought a better bag to keep our things in and also brought our scarves. Next time, I'm going to get some better gloves and we're going to buy some waterproof boots for us to trudge from the parking lot to the hill with. This weekend we're going tubing with some friends up at the summit and then the weekend after that we are going to head up for our final lesson.

We had some friends over for the Super Bowl. We were all rooting for the Giants and they kicked butt! I picked up a couple growlers of Mac and Jack's African Amber and a couple growlers of their Serengeti Wheat. We also had lots of goodies to munch on like 7-layer dip, fruit and veggies, barbecued pork, poppers and M&Ms. Overall a really fun time. I would've loved to party some more after, but of course it was Sunday so that wasn't gonna happen.

We went to Aaron and Tiff's new house for dinner on Saturday night. We had a really great time. We had some turkey burgers and turkey dogs along with some chips and guac, cheese and crackers and wine. We played some Donkey Konga, Taboo and this game called Dirty Minds which is pretty funny. We all discovered that aquafemme is way too good at it. ;) Their house is shaping up so nice and I'm really happy for them. We would've liked to stay later, but we knew we had to get up early the next morning for skiing so we left around 10:30pm.

And that's about it!

Skiing!

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:58:09 GMT

I went skiing for the very first time this last weekend with aquafemme. We drove up to the Summit at Snoqualmie because it's only an hour drive away and they have a really good beginners program that gives you a group lesson, full rental and a beginner (i.e. green) lift ticket for three sessions all for only $99. We woke up at 7am (ugh), got everything packed up, snagged some Starbucks and headed out around 8:30. We were trying to make the 10am lesson and figured we were in OK shape until we got there and it was a zoo. We arrived at 9:20, which is only 20 minutes after they open and it was already packed. Pretty crazy. By the time we signed up, it was already 10:05 and we hadn't even gotten our boots and skis yet. We got all of our equipment and checked our bag and we had about an hour and a half to blow until the next lesson at 12:30. It actually ended up working out pretty nice. We went to the pub and had some pizza and a couple beers. They have Mac and Jack's AND Fat Tire so that's pretty awesome.

The lesson was pretty easy. We learned how to put our skis on, good ski posture, how to stop, how to turn and how to get up when you fall on your butt. After that, we got on the "magic carpet" which takes you to the top of the super tiny bunny hill to try out our moves. We got bored of that pretty quickly so we asked to be pointed to a lift and went up the hill. Bonnie did a really good job. She actually went in an S down the hill. I went mostly straight and hauled ass, but of course I ended up falling a few times (which was kinda fun). The thing is I haven't gotten turning down all that well so I end up going super duper fast because I can't go in an S. I'm actually not too bad at stopping myself, though (and I don't mean by falling).

We went up the hill three times and by that time we were kinda beat. Mostly, it was that my shins were killing me. My rental boots weren't all that comfy, but I think it's because I had the inner part of my ski pants tucked down in my boots so I basically bruised up my shins. I'm hoping to learn from that and have a better experience this next weekend. Yes, we're going again next weekend! Also, boots are REALLY expensive so I don't want to drop several hundred dollars on boots until I know that I'm a skiing freak and I'll be able to use them for the entire season.

It started snowing pretty heavily while we were there so when we got back to the car, we noticed a good 3-4" of snow on top. We wiped all that off and heard that chains were required on the pass so we put on our chains that we bought the night before. From there on, it was very slow going since it was pretty snowy and with my chains you can't go over 30 mph. It was kinda scary because I haven't driven in weather like that in almost 10 years. We just took it slow and steady though and we were just fine. Just east of North Bend it all turned into rain so we took the chains off and headed the rest of the way home (at a much faster pace).

We were pretty ravenous when we got back so we headed over to Celtic Bayou for dinner. They make this Crawfish Etoufee that is absolutely delicious. It's very spicy, but I love how they don't even warn you or pull any punches. Bonnie had Chicken Cordon Bleu that was also very, very good. I don't think we did much after that because we were pretty worn out.

As I mentioned before, we're going again this weekend. They're going to teach us how to do the S thing better. Why did I wait so long my life to start skiing?!

Trying to update a little more frequently

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:17:13 GMT

Not too much has happened over the last week. Aaron and Tiff came over last Friday and we had a really tasty Halibut dinner w/couscous, green beans, my special garlic bread and a nummy spinach salad that had macadamias and raspberries in it.

After we ate, we had some drinks and played "nouns in a bag". Unfortunately, it didn't go very well and I just ended up getting aggravated. The teams weren't big enough so if someone couldn't figure out a noun, you were just stuck. Plus, we were getting pretty tipsy so it was hard to focus. We ended up switching to Hoopla for a little more structure and plus all of us would be on the same team.

