Our week in Boston was a lot of fun. It was definitely the break we needed. We didn’t have a lot of downtime because we were busy hanging out with friends and family. Although it was hard to be back at work on Monday morning, I did feel refreshed.
My high school friends Kelly and Linette, and Kelly’s friend Joni, met up with us in Boston. It was fun to have Bostonian visitors around because we ended up doing a lot of the touristy stuff ourselves.
I think the highlight of our trip was Tuesday. We started off the day with a tour of the Christian Science Church. For those of you who have never been to Boston, the Christian Science Church grounds take up a huge city block. The tour was mostly an excuse for me to use the toilet. Our tour guide was an extremely friendly old lady who started off by saying that the Christian Science religion is not Scientology. They never explained that. There was actually a point in time when we were supposedly finished with our tour and were moving towards the exit down a narrow stairwell behind the altar when I wondered if perhaps a couple of us should have stayed back just in case. Fortunately we all made it out of there alive and non-converts.
The next tour was at the Berklee School of Music. The husband and I skipped out of this tour since our only excuse at music is that I listen to it and he sings in the shower. I promised I would bring my kid back in 18 years but I lied because my baby is going to be a superathlete.
In the evening, we went to a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance of Previn, Stravinsky, and Beethoven. I was wary of the Previn piece since it’s a modern piece, but it was actually pretty good. The best description I can think of is that it was organic and it reminded me of nature. I guess that makes sense since it was titled Owls. The baby liked Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto the best, especially the 4th movement. And the Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 was ok. I prefer Beethoven’s more common pieces.
After the symphony we moved on to Wally’s Cafe, a hole-in-the-wall jazz club a few blocks away. It was loud but the music was really great. We only stayed about 1 hour, since that’s the exposure limit to loud music that the baby should have.
So we moved on to Jacque’s Cabaret Drag Karaoke. The husband knew of the place – how, I don’t know. But it was loads of fun. We arrived shortly before the place closed down, so we didn’t have a chance to perform a piece. Next time!
After drag karaoke, we went to a 24 hour bowling place for candlepin bowling. For those of you who have never played candlepin bowling (it’s a New England thing), it is a lot of fun. It’s the same lane as regular bowling, but the pins (same number, I think) are narrow and cylindrical (2”-3” in diameter), and you get three tries, but the pins that have fallen aren’t cleared between tries. And the ball is much smaller so you can palm it and even throw it if you want to.
Other highlights included a yummy Italian dinner in the North End, a trip to Salem, catching up with the husband’s old friends and getting to know my friends a lot better, and of course hanging out with family and the grandparents-to-be.
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
In Boston
And loving it! We are here for 8 days and having a great time. A couple of my high school friends are also in town so we've been doing a lot of touristy stuff with them.
Over the weekend we went to a wedding on Long Island in NY. It was the fanciest wedding I have ever attended. The ceremony was low key at a local church and the couple's dog, a well-behaved black lab, was the ring bearer. The reception was at a large estate/mansion. What characterized this wedding as fancy for me was that it took place in many rooms of the mansion. First there was the drinks/reception area. Then they opened up two large rooms with heavy (and yummy) appetizers. We spent most of our time in the Library appetizer room, among the Syphilis Illustrated and Women's Diseases books. As we debated whether or not we would get a formal dinner, we were shuffled into the banquet room for dinner.
After dinner, we moved to another two rooms for dancing, cake, and more drinks. The dancing started off with the largest car bomb toast ever (I think). The wedding was loads of fun. The best part was getting together with family we don't get to see all the time.
On Sunday we met up with some old friends who had moved to NY. Sumana and Leonard who we met on the internets and were from the Bay Area and our grad school friend Pablo and his wife AnaMaria. It was nice to hang out with our old friends and just catch up on our lives, relive old memories, and have great conversations.
More about the Boston experience in a future post...
Over the weekend we went to a wedding on Long Island in NY. It was the fanciest wedding I have ever attended. The ceremony was low key at a local church and the couple's dog, a well-behaved black lab, was the ring bearer. The reception was at a large estate/mansion. What characterized this wedding as fancy for me was that it took place in many rooms of the mansion. First there was the drinks/reception area. Then they opened up two large rooms with heavy (and yummy) appetizers. We spent most of our time in the Library appetizer room, among the Syphilis Illustrated and Women's Diseases books. As we debated whether or not we would get a formal dinner, we were shuffled into the banquet room for dinner.
After dinner, we moved to another two rooms for dancing, cake, and more drinks. The dancing started off with the largest car bomb toast ever (I think). The wedding was loads of fun. The best part was getting together with family we don't get to see all the time.
On Sunday we met up with some old friends who had moved to NY. Sumana and Leonard who we met on the internets and were from the Bay Area and our grad school friend Pablo and his wife AnaMaria. It was nice to hang out with our old friends and just catch up on our lives, relive old memories, and have great conversations.
More about the Boston experience in a future post...
Sunday, May 25, 2008
St. Paul Highlights
The highlight and reason for our weekend in St. Paul was Magnus' and Anita's wedding. What a beautiful, happy couple. We hadn't seen Magnus in over 4 years and it was great to be reunited with him and with Dominik and Frauke. The ceremony was held at a Unitarian church and it was simple and meaningful in both English and Swedish. The reception was held at the Science Museum where there was great food, good music and dancing (the groom can dance!) and many great speeches.
I was quite excited about visiting St. Paul since I am a fan of A Prairie Home Companion. I was surprised by how pretty and diverse the city is. And it was also very clean. However, at the same time, it seemed quite dead and I'm wondering if most people headed out of town for the long weekend. Either that or St. Paul is the first city I see staying ahead of the population growth curve (there's no traffic, everything is clean). And as far as the diversity, I expected to see a lot of Norwegians, but instead I've seen a lot of people from different cultures and a lot of Irish pubs.
