It's Smashtastic!

2011 Year in Review: Regular Ol' Life Edition

2012-01-06T09:11:00.005-05:00

These are some of the everyday highlights I had this year. Obviously I had some pretty major other events: going to Russia, moving house, dating a friggin' rockstar. But these are the little victories (or losses, in some cases).

* Any concert-goer has that fantasy where the lead singer jumped into the audience and dances with them. Well, for me, Linds, and K-Squared, that dream came TRUE in May when we went to see The Airborne Toxic Event. We’d made the trip because the DC show was on a Sunday. Well, how the Lord blessed us for this! First off, we found ROCKSTAR parking in front of the venue. Then we had a delicious meal at a Malaysian restaurant on the same block. The Philly Chinatown bus dropoff is in a small parking lot right where the line was, and while we were waiting, one of the Chinatown buses arrived. And who should get off it but Mikel Jollett, Noah Harmon, and Steven Chen! They saw us and waved, and we waved back and got all fangirly and fanboy-y. But that was just the beginning! We had prime spots in the crowd: about three “rows” back and right in the middle.

After the amazing concert (They had lighting effects! Oh how far the band has come since my first show at the Black Cat!), during the encore, Mikel jumped off the stage and climbed into the crowd! Remember, we had PRIME spots, and as soon as he started climbing the barrier, the crowd surged forward (my purse, which was wrapped around my ankle, was dragged behind me, as I had no opportunity to pick it up). And a moment later, I WAS DANCING AND SINGING NEXT TO MIKEL! K-Squared was on his other side, and we proudly proclaimed later that we were the bread in a Mikel Jollett sandwich. He was so close that his foot got caught in between my foot and my purse, and after a couple of seconds, I felt the purse strap snap free! Yes! A rock star broke my purse! (And also scratched my phone and my iPod screens. Now I look at them with fond memories.)

The mayhem was documented by this YouTuber:

For all the other people with cameras going, I’m amazed this was the only video to end up online. If you really care to sit and dissect, I can be seen at the following points: 0:16, 0:18, 0:25, 0:31, 1:07, and 1:40 (I’m wearing really thick eye makeup so it’s not totally apparent that it’s me); K-Squared is visible at 1:25. Mikel is the one in the white T-shirt.

* It is definitely the case that since I became friends with Linds, my concert attendance has skyrocketed. It makes me feel really cool to go to shows with some amazing lesser-known musicians (like Ian Axel, Andrew Allen, etc.). Linds is semi-famous for her concert trips up to New York, and finally, in early July, she and I did a day trip! It was just about the most perfect day ever. We took a mid-morning bus ride up there, got a delicious sandwich at Pret, did some shopping in the Garment District (I have learned to bring a reusable grocery bag with longer straps to carry my fabric purchases around in), found some gems at Strawberry (including a hipster slouchie beanie!), then dinner in SoHo, and grabbed some gelato before heading to the venue. The Living Room was a great place; cozy but not cramped. Linds’s friends Lois and Hadar were there, and several other people who Linds knows from the New York music scene; she’s so connected! The sets were amazing and I discovered two great new artists (Sierra Noble, a wicked awesome fiddler with a soulful voice, and Matt Simons, a delightful pianist with some great tunes).

The primary reason for going was to see Chris Ayer. From about March until this point, I’d become borderline-obsessed with his music, and I was disappointed to miss his Virginia show in the spring. He hadn’t announced any other Virginia show dates, and I’d been toying with the idea of going to New York, so when Linds mentioned it, it didn’t take me long to decide to go! I love so many of his songs, there was no way he’d play them all. The upside of this was that I pretty much loved every song he played! Those 45-minutes of music entirely justified the sore feet (we’d walked a lot that day), money spent, and sleep lost (we took the 1:15am bus back to DC, arriving at 6am).

* One night, I went over to the Jack Daniel’s (that’s his blog name, in case you’re wondering) house for dinner, and randomly in the middle of our meal, he said that his brother had called and was going to a demolition derby that night, and do we want to come along? Um, OF COURSE!! So we went to the Loudoun County Fair’s Demolition Derby! It was one of those fantastic things where you think your day is going to be one thing and then it turns out it’s something completely different and WAY AWESOME! Afterwards, we got deep-fried Oreos and poked around the animal barns and stuff. So great!

* After working for my company for almost four years, I finally stayed at its hallmark brand of hotels. I still have one major brand to go before conquering them all!

* Without warning or precedent, I developed a mango allergy in September. So random! I’m not giving them up, though. I love mango!

* I was involved in making this happen (I designed the pumpkin templates):
I’m SO proud.

* I also was featured in Linds’ awesome video (it was for a contest):

Gee, I wonder whether people know we’re Ian Axel fans….

* We also made it into the final fan compilation:

I’m in here seven times, but clips from our video are featured at least 15 times (plus, Linds made another video with the kids she nannhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifies, and they’re featured too). My favorite bit is the one with Jack Daniels practically knocking me over in a hug.

* For the first time ever, I ran over a squirrel with my car. I think I’m the victim here, though. The little turd jumped out, not even in front of me, but next to me, in what I can only assume was an economy-related suicide attempt.

* This is a lowlight, I suppose: they tore down my freshman dorm this year. Tragic!

* My car hit 100,000 miles this year. I’m so proud of my little Roxanne!

Fun Stats
Celebrity Sightings (expected): Daniel Radcliffe, President Obama, Carson Daly, Kermit the Frog, John Laroquette
Celebrity Sightings (unexpected): Will Swenson (you know, the guy from Singles Ward), Ben Affleck
Countries Entered: only two (US, Russia)
New States Entered: 0 (boo!)
Number of Things Crossed Off My “List of Things to Do in Life”: 4 (#10- Stay at a world-class five-star hotel, #23- Go to the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, #46-Kiss someone in the rain under an umbrella, and #67- Kiss someone in the middle of a crowd)
Most Border Crossings in One Day: 13 (June 25th, involving three states and the District)
Percentage of New Year’s Resolutions Accomplished: 71%. I started a new thing this year where I broke my resolutions into categories, then decided I must accomplish at least one thing in each category. I’m happy to say that I accomplish at least two!

Ta-da!

2011 Year in Review: Pop Culture Edition

2012-01-05T14:29:00.007-05:00

So, I totally bungled by 2010 stats. I completely left off movies (The Art of the Steal), books (What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell), and concerts (two Legwarmers shows and a house show). I will not fail this year!

Movies Seen in Theatres
1. True Grit
2. The King’s Speech
3. Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animated
4. Source Code
5. Thor
6. X-Men: First Class
7. Midnight in Paris (twice)
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two
9. Captain America
10. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
11. The Help
12. Crazy Stupid Love
13. Contagion
14. Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part One
15. Hugo
16. Like Crazy
17. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
18. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (IMAX version)

Analysis: I liked most of the movies I saw, a result surely of deciding not to go to movies just because my friends are. However, this was before I discovered how fun mocking Twilight movies with Linds and K-Squared can be. I was on the fence about seeing Breaking Dawn, but in the end, I went, and I was glad I did, because easily half the audience was there for the same reason we were, and it was loads of fun. My favorite scene was the gory birth scene, but mostly I think that's because I liked watching Kristen Stewart pretending to be in pain.

And if you can get yourself to an IMAX theatre for Mission Impossible, do it. My hands were sweating with nervousness during the Burj Khalifa scene. Plus, the six-minute preview of The Dark Knight Rises was intense! I’m still thinking about it!

My fave of the year was probably Midnight in Paris, in case anyone is wondering.

Concerts Attended
1. Joshua Radin with Andrew Allen and Justin Nozuka, 9:30 Club, Washington DC
2. Ian Axel with Mike Campbell and Chad Vaccharino, House Show, Arlington VA
3. Ian Axel with Sub-Radio Standard, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA (the very next night!)
4. Ingrid Michaelson with Ian Axel, World Café Live at the Queen, Wilmington DE
5. Secondhand Serenade with Andrew Allen and Plug In Stereo, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
6. The Airborne Toxic Event with Voxhaul Broadcast, The Trocadero, Philadelphia PA
7. Julia Nunes with Ian Axel, Red Palace, Washington DC
8. The Legwarmers, State Theatre, Falls Church VA
9. Matt Duke and Rosi Golan with Hope Waits, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
10. Andrew Belle and Trent Dabbs with Bobbie Allen, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
11. Matt Simons, Sierra Noble, and Chris Ayer, The Living Room, New York City
12. Taylor Berrett, Tally-Ho Theater, Leesburg VA
13. Guster and Jack’s Mannequin with Lady Danville, Wolf Trap, Vienna VA
14. Intergalactic Tour of the Universe and Beyond Your with Ian Axel, Bess Rogers, and Allie Moss, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
15. Ten Out of Tenn, Café Iota, Arlington VA
16. Kekoka Music Festival with Greg Holden, the Spring Standards, and Bess Rogers, Kilmarnock VA
17. Matt Nathanson with Vanessa Carlton, 9:30 Club, Washington DC
18. The Milk Carton Kids with Gaby Moreno, Jammin Java, Vienna VA
19. Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson, DC Temple Visitor’s Center, Kensington MD
20. Greg Holden, Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2, New York City NY
21. The United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” Brucker Hall, Ft Myer, Arlington VA
22. Graham Colton with Steve Moakler, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA

Analysis: Man, I go to a lot of shows these days. Think I see Ian Axel enough?

Plays Seen
1. The Tempest, Blackfriars Playhouse, Staunton VA
2. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, McLean Community Players, McLean VA
3. Wicked, Kennedy Center, Washington DC
4. Newsies, Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn NJ
5. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Al Hirschfeld Theatre, New York NY

Analysis: How to Succeed was probably my favorite, with Newsies in second place. I want to see it again when it premieres on Broadway in March!

Books Read (with Analysis; high recommendations bolded)
1. To Draw Closer to God, Henry B Eyring. This is a collection of talks from Elder Eyring, and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone. It has changed the way I listen during Sacrament meeting talks, and has made me less of a hater.
2. Peter the Great (kid’s book), Diane Stanley. Brief intro to Peter the Great. I didn’t have it in me to read a 1000-page biography.
3. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Robert K Massie. Gobs of interesting stories about the murder of Nicholas II and his family, the DNA analysis done to find the bodies, and the story of Anna Anderson.
4. The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism: A History of Twentieth-Century Russia, Gary M Hamburg. Actually, this was a book-on-tape lecture series, but it gave a great overview of Soviet Russia; perfect for culture studying.
5. A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev, Mark Steinburg. Another lecture series, and another recommendation if you want to learn more about Russian history. I knew very little about the history of Russia before this year, and listening to this series helped me learn a lot in a short amount of time.
6. The Help, Kathryn Stockett. I loved this book, as did millions of others. Very entertaining and engaging.
7. Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens. I had a goal to read a Dickens novel this year and I’m glad I chose this one. I love the Douglas McGrath movie adaptation, so there’s always the worry that the book will ruin the movie for me, but it didn’t happen. It was laugh-out-loud hilarious at times, but also very touching and moving at others.
8. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Wow, this book engrossed me. I dated a guy a while back who was always stuck in his head the way Rodya was, and so therefore I pictured him throughout the book. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s dark, certainly, but not just that. Ugh! I can’t think of the words! As my introduction to Russian literature, this book kicked the thing off with a bang.
9. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde. My old roommate SJ read this book several years ago and liked it, and I was intrigued by the plot (a literary detective enters books to catch criminals). I liked it, but didn’t love it. I may pick up the next book in the series if I’m stumped for something to read. It was a good beach read.
10. Right Ho, Jeeves, PJ Wodehouse. I frickin’ love the Jeeves books. I need to start carrying a scrap of paper with me when reading them so I can copy down the tasty early 20th century phrases and incorporate them into daily usage. Light and frothy, these books are becoming my favorite beach books.
11. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender. Wow, I thought this story went off the rails at the end. I joked to Sir William, who read it shortly after me, that the song “On Your Way” by Chris Ayer contains a spoiler for the book (“Somewhere there’s a desk chair with your name on it”). I had more fun saying that to him than I had reading the book.
12. 10 Days That Shook the World, John Reed. A play-by-play account of the October Revolution. A bit difficult to follow at times. I still don’t totally understand the context of the Revolution, which doesn’t help.
13. Nicholas and Alexandra, Robert K Massie. Classic biography of the last Romanov monarch. I’d recommend it if you’re into him, but it’s long.
14. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. I liked this well enough, but not as much as Crime and Punishment. I actively disliked both Anna and Vronsky, but it sounds like maybe I’m supposed to. In which case, Tolstoy succeeded with me. I may give War and Peace a try at some point, but I think I’ll knock out another Dostoevsky first.
15. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell is always really interesting. This book is about how our brain works quicker than we can comprehend, and how sometimes it’s okay to rely on a snap judgment or gut reaction, because it’s possible our brain processed the information faster than we could think out and analyze.
16. A Long Way Down, Nick Hornby. I didn’t like this as much as Juliet, Naked, but the characters were compelling and realistic (if occasionally infuriating).
17. Gunn’s Golden Rules, Tim Gunn. I just love love love Tim Gunn. He has opinions and he’s not afraid to share them. Anybody out there who is fake-nice to people need to read this book, because he clearly differentiates the difference between fake-nice and real-nice.

TV Shows I Started Watching
New Girl
Downton Abbey (season two can’t come fast enough!)

Non-pop-cultury post coming soon...

Things That Must Go 5

2011-12-20T15:06:00.005-05:00

Since I don't have time for anything, but I had one of these entries laying around, I thought I'd slap it up here. Not sure when I'll get to the Russia entries, but Becks blogged about it here.

Anyway, here it is:
Girls who say they love Jane Austen but have never read any of her books. The movies are great, y’all, but they’re not Austen. They have the same plotlines and occasionally the same dialogue, but they’re someone else’s interpretation. Jane Austen would never in a million years have written the 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennett is not a tomboy, and Caroline Bingley knows to wear sleeves when she is in public! There is magic and humor in Austen’s writing that is impossible to translate to film. I think the most famous example is the letter-writing that goes on at the end of Pride and Prejudice. (I know that I’ve used two examples of the same book here, but trust me, I’ve read them all. Multiple times.) At least, thank heavens, there’s an adaptation of Northanger Abbey out there that doesn’t woefully miss the point (copies of the 1989 adaptation should be rounded up and burned), but even that one lacks much of the delight and intrigue of the book.

On a highly-related note, girls who say Mr. Darcy is their dream man. Mr. Darcy is a tool for 80% of the book. Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen are hot, but a lot of tools are devastatingly hot, too. What’s the draw? The social awkwardness? The band of mean girls that follow him around? The emotional manipulation?

If you work for a certain government agency and aren’t supposed to talk about your job, you probably shouldn’t tell people that you work for a certain government agency and aren’t supposed to talk about your job.

Also, Same Person, if you are involved in an elaborate marriage proposal plot, and sworn to secrecy by the would-be groom, you probably shouldn’t tell people you’re involved in an elaborate marriage proposal plot!

The water dispenser at work. It’s WARM. So not only has it driven me to actually put ice in my water bottle, but it’s so warm that the ice is almost always melted by the time I get back to my cubicle.

If you are trying to prove a point about something you are angry about (especially when the anger is directed at me), your point will lose all value when you compose your email in Comic Sans.

Buying an album only to have it go on sale on Amazon two weeks later. Or worse, become the NoiseTrade free download of the week.

Posting four-year-old photos on Facebook. I sure enjoyed looking at those recently-tagged photos of people I no longer hang out with or had turbulent “relations” with in the time between when that photo was taken and now. Especially when photos of a certain beach weekend are posted right after this year’s certain beach weekend and one of your friends asks you why you’re groping a married man. (He wasn’t married when that photo was taken!!)

Standing ovations. What do standing ovations mean when handed out like pretzels? They’re woefully overused. I used to be a staunch sit-in-a-seat-while-everybody-else-stood-up kinda gal, but I’ve been peer-pressured too much lately to continue that. So I now regularly “fake a standing O.”

“Happy Birthday.” Man, I hate that song. It’s so cliché. Why can’t there be another birthday song? Why does everyone have to sing that one? Please, people, for my next birthday, I want one of the two following things to happen: 1) Learn the words to They Might Be Giants’ “Older” or 2) do “Happy Birthday” Hogwarts-style and choose your own melody.

Mormon jerks who park illegally in the neighborhood surrounding Temple Square and the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. Because I have to hear about it on Facebook from my brother and sister-in-law. I thought Mormons wanted other people to like them. But when you park in front of my non-member relatives’ driveway during Conference Weekend and thinks it’s okay because you assume they are going to or watching Conference too, you look like a real jackass. And it happens every single Conference Weekend, so it’s not a fluke.

Ugly sweater parties. I went to my first ugly sweater party in 2005. It was clever then.

Unintentional Blogging Hiatus

2011-09-29T07:49:00.003-05:00

It's been almost a month since I got back from Russia (and over a month since I was SUPPOSED to come back from Russia), and I haven't even gone through my pictures. My life rocks pretty hard right now, so there's no room to complain. But boy, is it busy!

So... yeah... I'll post later.

Things That Must Go 4

2011-08-11T11:22:00.005-05:00

Haven't done one of these in a while...

Being asked for networking connections and then not following up on them. Several months ago, I knew a guy who wanted to change jobs, and I happen to know the head of the appropriate department at my office. So I gave him his email, and told the department guy about him. But he never followed up! It was kind of embarrassing, because my department friend was totally willing and even excited about it. Then, a while back, someone posted on one of the listservs looking for contacts with my company. I debated about whether or not to respond, but when I saw we had several mutual Facebook friends, I decided to go ahead. But she never emailed me back. What’s the point in begging for job help when you’re not willing to accept the help being offered?

People telling me I should go on Project Runway. Would it be kind of awesome to spend my days with interesting upcoming designers? Yeah. Would it be LIFE-ALTERING to meet Tim Gunn? Of course! (Seeing him in person last August was life-altering in itself.) Would it be cool to get to buy fabric using someone else’s money? Yes! But come on, people, I am NOT contestant material, nor do I wish to be. A few years ago, I worked for a pattern designer, and she tried out for the show and couldn’t get on. If she, a professional with decades of experience, couldn’t get on the show, what makes you think I could? And the grand prize is money to start your own line. Do I want my own line? No! I don’t want fashion design to be my career! What would I do for fun? Systems administration?

The colon-P emoticon. Boys like this one in particular, and use it in place of a traditional smiley. What makes sticking your tongue out at someone the same thing as a smile? And when I picture the person sticking their tongue out at me, it’s not, like, CUTE or anything. What is the reasoning behind the colon-P, boys? I am befuddled!

Websites with long intro animations. On a daily basis, I enter company profiles into our system, and I go to their website to confirm addresses and such. It’s really annoying when I have to wait 90 seconds to get through their animations. Innovate, grow, sustainability, working together… I feel like I’m watching the Jabberwocky presentation from Better off Ted.

Also, when said websites don’t have their address in text format. Then I can’t copy and paste, and I have to manually type in the information. Their web designers are douches.

Checks. Shouldn’t we be all-digital by now? Related to that, Zions Bank for charging for electronic wire transfers. Also, related: me, for taking a billion years to switch banks away from my Maryland-based credit union. These three Things That Must Go conspired against me when I got my tax return a few months ago. My dad’s office manager had to mail it to me because I didn’t want to pay $15 for the electronic transfer. Which meant I had to go to a physical bank to deposit it. The supposed partner CU in my neighborhood couldn’t read my CU info from my debit card (I could only deposit through an ATM), and when I schlepped it up to Rockville (tangent: I still love that town, and identify myself as a Rockvillain), the location was closed because of a power outage. It took three trips to get the damn thing deposited. Why did I delay opening an account through my company’s credit union, which has a location IN MY BUILDING??

Why DO Boys Always Tell?

2011-06-28T14:03:00.003-05:00

God loves me. You know how I know? Because he led me to this book, recently discovered in my church building’s library:

Published by Bookcraft in 1961, but on its seventh printing by 1966!

This is leading to a new blog series: Words of Wisdom From Days Gone By. Today’s golden nugget comes from the inside cover:

“Why do teenagers go steady? Why do they marry so young? What is the best age for marriage?... How damaging is petting? Why do boys always tell? What are Satan’s meetinghouses?...”

