Family
Christian’s Art debuts at Rockefeller Center
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 | Family, Seasonal | 0 Comments
Congrats to my nephew, Christian, whose art made it to the big city! When we were in Texas last week for our Holiday celebrations I showed Christian the photograph I have on my phone of the Rockefeller Center tree and he was pretty impressed. Krista told me that he was telling her about it as she was tucking him in that night. That’s when I knew he should be a contributor to the art displays at Rock Center.
So I requested he whip up a sweet little drawing that we could showcase at Rockefeller Center. Thanks to Ness for getting his art put on this Christmas display right next to the elevators that take her to work. Enjoy!
Why Not Write?
Monday, March 23rd, 2009 | Family, Writing | 0 Comments
Sheila holds Ollie, her creation
A few weeks back, Justin and I were in Brooklyn for an innocent night of TV watching with fellow entertainment addicts. One of the gals there suggested I attempt to write for the Examiner website. Her friend was doing it and, apparently, it’s something you can get paid for. Being in dire need of income, I decided to give it a shot. After applying for an “adventure travel examiner” position, I received the “outdoor examiner” slot. Apparently they’re still waiting for their adventure writer to get started, but outdoors is …sort of… …almost… the same. At any rate, I’ve already earned a whole dollar so far!:D
OK, obviously this is not going to be about the money. But why not write? Why not have something positive to focus on that I love doing and a quasi-justifiable reason for doing it? That’s the way I am looking at this endeavor. So far, I have written one article on ice climbing in the Catskills and another on vacationing in Rincon, Puerto Rico. More will surely follow. Check out my New York Outdoor Examiner page and click my bio to expand that section! :)
Table of amuse-bouches and finger sandwiches
In other news, my cousin Sheila’s baby shower was onthe 14th. Val! and I helped Mom get ready for it, as did lots of other family members (notably Sha Sha, Linda and Leanne). Val! wanted to make some amuse-bouches for the party. I was her sous chef. Everything went off remarkably well! Check out my photos here, Val!’s here, and Sheila’s here.
Gruyere, Giger, Gstaad and Gore
Monday, February 9th, 2009 | Family, Friends, Travel | 0 Comments
Our day started out very pleasantly. We woke up around 10 AM and Big P showed us some pix he took in Ireland and Scotland. He is a very good photographer, but on top of that is just a great artist in general. He makes beautiful sketches, cool sculptures, and frames his art in seriously awesome ways. He has one portrait on his office wall that I especially like. I’ll try to remember to link to it, as Val! took a photo of it the other day. We had breakfast – cereal and a variety of cheese – how Swiss (well, the cheese part) and head out. We went on a drive with Big P and his brother, Roger. They took us to this mountain called Jaun which is nearby and really high (1508 meters). Big P said it’s more of a hill. Hmmm…
We stopped at a chocolate factory, but it was closed. Our luck improved quickly, though, as we went to a cheese factory in GRUYERE where they make GRUYERE!!! It was open and Roger bought tours for all of us – super rad! We learned a lot about how cheese is made. For instance, cow’s stomach is added to milk to induce coagulation. I am so going to love sharing that fact with vegetarians. MUAHAHA! We also learned that a wheel of cheese weighs about 77 lbs and spends 29 hours inside a salt bath (20% salt to water) before being stored to age. Once stored, it has to be brushed regularly with a salt water mixture. We actually saw machines automating this process. Very interesting!!! Then Big P and his brother picked out some chocolate to purchase and we got to sample it. Callister (or something similar) is the name of the manufacturer. I believe it’s the same company as Nestle. Tasty stuff! Val! still holds that Lindt is better. This may require a direct taste comparison!
We continued on to a small, touristy village. It was beautiful and set atop a mountain that afforded gorgeous views. Then again, right out Big P’s windows are some amazingly stunning views that we Americans would surely pay millions for. In this village was none other than the H. R. Giger Museum, where Val! and I were headed 5 yrs ago during our Golden Pass debacle. hahaha Big P actually came to the museum a couple of years after we met because he was curious about what we were so interested in. Well, anyone that’s familiar with Giger at all knows he worked on Alien and Species. They also know he was an absolute pervert, including all sorts of orifices, penetration, and profane positions in his artwork. I typically find it annoying, but after room after room of the gigantic pieces, I felt a little turned on myself. Where is a sexy robotic alien when you need one? Sheesh. I bought a couple of postcards of one painting that caught my eye – one I intend Justin and I to keep and the other is for Mike (since he loves Giger).
