Travel

Away

A couple weeks ago I spent a night away from home (ekbo was there so I have a witness). A few ladies got together and went to the peninsula for a Twilight tour, which probably wouldn’t have been my first choice for a pleasure weekend since I grew up on the peninsula (and hello? no spa?) but the fact that others were organizing made it a great excuse to get away. We went down to Forks and LaPush, ate dinner at Bella Italia and tootled around PA on Sunday morning. It was fun to let ourselves be taken in just a little bit by the cheesiness of it all but still have our moments of self mockery for the object of our trip.

More momentously, it was my first night or significant amount of time spent away from my son. A lot of people I know have already given this a whirl by the time their child is almost two but I also know a lot of people who haven’t. It was definitely surreal in so many ways. I had a great time not adhering to a strict eating, sleeping, setting aside time to play schedule. I enjoyed having uninterrupted conversations with people that are interesting and cool. I really savored eating dinner at my own pace. When you spend most of your waking hours with someone else though it’s pretty noticeable when he’s not there. The first thing I thought of when we were on the ferry was how much he would have enjoyed seeing the boats…when we got to our rooms at the bed and breakfast there were these little cubby areas that he’d have loved playing in…my first inclination when seeing a huge bald eagle flying from a tree was to turn to him and point it out. I didn’t sleep well at all but I’m sure that had more to do with Slanky not being there than Jonah (and shouldn’t it be some sort of crime to not sleep well then you actually have the chance to truly sleep in? it doesn’t make any sense!). And I think they did just fine without me. In fact I couldn’t even tell whether Jonah was more happy to see me or my mom, who was also gone all weekend. So it goes.

If given the chance, I’d do another night away, though in a few months it would be a lot more complicated by the whole breastfeeding thing and the guilt of leaving someone else at home with TWO kids. Maybe at a certain point my urge to get away would far outweigh any sense of guilt or responsibility or fear of missing them that I might have once had! That remains to be seen.

La Push. Where the vampires don't go.

La Push. Where the vampires don't go.

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Publish date:
November 24th, 2009
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Crazy Sequim

Ahh, Sequim (pronounced “skwim” as you probably know). The place I love to hate. Well, thus far I love to hate Sunland, the housing community where my dad lives. You talk to them individually, the people are nice, but there’s the eerie cul-de-sacs where all the houses look exactly the same and you never see any sign of life. And the owners association’s hand-wringing about people leaving their garage doors open or the latest sightings of teenagers who look like they’re up to no good.

Anyway, the old adage of retirees with way too much time on their hands can be comically true in Sunland and, apparently, elsewhere in Sequim:

Purple home has neighbors seeing red

I’m assuming it’s not Sunland only because I’m sure such unseemliness would have never been allowed in the first place and, if by chance it did, my email would be jammed with all-hands alerts from the owners association on how to best respond to this menace.

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Publish date:
April 13th, 2009
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polvorons

one of the hardest things for me about traveling with three small children is not being able to go out to restaurants. on our recent trip to spain there were so many cool restaurants i wanted to go to, but couldn’t. i suppose that’s technically not true. we could have gone to restaurants. but the probability of misery at restaurants is high, especially when the hours are funky, the focus is on quality not speed, and the children are already on the cranky side from spending the entire day being culturally enriched at museums, cathedrals, and the like.

however, as most of you know from pat’s blog we still managed to try some spanish gastronomic delights. this somewhat, though not completely, made up for eating more oscar meyer hot dogs in five days than we had in the past two years. we bought a few (perhaps i use that term a tad loosely, haha) cheeses, some chocolates, world class ham and….drumroll…polvorons.
polvorons

these cookies, which are a traditional spanish christmas cookie, were divine! the flavor was fairly mild, though rich, and the texture was quite crumbly. a bit like a shortbread cookie, only much more tender. the cookies practically melt in your mouth without really having to chew. so dangerous! they are made primarily with lard, sugar, eggs, and some sort of ground up nut. i’m not sure if it’s almonds or hazlenuts. the word on the ingredient list was ametlla torrada, which i can’t find a translation for. but from doing an internet search on polvorons i’m guessing it must be one of the nuts i mentioned.

i need to experiment a bit and try to make my own. i think this russian tea cake recipe will be a good starting point, though sadly it will probably be a while before i get the energy to try it. perhaps next christmas.

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January 5th, 2009
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Thanksgiving on the Peninsula oh and some stuff about “Twilight”

Before going to PA for Thanksgiving Eve, Sara, Amy (oh and Sara’s friend Karin) went to see “Twilight” the movie. It was what it was – definitely much better than my expectations. I just watched it again this weekend with my mom and I liked it even better the second time around.  I think it helped to have moved beyond not accepting that the casting didn’t live up to my mind’s eye of the book characters.   I really liked the style of the filming and the color palette.  They definitely weren’t going for a Disney-like full color quality.  Of course they adjusted the plot points a bit but overall they stayed surprisingly close to the book.  Robert Pattinson, as Edward, was in fact pretty yummy but we caught a couple minutes of of him as Cedric in “The Goblet of Fire” on tv last night and he looks much better w/out white face paint and lipstick.  Too bad he dies in that one.