We took the red-eye out here and spent most of Friday relaxing and walking around a bit. On Saturday we checked out the Science musuem and attended the wedding. Sunday we spent most of the day vegging in front of the tv, with a little walking around (ate at Mickey's famous diner and checked out the Fitzgerald theater) and monitoring of the weather. Every channel on TV had weather updates and tornado watches. As we sat looking out the window in our hotel room, we had a scary storm pass by with big, dark clouds, a little rain, and lots of wind, including small funnel clouds. But it only lasted about 15 minutes.
I was quite excited about visiting St. Paul since I am a fan of A Prairie Home Companion. I was surprised by how pretty and diverse the city is. And it was also very clean. However, at the same time, it seemed quite dead and I'm wondering if most people headed out of town for the long weekend. Either that or St. Paul is the first city I see staying ahead of the population growth curve (there's no traffic, everything is clean). And as far as the diversity, I expected to see a lot of Norwegians, but instead I've seen a lot of people from different cultures and a lot of Irish pubs.
We took the red-eye out here and spent most of Friday relaxing and walking around a bit. On Saturday we checked out the Science musuem and attended the wedding. Sunday we spent most of the day vegging in front of the tv, with a little walking around (ate at Mickey's famous diner and checked out the Fitzgerald theater) and monitoring of the weather. Every channel on TV had weather updates and tornado watches. As we sat looking out the window in our hotel room, we had a scary storm pass by with big, dark clouds, a little rain, and lots of wind, including small funnel clouds. But it only lasted about 15 minutes.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Florida Highlights
Last weekend I was in Florida for a work conference (yeah, over the weekend). I meant to do a lot of personal work (emails, posting, sort through NY pictures) while I was there, but I forgot my laptop power cord and I really had no free time.
The flight to FL was kind of exciting since our flight got canceled. Normally I would be quite annoyed by this but I kind of enjoyed the added twist to our work travel plans and I was in no hurry to get to work. When I used to travel to NM for work all the time, my flights on Monday morning were always on time but getting home on Friday afternoon was usually a nightmare. We ended up having to take a taxi to San Francisco to catch a later flight and we arrived about 1.5 hours behind schedule. On my flight from San Francisco to Dallas, I sat between two very friendly but somewhat obnoxious porn producers. That’s right, porn producers on their way to Dallas for a production. Our conversations ranged from what they look for in actors/actresses to what goes on in a typical shoot to coaching kids’ hockey. But the best part of our changed travel plans was flying first class for the second leg of our trip. It was nice. I never new warmed nuts could be so yummy!
So every two years my company hosts a conference for all their engineers and scientists to come together, get some training, have a good time, and network. We have offices all over the US and I often work with people I’ve only met through email and phone. So it’s always nice to put a face to a name. Our conference gets started with an ice breaker which is basically an adult science fair project (everyone showcases their projects and there’s lots of food and alcohol). On Friday we have classes all day (like how to manage projects, market, etc.) and are free on Friday evening. On Saturday we have technical sessions in the morning, a keynote speaker in the afternoon, and a nice banquet in the evening with lots of alcohol and awards (company stock and money). For a bunch of engineers and scientists, everyone is pretty social and has a good time. And they can drink. Which is probably a bit of a dilemma because while the alcohol is free, your boss is there so you probably want to display some self control. One guy behind me in line at the bar was so drunk, he was swaying and having trouble keeping the beer in his glass.
This year I took an advanced project management class which was only ok and that's because the instructor let us out early. They were pushing Microsoft Project which sucks, even for Microsoft products. Most of the technical sessions I attended were really cool. My company does a lot of different things and the projects in robotics are awesome – my favorites were the talks on robotic landmine detection, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), and water UAV’s. And I even got in a question during the talks. I try to get in at least one good question at a conference, which is pretty good because I tend to have lots of questions, but I usually talk myself out of asking them because they are stupid. But half the time someone else will ask my question. Our keynote speaker wasn’t very good. We had Burt Rutan as our guest speaker at the last conference and he’s a hard act to follow. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Rutan is the guy who designed and flew SpaceShipOne, the first commercial craft to go into orbit. They won the X prize.
Usually I love going to conferences because I like to network (exchange business cards) and I tend to get inspired and motivated to work harder both in my professional and personal life. This time around I didn’t get inspired until the technical talks and then it was mostly – “Cool! How do I get on their project?” But in the least I got to meet lots of people, eat lots of food, and drink lots of wine.
For our free night we went to Ragland Road, an Irish pub in Downtown Disney. I had salmon wrapped in smoked salmon and then baked. It was quite good. I also tried Grolsch and Boddingtons Ale. Grolsch is light and a good summer beer. I can drink it without eating food. Boddingtons is a neat beer because it looks just like Guinness (you get a lesson in fluid dynamics watching a pint of Guinness) but it's white. It doesn't taste much like Guinness, but I would probably need a burger to balance the beer.
I got home on Sunday afternoon and we immediately started packing and moving our stuff. It’s going to be a long week.
The flight to FL was kind of exciting since our flight got canceled. Normally I would be quite annoyed by this but I kind of enjoyed the added twist to our work travel plans and I was in no hurry to get to work. When I used to travel to NM for work all the time, my flights on Monday morning were always on time but getting home on Friday afternoon was usually a nightmare. We ended up having to take a taxi to San Francisco to catch a later flight and we arrived about 1.5 hours behind schedule. On my flight from San Francisco to Dallas, I sat between two very friendly but somewhat obnoxious porn producers. That’s right, porn producers on their way to Dallas for a production. Our conversations ranged from what they look for in actors/actresses to what goes on in a typical shoot to coaching kids’ hockey. But the best part of our changed travel plans was flying first class for the second leg of our trip. It was nice. I never new warmed nuts could be so yummy!