We hadn't played the game in a long time so it was nice to play it again. We were at the point where we pretty much knew all the cards, we could take away the purple wild tokens, add cards AND reduce the timer from 15 minutes and we'd still win. This time, we played just like normal and we lost! We were on the last card and I couldn't figure out a good way to convey "meter maid" before the time ran out. That just means we'll have to play more Hoopla to try and get back to being "experts" at it. :)

On Saturday we attended the Seahawks vs. Redskins game. I'm surprised I didn't lose my voice I was cheering so much. We had a really good time. We were in the nosebleeds, but we were right on the 40 yard line and the view was awesome. The weather was supposed to be horrible so we bought all this stuff to prepare and it ended up being pretty nice out. We're just gonna return that stuff and use the money for skiing clothes.

On Wednesday I met with a couple friends I knew in Wrangell and now live out here. They snagged some copies of Vista and we had a couple beers. It was cool to be able to sit and chat about stuff. Last time I saw them it was while they were performing (they're in a band called Novena Novela) so it was too loud and busy to be able to chat. Hopefully we'll be able to hang out again soon. It's hard to get much time to hang out when it's a weekday.

Tomorrow is the Seahawks vs. Packers game. I like both teams, but of course I gotta root for my Hawks!! The Packers are having a great season and so the Seahawks are the underdogs, but I'm hoping for the best! Tonya is going to come over in lots of yellow and green and root for the wrong team. ;)

After that, we have to start getting things ready for the movers on Sunday. We're going to have them move the big furniture and the cable guy will be coming over on Sunday too so by that night we'll have all of the bare necessities like a bed and TiVo in the new place.

Life Update

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:47:53 GMT

Here's an update on what I've been up to for the last month or so.

Last Half of November

First up was Thanksgiving. We got together and Aaron and Tiff's place and had a wonderful Thanksgiving day and dinner with Aaron, Tiff, Dan, Heather, Steve and Tonya. We played Wii games and had a great time overall. On the last day of November we attended Mark and Mat's Holiday Party. I think this is my fourth time going and again, it was a blast. The food, company and music is always so much fun that it won't let you get away. :) I didn't leave until 5am!

First Half of December

The next day after Mark and Mat's party was the holiday party for the Core Operating Systems Division at Microsoft. Unfortunately, Bonnie woke up totally sick that day and was sick all the way until that evening. We partied hard the night before, but not hard enough to cause this so we don't know what was up. Anyway, she had to cancel her hair appointment and we ended up not going to the holiday party. Further fueling reasons not to go was that it snowed all that day and dealing with the roads to Seattle did not sound like fun. My co-workers that did go (not many) said that it was a very quiet party, but at least the food lines were short. *grin* When Bonnie was feeling better later that evening, we decided to go and grab some food at Red Robin. We almost considered driving, but one of our neighbors had just arrived home and said he barely made it up the hill and almost hit a tree on the way down. That didn't sound like fun so we decided we would just walk. We bundled up and started down the hill and had this great idea that it would be fun to go with Aaron and Tiff. We called them up and they were game. So, we headed down to the restaurant, throwing snowballs at eachother for a good portion of the walk. Dinner was good and so was the beer and we started walking back, again with snowballs flying. Once we got back to their place, we had a couple drinks. Tiff makes these amazing Fuzzy Navels that have blueberries and chopped up peaches in it that I just can't resist. It turned out to be such an awesome evening considering how the day had originally started.

The next week we went and saw Tori Amos at the Paramount. We went with Heather and had dinner and a couple drinks beforehand. As usual, another amazing evening by Tori. Bonnie has the setlist available on her blog.

The next weekend we went to Jeff and Erica's place for their holiday party. It was really great to see them again because it had been since May or something like that since we'd seen them. We played this game called "Nouns in a Bag" which was really fun. The idea is that everyone gets a few slips of paper and you write down any noun on it and then throw them all in the bag. Split up into two groups and then start passing the bag around. The person with the bag then starts pulling out nouns and gets to use any words they want (excluding the actual words, "sounds like", roots of the word, etc.) to describe the noun. When it's guessed by their team then they move on to the next one and this continues for one minute. Once it goes around to everyone then it starts again, but this time you only get one word to describe the noun and again one minute to get as many as possible. It's definitely very interesting to see the kinds of word associations that have been made by this point. The final round is like charades and lasts for one minute. After that you add everything up and get a winner. I liked how simple yet fun a game it was.

The weekend after that it was time for the Trubion holiday party. It was pretty evident how much their company had grown in just one year because it was the same venue, but it was hard to find a spot to sit whereas the year before it was not even close to being an issue. I met and re-met some people and overall had a really great time. I wish they would have kept the DJ so more people would've danced, but the band did provide a really good atmosphere for the party.