Ooh! I hope rock concerts are Satan’s meetinghouses!! Oh wait, this book was written before rock and roll hit it big.

“Parents everywhere will welcome this book as a genuine guide in helping their children avoid the pitfalls of unhappy marriage. Young people will value it as an eye-opener to the problems of dating, courting and marriage. Teachers and counselors will recognize it as a comprehensive and basic book on the problems of youth.”

Geez, Brother Eberhard sure thinks highly of his book. He makes it sound like it’s an instruction manual for life or something. I hope he’ll define “petting,” because I have no idea what that is, and no one I know knows what that is, and no one has ever been able to define it for me.

“What Shall We Do With Love belongs in every home and school library as a handy reference.”

It IS a handy reference! Hooray for the church library!! I can’t wait to read this sucker!

Traveling for Dummies: Preparing for Your Trip the Nerd Way (Doing Your Cultural Research)

2011-06-20T11:49:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, I went to a presentation given by Ed Fuller, author of You Can’t Lead with Your Feet on the Desk. (It was a work thing.) He has spent a couple of decades building business relationships all over the world. During his presentation, he said something that I’ve always taken for granted (paraphrased): “When you travel to a foreign country, study its history. In it, you’ll find the passion of the people.” This made me wonder: how often to travelers study the culture of the place they’re visiting?

Upon some further research (asking people I know; highly scientific, indeed), I discovered that apparently I’m in the nerd minority. I almost always do cultural research before heading abroad. Even when I only had three weeks to plan for the Danube Adventure, I still managed to squeeze a viewing of Amadeus and download some Strauss to my iPod. Bex and I took turns on train rides reading about the history and customs of the people on our itinerary.

Bex and I are going to Russia. Oh, didn’t you hear? Yeah. X10 is coming too. We’ve been planning it casually since before the Danube Adventure (when I did some in-depth research on a real-life Russian!); and formally since about January. Trust me, there will be some nerd statistics in a future blog post. But the gift of time has allowed me to fully immerse myself in Russian cultural history.

So this is what y’all should do:

* Check out the Frommers recommendations: After the Rick books, the Frommers guides are my faves. They’re not heavy or huge (in general), and they have great cultural research recommendations! If you look on their website, in the “In Depth” section of your destination (try the country one before a city one; they’re more likely to have this), there’s a “Recommended Books and Films” section. Which leads to the next suggestion…

* Read books. Really, you should just read Crime and Punishment anyway; it’s friggin’ awesome. When reading some of a culture’s best-known literature, you’ll find the pulse of that culture. Or at the very least, you’ll be familiar with something that most members of that culture are familiar with. Can you imagine how much cooler it is to walk around certain neighborhoods in London with a healthy knowledge of Dickens under your belt? And to drive through the moors of Yorkshire after reading Jane Eyre? It’s amazing!

I dare someone to read Samuel Johnson’s dictionary as cultural research for England.

* See movies. Go to the filming locations on IMDB section if you’re stumped at first. Or if you don’t have time to read biographies or novels from that country, watch biopics or film adaptations. It’s the cheater’s way, but it’s better than nothing.

* Look at art. If you’re going to spend hours slogging through the world’s great art museums, knowing a little bit about the artist or other artists of the same time period will add a lot of richness to the experience.

* Look at buildings and study major architects. For the same reasons as the art thing. Also, this way, you will be more astounded by buildings you see walking down the street, and not just the major monuments.

* Wikipedia famous people: Who is the most famous actor in the world? There’s a very good argument for Amitabh Bachchan, the Bollywood star with over 150 movies under his belt. To quote this article:

… Does he find it strange that in India millions of people would do penance for him yet 90% of the world doesn’t know who he is? “No,” he shrugs. He looks to an aide: “In India, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wouldn’t be recognised in most places.”

If you’re going to India, you better darn well know who Amitabh Bachchan is. And Shah Rukh Khan, ‘cause he’s the freakin’ MAN.

* There’s a line of audio lectures by The Teaching Company that are super awesome for preparing for a trip. These audiobooks are readily available at libraries, so you don’t necessarily need to fork out the money to buy them (they are rather expensive). There’s a huge history section, as well as language and politics sections. They are as broad as “A Brief History of the World” and as specific as “The American Revolution” and “Churchill.”

In preparation for the Russia trip, I checked out “Books That Have Made History: Books That Can Change Your Life.” Because I have neither the time nor inclination to read Gulag Archipelago (I’ll take my darkness in the form of Dostoevsky and biographies on Stalin, thank you very much), I listened to the entry on it, summed up in a tidy half-hour.

Imagine these two scenarios:

Scenario #1: There we are, me and Bex and X10, standing tired and cranky in a gigantic ballroom with gilded columns and tiled floors. We look bored. X10 says, “Why are we here again?” “It’s the Winter Palace,” I say, “and it’s, like, big and stuff.”

Scenario #2: There we are, in the same room, still a bit tired ‘cause we’re jet-lagged and have already walked a mile inside this building. Bex is saying how this is the room in Russian Ark where the Shah’s ambassador is presenting himself to the tsar, and I’m talking about how this room was originally built by Empress Elizabeth and then burned down later, and X10 is firing up the iPod Touch so we can play “Once Upon a December” and waltz around the room like in Anastasia.

Which sounds more fun?

Traveling for Dummies: What to Do if You Lose Your Passport

2011-04-20T08:58:00.004-05:00

Here's a handy Dos and Don'ts list in case you lose your passport. Hey, it happens. And I maintain that Bex's was stolen. Salzburg was so packed with tourists; it was a pickpocket's dream. But now she knows to have a money belt. :)

Do
* Go to the Consulate.

* Call the Consulate before heading over. Sometimes they have crazy hours for passport services, and there’s no need to schlep it across town only to arrive after closing time.

* Go to the head of the line at the Consulate. Or at least ask before waiting in line. Most of the people in that line are people applying for visas to go to the US. American citizens get bumped to the front! Note: I’m told that some consulates have different entrances for citizens and non-citizens. If this is the case, you’d be a big jerk if you went to the head of the line.

* Get passport pictures taken in a cheap photo booth if you pass one. There will likely be a photography store near the Consulate, and they will likely bilk you out of a lot of money.

* Have a copy of your passport on hand.

* Know your parents’ birthdays.

* Bring a credit card. They take them at the consulate! (At least they do at the one in Vienna.)

* Be friendly to the security agents. They could be your new friends!

* Have a good attitude. The employees at the consulate deal with a lot of stressed-out people, and the nicer you are, the more pleasant the experience. Besides, dummy, you’re the one who lost your passport.

Don’t
* Go to the embassy. They will just tell you to go to the Consulate.

* Cry. Not that this happened.

* Exclaim the S-word. This happened.

* Lose your passport. This will solve all your problems!

Traveling for Dummies: Tourist Rubes

2011-03-04T11:48:00.004-05:00

There are certainly things I hate about traveling. Many of these things were apparent during my Danube Adventure.

Everyone has heard of the Ugly American. They’re the ones who wear white sneakers, fanny packs, and talk loudly. The type of tourist I’m highlighting today could feasibly fit into that stereotype. But this type of tourist can’t always be identified by their footwear.

It is the Rube. This is the tourist who has never left their metropolitan area (or the lawn next to the gas station in their podunk town). They’ve saved up the cash to go see the big wide world, but might as well have stayed in their flyover state. At least, this is how I think of these people when I see them. Certainly they are not as dumb as I think they are. But you wouldn’t know it by witnessing their actions.

Now, before I embark on my Travel Things That Must Go, I should state that at one point, I was a Rube. I think every traveler goes through a Rube phase. I’m pretty sure by the time I finished Study Abroad at age 21, I was past mine.

Here are the things these people love:

* People pretending to be statues: These people are in every major city in the world. I even saw them in Bratislava, Slovakia (which is a clear sign that town is headed for Touristland). What is the draw to these people? They’re standing there, and they expect you to pay them to watch them stand there. Tourists should note that whenever there is a crowd around these people, you bet your ass there’s a pickpocket or two. Another reason to avoid them.

* Spray-Paint Street Artists: When I was seventeen, I went to San Francisco with my friends Tiffanie and Chrysi and some kids from our AP Biology class. We were mesmerized by these street artists. I’ll admit, the paintings look cool. And at this point, I wasn’t well-traveled (I’d had one trip to Europe and a couple of trips to California under my belt). But that was no excuse. These artists are everywhere. As cool as the paintings can be, they are not worth the $40 they charge you. And again, Pickpocket City. Anywhere where there’s a crowd of tourists staring at something, there are pickpockets.

* Hard Rock Café: How amazing is this company’s marketing team that they’ve managed to convince you to not only eat at their bland American restaurant in foreign countries, but to buy their T-shirts, stuffed bears, and hats? They’ve duped us into thinking that eating at a chain restaurant is a cultural experience! When you eat at a Hard Rock Café, you are depriving a local Hungarian/Italian/French restaurant of customers who could be getting a REAL cultural experience. I’m just sayin’.

* Tshirts that have nothing to do with where you are: Bex and I saw a Tshirt in a tourist shop that said “Game Over” and had a cartoon of a bride and groom on it. Later that afternoon, we walked by that shop again and saw that someone had bought the shirt. Really? That person is planning on taking that tacky shirt back to Buttmunch, Kansas and telling everybody how awesome Slovakia is?

* Horse-drawn carriages: Oh, how quaint. You’re riding around town like they used to in old-time Salzburg. Well, you know what? You’re riding around town like they used to in old-time Des Moines too. Time was everyone rode around town on horses. So why did you just plop down 50 Euros when you could have eaten three meals with that?

* Bags with city names on them: I am totally an offender of this. In my defense (as weak as it may be), I think this might be a newer phenomenon. I don’t ever remember seeing these in London or Paris or anywhere in Germany. But I bought one in Madrid, thinking how awesome they were. Sade bought one too. Then on Day #3 of our trip, we went to Salamanca, and saw them there too. Uh… oops! And then we saw them in Barcelona. And Granada. And then I looked them up online and they’re everywhere. At least they’re functional, unlike the Eiffel Tower figurine I used to have on my dresser. That didn’t do anything!

A corollary to this one is any sort of shirt written in English. In Vienna, it’s Wien. It Bratislava, it’s Staré Mesto. In Munich, it’s München. Wouldn’t it be a lot cooler to have something written in the natural tongue? Unfortunately, these are very difficult to find. The tourist shops are definitely catering towards the English-speaking crowd.

Traveling for Dummies: Getting Along

2011-02-11T13:32:00.003-05:00

Hey, sorry for the lack of posts. It's called I-have-a-real-job-now.

So, another Traveling for Dummies post.

This was taken during Ereeen's and my epic trip to Treasure Island. Or Ashburn. One of those.

One of the most crucial factors in travel success is getting along with your travel companions. I’ve had trips be nearly ruined because I chose poorly.

The rule of thumb for traveling with others is this: be on your best behavior. Rick Steves says travel is intensified living, and he’s totally right. When you travel, the ratio of interesting experiences to time is increased dramatically. It makes perfect sense that other things will be heightened, including your stress levels and emotion.

I’ve got examples of good travel behavior and bad travel behavior. First the good, because the bad ones are juicier and more fun to read. :)

I’ve been blessed with some really great travel companions. Bex was fantastic during our Danube Adventure, and we got along great! When Bex’s passport came up missing, I could have gotten angry and we could easily have gotten into a fight about it. But to what end would it serve? The passport would still be gone. Likewise, toward the end of the trip, I started coughing incessantly at night. I personally find the sound of coughing VERY annoying, but Bex was totally cool about it and didn’t complain at all. And she could have.

A few years ago in China, my friend Sarah-not-Sade and I got along for the most part, but there was one day when we got lost trying to find some hutong neighborhoods and we did get snappy with each other. Let me rephrase that: I got snappy with her. I admit it; I was the jerk. She could have gotten mad and been pissed at me all day. But instead, we just took a breather and didn’t talk for a few minutes, and then spoke politely to each other until the tense vibe passed. It was very good and diplomatic behavior.

Now, for some bad stories. Not all of these are mine. I am going to write them all as though they happened to two people named Innocent Ingrid and Bad Egg Betty. They lived in a whimsical world where everybody’s names are alliterated.

Ingrid and Betty went to New York City. They had a jam-packed week planned. Ingrid was not a morning person, but when the alarm went off each morning, she got up and started getting ready. It would take three attempts to get Betty out of bed before she would actually do it. Then she would spend the next hour and half showering, blow-drying, flat-ironing, putting on makeup, and putting on perfume. Ingrid read a novel that week, and 80% of it was accomplished while waiting for Betty to get ready in the morning. They were no less than an hour late out of the hotel every single day of the trip.

On another occasion, Betty came to visit Ingrid when she was living in DC. Betty spent one night with another friend, and Ingrid was going to meet her downtown. She called Betty before leaving her house in the suburbs. “I’ll be there in 45 minutes,” Betty said. So Ingrid got on the Metro and rode all the way into town, arriving at their meeting place a few minutes early. She called Betty’s cell, but there was no answer. “She’s probably on the Metro,” Ingrid thought. So Ingrid popped into H&M and Filene’s and window-shopped for a while. She called Betty’s phone every 5-10 minutes, and after a half an hour, still had not gotten an answer. Finally, after about 45 minutes of calling, a very sleepy-sounding Betty picked up the phone. Betty had chosen to go back to bed after that phone call, knowing full well that Ingrid was on her way to meet her.

Once, Betty and Ingrid went to visit a friend in a foreign country. The friend, Notable Ned, had to work a few days of the trip, but arranged his schedule so he could spend as much time with them as possible and could drive them around town and through the countryside. Ingrid and Ned were up early every morning and ready to go at the time they’d worked out the night before, but each morning Betty would be the last one to wake up, the last one ready to go, and complained about how the milk tasted different in this country. Betty also complained about the weather in the foreign country, and about how the sidewalks weren’t clean. On the days Ned had to work, Betty wasn’t in the mood to leave the house, which meant Ingrid had to go out on her own or stay home. She chose to see the country they’d flown all this way to visit, but was sad she didn’t have her friend with her to be in pictures and experience this new place together. Betty watched Hulu.

During Study Abroad in London (okay, okay, it’s clear this one happened to me), Betty and Ingrid took a five-day trip to Paris with everyone else in the program. Ingrid and another friend (Planner Patty) asked around to their closest friends and found out what everyone wanted to do the most, and then made a rough itinerary of the trip on the train. On the first morning at breakfast, it was clear that Betty and another friend (Cranky Candice) were in a bad mood, and fought every scheduling decision that Ingrid and Patty had made. The rest of the group was happy with it, so they proceeded with their outline. For the entire trip, Betty pouted and refused to smile in pictures, and ran off with Candice at the sites, and arrived late at the meeting points. At the end of the week, Ingrid heard Betty talking to another study abroad student (who had traveled around Paris with another group of friends), and heard her say it was one of the worst weeks of her life. Bad attitude, much?

Some tips for “being on your best behavior”:
- Be realistic about how much time it takes you to get ready in the morning. If it takes you 30 minutes at home, it will still take you 30 minutes on the road.
- Knowing that, plan your time accordingly. If it takes you 45 minutes to get ready, and your travel companion 30, then you need to be the first one in the shower in the morning.
- Waking up sucks no matter where you are, and it’s even worse when you’re jet-lagged. But you’ve got to do it on time. Your sleeping in has a direct and detrimental effect on those around you.
- When a “hitch” happens (every trip has at least one), it’s best to go into “problem-solver” mode immediately, rather than dwelling on how much this has messed up your schedule.
- Be open to eating at the first restaurant you can find. Spending an hour trying to decide on where to eat is one of the quickest ways to get on each other’s nerves.
- When you are able to get online, don’t spend a million years checking Facebook or writing long emails. Unless, of course, all travel companions agree that putting a screeching halt to the day’s activities is worth it. (Lots of restaurants have free Wi-Fi now. Mealtimes are a great time to check emails on your iPod Touch or Droid, since your travel companions can consult the guidebook or eat while you do it.)
- Be open to doing stuff you wouldn’t normally be interested in doing, if your travel companion wants to do it. Chances are there are a couple of things on the itinerary that you want to do, but they don’t.
- Don’t complain about prices. Travel is really expensive, no matter where you go.

2010: Year in Pop Culture

2011-01-03T13:26:00.005-05:00

It's time for the time-wasters of 2010. I'd meant to get this out last week but I was too busy sitting on my ass watching NCIS reruns (best stay-cation ever!).

2010 Movies Seen in Theatres
1. The Ghost Writer
2. Alice in Wonderland
3. How to Train Your Dragon
4. Iron Man 2
5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
6. Despicable Me
7. Inception
8. Knight and Day
9. The Switch
10. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
11. Easy A
12. The Social Network
13. Unstoppable

Analysis: This year I instituted the Alice in Wonderland Rule. If I am excited about seeing a movie, but it gets poor reviews from my trusted sources, then I need to re-think seeing said movie. This prevented me from seeing a couple of films this year, but I need to do a little better. In my defense, I went to Prince of Persia more as an opportunity to hang out with some of my Olney boys rather than see the film itself. Exceptions to the Alice in Wonderland Rule are if a boy is paying for the movie.

2010 Movies Seen on Planes or on DVD
1. The Joneses
2. Just Wright (well, the end, anyway. Who cares about the rest?)

Books Read (bolded titles are my personal recommendations)
1. John Adams by David McCullough. I loves me a good biography, and this one was meaty. It’s really long, though, so not something I’d recommend for a weekend getaway.
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Very entertaining, humorous, and whimsical in that typical Neil Gaiman kind of way. It made Snowmageddon bearable.
3. Persuasion by Jane Austen. Another one that got me through Snowmageddon. Jane is wickedly funny and this story is so fun to read.
4. Size 14 is not Fat Either by Meg Cabot. Meh, Meg Cabot can be really funny, but her books are too light and frothy to have any lasting enjoyment.
5. Big Boned by Meg Cabot.
6. How I Became a Famous Novelistby Steve Hely. I’d definitely recommend this if you’re looking for a fun, quick read. It’ll make you hate people like Dan Brown, if you don’t already.
7. The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert. I believe I’ve reviewed this book here.
8. The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie. Ah, Agatha. Like Meg Cabot, a little goes a long way. And this is certainly not one of her most entertaining tales, but it was fine enough.
9. The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Auguste von Trapp. I really enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book. However, their escape from Austria is covered in about two sentences, which is a highly unfortunate oversight. (They didn’t hike, FYI; they took a train out of town. Still, I would have loved some details.) Once they get to the States, the story becomes less interesting, although it’s funny to hear her take on learning English.
10. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. This book BUGGED the crap out of me. I’m all about historical fiction, and I’m perfectly fine with taking liberties with official history. But don’t put a German U-boat in sight of US soil and expect me to take your story seriously. For ten pages, I was convinced it was a character’s hallucination, which I think made more sense in terms of his arc and the story in general.
11. The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen. I liked it well enough, although it’s not marketed very well. It turned out to be an entirely different story than what the back-of-the-book description would lead you to believe. And I thought it went off the rails in the end. But it was set in DC and Montgomery County, which was really fun.
12. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby. I REALLY liked this story. All three main characters had depth and were relatable. I was on the fence about whether or not I liked Annie, but in the end I totally did. I need to read more Nick Hornby, methinks.
13. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I listened to this book on CD during my commute, and I think it would have been better enjoyed had I physically read it. However, I still found it gripping and worth the read.
14. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton: I had high hopes for this one, as it was recommended by several friends. But I came away disappointed. There were a few plotlines that fizzled out without really going anywhere, and plot points that seemed to be presented as suspenseful or surprising were neither.
15. The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout. I needed something to read on the plane, and this proved to be rather interesting, if not very meaty. It felt like a bigger research project that was cut short due to time limits.
16. Great Catherine by Caroly Erickson. Bex and I are talking about going to Russia in 2011, so I’ve decided to begin my cultural research more than 2 weeks out. It’s a good read if you’re interested in Catherine’s love life, less so if you’re interested in her policy-making. Am I a boring person for wanting to know more about her attempts to make an accurate map of Russia?