So every two years my company hosts a conference for all their engineers and scientists to come together, get some training, have a good time, and network. We have offices all over the US and I often work with people I’ve only met through email and phone. So it’s always nice to put a face to a name. Our conference gets started with an ice breaker which is basically an adult science fair project (everyone showcases their projects and there’s lots of food and alcohol). On Friday we have classes all day (like how to manage projects, market, etc.) and are free on Friday evening. On Saturday we have technical sessions in the morning, a keynote speaker in the afternoon, and a nice banquet in the evening with lots of alcohol and awards (company stock and money). For a bunch of engineers and scientists, everyone is pretty social and has a good time. And they can drink. Which is probably a bit of a dilemma because while the alcohol is free, your boss is there so you probably want to display some self control. One guy behind me in line at the bar was so drunk, he was swaying and having trouble keeping the beer in his glass.
This year I took an advanced project management class which was only ok and that's because the instructor let us out early. They were pushing Microsoft Project which sucks, even for Microsoft products. Most of the technical sessions I attended were really cool. My company does a lot of different things and the projects in robotics are awesome – my favorites were the talks on robotic landmine detection, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), and water UAV’s. And I even got in a question during the talks. I try to get in at least one good question at a conference, which is pretty good because I tend to have lots of questions, but I usually talk myself out of asking them because they are stupid. But half the time someone else will ask my question. Our keynote speaker wasn’t very good. We had Burt Rutan as our guest speaker at the last conference and he’s a hard act to follow. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Rutan is the guy who designed and flew SpaceShipOne, the first commercial craft to go into orbit. They won the X prize.
Usually I love going to conferences because I like to network (exchange business cards) and I tend to get inspired and motivated to work harder both in my professional and personal life. This time around I didn’t get inspired until the technical talks and then it was mostly – “Cool! How do I get on their project?” But in the least I got to meet lots of people, eat lots of food, and drink lots of wine.
For our free night we went to Ragland Road, an Irish pub in Downtown Disney. I had salmon wrapped in smoked salmon and then baked. It was quite good. I also tried Grolsch and Boddingtons Ale. Grolsch is light and a good summer beer. I can drink it without eating food. Boddingtons is a neat beer because it looks just like Guinness (you get a lesson in fluid dynamics watching a pint of Guinness) but it's white. It doesn't taste much like Guinness, but I would probably need a burger to balance the beer.
I got home on Sunday afternoon and we immediately started packing and moving our stuff. It’s going to be a long week.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Back, But Only for a Couple of Days
I'm back from a fabulous trip to New York with my brother. We had a blast! Once I get my pictures sorted out I will make a post. Here are some highlights: being a Bleacher-Creature at Yankees Stadium, watching our stop whiz by on the subway and not knowing why the train didn't stop, a sore neck from staring up at the buildings on Wall Street, getting yelled at at the Met for touching a statue, mastering the crosswalks like a true New Yorker then almost getting flattened by a bus, savoring cheesecake, partying in Jay-Z's private room at the 40/40 Club, a bumpy ride through Central Park on a bicycle rickshaw. Stay tuned for more...but it might be a while. I leave for FL (another cross-country trip) on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday. And next week we move. I don't know how I'm going to make it until the end of the day let alone another two weeks. I'm exhausted. Well, here's some comic relief:
Here are a few things people told me when I was younger that I now find quite amusing:
Don’t stare at a dog pooping because you’ll get a pimple on your nose (I’m totally serious)
If you chew gum past 9 pm it’s as if you’re chewing the bones of your dead dog (buried in the backyard)
Don’t do chest traps (in soccer) or you’ll get breast cancer (I believed this until my college phys. ed. teacher set me straight)
If you eat too much fish, you’ll turn into a fish – it was either that or you’ll get paralyzed
If you shower too many times a day, you’ll turn into a fish
If you swallow a fish bone or a piece of an egg shell it will pierce a hole in your heart and you’ll die (to this day I still chew fish about 100 times and am super careful when I am cracking eggs)
If you turn your eyelid inside out it will get stuck that way (my husband agrees with this one)
Here are a few things people told me when I was younger that I now find quite amusing:
Don’t stare at a dog pooping because you’ll get a pimple on your nose (I’m totally serious)
If you chew gum past 9 pm it’s as if you’re chewing the bones of your dead dog (buried in the backyard)
Don’t do chest traps (in soccer) or you’ll get breast cancer (I believed this until my college phys. ed. teacher set me straight)
If you eat too much fish, you’ll turn into a fish – it was either that or you’ll get paralyzed
If you shower too many times a day, you’ll turn into a fish
If you swallow a fish bone or a piece of an egg shell it will pierce a hole in your heart and you’ll die (to this day I still chew fish about 100 times and am super careful when I am cracking eggs)
If you turn your eyelid inside out it will get stuck that way (my husband agrees with this one)
Friday, March 7, 2008
Wine Tasting in Baja
We just got back from a lovely 4 day vacation in San Diego and Baja California. We had a fabulous time. The theme of this trip was family, good food, and lots of wine. The in-laws had planned a trip to Baja for some Mexican wine tasting. They were kind enough to let us tag along.