We hit the Giger cafe/bar next door upon exiting the museum. It is all decked out in Alien/Giger decor. Very cool. And yes, we took lots of pics of everything, even though neither of our cameras seem to want to hold on to a charge. At the cafe, we had coffee and tried one of their local specialties – meringue… they are crunchy. We call them meringue kisses in the states. I know this because I have baked them before, but I think they are rarely made or served. In Switzerland they are served with thick cream that isn’t sweet at all. It definitely doesn’t need to be given the sweetness of the meringue. In short, it is really good together!
On our way back toward Big P’s place, we stopped at this small fondue restaurant on the side of a mountain that is in the French speaking area of Switzerland (as is Gruyere). Roger knows the daughter of the owners’ because they play in a band together. It’s a brass band. Roger plays percussion and is absolutely passionate about it. Both Big P and Roger are such interesting and nice fellows. The fondue was delicious. (They only eat it with bread, for the most part, and that’s how we had it tonight.) We also had a carafe of house white wine to share amongst us. Roger ordered a small bit of Schnapps and said it is customary to sometimes dip your bread in the Schnapps then in the fondue. Val! and I both tried it, but it was overwhelming for us! At some point, Roger snuck off and paid for our dinner, which was SO nice. Switzerland is a pricey country, especially when it comes to fondue! Now they DEFINITELY have to come to America (read: Texas) so we can take them out!
We drove to Gstaad and saw a huge Christmas tree decorated with beautiful white lights and a “Palace” hotel. Apparently Gstaad is really famous for being a place celebrities go (Liz Taylor, Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton, etc.). Switzerland has strict rules about how your houses can look and how you can decorate. Big P told us that houses were only allowed to have white lights that outlined the trip of the house… or something. Roger dropped us off at Big P’s and bid farewell. We already made plans to try a “Tex Mex” restaurant in a nearby town on Monday night. :)
Val! and I showed Big P some San Antonio pix and talked about the different ways you can order food and drinks in Switzerland vs the USA.Big P has to work at 7:30 so he went to bed around midnight. Shortly thereafter, Val! was preparing for bed and I got her some Nyquil pills but couldn’t tear them open. She said she would handle it and went into the kitchen. I didn’t pay much attention, but she evidently tried to cut the packet open with a knife and ended up cutting her finger pretty badly. I heard her gasp and then put her finger under the water start saying, “No. This is bad. This is bad.” It reminded me of when I fell and hurt my leg at Kaaterskill Falls and knew right away it was bad and would require stitches
I had to wake up Big P while Val! ran to the bathroom to try to stop the bleeding. After helping Val! put jeans on, Big P drove us to the hospital where Val! had to get 3 stitches in her finger. The hospital was dark inside so Big P picked up a phone on the wall. A nurse quickly came and let us in, turning on lights as she went. After checking Val!’s blood pressure and other vitals, she looked at the wound and called the doctor. The cut was deep and you could see the yucky fat stuff like i had on my leg. It was scary, but the doctor was a nice young lady that spoke English. She also listened to Val!’s lungs and said her bronchitis is gone!!!! yay!!! She told Val she would try to give her a good deal on the ER visit because Val doesn’t have insurance. She also gave her some pain meds for free.
Now we are back at Big P’s and both he and Val! are in bed. I am on my way to join them! Good night! :)
Concluding Australia
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 | Family, Travel | 0 Comments
Related Australia Posts:
5 Days in Melbourne | Sydney and the Blue Mountains
First Day in Sydney | Planning an Australia Adventure
Sorry we were such unreliable updaters while we were gone. The truth of the matter is, internet ain’t free (anywhere really, but especially in Australia). Most of the places we stayed didn’t have wifi and many didn’t offer LAN connections in the room. We were lucky enough to pay almost $100 at one place for 3 days worth of internet access. That’s the last time we updated. I am sure you understand! ;)
We were lucky enough to make it to the Yarra Valley and taste some incredible wines. We returned with 9 bottles! It would’ve probably been ten, but we had to remove one due to weight restrictions when flying out of Tasmania. No big deal – it seemed to make the gate agent’s day a lot better to have a free bottle of wine. We did buy three bottles of one fun fizzy sweet wine to share with friends when people come over to be bored to tears by our photos. Wee! So yeah, the Yarra Valley was beautiful, fun, and tasty! It definitely seems like a cool place to spend the weekend as many of the wineries have weekend events and concerts. One winery we visited had a band shell that can accommodate 10,000 people. Whoa! The show that was supposed to happen the Friday before we arrived was canceled due to weather; it was John Cougar Mellencamp. Crazy!