TV Shows I Started to Watch
* Hawaii Five-O
* Curb Your Enthusiasm

TV Shows I Stopped Watching
* Hawaii Five-O (it’s just meh)
* Lost (duh)
* Glee (I just don’t think I can stomach it anymore, but I’m still listening to the music)
* Outsourced (I hate hate hated this show so much I don’t want to put it on the “started” list for fear that anyone thinks I still watch it)

Concerts Attended
* Ian Axel/Greg Holden, Easton MD
* Chris Ayer/Sleeperstar/Dan Mills, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
* Ian Axel/Joey Ryan/Andrew Hoover, Jammin’ Java, Vienna VA
* Shoshin, Godor Klub, Budapest Hungary (and again in Vienna Austria)
* The Airborne Toxic Event, Sixth and I Synagogue, Washington DC
* Ingrid Michaelson, Jefferson Theatre, Charlottesville VA
* Ben Folds and Nick Hornby (more like a concert/reading, but I’m counting it), Sixth and I Synagogue, Washington DC
* Joshua Radin and The Script, Electric Factory, Philadelphia PA
* The Morning Benders, The Black Cat, Washington DC
* Junip and Lost in the Trees, The Black Cat, Washington DC

Number of Songs Downloaded That Remain on My iPod (not all were 2010 releases): 170
Favorites: “Gasoline” by The Airborne Toxic Event
“This is the New Year” by Ian Axel
“Your Love is My Drug” by Ke$ha
“Borderline/Open Your Heart” from Glee (Madonna cover)
“4 Minutes” from Glee (Madonna/Justin Timberlake cover)
“Irish Pub Song” by Flogging Molly
“Body Language” by Jesse McCartney and T Pain
“Brand New Day” by Joshua Radin
“Nightswimming” by Ingrid Michaelson (REM cover)

New Podcasts
Stuff You Missed in History Class (this might have been added in late 2009, but I can’t tell)
Stuff You Should Know

Plays/Performances Attended
* Lend Me a Tenor, Broadway
* Mikey’s Theatre Program Final
* Elf the Musical

Fun Stats
Movies Seen in Indie Theatres: only 1 (sad)
Movies Seen in Foreign Countries: 2 (Knight and Day, and 1949’s The Third Man)
Concerts Attended outside the DC Metro Area: 4 (Ian, Shoshin, Ingrid, and Joshua)
Hitchcock Movies Watched (the quest continues): 4 (9, mostly silent or very early talking, to go!)
Percentage of Concerts Attended with Linds: 70%

"It's been a great year, Jack." "It's only March."

2010-12-22T10:45:00.004-05:00

Hey hey, it's my annual Christmas card. Feel free to skim, as it's long. And light on the graphics. The reason for that is because...

I got a new job this year, and am a lot busier! Our department’s systems administrator left the company in the early summer, and I ruthlessly weaseled my way into her position. I’d been looking into some career advancement options earlier in the year, and I’d thought about this position and how I think I’d like it, so I was thrilled when she left (although I liked her a lot as a person). My transition into corporate sell-out is now complete: I got a raise, a corporate credit card, and I even went on my first business trip! And now I have a cubicle with 3½ walls! And two computer screens! And I got to use my creative side quite a bit in preparing for a big conference our team went to. I designed some printed materials and the banner that hung over our booth! It was fun sending stuff to Ereeen and getting her graphic designer input.

Here are other areas of my life which warrant comment:

Travel
This year was the year of weekend getaways. I had initially planned a big trip to Disney World for my birthday, but thank heavens I didn’t, because I moved that weekend instead (seriously, it’s a huge blessing that trip didn’t happen). Most of my other trips for the year panned out, however.

Ereen and I did two trips to New York. We did lots of shopping, went to my favorite museum (The Cloisters), discovered cupcake places, and ate fantastic food. For our Labor Day trip, we got to see Billiam and K-Co and we put a delicious dinner on Padre’s credit card (hooray for Billiam still having a daddy card!).

Ereen and I also went to Virginia Beach one weekend. I spent the night at R-n-S’s house and we toured around Frederick (which is gorgeous, and what all of those fakey-old-timey redevelopment projects wish they could be). My ward did two overnight trips, one to Williamsburg and one in the hills in central Maryland. I feel like I'm forgetting some. There was seriously a month-and-a-half span of time where I never spent a Friday night in my own bed.

I went up to Philadelphia with five friends to go to a concert. It was our Brady Bunch weekend: we had three boys and three girls. So of course we had to get a picture on a staircase and recreate the opening credits.

Marcia: me, Jan: Linds, Cindy: K-Squared. Mike: Ben Franklin, Alice: Brandon Walters (bass player for Joshua Radin), Carol: Rocky. Greg: Dan, Peter: Dave W., Bobby: William.

We went to the Eastern State Penitentiary and the Museum of Art, both of which were geekily cool (just different types of geeks). We ate delicious food, too!

Of course, I did the big trip to Europe, which was amazing and well-documented.

My business trip to San Antonio in December was a BLAST! We stayed at a luxury resort in the hills outside of town. For the first half of the week, I work-work-worked, but all of my meals were taken care of, and I networked with a lot of interesting people. The second half of the week, I relaxed and went sight-seeing and hung out with the handful of coworkers who stayed past the conference. And I have a new non-booze drink: a Roy Rogers (Coke and grenadine; it’s heaven)!

I’m spending Christmas in New York with Billiam and K-Co, making it my third trip there this year! I’m way excited. We’re going to try to get tickets to Elf the Musical!

So, all in all, a pretty decent year, travel-wise!

Friends
This has been a life-changing year. Who would have thought that moving 20 minutes away would have such a significant impact on my life? (Well, I did. That’s part of the reason I did it.) There’s been almost a total change in the people with whom I interact with on a day-to-day basis, at least outside of work (although that changed too with the new job).

I have a whole slew of dear friends who I didn’t know a year ago! K-Squared, Lindsie, and Sara are my fun concert buddies. The Olney Boys are my favorite go-to dudes (although I knew X10 before the Great Move). I’ve got my Comedy Thursday posse (although I suck and haven’t gone at all this season; I’ve been busy!!). Jon-Up has become a confidante and pal. And, of course, I have an inordinately large girlcrush on Bex.

Of course, many friendships survived the Great Move. Sade, who had her own Great Move, is still a great gchat buddy. LCM is still my Belly Big Daddy. And the move actually put me closer geographically to Ereeen, who has been officially deemed my DC Restaurant Exploration Companion. Good times!

2010 Favorite Moments and Ironies
* Snowmaggedon. Days and days of being trapped in the house. Luckily, I was stocked up on sodas and frozen pizzas. But the cable went out and I missed the Super Bowl (thankfully, it was back on in time for Lost). After five days of not being plowed, our neighbors banded together and cut a path out to the main road. Way to go, Arlingtonians!

* Ereen and I went out to dinner and a movie over General Conference weekend in April. I remember sitting at the Greek restaurant in north DC and raving about Elder Bednar’s and Elder Holland’s talks. I think the fact that I remember them so specifically even nine months later tells you how awesome they were. Then we went to see The Art of the Steal and got all sorts of riled up about museum law and ethics. We’re nerds, okay?

* I saw How to Train Your Dragon in 3D IMAX all by myself. Like, literally. I was the only one in the theatre. (Note: It's the only movie I've ever seen in 3D that I didn't regret afterwards.)

* Occasionally they have tickets for sporting events available at work, and people will send out emails offering them to the associates. For the first time ever, they had Nats tickets available on a day that I could actually go, so I raced to claim them. A week or two later, someone announced that it was Mormon Singles Night at the Ballpark for that very game! Ah well, I got to go for free and sit in WAY awesomer seats than the rest of them. It was really funny seeing so many people I knew (and getting obviously snubbed by one of them, but that’s a story for another time) on the way to and from the game.

* Seeing this year’s cast of Project Runway coming out of Mood during the filming of the season’s penultimate episode. Interestingly enough, although I clearly remembered seeing five different designers, I did not notice Gretchen Jones, the eventual winner. This made me happy because I thought it meant she’d gotten voted off. Imagine my disappointment when her homeless grandmother collection won.

* K-Squared and I, within a week of each other, broke up with the guys we’d been dating in late July (and for the same reasons too). We decided that, together, we’d take the month of August off from guys. So, of course, I met the next guy I’d date on August 1st. Sorry K-Squared.

* Said guy and I were mistaken for drug dealers at a concert! He was handing me some earplugs before the show and some college-aged kid saw it and mistook them for pills of some sort, then tried talking to us. Then later, another person (who was with that first guy) tried talking to us. It was loud and dark and we couldn’t really understand what they were saying, and it wasn’t until later that we realized they were trying to buy from us.

* I learned to shoot zombies.

* In the fall, I waged a war against the spider crickets in our basement. They have learned to fear me and my bottle of Shout.

* I got stabbed by a cactus masquerading as a regular plant whilst touring a Spanish mission in Texas.

* I learned that DC is a hockey town. I went to my first Caps game, and it was nothing like any other sporting event I’ve been to in DC. Caps fans do not mess around, and the game I went to was the 80th consecutive sell-out at the Verizon Center. There were fan-initiated chants and the place ERUPTED whenever a goal was scored. And there were parachuting Chik-Fil-A cows. You just can’t beat that.

Quotes of the Year
“If you became a [computer] programmer, you would be worshipped as a goddess wherever you went.” Apparently there aren’t a lot of girls in the field.

“We’re all about delayed gratification in my religion.”

Stats
States Visited: No new ones. Maryland, Virginia, DC, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Texas (and Georgia if you count airport layovers).
Countries Visited: USA, Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia (and Switzerland and Belgium if you count airport layovers). And Texas if that’s how you feel about it.
2010 New Years' Resolution Success Rate: 44% (but I'm very proud of the ones I succeeded to complete)

Conclusion
2010 was a pretty good year. I feel so lucky to be so happy with my situation. I like my job; my car is fully functional (if getting a little old); I have solid friends; I have the gospel. I feel very blessed. Thanks, God! :)

PS It’s been the “thing” for the last few years to come up with little slogans for the years: “Date in ’08,” “Looking Fine in 2009,” “More Men in 2010,” etc. On a friend’s blog, she came up with the following slogan for 2011, and I like it. 2011: Stop Rhyming and Get Married (she teaches the Marriage Prep class in her ward).

More Tweets from the Road

2010-12-07T22:25:00.003-05:00

Here are more What-Would-Have-Been-Tweets-If-I-Tweeted from the work conference. I've been thinking of funny things all day long and now of course I can't remember most of them (and what I do remember probably aren't that funny). I am seriously amazed that so much happened in just one day. It's been a great day, but a LONG one.

* Last night, I met a Mormon in a bar. Of course.

* Speaking of the bar, it was about 20 minutes after I got there that I realized I was the only girl. (Explanation: They were gathered to watch the Patriots annihilate the Jets.)

* Two days in a row of waking up before the sun rises.

* Not kidding: it's a 10-minute walk from my hotel room to my booth in the trade show. I walk more here than I do at home, easy.

* It seems that a lot of 50-year-old guys like me. I've been flirted with a lot, and it's a bit weird.

* The housekeeping team cleans your room TWICE a day here! Win!!

* One of the coffee guys heard me mention off-hand that I want one of their mugs (which have the conference info printed on it), so he brought us over SEVEN of them. I'm trying to only hold on to one, though.

* At lunch, I was a bit surprised to see a longhorn chillin' by the kabob station. With a wrangler that looks like Willie Nelson. Apparently I'm in Texas.

* It's weird to meet Indian guys with southern accents.

* I had a "wild night" in one of our hotels a couple of years ago. Tonight, I met the owner of that hotel.

* I'm pretty sure I've somehow convinced my old boss and Favorite Coworker Sean that I am a drunkard and a pothead. In my defense, you don't start going to rock concerts at age 12 without eventually figuring out what pot smells like.

* I've got so much swag I don't know how I'm getting it home.

Alright, I've GOT to go to bed. I have to wake up at 6am again tomorrow!

I actually don't remember the Alamo.

2010-12-06T19:19:00.003-05:00

I'm on my very first business trip!! It's been super fun so far, but I recognize that I just got here and the real work (meaning, 16-hour days) start tomorrow. If I had a Twitter account, these would have been today's tweets:

* Wow, it doesn't take very long at all to get to the airport. At five in the morning.

* Leggings and a skirt is my new favorite traveling outfit. I'm warm and stylish!

* Keep running into people I know at the airport.

* Ran out of SUVs at the car rental place. Got upgraded to a Tahoe. I love Texas!

* Apparently people in Texas drive courteously. Based on the number of honks we got whilst flagrantly cutting off another car.

* Shauna would freak out. There's a Sonic right by our hotel!

* Bathrobes! I'm staying in a place with bathrobes!

* Snazzy amenities. My hair smells like herbs.

* Was spotted by coworker taking picture of Hans Dieter on balcony. Letting my freak flag fly.

* Stealing swag from tradeshow after it's closed down for the night. I hope roommates are excited about all the hand sanitizer they're about to get.

* Ran into company's #2 guy. He's sort of a celebrity to me. Got a little fangirly.

* Sweet! Steak dinner is on the boss!

Traveling for Dummies: NYC on the Cheap

2010-12-01T14:44:00.006-05:00

As I plan and go on trips, I tend to think a lot about my travel philosophy. I would consider myself an expert at travel, except that I haven’t logged my requisite 10,000 hours (I’m still slightly obsessed with that idea). But I have been to quite a few places, and I waxed philosophical about travel a couple of days ago:

I was talking to a friend about Budapest, and he said, “Wow, that’s not a place people go a lot!”

I said I considered it a Level 2 destination. It was an idea I came up with on the spot. A Level 1 destination is a place like France or Italy. Everybody goes there. Hungary’s a good Level 2 because it’s well-traveled, but not usually the first place people think to go. Level 3 is your China, your India, etc. More exotic, fewer English speakers, yadda yadda yadda.

So I decided that since apparently I have a lot to say, and that the point of a blog is to blab incessantly and no one has to listen unless they want to, that it might be fun to do a series of travel-related entries.

So here we go… Issue #1: New York on the Cheap

As a DC-er, I’ve been to New York many times. New York is to DCers what Vegas is to Utahns: a super famous place that people from all over the country carefully plan their vacation time and save up to go to, but which you can do in a weekend. This definitely has its advantages: you don’t have to plans months in advance, it’s easier to cancel if there’s a weather problem, etc.

DC-ers erroneously presume that the bus is always the cheapest way to get to NYC. It’s true, the scary Chinatown bus costs about $35 round-trip, and Greyhound is not that much more. (Tangent: I don’t know why people bother with the Chinatown buses now when Greyhound is often the same price, and when you’ve got companies like Bolt Bus and Megabus). The bus is the cheapest way if one of the following is true:
• You are staying in Manhattan at a friend’s house
• You are traveling alone
• You are a Manhattan snob who insists on staying in a Manhattan hotel despite their ridiculous prices (but if that’s the case, what are you doing on the bus?)

There’s a delicious little place called New Jersey, and that’s where I stay when I go to NYC. Its disadvantages:
• Not Manhattan

Its advantages:
• A 15-minute bus ride away from Manhattan
• Much cheaper hotels
• Free parking!
• A nice part of the world

Staying in New Jersey makes it SO much cheaper to get to NYC. Let’s look at the math:

According to fuelcostcalculator.com, using my car Roxanne as an example, gas at today’s prices will run $21.46 each way. Tolls are $19.2 on the way there and $14.20 on the way back. That’s $76.32, approximately $6 more than two Chinatown bus tickets.

So, once you have two people traveling, it costs about the same. As soon as you add a third person, it becomes much cheaper to drive. And you have the freedom of coming and going when you want.

When I’m with one other person and staying in Manhattan, I’ll take the bus. When I’m with one other person and staying in New Jersey, I drive. Then we can hit Chick-Fil-A on the way.

Plus, there are some tricks. First, if you take I-695 around Baltimore during rush hour, you miss out on a lot of traffic.

There’s a great way to get around the Delaware toll road. This saves you $4 each way. That drops the total trip price to $68.32, cheaper than two bus tickets!

I've also had friends tell me they've been able to find free street parking in Manhattan, but I've never tried it myself. I do know where there's a relatively cheap and very convenient parking garage, but I'm not going to tell you. It only becomes cost-effective if you have three people traveling, but it came in handy the last time I was there and there was major NJ Transit bus drama.

Alright, tune in next time to listen to me rag on people who stand REALLY REALLY still.

Top 10 Words Found in my Cell Phone’s User Dictionary

2010-11-17T14:00:00.001-05:00

(meaning that I’ve added these words whilst texting)

10. Freakin’/freaking/friggin’
9. Realz (as in “Fo realz?”)
8. Not-Locke (yes, before Lost ended, this was a regular feature in my texts)
7. Blurgh
6. Atcha (as in “I’m comin’ atcha!”)
5. Snog/snogging
4. Deets
3. Lurve (as opposed to "love")
2. Woot-worthy
1. Huzzah

Honorable mentions: roofie, peeps, kvetch, Groupon, and crap.

Things that must STAY!

2010-11-10T09:21:00.005-05:00

I whine a lot on this blog. I thought I’d turn the tables for a change and talk about things that bring me utter joy.

Early spring drives down the GW Parkway. To see that fresh light green paired with purple wisteria is unlike anything else. And the thin trunks of the trees always remind me of the “First Vision” videos from Seminary (I haven’t been to the Sacred Grove, so I’m not sure exactly what the trees look like, but I assume similarly), so that’s awesome. The early morning sunlight filtering through the branches… it’s just so beautiful!

No sooner had I thought the above on my drive to work today that I hit a patch of fog on the road! It was also so beautiful, but in an entirely different way. Less Restoration, more Sleepy Hollow. It’s friggin’ cool, too, to cross the American Legion Bridge and see a wider view of the fog “hugging” the trees.

Also, fall drives down the GW Parkway. I noticed that after the peak of fall had passed, most of the leaves had fallen off the trees lining the road. But the trees further into the woods still had most of their leaves! It’s like the outermost trees are a doorway into the forest, still bright yellow and orange. It makes me wish I were a passenger and could more fully take it in.

Soybean. She’s beyond cute and smells fantastic. And now she’s always smiley and happy and I don’t have to support her head when I hold her.

Spandex House in New York. For finally making my turquoise swimsuit dreams come true!

Having the freedom to do anything I want, whenever I want. I recently went to the Arlington Drafthouse for $1 Movie Monday, and while I was there, I thought to myself, “I’m a Person Who Does Stuff. That is awesome!” I go on weekend road trips; I try new restaurants with friends; I spend my free time pursuing hobbies… I am so lucky!

Knowing that you don’t really have to grow up when you grow up. I overheard a coworker, a man in his 40s, reciting the rhyme, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit!...”

A freshly made Prez Obama Burger from Good Stuff Eatery. And I’m so happy that We the Pizza has finally opened too!

My church calling. For years I’ve wanted to be on the activities committee and it has finally happened!

The X96 Radio from Hell podcast. The people around me really do not understand how much of my humor comes from this radio show: pronouncing Batman as “Batmin,” proclaiming that Ogden Utah is the place in the country where you’re most likely to get hit in the head with a beer bottle, calling parades “prades,” etc. Heck, “Things That Must Go” is a Radio from Hell segment! Sometimes I actually stop myself from saying things because it’s too “inside” and absolutely no one will get it. One of these days I’m going to refer to Brill Pim and then totally embarrass myself.

Hyperbole. I get twitchy joy in proclaiming that today is the best day of my life.

The 2005 British TV movie version of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy, but Damian Lewis and Sarah Parish act the hell of the thing. They’re so charming and have such good chemistry that sometimes I find myself craving this movie. This movie was my first exposure to both Damian Lewis (who was also amazing in Band of Brothers) and Billie Piper (who played Rose in Doctor Who).

Jib-Jab cartoons, specifically the ones sent from my senior VP at work. I’m not usually a Jib-Jab kinda gal, but when done in moderation, they can be great! It makes me giggle to see my boss shimmy, even though it’s not really her. Also, it makes me feel somewhat justified when I cruise the Internet or work on a personal project at work, because clearly my boss’s boss’s boss is doing it!

Synesthesia: being a synesthete is the freaking best! Ask me what color your name is. Ask me!

There's children throwing snowballs instead of throwing heads!