Our first stop was Coronado, a cute island off San Diego. The weather was comfortable but cloudy and even misty at times. After we wandered around the island and checked out the old Hotel del Coronado, we went over to Tomaso’s Italian Restaurant. My uncle owns the restaurant and we had planned on meeting up with my parents and uncle for dinner. Ok, so your asking, what is a Mexican guy doing with an Italian restaurant? While I did consider the question, I’m too big a fan of Italian food to complain. Tomaso’s is an established restaurant by an Italian chef (the flagship restaurant is in Phoenix). When my uncle bought the restaurant, he was able to keep the chef. Plus, it will be neat to see if he’ll work towards a Mexican/Italian fusion menu. I had the prix fixe menu and enjoyed my four courses: bruschetta, linguini with a white wine sauce, a clam with a white wine sauce pasta, and cheese cake. The brushcetta was the best I’ve ever had and their secret was the super fresh tomatoes (and not the balsamic vinegar). I’ve had a clam pasta before but didn’t like it very much. Since this was the only non-meat dish on the prix fixe menu, I decided to give the dish another try. I loved it! Being surrounded by family as we all stuffed ourselves with Italian food and three bottles of wine made for a very memorable dinner. Thank you, Tio Mundo!
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Here we are taking a picture under the Dragon Tree, which was featured in Some Like it Hot with Marilyn Monroe.
Our next stop on the trip was the Valle de Guadalupe, just east of Ensenada, in Baja California. We took the scenic route and stopped in Rosarito and Puerto Nuevo. The Rosarito Beach Hotel is the birthplace of the margarita, according to one story. The margarita was born when a bartender made a drink for Rita (Margarita) Hayward so that she could tolerate the taste of tequila. So we all sat at he bar and enjoyed a margarita, even though it was only 10 am. We then moved on to Puerto Nuevo for more drinks and a lobster lunch. The lobster was tasty, although not as good as you would find in the Northeast.
We reached our destination in late afternoon, the Rancho Maria Teresa in the Valle de Guadalupe. Our goal was to go wine tasting on Monday and hit as many wineries as we could. The Valle de Guadalupe is Mexico’s main wine country. It probably looks the way Napa used to look about 50-80 years ago. It is free of all the commercialization you will find if you tour Napa or even Sonoma. And, as we were happy to discover, the wine is very good (and can be expensive). We were the only people staying at our hotel and during our tour of 5 wineries, we only encountered one other couple. How great is that?! We had the whole Valle all to ourselves. The food and wine at the Rancho Maria Teresa was pretty good. The hotel doubled as a winery and pool resort and the rooms were clean and pleasant. My only complaints are that the beds were quite firm, the walls were super thin, and since it was on the main road it was quite noisy even at night. After a nice dinner and a couple of bottles of wine we all headed off to bed. Despite the fact that we slept with the lights on (in case of scorpions) and we woke up many times during the night, in the morning we all felt refreshed and ready for our wine tasting tour.
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Here is the husband wearing his Morelia shirt. The shirt was very popular and generated a lot of conversation, mostly because people were rooting for Chivas (imagine wearing a Yankees shirt in Boston). The husband ended up giving the shirt to our waiter at the hotel restaurant since he rooted for Chivas while his son rooted for Morelia.
We decided to book a taxi to take us around the wineries since we all wanted to enjoy the wine. However, getting a taxi was a bit complicated. It was a foreign idea to the hotel staff that we wanted a taxi to take us around the Valle and after much explanation they finally agreed to call some taxi agencies in Ensenada, about 25 minutes away. Why would we want to rent a taxi if we had a car with us? It cost us $100 with a generous tip to rent a minivan and driver. Well worth the cost!
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The Valle de Guadalupe
Our first stop was the winery and bed and breakfast at the Adobe Guadalupe. I am glad we started with this place because this winery had the best wine and hospitality of all the places we visited. We had considered staying at the bed and breakfast but it was a little expensive. But now that we know how beautiful the place is and how good the wine is, we definitely will stay there next time. It’s $175/night and they have a maximum capacity for 12 guests. Anyone want to join us? We tried a non-sweet rosé, 4 reds all named after archangels, and a mescal named Lucifer (without the worm). We also tried their olive oil and olives. Most of the wineries we visited also sold olive oil. Olive trees are often planted in the perimeter of the vineyards to protect the grape plants from high winds, dust, etc.
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Yummy wine at the Adobe Guadalupe.
Our next stop was Monte Xanic. This is definitely a larger production winery and I think they even ship outside of Mexico, while most other wineries only sell within Mexico. I was most excited about this place but ended up disappointed. The facility was very nice and impressive but the wine was only so-so.
We then stopped at La Casa de Doña Lupe. We had a light lunch of fresh cheese, bread, and chips. The husband smoked a Cuban cigar and we all sipped wine. It was perfect. By then we were all quite tipsy so most everything we discussed was funny. I'm not going to name names, but everyone was drunk. We also sampled a homemade hot sauce and we loved it so much we brought some back with us.
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Smoking a Cuban.
Our fourth stop was L.A. Cetto. This is one of the biggest wineries in Mexico and the commercialization was evident. We actually encountered another couple wine tasting (they looked like total American hippies and had Colorado plates). The wines were quite tasty but the service wasn’t impressive. They certainly didn’t treat us like we were family or like they were happy to see us. But we were drunk by this time so we didn’t care too much.
Our final stop was Casa Pedro Domecq. This place had the best view from their wine tasting room. The wine lady was fluent in English and had a California accent as the husband easily identified. Again the wine was fantastic. We also sampled their brandy, Don Pedro, liked it, and bought a bottle.
When we got back to hotel, we all lounged by the pool and had more animated conversations as we waited for dinner time. We again had a lovely dinner with beer, margaritas, and wine. Did I mention that the theme of this trip was eating and drinking?
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Lounging at the pool.
Our drive back to San Diego was mostly uneventful. It took us 1.25 hours to cross the border. That’s the fastest time I can remember. My father-in-law did a great job navigating the Tijuana traffic. The guard at the border looked into the car through the windows a couple of times, scanned our passports, asked us what we were importing (2 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of brandy), and waved us through. We forgot to mention the Cuban cigar.