On my last day of work before going on vacation, I attended the ship party for Forefront Client Security Enterprise Manager, which was the last project I worked on before leaving the Forefront team. It was really cool to see that it all came together and shipped in the end and it was also nice to see my previous team members. We had lunch at a nice Italian place called Firenze at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue and boy was it tasty!

Topeka, Kansas

The next day, aquafemme and I shipped off to Kansas City, MO to visit my parents and sisters in Topeka, KS. Tonya was nice and took us to the airport. I hope she arrived to work on time since we were cutting it close. There was a severe winter storm warning in effect for that region that day so I was afraid our flight was going to be canceled. Instead, we were only delayed for about 45 minutes before they felt that the forecast indicated we would be able to land and we left Seattle. It was a nice, non-stop flight to MO and overall I have to say I really liked the airline (Midwest). We flew on Boeing 717s that have two first-class style seats on each side, they only take credit/debit for purchases (eliminating the issue with cash and correct change) and the give you two fresh chocolate chip cookies that are freakin' delicious. I was wondering how bumpy our landing in Kansas City was going to be considering it was blizzard-like conditions outside, but it was actually pretty smooth.

Although, that was just the beginning. :P Once we were on the tarmac, we sat there for an hour because there were no gates to park at due to all the canceled flights. I was talking to my dad on the phone and he was not able to make the drive from Topeka to Kansas City because it just wasn't safe (freezing winshield wipers and whiteout conditions). I found a nearby hotel and called them to book a room for the evening. I was able to find and call them due to the awesome Live Search Mobile. They had a shuttle so after doing the luggage wait (which also took a long time and was a zoo), we made it to the hotel. We went to the restaurant because we were starving and unfortunately the service was terrible. The poor waitress was the only one staffing the tables, but I think she had to clean the dishes, too.

The next day we didn't get to sleep in as much as we want because I wasn't very clear with my dad about when he should show up so he showed up at 8am all chipper saying he was ready to go. I think they were just excited to get us back to Topeka and hang out since we already missed out on an evening. Oh, and Missouri roads suck and Kansas roads are much better.

I had a really great time in Topeka, actually. I ran a couple miles which made me feel accomplished, got to have Christmas with my family, ate Sonic for the first time in a long time, saw Andy and Wendy whom I haven't seen in 10 years, sang karaoke (which was scary at times), played lots of Wii and poker, and ate delicious Mom-made dinners. We also visited the Oz Museum in Wamego, which was humorously lame. After that we visited a winery just outside Wamego and learned that they do not make good wine in Kansas. In fact, they make frighteningly terrible wine in Kansas.

When we arrived in Kansas City, we looked on the weather forecast and thought "well, at least it's going to be sunny when we leave." Unfortunately, by the time next Friday rolled around, there was a snow advisory in effect. Not as bad as when we arrived, but not pleasant, either. We awoke at 5am and left the house an hour later to give us two hours to arrive at the airport... and we took the full two hours. The roads had not been fully plowed yet and they were very scary. We saw someone get into a wreck right in front of us and we almost got hit in the middle of all of it. As expected, the Missouri roads were even worse. I was very glad when we finally arrived at the airport. I felt bad for my dad because he had to drive back in that crap to go to work. Fortunately, he got stuck behind the army of snow plows and it was daylight so it turned out to be not so bad after all.

Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Kansas City because we had to de-ice and the airport was short on staff. It was kinda funny because as the pilot was explaining the situation, he was kinda gossiping about people quitting the airport recently for various reasons and yadda yadda. In the end, aquafemme and I were not impressed with Missouri and were very happy once we lifted off the ground.

Back in Redmond and Moving

We got back and decompressed from the trip. Our cat was very happy to see us. Well, as happy as a cat can be to see a person, I suppose. We did find out some crappy news, though. Our apartment complex did not want to renew our lease because they want to remodel all the apartments by the end of '08 and so they were going to have us pay month-to-month through 2008. We talked to them and while they weren't super duper helpful, they did work with us on some things and in the end we decided that the best thing was to stay in one of their newly-remodeled apartments in the same complex. So, on the 12th, we will be starting our move just a little further down the hill into another apartment. Of course, our rent is going up a fair amount and that's not super cool, but it turns out that rents around this area have gone up a lot in the recent years and we weren't going to find a cheaper place, let alone one that was just newly-remodeled and very nice. Also, we got an apartment with the same layout and same part of the building so it won't be too much of a shock. We hung out with Dan and Layla on the day we were figuring all of this out. Layla made a really delicious lunch and we played lots of Big Brain Academy on the Wii. Super fun. It's too bad we had to leave after only a couple hours because we were having lots of fun. Layla even made us Christmas-themed enchiladas to take home! They have red and green chile. Mmmmm... I can't wait to crack into that!

