Honeymoon - Day 5

Sometimes I forget I have a blog.

On the 5th day of the honeymoon we hopped on the monorail and traveled to Seattle Center, the site for the 1962 World's Fair and the Space Needle. We walked around a bit and went to the Experience Music Project. The building, designed by Frank Gehry and founded by Paul Allen, is pretty rad. It's inspired by Jimi Hendrix and from above looks like a melted guitar. I really enjoyed the history of the guitar exhibit and seeing Kurt Cobain's guitar (from the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video). The grunge exhibit was pretty rad too.

In the basement of the Experience Music Project is the Science Fiction Museum. Admission is free with EMP entrance, so Tim and I thought "why not." As we were looking at everything, we noticed little tags by all the pieces that read, "From the Paul Allen Collection." My theory is that Paul Allen wanted somewhere to exhibit his nerdy science fiction memorabilia but knew that few people would visit on their own volition. So he built the super awesome Experience Music Project to entice visitors to see his science fiction collection.

We took the monorail back downtown and hopped on the streetcar, cleverly titled the South Lake Union Trolley (S.L.U.T.). We just rode it to the end of the line and back. I'm sure you can guess why.

We went back to the hotel in time for the free wine tasting. The hotel is kind of artsy fartsy, so in the restaurant where they serve the wine, they also have watercolor paints and paper in case you get "inspired." Tim did the crossword puzzle while I painted images of the puzzle words. It was pretty silly.

After the wine tasting, we took a cab back to Seattle Center to have dinner in the Space Needle. Tim made sunset reservations. Unfortunately it was a little too cloudy to see a pretty sunset. We still had a blast though. The food was alright, not too impressive, but the view was fantastic. After dinner, we hung out on the observation deck for a bit before heading back.

Honeymoon - Day 4

My aunt and uncle live in Tacoma. They picked us up Tuesday morning and drove us out to Mount Rainier. It was an amazing trip! We drove up to Sunrise Point, hiked about half mile and drove back down. We stopped in Greenlake for ice-cream on the way down.

We went to my aunt and uncle's afterward for dinner and my cousins came by to visit. My aunt and uncle have a great view of Rainier from their house. This was my favorite day of the trip.

Turkey Day!

Happy belated Turkey Day! Or Tofurkey Day! I had a blast Thanksgiving weekend. Lots of traveling, but lots of fun.

Tim and I drove up to the Staples area of Minnesota to spend Thanksgiving with my family at my grandparent's house. Everyone was there, including all the cousins, and we had a blast. It seems that every year the family gets bigger and bigger.

We drove home that night to prepare for a big drive in the morning. Friday morning we headed down to our old stomping grounds of Chicago for Matt and Julie's wedding! The drive down was fine. We pulled the car in front of our old house to walk to the best Thai restaurant ever for some much anticipated pad see ewe. As we walked down the block I said, "Wouldn't it be funny if it wasn't there anymore?" But when it wasn't there anymore it wasn't funny at all. So we drove down Diversey to Renaldi's pizza - best Chicago style pizza ever.

We decided to meet Matt at his place by UIC and he was just getting ready to meet the guys at Daley Plaza for some ice skating. I haven't ice skated since I was a little thing on two blades, so I was a little nervous, but I had a blast. I think I'll be scouting the thrift stores of a pair of skates of my own.

Ant Jean and Denny were more than hospitable as usual and let us crash at their place. In the morning Tim and I hit up Oak Brook Mall and walked around before heading back to the house to get ready for the big night.

The wedding was a blast. I even got Tim out to dance. Matt and Julie fed us well, I heard some of the best speeches ever, and the playlist was awesome - and of course Julie looked amazing.

The next morning Jean made a great breakfast, but the snow began to fall and we thought we should get on the road before it got too bad.

Congrats Matt and Julie. You guys are the best - you're what we miss in Chicago. Thanks for the great time.

Honeymoon - Day 3

Tim and I got up early and took the #66 bus to the U of W campus. We walked around trying to find breakfast in the University District, but since it was Labor Day everything was closed. We finally found the Portage Bay Cafe, had breakfast and then walked over to campus. It's a beautiful campus. We walked around for a while and then stopped by Trabant Coffee and Chai for some fancy chai and the NY Times crossword puzzle.

Our friend Josh moved out to Seattle last Spring, so we thought we would meet up with him and have him show us around a bit. He met us at Trabant and drove us around the neighborhoods. We ended up at Zayda Buddy's for "Minnesota Style Pizza and Beer." It's strange going to a Minnesota bar in another state. It's like getting an outside perspective of your home town and drinking expensive Premium in bottles. Josh dropped us back off downtown at the hotel later in the afternoon.

After relaxing for a bit, we went in search of a good Irish pub near the hotel. We found a couple, but they sucked. We ended up at the hotel bar for some drinks and food. The hotel bar is an old bourbon bar, so Tim felt the need to order a fancy bourbon. Of course he hated it and plotted how he could get rid of it without drinking it. He finally choked it down and felt like a real man. For me it was just entertaining to watch.

Honeymoon - Day 2

We got into Seattle around 10:00 and couldn't check in to the hotel until 3:00. We dropped our bags off at Alexis Hotel (which I highly recommend!!!) and walked to Lowell's at Pike Place Market for breakfast. Super tasty. We walked around downtown for a bit and hung out at the hotel bar until check in.