We spent our last remaining hours of vacation in San Diego's Old Town, which is a working replica of the 1800’s San Diego (where “California was born”). It obviously resembles Mexico with its courtyards and adobe buildings. But after being in real Mexico for a few days, it wasn’t that great. It reminded me of the ghost towns at Knott’s Berry Farm. There were some gigantic cacti plants which were really cool – dinosaur plants as my husband likes to call them.
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Old Town
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Dinosaur plant
What a great vacation!
Our first stop was Coronado, a cute island off San Diego. The weather was comfortable but cloudy and even misty at times. After we wandered around the island and checked out the old Hotel del Coronado, we went over to Tomaso’s Italian Restaurant. My uncle owns the restaurant and we had planned on meeting up with my parents and uncle for dinner. Ok, so your asking, what is a Mexican guy doing with an Italian restaurant? While I did consider the question, I’m too big a fan of Italian food to complain. Tomaso’s is an established restaurant by an Italian chef (the flagship restaurant is in Phoenix). When my uncle bought the restaurant, he was able to keep the chef. Plus, it will be neat to see if he’ll work towards a Mexican/Italian fusion menu. I had the prix fixe menu and enjoyed my four courses: bruschetta, linguini with a white wine sauce, a clam with a white wine sauce pasta, and cheese cake. The brushcetta was the best I’ve ever had and their secret was the super fresh tomatoes (and not the balsamic vinegar). I’ve had a clam pasta before but didn’t like it very much. Since this was the only non-meat dish on the prix fixe menu, I decided to give the dish another try. I loved it! Being surrounded by family as we all stuffed ourselves with Italian food and three bottles of wine made for a very memorable dinner. Thank you, Tio Mundo!
.jpg)
Our next stop on the trip was the Valle de Guadalupe, just east of Ensenada, in Baja California. We took the scenic route and stopped in Rosarito and Puerto Nuevo. The Rosarito Beach Hotel is the birthplace of the margarita, according to one story. The margarita was born when a bartender made a drink for Rita (Margarita) Hayward so that she could tolerate the taste of tequila. So we all sat at he bar and enjoyed a margarita, even though it was only 10 am. We then moved on to Puerto Nuevo for more drinks and a lobster lunch. The lobster was tasty, although not as good as you would find in the Northeast.
We reached our destination in late afternoon, the Rancho Maria Teresa in the Valle de Guadalupe. Our goal was to go wine tasting on Monday and hit as many wineries as we could. The Valle de Guadalupe is Mexico’s main wine country. It probably looks the way Napa used to look about 50-80 years ago. It is free of all the commercialization you will find if you tour Napa or even Sonoma. And, as we were happy to discover, the wine is very good (and can be expensive). We were the only people staying at our hotel and during our tour of 5 wineries, we only encountered one other couple. How great is that?! We had the whole Valle all to ourselves. The food and wine at the Rancho Maria Teresa was pretty good. The hotel doubled as a winery and pool resort and the rooms were clean and pleasant. My only complaints are that the beds were quite firm, the walls were super thin, and since it was on the main road it was quite noisy even at night. After a nice dinner and a couple of bottles of wine we all headed off to bed. Despite the fact that we slept with the lights on (in case of scorpions) and we woke up many times during the night, in the morning we all felt refreshed and ready for our wine tasting tour.
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We decided to book a taxi to take us around the wineries since we all wanted to enjoy the wine. However, getting a taxi was a bit complicated. It was a foreign idea to the hotel staff that we wanted a taxi to take us around the Valle and after much explanation they finally agreed to call some taxi agencies in Ensenada, about 25 minutes away. Why would we want to rent a taxi if we had a car with us? It cost us $100 with a generous tip to rent a minivan and driver. Well worth the cost!
.jpg)
Our first stop was the winery and bed and breakfast at the Adobe Guadalupe. I am glad we started with this place because this winery had the best wine and hospitality of all the places we visited. We had considered staying at the bed and breakfast but it was a little expensive. But now that we know how beautiful the place is and how good the wine is, we definitely will stay there next time. It’s $175/night and they have a maximum capacity for 12 guests. Anyone want to join us? We tried a non-sweet rosé, 4 reds all named after archangels, and a mescal named Lucifer (without the worm). We also tried their olive oil and olives. Most of the wineries we visited also sold olive oil. Olive trees are often planted in the perimeter of the vineyards to protect the grape plants from high winds, dust, etc.
.jpg)
Our next stop was Monte Xanic. This is definitely a larger production winery and I think they even ship outside of Mexico, while most other wineries only sell within Mexico. I was most excited about this place but ended up disappointed. The facility was very nice and impressive but the wine was only so-so.
We then stopped at La Casa de Doña Lupe. We had a light lunch of fresh cheese, bread, and chips. The husband smoked a Cuban cigar and we all sipped wine. It was perfect. By then we were all quite tipsy so most everything we discussed was funny. I'm not going to name names, but everyone was drunk. We also sampled a homemade hot sauce and we loved it so much we brought some back with us.
.jpg)
Our fourth stop was L.A. Cetto. This is one of the biggest wineries in Mexico and the commercialization was evident. We actually encountered another couple wine tasting (they looked like total American hippies and had Colorado plates). The wines were quite tasty but the service wasn’t impressive. They certainly didn’t treat us like we were family or like they were happy to see us. But we were drunk by this time so we didn’t care too much.
Our final stop was Casa Pedro Domecq. This place had the best view from their wine tasting room. The wine lady was fluent in English and had a California accent as the husband easily identified. Again the wine was fantastic. We also sampled their brandy, Don Pedro, liked it, and bought a bottle.
When we got back to hotel, we all lounged by the pool and had more animated conversations as we waited for dinner time. We again had a lovely dinner with beer, margaritas, and wine. Did I mention that the theme of this trip was eating and drinking?