After the Yarra Valley we drove down the Great Ocean Road. We’d planned to head out on the Great Ocean Road first, and the Yarra Valley the next day, but sadly, in the night a truck driver perished on the road outside of Geelong – his truck completely incinerated, flames scarring the hillside opposite where it caught fire. The Great Ocean Road was closed for the whole morning. That evening we drove through the accident site – everything was pitch black for 20 feet in all directions. The view from where the fellow died, well, it could’ve been a lot worse. The area around there was stunning. Actually, many spots on the road were panoramically perfect.
(That evening was saw a cute light house and beautiful coastline at sunset. We continued the drive to the area where the 12 Apostles rock formation was located, arriving sometime around 11 PM. We rolled down our seats (yeah, they were the crank kind – grr) and slept fitfully in the car, having to turn the engine on intermittently when the cold woke us up. I am pretty sure I was able to spot the Southern Cross – though in that middle-of-nowhere darkness, there was so many stars vying for attention it’s tough to be certain. We were out of the car by 6:30 AM and on our way to photograph the 12 Apostles at sunrise.
So. Beautiful. *sigh*
We drove back along the Great Ocean Road, stopping for breakfast at a cute place in Apollo Bay that occupied the second story of a builing along the main street. It afforded amazing views of the curving bay outside. In a parking lot across the street, a man practiced tricks on his bike for over an hour! He was quite good and I had a rather enjoyable time trying to capture his stunts in photos. They don’t do it justice though. You really need to see the motion for something like that – especially when it was choreographed like a beautiful dance. See, I can appreciate art in some forms! :)
We secured a room in Melbourne, quickly showered, and set out again for Phillip “penguin” Island. After hearing the different ‘penguin encounters’ you could have at the mega-commercial research and preservation facility, we opted for one of the more private and ‘authentic’ options. Instead of sitting in bleachers on a beach lit up by floodlights with hundreds of other people and lots of screaming kids, we opted to go with a ranger and 4 other people in wind and water proof suits (thankfully provided by the company as it did start raining) to the opposite site of the penninsula (the ranger pronounced it peninshoola) and sit on a dark beach with night vision goggles clutched to our faces and watch little penguins clamber to the dunes. We then followed some of these penguins along the road back to the facility; many of them have their homes in burrows there. They were cute, but the best part was how happy Justin was to see the penguins coming up the beach. He kept pointing them out to me. I really never see him that excited so it was well worth the drive, cold, and cash.
The next morning, we flew to Tasmania! The flight in alone was breathtaking. The water was so clear you could see straight through it down to the rocks below from 1,000+ feet in the air. The ocean presented myriad shades of blue from the palest sandiest blue to deep sapphire. The island itself had a mountaineous green landscape remniscient of the Carribbean. The small towns we glimpsed while flying in were subtley colorful and absolutely adorable. We both liked Tasmania immediately. It didn’t hurt that we lucked out and stayed at a really nice, comfortable hotel right across from a lovely little harbor. The day we arrived we were pretty beat from all our going so we just took it easy. I got my haircut, Justin got a massage, and we both napped before getting ready for a night on the town. Justin surprised me by ordering a “Taste of Tasmania” from room service which included a selection of Tasmanian cheese and a bottle of wine. After this, we had a good dinner at an Indian restaurant in an area of town known as Salamanca. Search for a dance spot mentioned in the Fodor’s guide led us to a pub where music by the Smiths flowed softly out. We ducked inside. It turned out to be a cozy joint with a roaring fire. The bar tender, a really pretty gal with freckles, informed me that the club (upstairs) was no longer opened on Wednesday nights. Oh well. We got into a conversation about travel in which she told me she’d just returned from a year in Central America. She flew in to Costa Rica and traveled around – starting out by herself and making some friends along the way. Her boyfriend came and spent the last four months with her. She quite enjoyed her time there and even went to Nicaragua. And no, she doesn’t speak any Spanish whatsoever. I was a bit envious of her guts and lengthy journey. She seemed like a cool chick. Upon leaving this pub, we found a bar serving mixed drinks that had a DJ, but also no dancing. We weren’t here for too long before calling it a night.