2010-11-05T09:50:00.007-05:00

So it was Halloween! Yeah, I know I built up my costume a lot, so I hope none of you are disappointed. Here's the big reveal!

I was Astrid from "How to Train Your Dragon." If you haven't seen it, here's what she looks like:

And here's me!

Isn't this costume AWESOME? Although it really did take me MONTHS to make it, I had so much fun! It was really hard to be humble about it when people complimented me, because I'm so proud of how it turned out!

See? I'm jumping for joy!

I first wore the costume to Ereeen's 3rd annual Halloween bash. Here she is as Punk Alice in Wonderland, and here's Not-Seth as a Roman Gladiator (that's what his shirt says; it was fortuitous that that's what his costume was, because he could borrow my axe).

We also went to Nokes' Pirate Parrrrr-ty! Marcia, Ereeen, Bex, and me

Then I pulled out Astrid again for the Not Barn Dance. Here I am with NS (he's got like three different costumes going on there, so I'm not going to explain) and my roommate Danae (recognize her costume?).

My axe was very popular.

Me with Flo- I mean, Megan!

With K-Rizzle, aka Charlie Chaplin

Side story that's related:

On Sunday night (Halloween), I was at Speedo Tim's house for a dinner and he made me bring my costume. I wasn't wearing it, but before X10 arrived, I was made to play a weird variation on a drinking game. Every time X10 said "epic" or "stellar" at dinner, I had to put a piece of my costume on. This actually involved taking my shirt off at one point (I prepared for this ahead of time, thank heavens), but by the end of the dinner, I was in full costume. Then Speedo Tim made me hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters.

I'm a fierce Viking. Sadly, I forgot to bring my axe to dinner.

Dress design for Shabby Apple dresses: The knit dress

2010-10-15T07:16:00.002-05:00

Here’s my second dress design for Shabby Apple dresses. This Dare to Design challenge is addicting! I want to design six more!

I am obsessed with knits. Now that I’ve got the sewing techniques down (the most crucial thing, in my opinion, is having the right needle), I never want to sew wovens again! (Of course this is an exaggeration.) But I do love it.

The inspiration for this dress is less direct than my woven one. I wanted to do something with ruched sleeves, which I think are just so fun. And I’m a bit obsessed lately with two-toned color palettes. Most of my work outfits lately are built around two similar colors, with an accent color. The final piece of inspiration came from the blogosphere. I just made a knit shirt with bodice ornamentation similar to this, but I got the idea from one of the many how-to-fancy-up-a-shirt tutorials out there on the web.

I think this dress has a feel of German/Austrian dirndls, which is appropriate given my recent trip.

This dress is best in a mediumweight knit fabric, and basically works for any color that works with a lighter shade. Here, I’ve included tans, grays, and blues. Because it’s knit, there are no zippers necessary! Like the woven dress, this one has an A-line skirt.

Dress design for Shabby Apple dresses: The cotton woven dress

2010-10-15T07:09:00.004-05:00

Dress design for Shabby Apple dresses: The cotton woven dress

So Shabby Apple is doing a design challenge, called Dare to Design! Shauna of RnS fame told me about this a few weeks ago, and I finally got my design in, the day of the deadline! Actually, this blog entry IS my challenge entry! Clever marketing tool for them, isn’t it?

I had two designs and I didn’t want to choose between them. So there are actually TWO blog entries today.

This dress is inspired by an amazing vintage dress Ereeen found in her favorite secondhand store in Dupont Circle. She showed it to me just mere minutes after she bought it (we were getting dinner at a restaurant across the street). I immediately decided I wanted to make something similar. For this design challenge, I’ve modified it to make it suitable for the design standards of Shabby Apple dresses, and added my favorite kind of sleeve: the gathered cap sleeve.

I imagine this dress in cotton poplin. I think it could work in a variety of colors, and I’ve chosen four to highlight here: dark cyan, lawn green, gray, and iris. It could also work in the right kind of brown, or a yellow. The neckline “petals” are done with in quilting-type cotton in a cool vintage-y floral print. You could use multiple prints instead of just one, too! The neckline and petals are edged in piping made from the main fabric.

This dress has a back zipper and pockets, with a tie sash. The skirt can be lightly gathered, but I feel like a basic A-line design is flattering to more body types.

Wouldn’t you like this dress? :)

I am the shadow on the moon at night; filling your dreams to the brim with fright.

2010-10-12T08:30:00.003-05:00

Note: This following was written sometime in past year.

I have excellent taste in movies.

Several weeks ago, I brainstormed some Halloween costumes with Ereeen. Then we went to go see a movie, and I loved the previews. One of them was for a movie that I would otherwise never even notice. Since costumes were on the brain, I noticed an outfit worn by the leading lady. Specifically, I noticed her shoes. I thought, “That could be a cool costume.”

A few days later, I did some research, but I couldn’t remember the name of the movie. Oops! Eventually I found it and those costume-y parts inside me started tingling! Not only was this a really cool costume, but it’s my favorite kind of costume: something very specific, but not the most obvious thing on the planet. It was awesome! A great color palette, new techniques for construction (I’m building stuff), and I’ll get to use some materials that I’ve never used before and always wanted to.

The movie looked kind of dumb, but the more I researched the costume, the more I thought, “Okay, I have to see this thing.” I scoured the film’s website, looking for reference images and print-screen-ing them into Photoshop (can I just say I love my work computer monitor? Widescreen and perfect for watching trailers). I watched all the trailers and commercials, read all the behind-the-scenes interviews, and inadvertently memorized some of the instrumental soundtrack! I’ve never gotten so into a movie before it came out. Which was ridiculous, because it really didn’t look like that good a movie.

Or so I thought, initially. But, like I said, the more I researched, the more I wanted to see it. It looked less and less dumb. A pretty by-the-books story, from what I could tell, but if a story is filmed and acted right, it doesn’t always feel pedestrian and derivative.

So I saw it. And I really liked it! Yeah, it was a by-the-books story, but it was visually splendid and very well-acted. The characters fit into some pretty traditional archetypes, so it was easy for them to be charming and likeable without too much character development. Which meant the movie could focus on the plot, which was fun and exciting! Buckles were swashed!

My movie-seeing companion was one of the very few in on the Halloween secret, so I felt free to lean over and whisper when I got excited about the costume. “I’m going to make that [costume component which I’m not telling you but it awesome!]” “I gotta figure out that hairstyle!”

So yeah, now I’m even more excited about the costume. It might beat out Reimsy’s Sally-from-The-Nightmare-Before-Christmas costume as my favorite costume-I’ve-made ever.

This part was written today:

As of last night, the costume is 100% DONE, and it is indeed my greatest feat in costuming ever! From head to toe, everything is custom-made. Only one component of the outfit was made from an existing pattern, and even that was modified. I have never had so much fun making a costume in my life! It involved sewing, woodworking, engineering, leather-crafting, sculpting, painting, knitting, and crocheting! I want to go into specifics, but we’re still two weeks away from the big reveal.

I will say this: I have worn two components of my costume out in public. One of those times was to church on Sunday.

Epilogue: “Is this a special passport?”

2010-09-15T10:19:00.003-05:00

-Asked of Bex at Passport Control

I’ve determined that hearing European kids singing English-language songs is one of the best things anyone can ever hear.

Bex and I woke up at f-ing 4am to go to the airport. There’s no other way to describe 4am except “f-ing.”

We had the SAME cab drive for the airport as we did the night we switched hotels! He had no memory of us.

The Vienna Airport was relatively uneventful, although the armed guards at Gate 15 were a bit unnerving (the flight was going to Tel Aviv).

We had a layover in Brussels. “Now we get to speak French!” I said. I was met with a blank stare.

In the Brussels airport, I had a Day-after-Assumption-Day Miracle: I spent 7.70 Euros at the duty-free shop, which meant I only had 1 Eurocent left! Bex managed to spend all but like 70 cents, but you can’t beat 1 cent! (Well, you can. But she didn’t!)

After 12 days of no cell service, I of course ran the battery down on my phone by playing games and blogging. Which meant, when we landed in DC, I only read one text (from Billiam) before my phone died: “You should make quilts and sell them on Etsy.” Not exactly the juicy text I was hoping for.

Okay, I don’t understand why not being a racist jerk makes me a liberal. While in line at passport control, I found myself behind a family of Middle Eastern descent. They were in the American citizens line, so they weren’t actually Middle Easterners. However, it was a ragingly clear example of racial profiling. The passport guy was taking FOREVER talking to them, so the guy behind me and I moved over to the next line, which was moving faster.

“I feel bad for them,” I said, “I bet they deal with this every time they’re at the airport.”

“Well, yeah, they should,” said the douchebag. I was shocked. Apparently I’m in the minority for feeling like people should be treated civilly in this country.

So, we got through passport control and customs (really quickly, thanks to our carry-on luggage) and went home. And back to our normal lives.

Great trip!

Some Stats

Total miles walked: 58.4 (that’s TWO marathons, people!)

Miles traveled by train: 772

Stairs climbed (that we kept track of): 1146

Memory cards used: 4 (7GB of photos)

Shirts bought (by me): 11

Pairs of earrings bought: 17

Coolest purchase: the Face Shirt

Most practical purchase: memory card

Cheapest thrill: Gödör Klub!

Most expensive thrill: The Sound of Music tour

Days carrying around unnecessary umbrellas: 4

Languages in which at least one word was used to communicate with others: English, Russian, Hungarian, German, French, Slovakian, American Sign Language

Pages in Word written to use for blog entries: 44 (single-spaced, of course)

This vacation has been brought to you by the letter C and the number 13.

Episode #16: Van Gogh clumps speak to my soul

2010-09-15T09:27:00.004-05:00

We’ve nearly reached the end! It was our last full day in Yurp, and Bex and I started it at Hundertwasserhaus. Today’s excursion was nice because instead of getting on the U-Bahn and trekking across town, we walked through a park and got on a tram, which took us through the rest of the park. It was a quiet area of Wien, and I liked it quite a lot.

These are apartments designed by artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian expressionist. The floors are slanted and trees grow inside the building! I wouldn’t want to live there, but it sure is cool to look at.

Even the surrounding sidewalks are crazy.

We popped into a souvenir store, where the shopkeepers tried to convince me to pay for my purchases in dollars. This made me suspicious. They said it was actually cheaper that way, but thanks to my handy currency converter app, I knew the truth: it was still exactly the same price!

It was Sunday, and the church was only a few blocks away from Hundertwasserhaus, but we still had time before Sacrament Meeting started. So we busted out our leftovers from last night’s dinner and ate in the park we’d gone through that morning. We discussed creatively named by somewhat dirty Broadway songs, and how we hate being tour guides for friends in DC.

Church was great. In fact, despite me having been to church several times in foreign countries, this was my first time attending a non-English-speaking Sacrament Meeting! It took me about halfway through the meeting to figure that out. I’d always been to either international wards or branches (like in China and Dubai) or in English-speaking countries.

The missionaries descended on us as soon as we walked in, of course. Once they figured out we were Americans, the American sister talked our ears off. It was funny. I had a coughing fit in the middle of the meeting. That was not funny. Oh, by the way, that was a MONTH ago today, and I’m STILL coughing.

Singing familiar hymns in German is WAY fun.

Next we went to the Belvedere Palace. We’d been seeing this poster all over town, but when we arrived, this painting was nowhere to be seen!

However, I did get to see a Van Gogh, and was entranced as I always am when I see one of his paintings.
Maybe it’s prosaic that he’s my favorite painter, but I’m just always so mesmerized when I see one of his paintings in person. More than any other painter, I feel his presence in his works, and I love the energy that emanates from them. He’s my “when I’m dead, I’m taking him out to lunch in the spirit world” person.

The view from the gardens at Belvedere Palace. Well-named, no?

Next, we went on a tour of the Opera House. They had tour groups divided by language, and the English group was by far the schlubbiest one. Why do we wear such weird travel clothes? I like to think Bex and I were better than most (at least we wore clothes we’d wear at home), but even we weren’t nearly as hip as the Europeans were.

We spent the early evening back at the English-language movie theatre, watching The Third Man. The movie was filmed and set in post-World War II Vienna. It’s on the AFI Top 100 list, and makes for an interesting viewing, especially if you are in Vienna. I find it amazing how a city (and continent) could recover following that war. There were scenes where characters would turn a corner and walk past a piles of bricks from knocked-out walls and climb over rubble and barely even remark on it.

Anyway, for an interesting read about this movie, might I suggest this article by Eric D Snider. It was posted just a week after our return!

After the movie, we got dinner in a bar down the street from the theatre, and spent the bulk of the rest of our Euros. Inexplicably, a girl came into the bar and yelled at the bartender. I wonder why! I also ate my last brat, with mustard and horseradish. So good!

We walked around the Stadtpark before heading home. It was our last stop on the trip! Sad!

The Strauss statue in the park

While we were waiting for our U-Bahn train to go back to the hotel, we noticed how we’d never once been checked for our tickets. We had tickets, to be sure, but we’d never been sure about how to validate them (they were multi-use tickets, and we couldn’t ever find good English or German-I-could-understand instructions), so I was always a little nervous we’d get in trouble. I guess it didn’t matter in the end!

Well, that’s pretty much it for our trip! I’ll have another short blog entry about the airport and stats and stuff, but there aren’t any more pictures. Auf wiedersehen.

Day 11 Stats
Miles Walked: 3.6
Make-out couples seen in Stadtpark: 2

Episode #15: Bratislammin’

2010-09-14T13:44:00.002-05:00

This is a building near our hotel. I just think it looks cool.

The short story is that we took a train to Bratislava early on Saturday morning. The long story is that the commute involved getting off the train and onto a bus and then back onto a train, an hour delay, and getting off at the wrong station. Turns out Bratislava has two, something we did not know until we started wandering off towards what we thought was the town centre but what was in fact a random suburb. In all the confusion, we didn’t even notice we’d crossed into another country. That country is Slovakia, in case you’re one of the many people who’d never heard of Bratislava before this blog entry.

Tangent: A clip from my notes from the train. “’You to Thank’ by Ben Folds is playing on my iPod. It’s a waltz! Thanks, Johann Strauss II!”

So, Bratislava is an up-and-coming kinda place. The historic town center was abandoned during the communist days, but is being revitalized now. It’s a fun mix of old and new. With WiFi. Sweet.

Walking into the town center.

St Michael’s Tower. Look! I’m wearing my face shirt!

There are tons of fun sculptures around town. My buddy is checking out “the book.”

This town LOVES St Michael’s.

In Primate’s Palace. We honestly didn’t know photos weren’t allowed when we took this.

But we did when we took this one.

Our favorite sculpture.

The Novy Most Tower. So, the Austrian-Slovakian border is less than a mile from the river. Which meant that before the fall, this tower stood as a monument to communism, visible to the filthy westerners.

St Michael’s Cathedral

Bratislava put Budapest and Vienna to SHAME in terms of bride count. We saw EIGHT. Trust me, comparison to Saturdays at Temple Square were made.

We hiked up a hill to Bratislava Hrad, which is closed for renovations. Which meant it was free!

I got such a kick out of these. They decorated the area with armor, but no bodies in the armor!

These communist-era trams were all over the place. Bex said they’re the same as she saw in Russia. Apparently they’re well-made, if they’re still in use!

From St Michael’s Tower. Bex talked it up in Russian with the lady at the tower.

The Presidential Palace

So, we’d done everything we planned to do, so we headed up to the train station (the right one this time) to go back to Wien. What a nasty-looking station. It’s the closest thing to what I imagine an Indian train station looking like. Just piles of people everywhere; trash all over the place; wallpaper that looked like it would fall off if you look at it wrong; and on and on. If I’d never been in a European train station before, I would have been terrified. Luckily, I’m a pro.

The trip back into Wien was much less eventful. Once we got there, we got dinner at a place. I’m not telling you where. It wasn’t McDonald’s. We were running out of cash, so we were limited to places that took credit cards.

We spent the evening at the movies! We saw “Knight and Day” at the English-language movie theatre in downtown Wien. It ended up being the PERFECT movie to watch, as it’s partially set in Salzburg. We got all giggly when Austria was mentioned.

Great day!

Day 10 Stats
Miles Walked: 5.6
Quote of the Day: “Das Box, bitte!”

Episode #14: No Friday the 13th Fear Here!

2010-09-13T12:46:00.002-05:00

Ugh, sorry these entries have been taking so long to post. Work has been CRAZY (there’s a whole other blog entry in those four words), and finding time to blog has been difficult.

Okay, so on Friday the 13th, we went to the consulate. Of course, it was centrally located to where we needed to be that day, unlike the embassy. In fact, it was in the same building as a woot-worthy hotel!

The process for getting Bex a new passport was relatively painless. We skipped to the head of the line because we were Americans, and had to dump all our electronic equipment at security. Bex and I split the paperwork, which meant I got to write the account of the theft! Trust me, the gypsies were mentioned. We had to get some new passport photos taken, but once it was all done, they said we could pick up the passport at 3:00pm!

Our original plan for the day had been to go to Bratislava, but we obviously had to put that on hold. Luckily, we are both expert travelers, and adept to adapt. So we hopped on the tram (I LOVE the trams in Wien) and went to the Hofburg! Although it’s a dumb movie, I kept thinking of The Illusionist. I had half-watched it recently, and they’re always talking about going to the Hofburg.

Crazy pastry molds in the silver and dishware collection. There was a super-rude French lady who literally pushed me out of the way of her photo. So I stuck my hand into the frame at the last second. Take that.

Mad napkin-folding skillz on display

The audioguide was a thrill a minute

There was a huge section about Empress Sisi. She’s a pretty interesting person, and Bex and I debated about her extensively over the next couple of days. If you want to learn more, the Wikipedia page has a lot of info. Fun fact: she had her own massage table.

After the Imperial Apartments, we went to the Treasury, which was pretty sweet. But before we went in, we saw our first Starbucks of the whole trip. This made me sad. I had Starbucks and their plot to take over the world.

Bling

There were vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece on display, which took me back to my grad school days when I studied this order extensively. I was excited, naturally.

We wanted to go on a walking tour of Old Town Vienna, but there were some very threatening rain clouds, so we tried to find a place to eat lunch first. Demel’s was packed, so we had to branch out further. After going down some alleys, we found Esterhazykeller! We missed a short but powerful rainstorm, and ate in what looked like an old wine cellar.

After the storm and lunch, we commenced our walking tour. Demel’s is a well-known chocolate and pastry shop, and they had cake makers at work on site! We tried a couple of treats, which were good but RICH.

I loved this building and the way the old architecture was reflected in the new.

In the middle of our tour, we had to stop and bust it back over to the consulate, where Bex left with her brand-new passport!

St Peter’s: Baroque at its best

St Stephen’s. I get a kick out of the scaffolding. It doesn’t ruin pictures.

We loved St Stephen’s. We saw a wedding going on. I highly doubt the bride was thinking about Mozart, who was also married there (his funeral was held in a side chapel, pictured here, too).

As you may recall, we went to a St Stephen’s in Budapest. This Stephen does not have an awesome 1000-year-old hand, but is the St Stephen from the New Testament. So hard to keep all these guys straight.

I love decorated columns.

Of course we climbed to the top of the tower. The sign said 343 steps, but I only counted 335. Regardless, I was thrilled to get to the top and drink a watered-down orange soda.

Peeping Tom Cam.

Seriously, the coolest roof ever…

On the way back down.

Mozart’s house. Bex is very proud to say she’s peed in three of his houses. We didn’t actually go on a tour, but we did avail ourselves of the facilities, and I had a lime juice in the café.

We went to the Imperial Crypt! And I set off an alarm taking this picture. What can I say? I love skulls.

Maria Theresia’s coffin. I have to say, I think she’s a pretty cool lady.

Sisi’s coffin, and her husband’s (Franz Joseph).

The Augustinerkirche, where Sisi was married!

This is the pedestrian street near St Stephen’s and the walking tour. I totally bought stuff.

We’d been planning on going on a tram tour at some point, and since we were pretty much done with our day, we did it then. We rode the tram and looked at the architectural highlights, and hopped off halfway through to search for Zanoni and Zanoni, a well-known gelateria. On the way, we hopped into a Calzedonia, where an English-speaking shopgirl would not stop talking to us. I think she wanted to be our new BFF.