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Our drive back to San Diego was mostly uneventful. It took us 1.25 hours to cross the border. That’s the fastest time I can remember. My father-in-law did a great job navigating the Tijuana traffic. The guard at the border looked into the car through the windows a couple of times, scanned our passports, asked us what we were importing (2 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of brandy), and waved us through. We forgot to mention the Cuban cigar.
We spent our last remaining hours of vacation in San Diego's Old Town, which is a working replica of the 1800’s San Diego (where “California was born”). It obviously resembles Mexico with its courtyards and adobe buildings. But after being in real Mexico for a few days, it wasn’t that great. It reminded me of the ghost towns at Knott’s Berry Farm. There were some gigantic cacti plants which were really cool – dinosaur plants as my husband likes to call them.
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What a great vacation!
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Viva Las Vegas
I have a plane change in Vegas. So I decided to gamble a bit. I committed $5 and played the 5 card draw machines. I tended to bet $0.50 at a time which I think worked pretty good since I kept getting 2 pairs. At one point in time I was up to $7 and rarely fell below $5. That is until I decided to stop playing as soon as I got back up over $6 -- I didn't win another hand. I though about closing out when I was down to $3 but ended up going for it. I got pretty bored at $1.50 and quickly lost the rest of my money. So $5 for 15 minutes of amusement? Not necessarily a good deal. $5 for 15 minutes of amusement at the Las Vegas airport? Good deal. It's cheaper than the oxygen tables.
The scenery flying from San Jose to Las Vega was beautiful. I really wish I had brought my camera with me. The Bay Area was super green from all the rain we've been getting (I love this time of year) and since the sun was barely coming up, there was beautiful light reflecting off the oranges and yellows of my Southwest plane. We flew over part of the Rockies (it was quite turbulent at this point) and the snow on the mountains looked fluffy and undisturbed -- kind of like freshly whipped cream.
It's hump day! Only a couple more days till the weekend!
The scenery flying from San Jose to Las Vega was beautiful. I really wish I had brought my camera with me. The Bay Area was super green from all the rain we've been getting (I love this time of year) and since the sun was barely coming up, there was beautiful light reflecting off the oranges and yellows of my Southwest plane. We flew over part of the Rockies (it was quite turbulent at this point) and the snow on the mountains looked fluffy and undisturbed -- kind of like freshly whipped cream.
It's hump day! Only a couple more days till the weekend!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Travel Notes
Our holiday trip to Boston was a lot of fun and I am glad we went. The travel sucked, but it usually does (the only exception was flying first class to Mexico this summer; the first class trip home wasn't as good). When we go on long trips, we usually take our horseshoe pillows which actually work pretty good at enabling sleep. We got these on our way home from Costa Rica last year and they were cheap construction but pricey and worth it. When we retire these, I'll invest in a good quality pillow. I recommend them for long travel when you want to nap.
Before the trip I also loaded up my iPod with a bunch of NPR podcasts (mostly Fresh Air). That, along with Crichton's State of Fear (a very timely Christmas gift from my dad), made the flights so much more tolerable.
This winter we've been using our slippers a lot more than usual (it's cold in CA). So I decided to pack them for our trip. I am soooo glad I did because that's all I wore at my in-laws' house. They were great. When we went to a friend's house for a New Year's Eve party, I took my slippers with me and changed out of my uncomfortable boots as soon as I walked in the door. It was great. If I lived in New England, I would take my slippers everywhere with me.
One culinary note: New England knows how to cook burgers. Most of the burgers we had on our trip were cooked correctly when we specified medium or medium-rare. Plus, New England likes to use grass-fed, free range meat, so they made some tasty burgers. Kudos.
Everything here is back to normal. I had an indoor game last night (at 10 pm!) and it went well. I was extremely tired from the late start time and lack of fitness (that's what happens when I travel), but I still managed to play a good game. I played forward and one of the players on the other team kept yelling at his defender to mark me tight: "Wherever she goes, you go. I want you less than 5 feet away from her." I love it when that happens.
Our grad school friend keeps a good journal of all the places he travels. And he's been everywhere: Greece, India, China. Check out his latest Thailand trip journal and pics.
I'm off to New Mexico tomorrow on business travel. Happy Tuesday!
Before the trip I also loaded up my iPod with a bunch of NPR podcasts (mostly Fresh Air). That, along with Crichton's State of Fear (a very timely Christmas gift from my dad), made the flights so much more tolerable.
This winter we've been using our slippers a lot more than usual (it's cold in CA). So I decided to pack them for our trip. I am soooo glad I did because that's all I wore at my in-laws' house. They were great. When we went to a friend's house for a New Year's Eve party, I took my slippers with me and changed out of my uncomfortable boots as soon as I walked in the door. It was great. If I lived in New England, I would take my slippers everywhere with me.
One culinary note: New England knows how to cook burgers. Most of the burgers we had on our trip were cooked correctly when we specified medium or medium-rare. Plus, New England likes to use grass-fed, free range meat, so they made some tasty burgers. Kudos.
Everything here is back to normal. I had an indoor game last night (at 10 pm!) and it went well. I was extremely tired from the late start time and lack of fitness (that's what happens when I travel), but I still managed to play a good game. I played forward and one of the players on the other team kept yelling at his defender to mark me tight: "Wherever she goes, you go. I want you less than 5 feet away from her." I love it when that happens.
Our grad school friend keeps a good journal of all the places he travels. And he's been everywhere: Greece, India, China. Check out his latest Thailand trip journal and pics.
I'm off to New Mexico tomorrow on business travel. Happy Tuesday!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Holiday Wrapup
It's been sooo long since I've posted. My New Year's resolution is to post more. Let's see how long it takes for me to break that.