The room was great. We used hotels.com so I didn't know what to expect. I have never used it before and I can't complain about the results. We got a $400/night room four blocks from Pike Place for $160/night. The room was huge, had a deck and was very nice. I didn't even pull out the "we're on our honeymoon" card.

The hotel has a nightly wine tasting, so we hit that up before walking to the Pink Door for dinner. The best part of the meal was the Obama-rama. Hilarious, delicious and complete with "american flag hand-decorated with glitter bling!"

We stopped for chocolate on our way back to the hotel and called it an early night :)

Honeymoon - Day 1

I know it was almost 3 months ago, but better late than never.

Our first day was spent on the Amtrak train to Seattle. I was pretty impressed with Amtrak and had a ton of fun on the train, sitting back, watching the country go by. That is how traveling across the country should be.

We got on the train late on a Friday night and slept through North Dakota. Saturday went through the prairies and Glacier National Park, which was pretty. Saturday night was wine and cheese tasting. We won the trivia contest and won a bottle of wine, which we didn't wait to bring back to the sleeper. We got into Washington on Sunday and spent the morning traveling down the Sound. It was absolutely beautiful. We got into Seattle about 10:00 am, dropped our bags at the hotel and the rest is to follow.

The best part about riding the train is meeting the other passengers. If you haven't taken the train, the dining car is made up of 4-top tables, so we were always sitting with 2 other people. Sometimes this was great, sometimes it was....interesting. We bought a sleeper car, which made the world of difference. Our neighbors were the most miserable people I have ever met, which at first was frustrating, but after a while was just funny. The food wasn't too bad, and they actually fed us so much we had to skip a meal. I highly recommend Amtrak if you have the time to travel by train. Just keep your expectations rational and you'll have a blast.

You wouldn't see this flying. We saw this at a stop in Montana. People were taking left turns. Can't they read?

daytime tv sucks

I’m home sick from work today. Daytime tv sucks big time. I ended up watching The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (not on purpose but because it was on after the morning news and I was too lazy to change the channel). That is officially the dumbest show ever. I lost all patience when the guest was an out-of-work construction worker who blamed his cheating on his live in girlfriend of four years on the stress the economy is causing. While I don’t blame him for being stressed, his partner is working long hours to support their 4 children while he cheats on her. He even went as far as to say, “Idle hands are the devil’s tools!” Well, his partner wants to stay with him, but of course thinks he’s a super big disrespectful jerk. Whatever, people’s personal lives are their business and I don’t care how stupid they are. So they had a relationship therapist on and her major concern was if they are serious about a relationship, they need to commit to each other. Fine, I understand that, but the rest of the segment revolved around why they haven’t gotten married if they have been together for 4 years and are committed to each other; the major sign of commitment is marriage.

With the way that marriage works in the U.S., with 50% of marriages ending in divorce, with people cheating on their spouses everyday, etc. etc., it blows my mind that people still hold marriage to such a high standard. Tim and I have been together for over 5 years now, and got married for our own reasons, none of which were to legitimize our relationship. We vowed commitment a long time ago as I know a lot of unmarried couples have. With Prop. 8 passing in California and this kind of discourse on national morning television, I want to know what rocks people are living under where they feel that the institution of marriage is so sacred. I don’t care if marriage for some people is a religious thing, but we live in a society that is ever-changing and ever-shifting and part of this is our definition of marriage. We no longer live in a time and place where marriage is the be all and end all if we don’t work to keep it that way, and if someone is going to blame their infidelity on being unemployed, then why would these people who hold marriage to such a standard want him to get married anyway? We've already redefined marriage, it's time we start acting like it. It is this kind of national discourse that passes things like Prop. 8 and keeps people who either decide not to get married or are not able to get married, second class citizens.

P.s. I turned the channel to Ellen.

P.p.s. Come to VeloCx tomorrow morning at the velodrome in Blaine and say "hi" to me at registration.

Cinnamon Apple Muffins = yummy

It's Fall and you know what that means! Apple Apples Apples!!!! Here's a yummy cinnamon apple muffin recipe I made today. Super tasty and filling! (Best of all, it's also easy.)

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
1 egg
1 cup chopped apples (about 2 apples, I used one honeycrisp and one braeburn).

Preheat oven to 375
Combine all ingredients in order
Spoon into muffin liners or greased muffin pan
Sprinkle some extra cinnamon in top
Cook about 20 minutes

Enjoy!

Halloween

Happy November!

Tim and I decided to stay in last night and hand out candy to children. Does that make us old now? Is this what happens when you get married?

We saw some pretty rad costumes. There were two penguins (penguins are my favorite, well second to kitties) but my favorite costume was the toaster. Yup, some little girl dressed up as a toaster! How do you come up with that!!!?

We also stayed up to watch a disk of Six Feet Under. We've been watching this show for 3 years now, and I can't wait to get to the end (I heard I'll have a nervous breakdown). Only a few more disks to go! Eep!

***

Today is homework day. I have to lead my Literary Criticism class on Monday. This week's literary theory is Feminism. Shouldn't be too hard. I think I mentioned that I'm back to school and working on my English Masters now?

Oh, and I passed my Series 66 October 6th. (666?) This means that I can now trade securities (like stocks, bonds, C.D.s and mutual funds). It's kind of strange getting licensed during the worst month in the market since 1939. It may be one of those stories I tell the grandkids over and over and over, kind of like walking to school barefoot in the snow up hill both ways.