Gelato in our bellies and with an eye on food, we continued on. The tram tour ended at the opera house, and we got some sandwiches with the intent of eating them and listening to the band we heard playing on the street corner. As we came up the escalator out of the underpass, I said, “Oh holy cow, Bex, it’s the SAME BAND we saw in Budapest!” And it was!

It was like Gödör Klub all over again!

The lights coming on at nightfall.

Every summer, Wien hosts a music film festival, and they play performances of operas and symphonies on a gigantic screen in front of the Rathaus. Tonight’s performance was Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake. We watched it for about 20 minutes, but there had been flashes of lightning, and they were becoming more and more frequent, so we decided to book it before it started raining and we were trapped among the hoards.

Pretty much everything about that day was perfectly timed: our arrival at the consulate on the heels of the American family who told us about cutting the line, our avoidance of the afternoon cloudburst, and this. It was sprinkling when we got off the U-Bahn, and from our room we watched a massive thunderstorm pound the city.

What a way to end the day.

Day 9 Stats
Miles Walked: 4.9
Weirdest thing said to us by one of the Mozart Concert Hawkers: “Lost in thoughts. In middle of Vienna. Make them happy thoughts.”

Episode #13: The Unluckiest Episode

2010-09-08T12:24:00.003-05:00

So here’s how it went down: Bex’s passport was stolen sometime on Wednesday the 11th, our second day in Salzburg. She was convinced she’d just lost it, but I don’t believe it for a second. Given the Disneyland-type crowds in that town, it must be a pickpocket’s paradise (like Provo must be for home burglars; seriously, I’d never met so many people who kept their doors unlocked than I did when I lived there). Bex was keeping her passport in a discrete pocket of her purse. Unfortunately, it was the same pocket where she kept her cash. So I think someone swiped it when she was paying for something: our memory cards, our würstels, the Mozart chocolate balls. It could have been the gypsies, too!

Just to cover our bases, I called Helga in Salzburg, but she didn’t have it. “The book” had the phone number listed for the US Consulate office, but I foolishly didn’t call it. In fact, I didn’t really know how a consulate differed from an embassy. I sure do now.

We got directions to the embassy from the girls at the front desk (who, frankly, took their sweet time looking it up; I swear we were watching them fumble on the computer for twenty minutes), and then we took off.

We saw this on the way there.

The embassy in Wien is not exactly central to the tourist areas of town. When we arrived, the lady at the security portal told us we were in the wrong place, and then gave us directions to the consulate office, which of course WAS central to town. Blurgh!

Bex and I reached our emotional low points at different times during our Hitch. Hers was while she was frantically searching for the passport among her stuff. Mine was there in the security portal of the US Embassy. I was a bit more vocal in my frustration than Bex had been. Curse words were said. I was less annoyed about losing the passport; I knew it would get figured out before we left; they had to be used to this happening. I was more annoyed about us trekking it out there when we didn’t need to (why didn’t I call the stupid consulate??), and losing a couple of hours of valuable sight time. And we hadn't even accomplished anything, because we'd have to go to the consulate the next morning. Blurgh!

We found a quicker way into town than what the hotel girls had told us, and went to the Museumsplatz. First we went to the Natural History Museum.

Why, yes, that IS Charles Darwin riding on a Galápagos tortoise.

I don’t care if they’re dead and stuffed, those alligators were freaky!

This was part of an exhibit about evolution, under a plaque that said “Eine Millarde Jahre Sex!” (A Million Years of Sex). I cropped out the two stuffed turtles doing it (not kidding). I just LOVE that they had a bottle of Axe. The marketing for that product is right on: the smell of Axe will make me do just about anything. ;)

The highlight of the Natural History Museum was seeing the Venus of Willendorf, one of the oldest examples of figure art in the world. She is studied in Day 1 or Day 2 of every World Art History survey course.

It was quite a shock coming from the Venus of Willendorf exhibit to be attacked by a woolly mammoth.

Bex is going to campaign to see if she can bring her schoolkids here. I think she’ll succeed.

Next we went to the Kunsthistoriches Museum. It’s got some great Hapsburg portraits (they’re not exactly the most attractive looking people in the world), some fun Arcimboldos, a Vermeer, and a Caravaggio that this one tour guide was obsessed with. Seriously, he was violating all sorts of museum etiquette rules. He crowded his group around the painting so no one else could really see it (we gave up after 10 minutes and went to some other rooms, then came back), and he just kept TALKING. At one point, I said, “He’s spoken the equivalent of a 5-page paper. I have an Art History degree and no one ever talked that long about ONE painting.”

Also, of note: I’m by no means a prude when it comes to naked statues, but it’s still a bit of a shock when you walk into a room and there’s a statue with its junk at eye level. Like three feet away from your face.

That night we wandered into a neighborhood a few blocks away from the museums and found a great outdoor restaurant. Our waiter was very jolly and mimicked my excited tones. He didn’t refuse to speak German either.

Bex had a view of two different dates from our dinner table, and we analyzed them. There was a couple that was very comfortable and animated with each other, and who both ate a gigantic plate of meat. There was another one where the girl was talking a lot more, and it was obvious to us that the guy was hating himself. I’m guessing that was their first and last date.

That night, we U-Bahn’ed it home, and it was a LOT less scary. Seriously, the luggage was the thing that ratcheted up the creep factor.

Day 8 Stats
Miles Walked: 7.6
Creepy five-year-olds-who-still-have-a-binky-and-really-ought-not-have-a-stroller-anymore seen: 1

Episode #12: The Awesome Before the Storm

2010-09-07T14:10:00.003-05:00

Since we were a BLOCK away from Schönbrunn Palace, we decided to tweak our schedule and go there on our first full day in Wien. Remember in Episode #1 when we had two options for our afternoon in Wien and we chose to go shopping? Well, here we were, with Schönbrunn as the other option left, and we were so close. It’s little things like this that let me know the Lord is on my side. :)

I love that Austrians love yellow so much. They’re so stylish!

Speaking of stylish, we toured the Imperial Apartments, and they had mannequins dressed in imperial military clothing, including thigh-high boots. Simply fantastic. I waltzed by myself in one room so I could cross that off my List of Things to Do in Life (#22). Aside from that, the tour was about what you’d expect, as far as imperial palaces go.

It should be noted that Bex’s fascination with Empress Sisi probably began here. It would become a full-blown obsession by the end of the next day.

After the Imperial Apartments, we walked around the grounds. This looks like a leafy cloister, and you know how much I love cloisters!

See my glee?

This pic is a bit close-up (I hadn’t zoomed out from the previous pic), but I think it looks like I have a wind machine on me, which you can agree is AWESOME.

We hiked up this hill to the Gloriette. I guess I’d compare it to one of the Trianons at Versailles.

The view from the top

I think we can all agree that Bex is cool. This is at the end of the labyrinth.

Embracing the harmony stone

There was a great playground-type area:

That’s some hedge-trimming amazingness, right there.

We couldn’t figure out this statue. Why is that third guy scrounching down there?

High noon! Actually, it was 1pm. Silly Daylight Savings Time.

After lunch, before we transferred our stuff back to the other hotel, we got lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Our waiter was a very NICE looking person, but he totally sucked as a waiter. He messed up my order and took almost a half an hour to bring me a drink. The Austrian couple at the next table yelled at him and stormed out at one point, so I felt somewhat justified in my dissatisfaction.

I did finally get my drink, however.

Every trip has a Big Hitch, and we were about to hit ours. We got our stuff from Hotel #2 and went back to Hotel #1, and checked in. That’s when Bex figured out that her passport was missing. She’d wondered where it was for about a day, but thought she’d just packed in. Once we’d settled in our room, she tore her bag apart looking for it. It was definitely gone.

To be continued!

Episode #11: There ain’t any pics for this entry

2010-09-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

So the train ride from Salzburg to Vienna was both uneventful and yet totally crucial to the night’s success. It sat in the Salzburg Hauptbahnhof for 20 minutes instead of the scheduled three, which was both odd and never explained. And although at one point the train was traveling at 202 km/her (125mph), we never made up the time. So we arrived at the Westbahnhof at like 11:20pm.

Train stations are skeezy at night. They just are. We saw girls there who I can only assume were hookers.

Tangent: There’s a great Dave Chappell joke that I heard from Life Coach Mikey. It definitely informed the previous statement. It goes somethin’ like a-this:

“Then she gets mad and says, ‘Just because I am dressed this way does not make me a whore.’ Gentlemen, that is true, but it is confusing. Imagine me walking around the streets in a cop uniform. Somebody runs up and says, ‘Officer, help us!’ ‘Oh no, just because I’m dressed this way does not make me a police officer.’ So ladies, fine... you may not be a whore, but you are wearing a whore’s uniform. Misunderstandings might happen.”

Aside from that, there wasn’t too much skeeziness. But somehow Bex and I ended up on a neverending staircase leading to the U-Bahn station, followed by an ominous tunnel. A guy in the tunnel asked us a question in German. It took me a few seconds to translate it in my head, but I think he was just asking if this was the right way to the trains. Regardless, we didn’t respond to him. Luckily, he told us to F off in English, so we at least understood something of what he said.

We had to take the U-Bahn all the way across town, and we got off at the second-to-last station on the line, which meant there weren’t a lot of people left on the train, and only a small group of semi-drunk guys got off with us. The station was dark, and we walked out the wrong exit, which meant we had to walk down a very dark and lonely street that had streetlights, but they weren’t lit.

I should point out that none of these elements were in themselves particularly freaky. I live in a fairly large metropolitan area, and have ridden public transportation late at night a billion times. But I felt like we looked like targets because we had our luggage with us. So we were both a bit nervous, and Bex said later that she’d been ready to break into a run at one point.

Luckily, we arrived at the hotel unscathed. It was located in a very business-oriented area, so it made sense that the area would be desolate at night. It was after midnight when we finally got in.

We thought our troubles were over, and both of us were ridiculously tired. Which made what happened next kind of frustrating, but really funny to talk about later.

There had been some sort of flooding issue at the hotel, and the girl at the front desk was super apologetic, but we had to go to the other hotel of that brand in the city. She said they would cover the cab, and they’d bring us back the next day. While we waited for the cab, Bex asked, “Do you know where the other hotel is?” I thought about it for a second, and then laughed out loud, “Uh yeah, it’s walking distance from the Westbahnhof.”

So we trekked across town AGAIN, this time in a cab with a very talkative Austrian guy. We asked him about restaurants he liked, and he started talking about an Italian place he liked. “It’s called Vapiano,” he said.

“Oh really?” Bex said. “We have a restaurant where we’re from called that.”

“Oh! Look, there it is,” he said. Yeah, turns out Vapiano is an international chain. We both recognized the sign.

So we got a recommendation to a chain restaurant from a real-life Wiener.

We rolled into the other hotel about 12:30 or 12:45. For our troubles, we got free breakfast for the rest of our stay! Which was fortuitous since we hadn’t gone to a grocery store yet.

Day 7 Stats
Miles Walked: 4.9
Culturally Inappropriate Things Said While Passing Through the Linz Train Station: 1 (“Hello, Hitler”)

Episode #10: “Why did you take Latin?”

2010-09-03T09:42:00.002-05:00

“It was the cool thing to do. If you were a nerd.” –Me and Bex on the Salzburg City Bus

Our day began at Helga’s, of course. We had a lovely breakfast and checked out, then hauled our bags to the train station and put them in a locker. Then we embarked on our walking tours!

Old Town Salzburg is a gorgeous place, and thank heavens, we got there a little bit before the hoards. We checked out the so-so Salzburg Museum (worth it if you have a Salzburg Card, but not thrilling) and then the totally cool Panorama Museum.

Part of the panorama: The Sound of Music lake, as it appeared in the early 19th century!

It should be known that by this time in the trip, I had used up both of my 2GB memory cards, and was now using my back-up 512MB chips. I knew I had to buy a chip TODAY. I’d seen a 2-gigger in a Hungarian tourist shop for the equivalent of $25, which I thought was a total ripoff. So we were keeping our eyes peeled for an electronics store.

Salzburg Dom was pretty cool. I love how much the Austrians use white in their religious architecture.

See how bright it is?

An awesome waterwheel.

St Peter’s Cemetery was SWEET! Although the movie used a set, the Sound of Music cemetery was clearly based on this one.

Running from Nazis.

It’s against the side of the Monchsberg!

We found out later that Wolfgang Mozart’s sister Nannerl was buried here. D’oh! I can’t believe we missed it!

We wandered into a sidechapel of St Peter’s and overheard a little something-something:

You see, we were in Saltytown during the Salzburg Festival, a huge music festival. So there were tourist crowds AND music lovers in town.

Inside the beautiful St Peters, during the rehearsal

We did our best to get in here. This is where the von Trapps performed, in the movie and in real life. Our attempts were unsuccessful, however.

We kept meandering through the town and came across a small grocery store (small as in size, but it was a chain we’d seen all over the place). Inside we found 4GB memory cards for 10 Euros. Take that, overpriced tourist shop in Budapest! We also found a curling iron, something I’ve been trying to get for YEARS in Europe. (I go there enough to justify getting one with a European plug.) I don’t know why it’s so hard to find one. Do European women not use curling irons? Anyway, I was thrilled to finally have one, but at the register, something horrific was discovered: the store didn’t take credit cards. This, a major brand of grocery stores, didn’t take credit cards? What is this, 1995? I only had enough cash on hand for one or the other, and obviously I had to go with the memory card. And never again on the trip did I find a suitable curling iron. My search continues…

We got some würstel for lunch, and then continued on to Getreidegasse, the shopping drag in Old Town. I love the signs!

I went crazy buying accessories. This part of Europe is a fantastic place to buy accessories. I went nuts in Germany in 2005, and I went nuts again. Maybe I should come back every five years or so to give my wardrobe a little nudge.

We found some AMAZING gelato, thanks to “the book.” Nutella! So wonderful, why haven’t the Americans thought of it (maybe because American ice cream sucks rocks compared to gelato).

We got to see Mozart’s Birthplace, which was freakin’ the shiz. There were lots of great little artifacts there, like the violin he used as a kid, the harpsichord he composed The Magic Flute on, and even a lock of hair!

I guess we’re marveling at the architecture. Or something.

The pedestrian bridge, which was- you guessed it- featured in The Sound of Music. MAN, I can’t wait to watch that movie again!

Steingasse is a cool street, famous for its bars.

“The book” tells a great story about an American GI who broke a chunk out of a building with his tank. Where was he headed? Here:

The view of Old Town and the Hohensalzburg from Steingasse

This is the entrance to a monastery up the hill.

Up the Linzergasse, we went to St Sebastian’s Cemetery. This is an awesome sculpture on the side of the church.

And here’s Mozart’s wife and father’s graves!

We chilled here for a while and wrote postcards, and witnessed a teenage make-out couple (we hadn’t seen many of them since the Garden of Love that is Budapest).

I just loved this door. It’s to the Cardinal’s mausoleum.

Skulls…

One of our last stops in Salzburg was the Mozarts Wohnhaus, the home Mozart lived in as an early adult. I was a bit wary about the audioguides after my sucky one at Hohensalzburg the day before. And sure enough, my screen went black after one room. Luckily, I remembered the word for broken: kaputt! So I went downstairs and got a new one, speaking German the whole time. Win!

There was no photography allowed but we snuck this photo in. I can’t remember what piece it was, but it was composed on this instrument, and Bekah knows how to play it on the piano. So she was really excited!

The rest of the museum was pretty interesting, although it lacked the same random artifacts as the Birthplace (a lock of his hair? Crazy!). It was also really hot, and I could have taken a nap during the video presentation.

We didn’t really have any else planned by this point, but we wanted to check our email. In Budapest, free Wi-Fi could be found everywhere. But in Austria, it was like they knew it was a commodity and decided that everyone should charge for it. However, there was a computer kiosk by the pickup for the Sound of Music tour, and it was free for customers! Well, we’d been customers the day before, so that counted, right?

The Sound of Music Cow!

After checking our email, we went in search of the Baroque Museum, since it was nearby and we still had a little time before it closed. Well, it was a little bit like Number 12, Grimmauld Place in that it seemed to disappear. We eventually found it, but it was closing for a concert. The front desk people tried to sell us tickets, but neither of us were interested in a concert we knew nothing about with only a couple of hours before our train left.

So we walked over to the train station and spent an hour or so at the shopping center next door. Inside, I went nuts at another accessory store and a place called Forever 18 (no relation). They had a New Yorker, and I bought a face shirt!

Before getting on the train, we made our Official Token McDonald’s Stop. I allow myself one trip to McDonald’s per international voyage. Sometimes you just need something fast and familiar. It was a pretty swank McD’s, with a flat-screen TV playing music videos (I finally saw “California Girls”). There was no ketchup, however. Fail.

We had a little run-in with the gypsies at the train station. They were hovering around the lockers, and as soon as they saw us, they asked us if we had any money. They said they didn’t have enough to rent one.

Maybe it makes me racist, but I hate gypsies. I think anybody who has ever been to Paris hates them. All that stuff about them in Hunchback of Notre Dame is crap. They were asking us for change so they’d see where we kept our money so they could lift it from us later.

I wanted to wait a couple of minutes for them to leave, but Bex said we should just grab our stuff and go right then. So I said, “Never let go of your purse,” and we dived in and got our stuff. As far as I could tell, we made it out of their clean. But we’ll never know for sure, especially given what we discovered the next day (there’s a teaser for you).

We got on a train, went to Vienna, and went to the hotel. Sounds simple, right? Ha! There’s a WHOLE story in itself, and it’s going to be in the next episode, ‘cause this one’s long enough.

Episode #9: Private Property, Schmivate Schmoperty

2010-08-31T11:23:00.002-05:00

So there we were in Salzburg, and we had plenty of non-Sound of Music stuff to get to. We wanted to go to the Hohensalzburg Fortress, so we wound our way up the hill to the funicular.

The first thing we started to notice about the town is that it was PACKED with tourists. And snotty ones, too. I was pushed and bumped more in that one afternoon in Salzburg than I had been the entire time we were in Budapest.

An upside to this was that since we had the Salzburg Card, we could skip to the front of the lines at sights. It was like a Fast Pass!

The view of Old Town from the fortress

Where marionettes go to die. I actually, neither of us could figure out the purpose of this “dry coin fountain”/puppet graveyard.

The team!

This is the clearest view of the Nonnberg we had on the trip. The Nonnberg was the abbey Maria was from.

A little spice to the Hohensalzburg décor

I was in a bit of a snit at this point in the day. The tourists were bugging the crap out of me, and my audioguide had stopped playing and I couldn’t get it to start again. But you have to admit that a view like this can brighten any darkened soul.

I really like shots of high places looking down at views like that. I feel like I’m flattening the world, in a sense. Because this courtyard was easily several hundred feet above the buildings below.

I’m trying to look like a rook or something.

Back in town, we wandered our way back down to the river, and hopped on a bus to Hellbrunn Palace. And what did we pass on the way? The Von Trapp Mansion and the private road it’s on! So we hatched a plan: on the way back from Hellbrunn, we should get off the bus and get a close-up view of the house! Wahoo!!

Hellbrunn is a pretty cool place. It’s kind of a generic castle. But a generic castle is still a pretty awesome place to be.

It’s like the window is a Photoshop filter!

The thing that sets it apart is the grounds filled with trick fountains. We went on a tour with an employee who would, of course, periodically spray us.

Bex matches!

So, the moment had come. We were back on the bus, and knew where to hop off. We set off on our search for the Von Trapp house.

Does this lane look familiar?

Approaching the gate…

The house!! We made it! We felt so adventurous, getting off the beaten path to find such a gem as this! It might have been the highlight of the whole day: seeing something the other SOM Tour people didn’t get to see!

I felt like we were in a Van Gogh painting.

We had dinner on the stop of the Stein Hotel. We weren’t ravished, so we just got appetizers, which was fine because, aside from the 20 pages of drinks, was about all they had. There were lovely views of town.

We kept noticing women wearing dirndls. At first I thought, “Surely, she works at a touristy restaurant.” But when we saw them at the Stein, and often accompanied by men in suits, it made us wonder if dirndls are the little black dress of the Austrian Alps.

Also, it should be noted that, as much as skinny jeans are the trend right now, men should not wear denim leggings.

We finished the day by walking around Steingasse and Linzergasse, and then hopped on a bus back to Helga’s.