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner at our house with my parents and brother. The family drove up for the weekend and we spent most of our time watching football (Cowboys and Patriots) and eating. For our Christmas Eve dinner we had a multi-course meal of spinach salad, potato cheddar soup, a cheese platter, and dry aged steaks (very yummy) with steamed asparagus. We pan fried the steaks and then finished them off in the oven. Desert consisted of a pear tart with ice cream, which was also good.
On Christmas day we had a long trip to the east coast, through Chicago. Both flights were mostly full but uneventful, apart from the kids who kept kicking our seats on the 4 hour stretch to Chicago. The flight attendants were very good about talking to the kids and trying to reason with them, which usually stopped the kicking for 5-10 minutes. But there was only so much time they could spend watching the kids. We though about turning around and telling the mother that we were going to teach the kids swear words if they didn't stop. But it was Christmas so we were nice.
The weather in Boston has been pretty good. There is plenty of snow on the ground but it hasn't gotten much colder than 30 F. It's always so much fun to see family. Everyone has been great and it's been fun catching up. We took a weekend trip to Maine to visit my sister-in-law and her husband. We had a great time riding snowmobiles. We also went out to eat at a great Irish (or Scottish, can't remember) pub/restaurant that had really tasty food and beer. I had fish and chips and those are probably the best I've had in the US. It's not like the stuff you get in the UK, but it was pretty good. We also watched the big Patriots vs. Giants game on my concuño's* big HDTV. It was a sweet tv and a great game.
Right now I'm waiting for the time to pass so we can go out and celebrate New Year's. Happy New Year, everyone.
*Concuño is the Spanish word for the relationship between me and my in-law's spouse. So it's like my in-law-in-law. Since there's a Spanish word for it, I'm using it.
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner at our house with my parents and brother. The family drove up for the weekend and we spent most of our time watching football (Cowboys and Patriots) and eating. For our Christmas Eve dinner we had a multi-course meal of spinach salad, potato cheddar soup, a cheese platter, and dry aged steaks (very yummy) with steamed asparagus. We pan fried the steaks and then finished them off in the oven. Desert consisted of a pear tart with ice cream, which was also good.
On Christmas day we had a long trip to the east coast, through Chicago. Both flights were mostly full but uneventful, apart from the kids who kept kicking our seats on the 4 hour stretch to Chicago. The flight attendants were very good about talking to the kids and trying to reason with them, which usually stopped the kicking for 5-10 minutes. But there was only so much time they could spend watching the kids. We though about turning around and telling the mother that we were going to teach the kids swear words if they didn't stop. But it was Christmas so we were nice.
The weather in Boston has been pretty good. There is plenty of snow on the ground but it hasn't gotten much colder than 30 F. It's always so much fun to see family. Everyone has been great and it's been fun catching up. We took a weekend trip to Maine to visit my sister-in-law and her husband. We had a great time riding snowmobiles. We also went out to eat at a great Irish (or Scottish, can't remember) pub/restaurant that had really tasty food and beer. I had fish and chips and those are probably the best I've had in the US. It's not like the stuff you get in the UK, but it was pretty good. We also watched the big Patriots vs. Giants game on my concuño's* big HDTV. It was a sweet tv and a great game.
Right now I'm waiting for the time to pass so we can go out and celebrate New Year's. Happy New Year, everyone.
*Concuño is the Spanish word for the relationship between me and my in-law's spouse. So it's like my in-law-in-law. Since there's a Spanish word for it, I'm using it.
Monday, October 8, 2007
Back in Texas
As I write this post, I am sitting in the Houston airport, waiting for my flight to New Orleans. The hubby and I spent a few days in Texas on vacation and are now headed to NOLA for a business conference (I will be at conference sessions all day while my husband partakes of the spouse programs with all the wives—I work in a male-dominant field).
Our trip to Texas was great. We spent most of our time in Austin and then went to Houston for less than 24 hours (thank goodness). Austin is a great city. If you’ve never been, you won’t understand until you spend a few days there. Austin has a culture that is a mix of hippies, diverse college students, young professionals, homeless people (“I love the homeless people,” says my husband looking over my shoulder) and real Texans. The nightlife is great, the food is abundant and yummy, and you could never run out of fun things to do. The only 2 bad things about Austin is that the weather is hot and humid and it is in the middle of Texas (you could drive for hours and still be in Texas).
A wedding was the original inspiration for our trip to Austin. Congratulations to my high school and grad school friend B and her new husband T. They had a lovely Catholic ceremony followed by a wonderful reception at the UT alumni center. I used to never cry at weddings, until I got married. Now I start crying as soon as the parents walk down the aisle. I wonder what that means.
It turns out that while we were in Austin, we got to meet our dear friends’ O and G’s 20 hour old baby girl. Congrats to the proud parents and their beautiful, beautiful baby girl. It’s quite an amazing sight to see some of your best friends holding their baby for the first times in their lives. Baby N is one lucky girl as she is going to have some of the most loving and doting parents in the world.
While we were in Austin we drove around a lot and checked out all of the places and areas we used to frequent. In the 4 years since we’ve been gone, Austin has changed a lot. Some of it is good (dense housing above some retail in a great location) and some of it is bad (a ton of cookie-cutter sub developments). There is also a big price difference based on radius from the city center/university area and the neighborhood. A nice house on a large lot (half an acre) about 10 miles from downtown might cost around $200k, while a small place with a small yard right next to the freeway and train tracks but about 1.5 miles from the university will cost over $400k. The real estate market seems to have done really well in the last year (double digit percentage home value increases), but I am not sure how long Austin can sustain that. There is a lot of building going on and while I expect a lot of Californians are fleeing to Austin, I don’t think the population is growing that fast and thus there may be a large surplus of homes in the coming years.