The following day, Justin and I were bound for Port Arthur, a penal settlement from the 1800s. Along the way, we stopped to take some photos and then at a Tasmanian Devil (and other wildlife) park. Wee!!! We saw several adorable devils walking around in their enclosures, foraging for food, taking a dip in the water, and basking in the sunlight. They’re SO adorable. We also fed more kangaroos. These were also lazy and lethargic, but not as bad as the others. It was a much more enjoyable experience. We ended up being there for quite a while, so our visit to Port Arthur literally consisted of glimpsing it and leaving with out paying the $20/pp entry fee. You see, we had to make it to Kettering in time to catch the 6:30 ferry to Bruny Island. We stopped to photograph more cool Ocean rock formations on the way back home – the neatest of which was the tessellated pavement. Weird stuff!
We arrived at the ferry landing at 6:15 – phew! – crossed to Bruny Island, seeking out food, and then proceeding to the main attraction. Why did we go to this incredibly remote island off the already somewhat remote island of Tasmania (I mean, come on, only 500,000 people live on the entire island of Tasmania!)? To see penguins in the wild!!! Well, they were sort of in the wild, if you consider a boardwalk through their burrows “the wild.” It was ultra cool and we were able to take photos because no one was there to tell us not to (yes, I realize I sound like a bratty little kid by saying that). Oddly enough, there were also 6 other people viewing the penguins with us this time, but I felt like we were all much more intrepid than the viewers at the last penguin outing. On the way to our lodging that night (we were stuck on Bruny Island due to the fact that the last ferry leaves at 7PM), we saw lots of penguins and marsupials including kangaroos/wallabies and two brushtail possums! Man, it seems like all those weird Australian critters ar marsupials. In our room, there was a small fireplace that we got going and sat around talking about the day and trying to stay warm before turning in for the night under electric blankets. This trip was much chillier than we had anticipated!
The next day it was rainy on Bruny Island, which dashed our hiking plans, so we head out first thing back to the main land, visiting Australia’s Antarctic Headquarters, the Cadbury factory, and a winery before returning to the airport for our flight out. That night we arrived out our hotel in Sydney at midnight – argh! We’d been hoping to fit in one more night out, but it was not to be. A line of Japanese people with some Caucasians mixed in snaked out the door of the hotel when we arrived. Apparently a Qantas flight to Narita had been canceled and many of the passengers had been put up at our hotel. As a result, our room had been upgraded to a gigantic executive suite. After checking in, Justin and I tried to order room service but were told it would be over an hour before food would arrive. We gave up and walked to a nearby 7-11, grabbing soup, a slushy, a meatpie (I think is what Justin got) and chips before heading back to the hotel and watching their incredibly informative news program. We passed out shortly thereafter.
Our flight back to the US the next day was at noon. It was pretty full so we weren’t sure we would make it on. We did but our seats were on opposite sides of the aircraft. Thanks to tons of luck, some passengers were not feeling too well and deplaned, so the flight attendants were able to put Justin and I together – in two middle seats in the middle of the plane. It was worth it.
We opted out of the second leg on our Qantas flight from LAX to JFK and took a shuttle over to Long Beach to fly to Austin. Mom and Dad picked us up – the puppies were with them. It was a really nice reunion and we got bubble tea from a delicious place in Austin before heading back the Mom & Dad’s house and forcing them to sit through photos. Luckily, Sheila and Sharlin had been visiting Nanny and all three came down for a little while. We watched a video of Brennan, Sheila’s baby -er- fetus (no longer dubbed Peanut). It looked like a freaky skeleton baby with a beating heart. Yikes! Good to hear the development is going well, though. Mom, Dad, Justin and I continued to my favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner that night (Tomatillos) where I had one too many margartias (2) and that was that. The next day we flew back home to a COLD NYC night.
4th Anniversary – Roundtrip to Polanda via Vienna
Saturday, October 11th, 2008 | Adventure, Family, Photography, Travel | 0 Comments
Justin and Vanessa at Castle Wawel in Krakow - Vistula River flowing past
As some of you already know, Justin surprised me with a trip to Poland for our fourth anniversary. While we did things tourists are typically expected to do, such as visiting Castle Wawel and snapping photos in Rynek Glowny (the grand square) in Krakow, and strolling through Stephansplatz and along the Danube Canal in Vienna, the primariy purpose of our visit was so that I could experience, first hand, the land of my ancestors.
For a time I’ve been working on a family website based on research my great aunt,
Justin at St. Stephen's Cathedral - Stephansplatz, Vienna, Austria
Vanessa in St. Jacobus in Nysa, Poland
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