Day 6 Stats
Miles Walked: 6
Number of Times We Were Unable to Dodge the Water at Hellbrunn: 3

Danube Adventure Commercial Break

2010-08-31T11:18:00.003-05:00

Here are two videos gleaned from Bex's collection:

The Sound of Music Tour Singalong. It's worth it for nothing else than to see Bex's eyes bug out about halfway through:

"If I Were a Rich Man" in Budapest:

Episode #3: A Mexican wrestler, a disembodied pair of legs, and two American girls walk into a Turkish bath…

2010-08-31T08:37:00.004-05:00

We interrupt this tale of Salzburg adventure with the long-awaited Turkish Baths episode!!! Hooray for Bex coming back from her many vacations! Come with me as we head back to the Hungarian dreamland of Budapest…

So we left off at Nagyvásárcsarnok, or the Great Market Hall. It should be pointed out that at no point during the trip did we ever pronounce a Hungarian word accurately. I don’t think we even attempted Nagyvásárcsarnok, but if we had, it would have sounded something like “Naggy-ver-snock.”

Lángos eaten and tourist knick-knacks purchased, we headed over to the Terror House, a museum about the Arrow Cross (Hungarian Nazis) and Soviet occupations of Hungary.

These were people who had been imprisoned and killed by either the Arrow Cross or the Soviets.

We’d left our guide book in the cloakroom, and the labels, when in English, proved to be long-winded, so we didn’t totally understand the place until later. I think we may have been a bit culturally insensitive when we walked into a room where the carpet was a map of Russia. It depicted the locations of gulags (Soviet concentration camps), but Bex shouted for joy when she saw Saratov, a place she’d spent a chunk of her mission.

The museum was visually interesting, even if we didn’t “get it” immediately. I thought these looked like sticks of butter, but were in fact supposed to represent rations of lard.

Here’s a room where we totally missed the point. I knew the room was all about Soviet propaganda, but I just loved it for the 50s/60s design element (I guess we can blame “Mad Men” for that). And really, when you think about it, how different is this from mid-century American consumerism? They’re both examples of blatant propaganda; they’re just marketing different lifestyles! Anyway, they also had these phones and I started waxing philosophical and nostalgic about the weight and feel of a landline phone that we miss out on in today’s cell phone-driven world.

This was a display about the importance of aluminum to Hungarian life during the 20th century. I really have no idea how that relates to the Soviets, but it was presented very interestingly.

In the basement of the Terror House, we saw actual cells where Soviet opponents were held. Bex is in a standing cell, where the prisoner had to stand 24 hours a day. There was also a padded cell. I had fun flinging myself against the wall. It still kind of hurt.

Next we tried to take a tour of the State Opera House, but the guy there told us the line was too long to make it in time. Bummer. It was a bit bizarre to be there, though, because every tourist in Budapest was also there.

We took some pictures of the lobby before we left…

… for the Turkish baths!

The baths were amazing, and a lot easier to navigate than we originally thought. They had these cool watch things that locked your locker for you. And the pools were the shiz!

About to jump in!

This water was 30 degrees Celsius. Like a gigantic deep hot tub!

We attempted MANY underwater pictures. We were far more successful with the single shots than the ones with both of us.

Not lying, this is the best one with both of us in it.

So here’s the story of the disembodied legs: Shortly after arriving, we saw this guy rolling around in a wheelchair. We both noticed him because he wasn’t in a swimsuit (and he was good-looking). Later, in another of the outdoor pools, we saw this!!

We were kind of far away, so at first I thought, “Surely, my eyes are playing tricks on me. His wheelchair must recline and he’s leaning back or something.” But it soon became apparent that it really was a disembodied pair of legs! We thought it could have been a joke some people were playing, but then it finally dawned on us: they’re prosthetic legs! The guy must have been lifted out by his friends and put in the pool! Notice the walking poles? Another clue!

We actually saw this guy and his friends (two hot girls and an older man) the next day at the Parliament building. I was so excited to see our legless friend again!

It started to look like rain, so we went inside to the pools in there. There were about 9 different pools, with different temperatures and different colors (due to the minerals in it). In this pic, you can see how green the water was.

And there they are: the Mexican wrestlers! They simply appeared in one of the indoor pools, and swam around like it was no big thing to be wearing the masks. They were the hit of the baths, at least for Bex and me. We never saw them maskless, so their identity remained a mystery.

In one of the saunas. I’m actually amazed we made it as long in there as we did (about 4 minutes).

Finally, our baths experience had to end. We were starting to get hungry and our three hours of time were almost up. But it was so fun and relaxing. I would highly recommend these baths (the Szechenyi ones) to anyone and everyone!

After the baths, we went out to dinner on Raday utca, a popular restaurant street. Here is Bex with her chicken paprika and an awesome bachelorette party in the background!

And me with goulash! It was delicious!

Day 2 Stats
Miles walked: 5
Thunderstorms Dodged: 2

Episode #8: “What happened to the guy with no left side?”

2010-08-27T09:38:00.002-05:00

“He’s all right!” -Joke our tour guide Peter told us

This day was EPIC.

It began humbly enough. We ate in Helga’s breakfast room, and bought Salzburg cards off of her (she’s a savvy bed-and-breakfaster), then popped outside and saw the bus coming. No time to waste!

We got into town and over to our first destination. Guess what it was:

The Sound of Music Tour! It was a dream come true! Bex and I are going to be insufferable when we watch the movie now, because we saw SO MANY filming locations! Seriously, pretty much anywhere in Salzburg that they filmed, we saw. How true that statement was will become apparent later in the tale.

In addition to being a great pop culture tour, the Sound of Music Tour is also a fun way to get an overview of Salzburg. So it was nice that it was the first thing we did there.

There were other Mormons on the bus! I heard someone mention Salt Lake at one point during the tour, and Bex and I did the same “check” on them that we’d done the day before. However, unlike when we ran into Merkles 2, we didn’t say anything to them. They were the classic Ugly American types, and I didn’t particular want to associate myself with them.

Hohensalzburg Fortress. We’d go there later in the day.

We’re so excited!

This palace wasn’t ever shown in the movie. But the lake it’s in front of was! It’s THE lake! Notice the fortress in the background. From there, we could see this palace again! It’s several hundred years old, so we even saw it in paintings in some of the museums.

Driving through the countryside…

The gazebo! It was originally on the grounds of the palace we’d just come from, but they were sick of people climbing the fence to see it and sent it to Hellbrunn Palace. I’m clearly dancing in front of it.

Our kickass tour bus. Everywhere we went, people took pictures of it.

This is the street where the Von Trapp house was (the one for the movie, not the real-life one; that’s a Jesuit college now). It’s a private road, so this was as close as the bus could get to it. The trees are the very same that the kids hung out of!

The Salzach River

Leaving Salzburg for the hills!

There’s a great video of Bex and me singing “Do Re Mi.” Unfortunately, it’s on her camera, and she’s still out of town! However, that video will get its own blog entry. It’s too awesome to skip completely.

Oddly enough, we drove past the Red Bull Corporate Headquarters on the way to the hills.

Don’t you just want to spend your whole summer here?

So gorgeous!

Here is our amazing tour guide Peter. If you can imagine Jon Lovitz giving a Sound of Music bus tour, you’re pretty close to what we experienced.

We’re in Mondsee here. It’s a small Park City-type town in the mountain lake region. Peter is standing in front of the church where Maria and Captain Von Trapp were married in the movie (in real life, they were married in Salzburg, at the actual abbey where Maria had been a novice).

Wouldn’t you hate your wedding music being “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?” That part used to bug me about the movie.

Still, it’s very lovely!

At lunch. With a glass bottle of Coke!

Lunch was pretty good. I had a frankfurter with mustard and horseradish (heaven), and Bex and I split an apfelstrudel. The Ugly American Mormons were at the same restaurant (Mondsee’s a small place), and we heard them long before we ever saw them. Bex and I know that occasionally during the trip, we were louder than the average European, but I think for the most part we kept ourselves toned down. These people did not. In fact, we kept running into them later that day in Salzburg, and it was ALWAYS a case of hearing them first.

Mondsee was so pretty. I’d totally vacation there.

Sadly but eventually, our tour came to an end. But we didn’t let the Sound of Music magic die with it! The tours leave from Mirabellplatz in Salzburg, across the street from the Mirabellplatz Gardens, featured in the movie!

A name I call myself enjoying some drops of golden sun.

Can’t you just see the Von Trapp kids dancing around this fountain?

I don’t believe this unicorn was featured in the movie, but it IS pretty cool.

That will bring. Us. Back. To. DO!!!!

I never remembered these statues from the “Do-Re-Mi” scene, but luckily we watched part of it on the bus!

Do-me-me, me-so-so. Re-fa-fa, la-ti-ti!

After the gardens, we continued on our merry way through Salzburg. The bulk of the Sound of Music mayhem was over, but there were more surprises in store!

Yep, that just happened.

Episode #7: “What the-? You’re not supposed to be here!”

2010-08-26T12:29:00.004-05:00

It was our last day in Budapest, and we cried bitter tears as we packed our stuff. Our last day’s itinerary was somewhat fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants-like. We wanted to try for Parliament again, and we STILL hadn’t seen St Stephen’s hand!

Our Metro passes expired that morning at 9:10am, so we booked it checking out so we could get to Parliament without having to pay for our fare.

Oh, joy! Oh, rapture! We got tickets for the 10am tour of Parliament! That gave us about an hour to bounce around the neighborhood, killing time. We found a café with Wi-Fi and sat on the stoop next door to “borrow” it. Then we found a small grocery store and I documented these babies:

I kind of regret not buying them.

Our Parliament tour was kind of awesome. It was led by who we assumed was an intern. There was also a VERY excited Romanian. The building was marvelous!

St Stephen’s crown was there too! (Not as good as the hand, but still pretty good.)

It was about this time when my world was ROCKED. I hadn’t bothered looking at anyone in our tour group, so I was shocked to suddenly have a clear view of Merkles 2! Merkles lived in DC like three or four years ago and we were ward friends. I hadn’t seen her since before her mission, but there she was! I wasn’t entirely sure it was her, and I don’t remember anything the tour guide said during the next five minutes because I was freaking out. I told Bex, and we both tried to stare her down without her knowing and figuring out if she was Mormon. That was the clincher. If we could tell she was Mormon, we knew it was her. And we could!

A few minutes later, Merkles walked almost right up to me, but hadn’t recognized me. Before the tour guide started on the next bit, I leaned over and said, “Hi, I know you!” And she had her “what the?” moment, and then we reunited! Isn’t it great running into friends in foreign countries?

This is us outside! Yay for Merkles 2!

We chatted with Merkles and her sisters for a while outside, and then headed off to St Stephen’s for one last attempt to see the hand. And you know what? We DID!! And it was glorious!!

The reliquary

Can you see the stump in there?

From this angle, it looks most like an actual hand as opposed to a rock

A view of the chapel

We walked through Gödör Klub on the way to our next stop! It was less awesome in the day time.

Our last official stop in Budapest was the Dohány Synagogue. It’s the second-largest synagogue in the world (after one in New York). There is a very moving Holocaust memorial on site. Here, during World War II, over 2000 Jews died of starvation in the ghettos, and were buried in mass graves here. All of the memorial plaques, placed there later by family members, have 1944 and 1945 death dates.

This sculpture has several thousand leaves, each inscribed with the name of a Hungarian Jew who was killed by the Nazi and Arrow Cross parties.

We read that to place rocks on a grave is an important part of the burial process in Jewish tradition. For those who never received proper burials, these rocks tucked into the memorial stand as a sign of respect and reverence.

Inside the synagogue. Isn’t it cool?

After the synagogue, we got some lunch at a place near the hotel (it was delicious! I love gnocchi!), then went to a grocery store and tried to burn off the last of our forints. We bought Túró Rudi. Thanks, Merkles 2’s sister, for telling us where to find it! We also got paprika chips!

We eventually got to the train station, but were a little early and had to wait for our platform to be announced. There weren’t any lounges that we could find, so this is where we ended up. The floor.

Trying the Túró Rudi on the train!

We had a five-hour long train ride to Salzburg, so we kicked back and wrote postcards (we think we’re really funny, and laughed until we cried while writing them), and read books. I finished reading my book about the Trapp Family Singers (spoiler: they escaped the Nazis).

Trying to take pictures through a train window is always tough.

Just after nightfall, we arrived in Salzburg! Our first order of business was getting bus tickets from a machine, which failed miserably because none of the bus drivers recognized the ticket as valid. I have no idea what we bought that was the exact same price as the ticket, but it wasn’t a ticket, apparently. Thankfully, a nice driver just let us on. Woot! Our second order of business was getting creeped out by a skeezy teen at the bus station.

We didn’t do anything that night except schlep it out to Helga’s house.

Tragedy: there used to be a hotel run by my company in Salzburg. However, it was recently converted into another brand (not the hated one, however). So I could not use my wicked-awesome discount. Luckily, this gave us an opportunity to find a more “Austrian” place to stay. And you really don’t get more Austrian than staying in an Austrian’s house. We got the recommendation from “the book.” Thanks, “the book”!

Note: You know you’ve arrived at Helga’s house when you smell the cow crap. That’s because she lives at a dairy farm!

Less design-y but more homey!

Helga was Catholic. VERY Catholic. Also, she did NOT want to speak German with me. I tried not to take it as an insult to my language skills. But even Bex was like, “Yeah, she wasn’t having it.”

We zonked out around midnight, sad to have bid farewell to Hungary, but anxious to see what Austria had in store for us!

Day 5 Stats
Miles Walked: 3.2
Countries Our Bodies Were In: 2

Episode #6: The Most Unusual Pickup Ever

2010-08-25T14:39:00.004-05:00

For lunch on Sunday we went to this great place called Nagyi Palacsintazoja (Granny’s Pancakes). It was from “the book,” but we’d also been told about it by a girl in our ward who went to Budapest on her mission. And can I say, it was heaven! I got a savory crepe with pork and spices, a sweet crepe with banana and Nutella, a coke, and a cherry/cinnamon milkshake. That’s a meal I would like to replicate someday. I highly recommend this place. The view and surroundings were great too.

We still had a while before church started, so we decided to hike up Castle Hill and start our Buda walking tour. We passed this awesome house:

We went to a medieval Jewish prayer house that we both felt was not worth it. It was just a boring white room. The lady there could tell we didn’t like it and started explaining stuff to us in Hungarian and Mime, which made it cooler for the history nerd in me, but not worth the admission. And guess what? It wasn’t in “the book”!

Next we encountered something that would remain a sore spot for the rest of our time in Budapest.

Now, y’all know I have company pride. I yell “Woot!” when I see a my-company-branded hotel, and I boo whenever I see one of our biggest competitors. I don’t really boo any other brand (except occasionally the one that an ex of mine works for). But it’s all in jest. Well, sometimes. I’ve found that over the years, I have come to truly loathe our biggest competitor. Not to the point that I’ll shun anyone who has ever worked there (I have a friend who did), but to the point that what happened next kind of stung.

My company and our competitor opened their first hotels in Budapest in the same year (I’ve yet to figure out which one came first). My company’s hotel is really big and really visible. It’s got a great location, with a fantastic view of Buda. It’s also fantastically ugly. It is mentioned in “the book” as being so.

The competitor’s hotel is IN Buda, and is part of that view. On the streetside, it incorporates a medieval façade (blasted out during World War II) and looks lovely. On the river side, it is at worst a non-entity, completely disappearing into the scenery. It is praised in “the book” for this.

Also, Bex liked to harangue me about this. It’s completely dumb that I even cared, but I did. I hated that all along, I’d been taking pictures of the competitor and hadn’t realized it.

I’m not putting any damn pictures of that hotel up on this blog, though. Hmph!

Fisherman’s Bastion was the shiz. It’s a result of the 1896 Millennial Celebration (a lot of what looks historic in Budapest is), and has fantastic views and is super cool!

St Matyas Church (we’d go there later)

Another view of Parliament

And another…

Outside St Matyas

Walking towards church...

Bex is awesome.

Church was cool. We’d decided to go to the International Branch since it fit our schedule. It was teensy, but that was expected. We talked to a nice friendly gal about to go on her mission, and met the senior missionaries. During the meeting, Bex noticed a couple of guys looking at us. I’d remained blissfully unaware. I, frankly, was more concerned about getting my notes up to speed on the notepad, and listening to the talks (they were awesome!).

After church, Bex and I took advantage of the free bathrooms before heading out. It was TINY. The sink area was super shallow, and the door was propped open. Which meant that when these two guys popped over to start chatting with us, Bex and I were standing IN the bathroom, and they were in the doorway, like, ONE FOOT AWAY.

What “The Charmer” said to Bex: “Your face is so nice. With your smile.”
What he said to me: “Your accent is beautiful. You could talk all day long. It’s like music.”

Hi-larious. We were gracious and friendly, but it was super awkward and we were ready to get back to Castle Hill. So we peaced out of there as quickly as we could without being mean, and laughed all the way back to our walking tour.

We saw a guy driving a Trabant on the way back. A real, functional Trabant! It had to be like the last one left. I don’t care what they say about the Commie-Car; I think they’re cute! So I was thrilled when we saw it parked a few minutes later.

So freaking awesome!

We went into St Matyas next. I LOVED the patterns inside.

In the gift shop, they had a GIGANTIC key! Keys are one of the motifs I love these days, so you know I had to document it.

I’m guessing this is St Stephen. They just love him there. There was a great guy near this spot that, I guess, thought Bex was dumber than rocks, and tried to convince her his pictures were hand-painted that morning by himself, even though we’d just seen the same images a few feet away. I just kept laughing.

Just look at those ‘staches!

Yes!!!

Magnums (which I referred to once as “Mustangs”) are awesome.

Buda Palace

The view of Gellért Hill from Buda Palace

On the funicular!

The tongueless lions!

I love it. This is Chain Bridge. Much grander than the one by my house, no?

We tried to go see St Stephen’s hand again, but the church was partially closed again, this time for Sunday services.

We got dinner behind St Stephen’s, and realized how close we were to running out of forints. We were peacing out the next day, and neither of us wanted to get more and incur the dreaded ATM fees. Miraculously, the restaurant we ate at let us pay in Euros! Hooray for Hungary joining the EU and adopting the currency!

That night we went to a Hungarian song-and-dance show. It was the one recommended in “the book” for being the least cheesy. It was quite enjoyable, I must say. We got the cheap seats, though, and when the ticket-taker looked at them, she just looked at us and said, “I’m sorry about your seats.” We’re really not sure what she meant by that. But it made us giggle as we climbed the stairs to the balcony. Our seats were perfectly fine, in the end.

Awesome things about the show: They played “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof. Not sure why, but we were thrilled on behalf of our Foy Friend.

Less-than-awesome things about the show: The near-constant “AYYYYY!”ing by one of the female dancers.

Fun fact: There apparently are no outdoor liquor laws in Hungary (nor in Austria), because after the show, we were walking through town and encountered TONS of people with open liquor bottles. I don’t know why I kept noticing it, but I did.

During our walk from Leopoldtown to the Metro, we walked through Gödör Klub, an outdoor summer concert club. We’d originally planned on going a couple of nights before, but rain got in the way. A band of British guys was nearing the end of their set, so we stayed and watched! And then we bought their CD for 5 Euros.

There were also these guys doing (performing? enabling?) a physical Facebook newsfeed board! It was awesome!

Day 4 Stats
Miles Walked: 7.9
Times our skirts blew up in the wind: 0!

Episode #5: But what if Anonymous was a girl?

2010-08-24T08:48:00.002-05:00

Because we didn’t have easy access to the Internet, Bex and I had to rely on the TV for our weather data. Sadly, today was Sunday, and there were no “Wake Up, Budapest!” type shows to tell us. My notepad says, “we are fated never to know the weather.”

Which meant we hauled our umbrellas around, because this is what it looked like outside. Here is Heroes’ Square, a huge monument to Hungarian history in the Városliget park. There used to be statues of Hapsburg notables, but they were taken out. Turns out the Hungarians don’t like the Hapsburgs all that much (except for Sisi, but we’ll learn more about her in like 5 days when we get to Wien).