We drove to Houston for a night to hang out with the uncles, aunts, and cousins. We were greeted with a delicious Texan-Mexican BBQ – carne asada, grilled chicken, and deer sausage. It felt great to sit around the grill sharing stories (the time I sent my husband to buy cilantro and he came back with parsley), drinking bear, and chowing down, despite the heat and humidity (we would step inside to the air conditioning when we needed breaks from the oppressive weather). Thanks for hosting us Familia N.
The last event of our Texas trip was meeting up with our grad school friend P-Diablo in Houston. It was so nice to see him again and to share grad school stories. The trash talking about the Patriots and Cowboys was quite entertaining.
Overall it was a great trip. On to New Orleans.
Our trip to Texas was great. We spent most of our time in Austin and then went to Houston for less than 24 hours (thank goodness). Austin is a great city. If you’ve never been, you won’t understand until you spend a few days there. Austin has a culture that is a mix of hippies, diverse college students, young professionals, homeless people (“I love the homeless people,” says my husband looking over my shoulder) and real Texans. The nightlife is great, the food is abundant and yummy, and you could never run out of fun things to do. The only 2 bad things about Austin is that the weather is hot and humid and it is in the middle of Texas (you could drive for hours and still be in Texas).
A wedding was the original inspiration for our trip to Austin. Congratulations to my high school and grad school friend B and her new husband T. They had a lovely Catholic ceremony followed by a wonderful reception at the UT alumni center. I used to never cry at weddings, until I got married. Now I start crying as soon as the parents walk down the aisle. I wonder what that means.
It turns out that while we were in Austin, we got to meet our dear friends’ O and G’s 20 hour old baby girl. Congrats to the proud parents and their beautiful, beautiful baby girl. It’s quite an amazing sight to see some of your best friends holding their baby for the first times in their lives. Baby N is one lucky girl as she is going to have some of the most loving and doting parents in the world.
While we were in Austin we drove around a lot and checked out all of the places and areas we used to frequent. In the 4 years since we’ve been gone, Austin has changed a lot. Some of it is good (dense housing above some retail in a great location) and some of it is bad (a ton of cookie-cutter sub developments). There is also a big price difference based on radius from the city center/university area and the neighborhood. A nice house on a large lot (half an acre) about 10 miles from downtown might cost around $200k, while a small place with a small yard right next to the freeway and train tracks but about 1.5 miles from the university will cost over $400k. The real estate market seems to have done really well in the last year (double digit percentage home value increases), but I am not sure how long Austin can sustain that. There is a lot of building going on and while I expect a lot of Californians are fleeing to Austin, I don’t think the population is growing that fast and thus there may be a large surplus of homes in the coming years.
We drove to Houston for a night to hang out with the uncles, aunts, and cousins. We were greeted with a delicious Texan-Mexican BBQ – carne asada, grilled chicken, and deer sausage. It felt great to sit around the grill sharing stories (the time I sent my husband to buy cilantro and he came back with parsley), drinking bear, and chowing down, despite the heat and humidity (we would step inside to the air conditioning when we needed breaks from the oppressive weather). Thanks for hosting us Familia N.
The last event of our Texas trip was meeting up with our grad school friend P-Diablo in Houston. It was so nice to see him again and to share grad school stories. The trash talking about the Patriots and Cowboys was quite entertaining.
Overall it was a great trip. On to New Orleans.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
GDL
Our first stop on our 2 week Mexican vacation was The first class experience was quite nice. We got a two-course breakfast with a cloth placemats and napkins, real silverware that included a spoon and 2 sets of fork/knife, and real dishes. The cut-up fruit was followed by breakfast crepes. My husband even accompanied his breakfast with two glasses of wine – 8:30 am is not too early to drink when you are in first class.
GDL is a nice city. It’s very busy and very European-like. A lot of the government buildings are covered in gorgeous murals that often depict very violent or controversial subjects. One example is the Jose Clemente Orozco mural of Miguel Hidalgo during the Mexican Revolution found in the Palacio de Gobierno.
Most of the architecture has a Spanish influence (duh!) and is very beautiful. Below are images of one of the main drags in GDL with the Catedral in the background, inside of the Catedral, the Palacio de Gobierno, and a couple of a huge and neat building that used to be a nunnery (?) and was now a museum.
Tonala is another good suburb of GDL that offers lots of neat, colorful Mexican stuff, like tables, paintings, and those frosted glasses with the blue trims great for serving margaritas. We all talked about renting a gigantic Uhaul and driving it to
Almost all the food we had in
While I am listing my complaints, I was annoyed that the hotel in GDL charged about 20% more if we used a credit card instead of cash to pay for the hotel room. I would expect 3% or 5% more, but close to 20%? That's ridiculous!
Most of the pictures I will post were taken by my brother-in-law. He had a very nice digital SLR camera and went crazy with it. The first picture in this post is one of my favorites from the trip. It was taken from the balcony of the hotel we stayed in GDL.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
I'm Back
I am back from my two week vacation in Mexico. We had a fabulous time and we were all very sad to go home, and especially to have to go to work. The kittens were the only ones that were quite pleased to go home, even if it meant having to go on a very long car ride.
During the next couple of weeks I will post about the trip and add some pictures.
During the next couple of weeks I will post about the trip and add some pictures.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
On Vacation
I have been working on some posts for a while but have not posted them. I have been bad about posting. I am going to be even worse for a couple of weeks because I am off to Mexico for a couple of weeks.
The kitties are also taking a vacation for a couple of weeks in LA. They are off to a bad start on their vacation after a long 6 hour drive.
Hopefully our vacation will be better.
The kitties are also taking a vacation for a couple of weeks in LA. They are off to a bad start on their vacation after a long 6 hour drive.
Hopefully our vacation will be better.
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