The baseball scene turned out really cool and the end credits really rocked.  Those were my favorite parts.  Sadly none of it was actually filmed in Forks or PA. Which was a bummer.  Forks the movie town was a cute little borough, definitely wet, but still cute which isn’t the real Forks, and the high school was this classic multi-story number you’d see, well I don’t know where you’d see it but not in Forks.  My mom even started laughing at that first shot of the school (and so did Amy and I the first time around). The brief scene in PA wasn’t at all like PA either.

Our PA (the REAL place) Thanksgiving was great as usual. 17 people counting Mr. Jonah-cakes who enjoyed his cauliflower and cheerios.

Bella Italia: The sign lets you know about Bella & Edward's First Date.

Bella Italia: The sign lets you know about Bella & Edward

On Saturday Slanky and I ditched the kid and went out to dinner and a movie. We decided to try Bella Italia because we’ve never been there. You “Twilight” fans will note its reference in the book. We told ourselves we definitely weren’t going there because of the book but I think we were a little curious as to how much they’d play it up. The Peninsula in general has benefited a lot from the Meyer-mania. You can read about that here.  My mom told us that there were some block-wide celebrations happening at all the businesses down town next to the theater showing “Twilight” when it first opened and we saw this display at a clothing store a couple storefronts down from Bella Italia.

Vampire-like clothes? Not sure. The apples in the display are a nice touch.

Vampire-like clothes? Not sure. The apples in the display are a nice touch.


Apple in display

Apple in display


Dinner at Bella Italia far exceeded our expectations (Is this starting to sound familiar? I think at this point I should just stop having expectations because I’ve been wrong so many times lately!).  We started with a calamari appi (sautéed with olives, artichokes, tomatoes & roasted garlic on polenta) and it was perfect.  The sauce was good, calamari was fresh and cooked well, the artichokes worked surprisingly well and the olives and garlic didn’t overpower anything.  We wiped down the plate with our leftover bread. It was that good. We also shared a small Caesar salad and the croutons were house-made – crunchy on the outside with a little bit of buttery chewiness on the inside, totally good. Slanky had a mushroom ravioli (which I pointed out to him, was what “Bella” had, he didn’t remember) and I had a smoked salmon fettuccini.  I think Slanky enjoyed his and mine was great too.  I’ve had better versions of this dish in the past (my personal preference is with no tomatoes but this version had them) but this was nothing to complain about.  The salmon was locally smoked and delicious and they did not skimp on it.  The dish was so big that I took half of it home.   We had a good white wine but I can’t remember what that was.  Later we headed to the movie.  We saw “Quantum of Solace” which sucked.  I could say more about that but I won’t.  In hindsight I should have forced Slanky to see “Twilight” instead.

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Publish date:
December 8th, 2008
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Roses in town

Where oh where is the Dahlia J these days? Under a rock somewhere? NO! Have things to say! Even about politics! Have been busy! Ahem, back to the original intent of my post…

We here in Seattle had a visit from our very own mychellita and there’s even a rumor that she’s looking for jobs here! Which, I might add, is a hint that should be taken seriously by others who contribute to this blog and are living far away. Because living far away sucks. Even if it’s better away where politics don’t suck. Like they do here right now. Anyway. Picture! To distract you!

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Coffee on a sunny afternoon! Isn’t it lovely? Now why wouldn’t anyone want to live here?

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Publish date:
September 16th, 2008
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Amtrak

I’ve heard horror stories about Amtrak in the past, but I still find the following paragraph hard to believe.  I guess it is more or less run by the governement, so it is possible. 

To keep to their published timetables, trains cannot leave a station before the scheduled time. So, when the clocks fall back one hour in October, all Amtrak trains in the U.S. that are running on time stop at 2:00 a.m. and wait one hour before resuming. Overnight passengers are often surprised to find their train at a dead stop and their travel time an hour longer than expected. At the spring Daylight Saving Time change, trains instantaneously become an hour behind schedule at 2:00 a.m., but they just keep going and do their best to make up the time.

It still amazes me that the US is so different than the rest of the world when it comes to train travel.

p.s. I added a train category because every blog needs to have one.

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Publish date:
September 1st, 2008
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Foraging

We just got back on Tuesday from a trip to PA. Having a baby has definitely changed our style of vacationing! The Peninsula seems so much further than it ever used to feel. Ok, perhaps that’s because we need to pack like we’re wintering in Juno but anyway… I digress.