New Year's

This year we did the same as last year and rented a room at the Alexis in downtown Seattle to spend New Year's Eve with Tonya, Heather and Steve. We showed up at Fado around 7pm and found a really nice seat. We played cards, had drinks, drank (free!) champagne at midnight and even danced a few songs. We left there a little before 1am and headed over to Highway 99 to see what my friend Todd was up to. At this point, Heather and Steve skipped out because Heather's voice disappeared and she had been up since something like 3am. On the way I had a really tasty polish sausage from one of the hot dog stands. Holy crap, was it hot, though. It was one of the hottest things I've ever eaten. Evidently in my drunken state, I couldn't stop talking about how freakin' hot this thing was and then proceeded to offer bites to everyone several times in a row. We found Todd and his party and blabbed until the place closed down. We then headed back to the hotel and crashed out.

The next day I felt waaaaay better than I did one year ago so that was good. We ate some breakfast at a restaurant across the street from the Alexis and then jumped on the bus to head back to the eastside.

Finally...

I am caught up to the present. I'm back at work and tonight Aaron and Tiff are going to come by and have some Halibut with us. They are also moving at the end of this month because they bought a house. I'm hoping we'll be able to help them move considering we'll be moving, too, but I have a feeling theirs will be more involved so there will be plenty of opportunity.

I am coming up on my 5 year anniversary at Microsoft and I'm feeling really good about it. I love my new team and I'm moving into a window office! Things are looking up for us so here's to a great 2008!

Blondies

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:28:45 GMT

Recently, aquafemme and I were watching an episode of Throwdown! with Bobby Flay. The show follows Bobby Flay on his "secret mission" of finding the cooks that make the best dishes and then challenging them at that same dish. I like the idea of the show and we enjoy watching it. This episode was on "blondies". A blondie is simply a brownie that was made with a brown sugar and/or peanut butter base vs. a chocolate base. His mission this time took him to Ohio where he challenged the flamboyant duo from Sugardaddy's Sumptuous Sweeties.

After Bobby Flay got his ass handed to him, Bonnie and I were wondering how these blondies really taste since we'd never had one before and Bobby Flay lost so badly. So, we visited the website and ordered their package of six, with two of them being their famous Tahiti. They only ship overnight (which means the shipping was about as much as the product) and we received them on Tuesday. Wednesday morning we tried the Tahiti with a cup of coffee and I have to say it was probably the best brownie or blondie or anything like it that I've ever tasted. It had a sweetness to it, but because it wasn't chocolate based, it didn't seem too rich. The cashews on top went so well with the overall taste and I love cashews so it was just awesome. Today I tried their auburn original and even though it's a bit rich for my taste (probably because of the intense chocolate), it was still really delicious with a cup of coffee.

So, I would say that if you're looking for a super-fancy treat for you or someone else, and you can stomach the shipping costs associated with an order, I would highly recommend their Tahiti blondie. I'm excited to try the rest. I think we still have the Harvest (which I believe has pumpkin), Nutty and Dark Berry to try.

Quick life summary

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:53:16 GMT

So, I haven't really posted to this in quite some time so I thought I'd do a quick summary of what I've been up to. In July, aquafemme and I went to Cordova, Alaska around the 4th and visited with family I have not seen in quite some time. (Bonnie's summary).

In August, I attended BlackHat USA 2007 and Defcon 15. What a blast! I met some cool people, saw some nifty talks, learned a lot about hacking wireless networks :) and got to see friends (like chamewco) that I have not seen in quite a while. I was in Las Vegas for a whole week, though, and was super worn out when I got back. In the middle of August, Bonnie's good friend Amy and her fiancée Rob came up to visit. We both took the whole week off work and did so much stuff. It really was a great time. (Bonnie's summary).

At the very beginning of September, Bonnie and I went down to Ft. Columbia (on the Washington side of the Columbia River close to Astoria, OR) with Aaron and Tiff. What a relaxing and fun time this was! We did things like the Goonies tour (Goonies is one of my favorite movies, btw), played on the beach, had some drinks (of course) and went Go Karting! Again, Bonnie has a good summary of the events that weekend. We also went and saw Muse and Juliette & The Licks at Key Arena. Another great concert by Muse! Bonnie has the setlist on her blog. We also bought a whole new bedroom set that is arriving this weekend!

The big news for October is that I have started working on a new team. Last week I started in the Windows Security org working on the smartcard dev team. I still have a good amount of ramp-up to do, but I'm really excited to get started on the upcoming spiffy stuff for the next version of Windows.