Me at the monument

After nearly getting run over crossing the street (funny how you think there’s going to be a crosswalk just around the corner, and then you get there and there isn’t, but you decide to cross anyway), we went into the park and to Vajdahunyad Castle. It was made for the 1896 Millenial Celebrations (the Magyars came to Hungary in 896).

It’s a mix of multiple architectural styles

We went to a church on the site and paid like 100 forints to go inside. We’d read that it was a popular venue for weddings, so we thought it would be cool inside. Lame! Clearly it’s popular for the OUTSIDE, with its neo-Gothic awesomeness.

See?

There’s some famous quote about Hungary (see? This is why I need my guidebook right now. Where IS that thing?) that’s attributed to Anonymous. So they made a monument to him. We’d just seen some annoying tourists sprawl all over him (which, admittedly, I’ve done), but I decided to take a proper and demure photograph, so as not to besmirch the fine work of Anonymous.

Isn’t this park lovely?

After the park, we went to the Szépmüvészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts). I have to say, it was disappointing. It probably didn’t help that Bex and I had spent the better part of the last hour talking about our respective visits to Paris and how we loved the museums there. The Szépmüvészeti Múzeum just doesn’t have a lot of stuff we liked.

Tangent: A few months ago, I saw a great documentary about the Barnes Collection called The Art of the Steal. In one scene, a scholar went to an auction and talked about Dr. Barnes’ method of buying art. Paraphrasing: “He looked for beautiful works by important artists, or important works by minor artists.”

That thought was in my head at this museum. There wasn’t a lot in the way of major artists, and what was there weren’t great examples of the time period. However, we did see a Rodin sculpture we both liked a lot, and there were a couple of Canalettos there. And really, what’s a museum without a Canaletto? (That’s a joke going back to my Study Abroad days. I’m such a nerd.)

Okay, I couldn’t resist taking a picture like a sore-thumb tourist. I loved the M1 line of the Budapest Metro! It was the first line built on the first continental subway system (London’s is older, but they’re not on the Continent), and is small and cozy. There are only three cars per train, the stations look straight out of the 19th century, and the hand straps are made with real leather!!

So far it hadn’t rained. Actually, it never did. There were SEVERAL days of the trip where we dragged our umbrellas around and never used them. Fortunately, there were no days where we DIDN’T have our umbrellas and then needed them.

Episode #4: Saturdays with Lenin

2010-08-23T12:53:00.006-05:00

I hate to tease Episode #3 and then not deliver, but because I wasn’t on top of my game, I forgot to get Bex’s pictures before she left for a family reunion. And the Tale of the Turkish Baths are not complete without her pictures (her camera is waterproof; mine is not). So we’re going to do this Glee style and do the episodes out of order.

Note: It makes sense that there would be Renaissance Fairs in Europe. But the commercials for the fairs made them look about twenty times awesomer than the ones in the States.

On Saturday morning we went to Memento Park. Luckily, we actually made it there! We had to take a bus to a tram to a bus, and the directions to the second bus were not so clear. We could transfer at this particular square, but there were about 8 different bus stops, spread out all over. We only had like 5 minutes, and we never would have found the right one in time. Luckily, a newsstand guy helped us! Thanks, newsstand guy!

So, when the Iron Curtain fell, instead of bashing away all the Communist statues like a bunch of cities did, someone bought them all and built this park. Thanks to “the book,” we had a delightfully informative walking tour!

This park practically begs for irreverence:

The idealized Russian soldier, saving the town

Doing my aerobics workout

Ahh... Russki!

That guy was a tool.

That’s right. I own this joint.

Trying to arm wrestle...

I wanna be a rockette!

Gettin’ kicked...

Dead Weight Game!

These were the walls lining the road by our bus stop. I loved it!

When we got back into town, we went over to Parliament to get tour tickets. The line seemed long and I was hungry, so I don’t know that I was my usual cheery and bubbly self. That said, we waited in line anyway and when we were about 10 people from the front, they sold out. Boo!!

So we started on our Leopoldtown walking tour, which took us by the river’s edge.

The Buda side of Budapest

This is why I need to bust out my guidebook post-trip. I don’t rememeber who this guy is. He’s a Hungarian poet, though. I know that much. And he was my pal.

Our walking tour led us past the place where we ate lunch, which was handy because it had WI-FI! And then it took us to St Stephen’s Cathedral!

We actually went to two St Stephen’s Cathedrals on our trip. They’re named for different guys, though. This one is named for the guy who brought Christianity to Hungary (although, knowing the story, his dad should get any credit that is due, and it seems to have been done entirely for political purposes, but whatever), and his 1000-year-old hand is a relic inside the building.

We didn’t get to see the hand (this time, at least), because it was Saturday. And you know what that means! Weddings! Today in Budapest, we saw four brides, two of them here.

This bride is so gorgeous!

These bridesmaids would not be let into the church on a regular day. We actually did see a girl wearing a short skirt get kicked out of the church. Ha!

We climbed the tower (206 steps plus a lift) for these delicious views!

Buda and Leopoldtown

Hans Dieter enjoying a breather outside of my bag

Even though we’re slightly blurry, I think we both look awesome here!

I was constantly amazed by the SKY in Hungary (and Austria). It’s so rare to have an unobstructed view of the sky in the DC area. I couldn’t get over it!

Parliament

On the way back down…

Next we walked over to the riverfront again and hit up a festival going on, featuring some interesting food:

Then we found this and decided to insert a few people we wished had come on the trip with us:

The Shoes on the Danube Promenade: This is a memorial to Jews who fell victim to the Arrow Cross party during World War II. It was a pretty cool place, and the fashionista within liked the style of shoes.

We had some unexpected free time (thanks, Parliament, for running out of tickets), so we decided to hike Gellért Hill. 399 steps and a crapload of hills! We were BEAT by the time we got to the top. But we weren’t as bad off as Bishop Gellért, who was rolled down the hill in a spiked out barrel in 1046.

This was about step #68

Probably around step #100

More amazing sky!

The view from the top

The Liberation Monument

After schlepping it back down the hill and across the bridge, we got dinner and then went on a Danube river cruise! Peeps, I would recommend Legenda Tours to anyone, if for nothing else than the terrifyingly double-entendred commentary. We think it was probably a problem with the translation. What sounds beautiful and poetic in Hungarian sounded skeezy and creepy in English.

Bex and I chose to sit on the top, open deck of the boat. It was a bit chilly out, and only I had a jacket, but Bex was fine with it! Being on top meant we got the best views and were mostly alone. There were TV screens, which showed some of the sights we were looking at. When a shot of a church came up, Bex said, “Where's THAT church?”

“It’s right there!” I pointed.
“It looks like a cave!”
“It’s called the Cave Church!”

The Cave Church

Buda Palace

St Matyas

Bex with her delicious lemonade!

Parliament

Day 3 Stats
Miles Walked: 6.2
Pictures of Parliament Taken: 26

Episode #2: “The Book” and Being Annoying Tourists

2010-08-20T15:04:00.003-05:00

This was the view out our window on the first full day of the trip. Blurgh. What to do? We’d planned on doing a walking tour in Old Town Pest that morning. We decided to press on and not fear the rain. It was only sprinkling when we hopped on the Metro, so our hopes were high.

Wow, those hopes were quashed mightily. It was a torrential downpour when we walked out. All hopes for having a good hair day were ruined, but the resolve to go on the walking tour was unabated! Bex and I forged on into Deák Ferenc tér. Unfortunately, we had no sense of direction and ended up walking around in circles, in calf-high waters (I was so glad to be wearing sandals and shorts), as the thunder and lightning and fire and pestilence swirled around us, before finally diving into a store called Jeans Club.

Now, because I am awesome, I’d researched shopping extensively beforehand, and knew that Jeans Club was a Hungarian-based store for women’s fashions, so it was fortuitous that a location was right there in our time of need. And they were having a sale! I bought several pairs of earrings and a shirt. Bex did likewise. And the rain had decreased to a light drizzle by the time we left! Win!!

Our walking tour ended up being a raging success. In Vörösmarty tér, we admired the statue of Mihály Vörösmarty, a pioneer of Hungarian poetry, and also went into Bershka, a store I discovered in my Dubai days, where the same long song played the entire time we were there (and literally had the F-word in every second lyric; I kind of love it when that happens in foreign countries, like when I was in China and kept hearing Christmas music).

We walked along the Danube for part of the walking tour. In the background is the Buda side of Budapest, dominated by Buda Palace.

There are lots of fun statues around Budapest. A lot of them mean stuff. Some of them don’t. I don’t remember if this one does or not.

Why do I have a picture of McDonald’s? Well, it was the first McDonald’s on the other side of the Iron Curtain. It opened in the 1980s, and people would line up around the corner to get a taste of “western” food.

This is the site of our “church fail.” We walked in at what we thought was the tail end of a Mass, so we waited in the foyer area for a minute. Then we did what we usually do in churches: pop into a pew, bust out the guidebook, read about the church, and re-orient ourselves with a map without standing in everyone’s way. Well, once we’d sat down, an older lady came and sat next to us. A minute or two later, the Mass started up again! The lady glared at us when we didn’t stand up at the appropriate time. But we just wanted to take pictures and figure out where we were before continuing on our way! In the end, we had to just climb over her during a sitting-down part of the Mass, suffering her looks of death. In our defense, she’s the one who came late to Mass and chose to block two obvious tourists into the row. In her defense, we were the total rubes who didn’t know anything about Catholic worship practices and stomped into the church in the middle of one. But in our defense, who has church on Friday? (Uh… the entirety of Islam, Smash, that’s who.)

I’d like to take a break from this blog entry to inform you all that Milka bars are heaven on earth. I’m eating one as I write this, and it is oh-so-delicious.

This is the Pest Serbian Church. Yellow is so in right now! Good design choice, Serbs!

Our walking tour ended at Nagyvásárcsarnok, the Great Market Hall. It’s kind of a touristy place, but thanks to “the book,” we found a place that sells paprika for about the same price as grocery stores.

I’m going to pause to explain “the book.” I’ve never been one to use just one kind of guide book for a trip. I check books out from the library like mad, and make copies of pages with important information. But I’ll always bring one book on a trip with me, since there are maps and stuff. Well, I’ve been converted, fully, to Rick Steves. I’ve always liked him, but his books freaking MADE our trip. That’s where we got all of our walking tours, tons of delicious restaurant recommendations, and even a place to stay in Salzburg. Bex and I found that when we went to a site we ended up not liking, we’d usually discover that it had come from the Frommer’s guide, and that “Rick” had skipped over it. There are tons of secrets, like the paprika store, that we gleaned from “the book” (which referred to both the Budapest and Vienna/Salzburg/Tirol guides). I think the key is that he doesn’t put a ton of content on his website, so the “secrets” are only for those who actually buy the book.

Back to the Great Market Hall: we had lángos there! Fried bread with whatever you want on top. It actually proved to be a bit too much for my meager stomach, and I was full after only half the meal! We got yelled at by a Hungarian lady because we were standing at the table in front of HER food station, so we ate while we walked.

I ended up buying some Christmas ornaments from a “folk art” (read: touristy) stand. I loved it because everything was super frilly and girly, and the guy at the shop looked like a Hungarian Vin Diesel. He seemed nice, though.

Proof that the world is truly global: There were plentiful earring stands in every city and town we went to, and all of them were the same. In fact, in this picture, marked as “Hand-made Hungarian Handicraft,” is a pair of earrings that I bought at a Claire’s Boutique a month ago!!

Well, I’m going to end here or else this is going to be the world’s longest entry. Stay tuned for tales of Turkish baths!

Danube Adventures Episode #1: Getting there

2010-08-19T10:04:00.003-05:00

Hey, I know that probably most people reading this just want to see pictures of the trip. At least, when I look at other people’s blogs about travel, I usually skim the written part and check out the pictures. So feel free to skip the thrilling tales of adventure about to be set before you. You can find the best pics of the trip here. I’m uploading them in chunks, so keep checking back.

So. There we were. On a plane. With tickets we’d only bought three and a half weeks before. It had been a whirlwind of trip planning, but we made it happen. Our rooms were booked, our rail passes were bought, and our butts were in the plane seats.

I’d mentioned before that I discovered that Ambien is like a roofie for me. To illustrate the point, these are the notes from my trip notepad: “Feelin’ wonky. Eyes not matching up. Joneses. Zurich-hot guy at passport control.”

When talking about it later, Becks told me about things I’d done or said during the two flights, and vague memories came back as she mentioned them. But most of it is shrouded in darkness. My iPod had clearly been used, and apparently I’d been listening to Enrique Iglesias. Also, apparently I listened to “Grace Kelly” by Mika, but I think it was actually an Airborne Toxic Event song, as “Grace Kelly” was not on the playlist. (But Enrique Iglesias was? Apparently I was high when building the playlist, too.)

My first clear memory is getting on the bus to the train station at the airport and taking a picture of us. I won’t include that picture here, as it is unflattering to us both. Becks (I think I’m going to change the spelling to Bex) and I agreed it was indicative of how we both felt: she was tired and I was high.

So of course we went shopping.

We had five hours before our train to Budapest would leave, and we had two options: check out Schönbrunn Palace, which was a mile away, or shop in Mariehilferstrasse. We decided on the latter, which proved to be the inspired choice (which we didn’t know until a week later). However, in our drunken haze, we walked several blocks down the street in the wrong direction.

Here is the street:

And here are my bags:

I spent a lot. And even bought a long braid of fake hair at the “Euro store.” This is completely ridiculous if you don’t know the reason why (which I’m not telling you), but is still slightly ridiculous even when you do. All will be revealed later, however.

We found a cool church on Mariahilferstrasse: Mariahilferkirche. Fancy that.

I liked this candle holder.

Here’s me in front of the train. Look at my bag open for all pickpockets to see. In my smartness, I thought our train left at 5:10, when it was actually 5:50. I guess better to be early than late? We sat and ate our würstels in the lounge while we waited.

Here’s Bex with her fantastic hair.

I have no memory of taking this picture.

I saw a troupe of people biking in a line in Kómaróm, Hungary. I love seeing day-to-day activities! I also a really cute train station, immediately followed by a really stark Communist-y train station. Unexpected.

A cloud!

The Budapest Keleti train station. It was here that the taxi driver said snottily, “No answer, that’s nice” when we ignored him.

Upon arrival in Budapest, the following happened:

* We almost got run over by a bus.
* We found the hotel and discovered that internet is not free.
* We went to an ATM only to realize that I’d left my debit card in the room.
* We discovered that all the grocery stores in the area had just closed. Blurgh.

Still, our neighborhood seemed cool and we were happy to settle in and sleep in real beds.

Day #1 Stats
Miles walked: about 3.5
Countries our bodies were in: USA, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary

Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale

2010-08-15T22:54:00.000-05:00

As the sun rises out the window of the Vienna airport, I think about how depressing it is that some of you haven't even gone to bed yet. I also think about the sucky cough I've developed. Thanks, smokers of Austria!

But the airport has free WiFi! So some more highlights:

* If I had never traveled before, I would pee my pants in fear at the Bratislava train station. What a hole that place was.

* Becks has a shirt from H&M. We've seen that shirt, in every city, multiple times. More than ten, easy, without exaggeration.

* I got a fantastic jumping picture in a room where photography is not allowed. Woot!

* Bratislava Bride Count: EIGHT!

* Qotd: "Das Box, bitte!"

* We went to see Knight and Day at Burg Kino on a free night. It was the PERFECT movie to see. There was a part when Cameron Diaz was looking at a gun and said, "Made in Austria" and there was a little rumble in the room of "ooh! We're IN Austria!" THEN, they WENT to Salzburg! Becks and I were gleeful!

* Dual flush toilets are cool!

* Does anyone know if the hymn "O du Held des wahren Glaubens" has an English hymnal equivalent? It was the only song from Sacrament meeting we couldn't identify.

* Also, has anyone heard of Staré Mesto? That's where my phone thinks I am.

Alright, that's it for this installment of "Smash and Becks' Adventures on the Danube."

The face on my shirt is named Gretl and has awesome sunglasses.

2010-08-14T05:42:00.001-05:00

Austria seems to have discovered the lure of WiFi and you can find it everywhere you go... for a price. Which is why I am blogging to you from Bratislava, where it is deliciously free in the main square.

Quick highlights from Wien:

* On our way down the tower of St Stephen's (343 steps), we got tired and a little dizzy, so we took a break. Well, we realized once we started going again, our break occurred about two or three steps out of sight of the bottom. We must have looked like total pansies to the people going up past us.

* Speaking of climbing stairs in church towers, I'm pretty sure that's the way I'm going to die.

* Every trip has a hitch, and ours occurred our first day in Wien. But we've learned new travel skills that can be used in any travel trip! And we'll tell you all about them later.

* Becks has a new BFF (sorry X10) and her name is Empress Sisi.

* If can make it through a transaction at a store without the cashier figuring out I don't speak German, it's a huge win for me.

* Becks has peed in 3 of Mozart's houses. She is very proud of this.

This is probably my last entry from the heart of the trip. But there will be entries with pictures later! There are definitely more stories to share. Just getting to Bratislava warrants its own entry!

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I forgot the German word for "forget."

2010-08-14T04:34:00.001-05:00

Salzburg is on a different planet than Budapest. We didn't know we had it so lucky. In Budapest, you can play "spot the tourist." It Salzburg, you have to play "spot the local."

Not to say we didn't like Salzburg. I could totally see myself going there again someday. With my screaming children, like everybody else had with them.

Highlights:

* We stayed at a house about 15 minutes away from the city center. It's adjacent to a dairy farm. As soon as we got off the bus, we knew we were in the right place. Yep, it smells like cows!

* We spotted fellow Mormons on our Sound of Music tour. They were ugly Americans in Mondsee. We never introduced ourselves.

* Speaking of the Sound of Music tour: uhh, how awesome was THAT? From our guide to the sights to the video Becks and I made on the bus, it was bliss from beginning to end.

* We saw a line for who-knows-what at the Hohensalzberg fortress. We never did figure it out. We also never waited in it.

* Becks has some sort of foot thing going on. I admit, its kind of fun to watch her freak out about it.

* We went off the beaten path, and onto private property, to get to a Sound of Music sight that wasn't on the tour! We have confidence! Oh yeah, and we've rewritten most of the lyrics to most of the SOM songs. We will be ready for the next Talent/No-Talent show!

* Unicorns.

* Girls freaking wear dirndls here! In everyday life! They can't possibly ALL be waitresses in themed restaurants!

* Qotd: "Check please" while forming the ASL symbol for C, as though that will help.

* Qotd the next day: "Why'd you take Latin?" "It was the cool thing to do. If you were a nerd."

* We stumbled upon a kickass concert rehearsal for the Salzburg Festival. Sweet!

* Nutella ice cream. Why has no one thought of this before?

* We saw a wall with a big chunk missing because some American World War II soldier tried to drive a tank down the street. It's so much of a fail it's practically a win!

* We watched a couple make out in a cemetery. She was way more into it than he was.

* You know how when you see something so much, you start thinking you want it? I started thinking that about purses with "Salzburg" emblazoned on them. I resisted. But I did buy a shirt with a face on it.

* We had a gypsy encounter at the train station. Maybe I'm racist, but every encounter I've ever had with gypsies reinforces the stereotype. I do not like them. My hands instinctively clutch my bag when I see them.

I can't wait to post our Sound of Music pics and videos! And thanks to a brand new memory chip, I've got 4 more gigs of opportunity to make myself look ridiculous in foreign countries!

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Én légpárnás tele van haz angolnák!

2010-08-14T04:31:00.001-05:00

More highlights from Budapest!

* The more Becks talks about our first day, the more I realize how high I was and how little I remember.

* The bathroom pickup story is just too good for a highlight reel.

* We paid 100 forints to see a church that looked like it had some cool cloisters and is known to be a popular wedding church. It was super lame inside. On well.

* The Museum of Fine Arts was underwhelming. But it did have Canalettos. A museum is not a museum unless it has Canalettos.

* We went to a rockin' crepe place for lunch on Sunday. I had a cherry cinnamon milkshake. It was wonderful!

* Okay, there's a certain hotel (woot!) right on the river, that's a bit of an eyesore. It's just big and Communist-looking and ugly. We happened upon a certain hotel that I think sucks, and Becks was quick to point out that it looks a lot nicer than the woot-worthy one. In fact, she kind of won't let me live it down. Luckily, the hotel we stayed in (also woot-worthy) was nicer than both.