We had a lovely time seeing the Wendels out at the lake even though the weather wasn’t as sunny as we’d hoped it would be. Slanky went skiing but I only touched the water to confirm there was no way I was getting in.

We also did a little hanging out with the family. My mom and grandma’s house sits on a couple acres of wooded land and so I returned to a favorite childhood hobby of mine-foraging. Naturally, in the city it’s a little hard to find great berry patches but out there was a gold mine. My mom and I took a little trip around the property and we found black caps (zillions of bushes, most weren’t ripe yet), huckleberries (which she kept referring to as currants), black berries and salmon berries (elusive, usually those are better found deeper in wooded areas or at least around taller trees than where we were). I also saw one thimble berry bush but none of the berries were ripe yet. Here’s our bounty after just a little while.
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My mom was very impressive. She’d tromp through a bunch of sticker bushes just to get at a few ripe berries. On our way back Slanky and Mr J met up with us and got to pick a few berries too.
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It was only berry picking but something about it, something I can’t quite put into words, made me really happy and perhaps a little sad in some small way. I felt pretty nostalgic as we were winding around in the wooded areas… an activity that I took for granted in my early childhood and it isn’t something that my children will really get to experience the way I did. Ok, enough with the heavy stuff.

We got the berries back to the house and experimented with making a pie out of them. It mostly tasted like blackberry but it was still a fun experiment. I think I’d like to try just salmon berries or just black caps. We had leftover dough so we decided to make a turnover with some strawberries that were grown by my grandma’s friend. My mom and Grandma were skeptical but allowed me to experiment so I made a balsamic strawberry one. I used about a tablespoon of vinegar and you could just taste a hint. I’d use more next time to bring out the flavor.

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Anyway. It was a satisfying result to tromping in the woods with my mom. I’m thinking about persuading her to bring more black caps with her next time she comes but I know her adventures wouldn’t be as fun solo. But damn, those berries were good!

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August 5th, 2008
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no, no, NO!!!!

rowan has a fever today and has been absolutely pathetic.

we are supposed to leave for ireland on thursday.

what do you think the chances are that we all catch whatever he has and it runs it’s course before thursday?

dang it.

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Publish date:
July 5th, 2008
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4 Comments

Serving all of your European travel needs

Fly naked on nudist holiday flight
Reuters, updated 8:02 a.m. PT, Tues., Jan. 29, 2008

FRANKFURT – German nudists will be able to start their holidays early by stripping off on the plane if they take up a new offer from an eastern German travel firm.

Travel agency OssiUrlaub.de said it would start taking bookings from Friday for a trial nudist day trip from the eastern German town of Erfurt to the popular Baltic Sea resort of Usedom, planned for July 5 and costing 499 euros ($735).

“It’s expensive, I know,” managing director Enrico Hess told Reuters by phone. “It’s because the plane’s very small. There’s no real reason why a flight in which one flies naked should be more expensive than any other.”

The 55 passengers will have to remain clothed until they board, and dress before disembarking, said Hess. The crew will remain clothed throughout the flight for safety reasons.

“I wish I could say we thought of it ourselves but the idea came from a customer,” Hess told Reuters by phone. “It’s an unusual gap in the market.”

Naturism, or “free body culture” (FKK) as it is known in Germany, was banned by the Nazis but blossomed again after the Second World War, particularly in eastern Germany.

“There are FKK hotels where you can go into the restaurants and shops naked, for example,” Hess said. “For FKK fans — not that I’m one of them — it’s nothing unusual.”

“I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. It’s not that we’re starting a swinger club in mid-air or something like that,” he added. “We’re a perfectly normal holiday company.”

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Publish date:
January 29th, 2008
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Bend Highlights

Here are a few highlights from our time in Bend so far:

  • Rowan gets up at 1AM and won’t go back to sleep.
  • Niamh is terrified of Una, Skipper, and Elwood.  Yesterday Niamh and the dogs took turns being locked up in a bedroom.  We found one of our baby gates and will block the dogs in the kitchen today
  • Rowan and I watched/enjoyed Ice Age
  • Niamh ate cat litter (and not the clean variety)
  • I may have broken part of the hot tub.  I hope it is still under warranty
  • Elwood (cat) urinated in the back bedroom  some time ago and it smells horrible.  The Winchells put all sorts of chemicals on it, but it doesn’t seem to have helped.
  • The Daigles have threatened not to come since they don’t want to stay in a smelly room.
  • Part of the carpet in the back bedroom has now been removed
  • Multiple people were in tears yesterday

Stay tuned….I’m sure things will really get exciting on Thursday when the Kershners arrive and Friday when the Daigles arrive.

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November 13th, 2007
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