* We went to the Fisherman's Bastion and took some awesome pics, then went over to the other side, only to find they charge admission. Are they just counting on people going to that side first?

* A hilarious Hungarian guy, complete with a bushy mustache, tried to convince us that he had painted the pictures he had for sale. Like, that morning. Awesome.

* We saw a real Trabant! Like, functional and everything! Driving down the street!

* Qotd: "With your face and my voice, we cannot be stopped."

* We went to Gődőr Klub, an outdoor concert venue, at the tale end of a British rock band's set. We felt so hip. We WERE so hip!

* It's Day 5 of the trip and I'm already not sure how I'm getting all my stuff home.

* In the middle of our Parliament tour, who should I see but Merkles 2, a friend who used to live in DC!

* St Stephen's 1000-year-old hand is going to cure all my ailments, I know it!

* Turő rudi is delicious! If it didn't have to be refridgerated, I would bring home a pallet!

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Szia and hallo!

2010-08-08T12:44:00.001-05:00

So... in case you haven't heard, I'm going to Europe. In fact, I'm already there. And because it turns out the Internet isn't free at my hotel in Budapest, I'm blogging from my phone, sitting on a bench, stealing an Italian restaurant's free Wi-Fi! We live in the future!

Highlights from the flight:
* Becks slept more than a person should naturally sleep. She was out before take-off at 6pm.
* While I'm on Ambien, I feel like I'm perfectly alert and aware. Afterwards, I barely remember anything I said or did. Basically, Ambien = roofie.

Highlights from our shopping adventure in Vienna:
* I bought Ereeen a shirt. A whole shirt. In a risky color. I hope she likes it.
* I re-figured out how to say "I'm sorry" and "excuse me" in German. In fact, "I'm sorry" came bursting into my head out of nowhere. Win!
* I can usually understand what people are saying to me in foreign languages if it's in context. But when the shopgirl at Orsay starting spouting off stuff to me, I stared at her blankly and forgot all of my German AND English. Turns out she was asking if I had an Orsay card. Fail.

Highlights from Budapest:
* Qotd from the taxi driver we ignored at the train station: "No answer. That's nice."
* Becks thought the concierge at the hotel was sucking up to me because I work for corporate. But I think she was just that nice!
* Becks and I were caught in a rainstorm that put the recent DC rainstorms to SHAME. Water up to our calves! Thunder and lighting at the same time! Armageddon! Hooray for umbrellas and the Jeans Club store, where we ducked in and subsequently bought the same shirt in different colors.
* We entered a Franciscan church and sat down, then found ourselves in the middle of a Mass. We totally pissed off the lady in our row. Fail.
* I bought really cool, somewhat frilly Christmas ornaments from a guy who, by the looks of it, moonlights as a cage fighter. Win.
* Qotd by Becks after a German guy started talking to her in the Turkish bath: "I can't understand what you're saying, Hot Guy!"
* Virginia is NOT for lovers, people. Hungary is. We can't go more than 10 minutes without running into a make-out-in-public couple. We thought we left that crap at home!
* Calzedonia, a sock store beloved by Sade and me, has turned into all-underpants-all-the-time. However, we are taking this in stride. I hope X10 is ready for some booty shorts.
* Shirts with faces are very popular here. So are skinny jeans and Aladdin pants.
* Bride watch 2010. Total bride count for Saturday: 4.
* I love love love Europe. They don't ruin your sodas with ice. And they use glass bottle Coke. Double win!
* The voiceover guy on the river cruise referred to the Danube as "frolicking between banks" and "licking these shores." Fail!
* Becks fell in the tub while rinsing off her feet.

There are SO many more stories to share. I didn't even talk about our legless friend, the Mexican mask guys, or getting picked up in the church bathroom.

Things That Must Go: 3!

2010-06-17T12:41:00.004-05:00

The automatic toilets at work flushing before I’m ready for them too. Wasteful and inconvenient and sometimes shocking!

Forgetting to flush in public bathrooms when there isn’t an automatic toilet, because I’m so used to the ones at work.

People not believing my reasons for not eating sweets. For years, eating too much sugar has given me debilitating headaches. Last year for Life Coach Mikey’s birthday, I sampled about a tablespoon's worth of frosting from his birthday cupcakes before going out to dinner, and I spent half the time out lying in the back of my car, alternately trying not to cry and praying for the Ibuprofen to kick in. This is an extreme example, but it illustrates how bad it can be. As a result, I limit my sugar intake. Wouldn’t you? However, I’m often in situations where there are refreshments, and if I abstain from them, people will make comments like, “Oh, you have so much willpower” or “that’s so smart to eat healthy” or something like that. Occasionally I will explain to them that I get headaches, but they never seem to believe me, because they continue talking about willpower and all that. Sorry I’m not masochistic enough for you people. But I’m sorrier that I’ve never been able to finish a Good Stuff Eatery shake. Those things are heaven.

Singing the harmony in church hymns when the song clearly calls for unison!

Along the same lines, when lyrics in hymns don’t quite rhyme. Lord/word, blood/flowed, etc. Sometimes, I’m tempted to force the rhyme: Lord/ward, blood/flood… but that’s not very reverent, I guess. It does make me giggle sometimes, though.

People who don’t do the proper research before going to a Broadway show, and then complain about the suggestive themes or dirty language after the fact. It is self-righteous, hypocritical, and a waste of money. There’s a magical tool we have today called the internet, which will tell you everything you need to know about a show before you see it. Often, shows will list the appropriate age ranges right on their website. I don’t know about you, but when I’m about to fork over $50-$200 on anything, I do some research ahead of time.*

The same goes for rock concerts. Musicians who use strong language in their songs will use strong language at their concerts! This story happened years ago, but I still think it’s funny: I was at a Ben Folds show and one of my friends invited some of the BYU interns. Apparently none of them had ever listened to a Ben Folds album, because they were shocked when Ben and his guitarist started cursing. Some of them even left early. Which meant they wasted both their ticket price and the price of two Metro rides, all because they hadn’t done their research. And they also looked like self-righteous tools.

Guys claiming that Tina Fey/Liz Lemon is their dream girl. If that were actually true, then I know of at least one friend whose door should be hanging off its hinges because guys are banging it down.

Mixing metaphors or using metaphors that don’t work. Come on, people! I have an example in mind but it was used by a General Authority in a conference talk and I don't want to appear to disparage Church leaders, even if I didn't like the metaphor they used.

Group dates. We’re not 16 anymore.

Reply-All email chains! When you’re sending a message out to your 80 closest friends about some event you want to go to, tell them not to friggin’ reply-all! It clogs up my inbox and the responses are usually totally lame, like “I can’t go, I’m going out of town that weekend” or they start some dumb banter with one of the other people replying. There are some big offenders right now out there in the ether, and it MUST GO!

Robot radio stations. I think the official term for this is “automatic music programming.” I hate most DJs, because of their “radio voices” and asinine comments between songs, but at least they know how create a flow of music. Whenever I hear the tagline for DC’s robot station, “Fresh FM. Today’s fresh hits. Fresh! Fresh! Fresh!” invariably what follows is a song from the 90s. And I’m not exaggerating. I don’t listen to the station incessantly, so my experience could be skewed, but only ONCE have I heard a song that could be considered "current" following the tag. Dido is not one of today’s fresh hits! These stations are killing radio.

Continents. They’re a sham! North and South America are the same landmass; why are they two continents? Europe, Asia, and Africa are all connected too. And culturally speaking, Jordan is an entirely different beast than, say, Japan. Why are they categorized together?

* As a side note, Lend Me A Tenor is playing on Broadway with Justin Bartha and Tony Shalhoub, and it’s really good. And is definitely PG-13. But guess what? I had a pretty good idea that it would be before I bought my ticket.

Nazis- not the usual topic for this blog

2010-06-10T09:27:00.006-05:00

My thoughts after reading The Lost Life of Eva Braun by Angela Lambert

Okay, so here’s my actual review. The book seems very well researched (though, not being an expert on the subject myself, I really have no way to prove this). One thing which separates this book from other biographies I’ve read is that the author, Angela Lambert, draws on her own personal history to give insight to Eva. Her mother was German and was born within a couple of months of Eva. They grew up in very similar circumstances (Lambert points out that in family photos for both women, they often wear almost the exact same outfits), yet had drastically different adult lives. This provides a nice foil for Eva and allows for Lambert to fill in some blanks. However, she is very clear to point out when she’s speaking about her mother, and avoids confusion.

Holy cow, is Eva Braun not a person I would ever hang out with. She basically lived for Hitler. When he wasn’t around, she would wile away the hours tanning and changing outfits. Heaven knows I like a good tan and fashion, but she took it to an extreme. She never sought to improve herself or learn anything. She was a nice person, and loved her family and friends, but that’s about all you could say about her. She was woefully ignorant about what was going on around her.

This is partially explained. She spent a ten years living in Hitler’s retreat in the Alps. He could and did control what media got to her. When he was away, he made sure only pro-Nazi newspapers were delivered (not that she would have read them), and of course there was no television. She surrounded herself with people who really didn’t care about politics, so it’s not like she would have kept up with current events via telephone. When he was in residence, he would not speak about politics in front of women. Eva wasn’t the only Nazi housewife left in the dark about the inner workings of the government.

So, to the questions I laid out before reading:

* Was she even in a position to influence Hitler? Or was she just the adoring housewife? The latter, absolutely. If she’d been the personality type to even ask questions, let alone try to gain influence, Hitler would have sent her packing long before she became his live-in mistress.

* Did he control her through fear or manipulation? Was she too afraid to do anything? He didn’t have to control her through fear. She met him when she was seventeen, and liked him right away. He became her world, and she emotionally didn’t exist without him. She wasn’t afraid of him; she was afraid of not being with him!

* Could she have been caught up in the Nazi fervor, like so many of her countrymen? Could she ever step back and evaluate, and really understand her part in it all? Yes and no. She never officially joined the Nazi party; although really, given her personality, that’s not a surprise. She was so actively apolitical that it’s hard to even tell (if the research can be believed) if she ever bought into the idealogy. And no, she could never step back and evaluate her role. She never cared to.

So, is Eva a villain? Neither “yes” or “no” feels like the right answer. Certainly she never committed any atrocities herself, and it’s clear she never understood what her dear boyfriend was up to. But, to a degree, it’s apparent that she didn’t want to know! The book mentions the Catholic sin of “willful ignorance,” and she certainly was willfully ignorant. Probably all it would have taken is a phone call to her dad (who hated the Nazis but totally sold out to them in the end) or her brother-in-law (who worked for Heinrich Himmler) to find something out. Well, maybe it wouldn’t have been quite that easy, but she was well-connected. If she’d changed her personality, she totally could have found out information and sold them out. But then, can she really be a villain because she just didn’t feel like being an underground hero?

Lambert made a point that there are women the world over who stand by their abusive husbands and boyfriends, and that’s where I’m going to have to put Eva in my mind. So, she wasn’t a villain, but she was no saint, either.

This might sound a bit superficial after that, but one thing I really did not like about the book was its editor. Holy cow, did they mess up! Either a not-yet-edited copy was accidentally sent to the printer, or the editor totally phoned it in and didn’t get caught. Ideas and themes are repeated multiple times in any particular chapter and dates conflicted in a few places. I actually didn’t notice those errors as much as the ones in the footnotes! In several cases, footnotes are repeated word-for-word. The citations are not consistent (titles won’t be italicized, names are left off, etc.), and neither are the translations (since the author is half-German and fluent, she often includes the original German song lyrics or quotes). Sometimes a footnote will refer to another place in the book which does not exist. It was more annoying than anything else, but my gosh was it annoying.

I know this is a lot heavier than my blog entries usually are. Next time I promise to return to more superficial things: another installment of Things That Must Go!

What I’m Reading

2010-06-08T12:33:00.006-05:00

I thought it might be interesting to do a book review-type entry. I read 12-20 books a year, so why not? Plus, there might be someone out there who is a HUGE nerd like me and wants something to read.

One thing that really annoys me lately is that I don’t really know how to search for books that I will like. Unlike TV and movies, I can’t watch a commercial for a book. And I’ve found that my taste for fiction differs from everyone around me. For every recommended book I like, there are three or four that I put down because of boredom or disdain. For that reason, it’s much easier for me to read biographies and non-fiction. There, the substance is more important than the style. Which leads me to my book.

The Lost Life of Eva Braun, by Angela Lambert

My thoughts before reading

One of my new year’s resolutions this year was to read the biography of a villain. My first thought was Hitler himself, or maybe Genghis Khan. But then I read the Wikipedia page for Eva and I was intrigued. Is she a villain? I don’t know! If she is, then it’s an easy fit for my resolution. But if she isn’t… well, how could she not be? How can you be so close to one of the world’s worst mass murderers and not be a villain? But then again, she may have been in love with Adolf Hitler, but she wasn’t Hitler himself. She never committed any crimes against humanity. But she sat idly by and watched him do it.

This led me to a more philosophical/religious thought process. Are we accountable for the actions of those we love? An important part of my religion is that you are accountable for your own choices. To quote the second Article of Faith: “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” But are we responsible for the sins we allow to happen? Is it a sin of omission? A passive transgression?

Relating more specifically to Eva, the questions I have are these:
* Was she even in a position to influence Hitler? Or was she just the adoring housewife?
* Did he control her through fear or manipulation? Was she too afraid to do anything?
* Could she have been caught up in the Nazi fervor, like so many of her countrymen? Could she ever step back and evaluate, and really understand her part in it all?

How will the book answer my questions? Stay tuned!

Since we last spoke...

2010-05-26T08:57:00.010-05:00

I know it’s been forever since I blogged, and I discovered in the last couple of weeks that there actually is an audience out there! However, none of you use Google Reader; the discovery of how few people are subscribed to my blog via Google Reader led to a moment of crisis a while back.

So anyway, I thought I’d slap up a few pictures and call it good for a bit. I do have some entries in the works but a little thing called Duck Beach 2010: Going for the Gold is going to delay it.

Since the year began…

… I moved. (That’s my champ-of-a-former-HT Tyler helping out on the right, and someone-who-I-can’t-identify-but-is-probably-Tom’s arm on the left.)

… I had a birfday. That’s Sade and Speedo Tim!

… I survived Snowmageddan, with no cable! “No cable and internet? Who does Comcast think I am? George Washington?” – Jenni

… I’ve gone to several awesome concerts with my concert girlfriends Kendra, Lindsie, and Sara. Here we are hanging out with Greg Holden and Ian Axel. L-R: Kendra, me, Lindsie, Greg, Ian, Ian’s GF Allie, Greg’s GF Katie, and Sara!

… I punched a whole in the carpet at work with my stiletto. Oops.

… I bid farewell to Sade, who mind-bogglingly moved to Utah.

This was her goodbye message on my leftovers.

… I ripped it up in NYC with Ereeen. Because we’re nerds, we spent our time buying fabric and going on a self-designed architecture walking tour.

The Seagram Building was my favorite. We also saw Lend Me a Tenor, and visited the Cloisters and the Met, ate some great food, and were accosted by missionaries in Central Park.

… I became the official #1 groupie for the Olney Ones. Here I am with Bekahlicious and Taryn (groupies #2 and #3), and the boy-banders: Ben, Scott, X10, JJ, and Speedo Tim.

… I helped Corb, Tim, and Ereeen run another successful John Adams Memorial Foot Race! Here I am with stand-in showrunner Jen and Corb.

… I helped run the ward Williamsburg trip! I’m stuck in the foot stocks here with my faithful deputy Ben. (I could actually get into them without lifting the slab of wood, so I don’t know how effective they really were.)

… I bid farewell to Lost with Lindsie, Sara, X10, and Krizzle. We had Dharma initiative food (it should go without saying that it’s root beer), “boar on a stick” (really, chicken satay), numbers cupcakes, and Locke-ian orange slices. Lindsie even decoupaged a tissue box! And I used it!

I have a new toy...

2010-03-30T14:22:00.007-05:00

Thanks to a cool Sunday School teacher, I've discovered word clouds. Well, specifically, a world cloud generator! Give it up for Wordle!

I've been playing with word art in Photoshop a lot lately so this is right up my alley. The size of the words are based on how many times that word is featured in the passage of text.

The lyrics to "Sweet Caroline." I love that "whooo" made it on.

The entire book of Leviticus (cool, right?)

Chapter 7 of Emma by Jane Austen

I was having fun copying and pasting things from the Interweb, but this one is a little more personal. It's the planning spreadsheet for this year's Halloween costume (I know, I'm so behind).

I also made one using my patriarchal blessing, which is REALLY cool, but I'm not about to post that crap online. It might be on my bedroom wall soon, though!

I'm an auntie! Well, sort of...

2010-03-15T08:14:00.005-05:00

My friends Rob'n'Shauna went and had themselves a kid! And I've determined to be the best aunt-who-isn't-really-an-aunt EVER!!

I started by making a little monkey-covered baby romper for the baby shower. Which of course wasn't ready in time for the baby shower, but at least it was done before little Soybean arrived (which is more than I can say for Rob'n'Shauna's wedding present, which they got about 4 months after the wedding).

When the magic day finally came, I raced to the hospital as soon as I could after work and met Soybean (real name: Alexa) in person!

I have to say, it was a bit bizarre being at the hospital on Thursday, because I'd seen RnS the day before and I'd been talking at Shauna's tummy and saying, "Come out and play with me!" And then suddenly, there she was! And going back into Mommy's tummy was not an option.

Fun facts about "the magic day":

* Shauna's labor only lasted 5 hours!

* Shauna and I gchatted while she was in labor. She suddenly stopped and I found out later that's when the doctor said it was time to start pushing!

* Soybean was 7lbs 12 oz and 21 inches long!

* When I got to the hospital, RnS hadn't been moved out of the Labor and Delivery room yet (although it had been several hours), and I was asking gross questions about the labor (I was curious!) and mentioned the placenta. Rob said, "you know, it's just over there," [in the Bio-Hazard bin] "wanna look?" My answer: "Uh, YES!" It was actually about what I expected it to look like: a blobby mass of organic material. But it was COOL!

* We were looking through the medical chart, trying to figure out her blood type, when we discovered that apparently Soybean is Lutheran! Looks like theirs is an interfaith household! No mistakes, the chart says so!

* Soybean wasn't a big fan of being moved from holder to holder. I was about to leave when we realized we hadn't gotten pictures, so that explains the look on her face here:

I've only seen her the one time so far, which means I've missed 97% of her life. Maybe I'm not the best aunt-who-isn't-really-an-aunt. Oh, blurgh.

Watershed Days

2010-01-26T12:35:00.002-05:00

Over the past couple of months, I’ve had several conversations with friends about the concept of “watershed” days. I thought about them a lot while thinking about the highlights of 2009. Unlike a “highlight day,” a watershed day is a day when a critical decision is made, or is the impetus for a change in one’s life (whether small or large). For instance:

* In 2009, February 14th was a highlight day. I was in Puerto Rico with Sade and Bing Ding, and that’s the day we swam in the bioluminescent bay in Vieques. That’s also the same day that the three of us were on the bus and our friends Christian and Lauren randomly got on and commenced "Agenda Fusion." That moment and the swim that followed will probably be on the list of highlights of my life.
* Monday December 15th, however, was the day Sade and I decided to go to Puerto Rico. That was a watershed day. That day was critical to making February 14th happen the way it did.

Another watershed day occurred for me two months ago, on November 16th. That was the day that led to me moving out of Palacio Crothers. It had been something in the back of my mind for a while. Foxy Soxy and I had plans to move to Virginia back in July, but ultimately decided to sign another year-long contract at our house. Since then, the issue of housing has been almost a never-ending vortex of stress. First we had one room to fill. Then our roommate lost her job and moved away, and we had to fill her spot too. Then we had not one, not two, but three girls sign on to one of the spots and back out before signing the contract (one of whom backed out the day before moving in, and another of whom actually spent four nights at the house before ditching us). Then, our roommate who took one of the rooms announced that she was moving out in December.

I’d been feeling “off” since July, anyway. KPP said once, “I think there’s a reason you’re still in this ward.” Well, it’s been six months since we renewed our lease, and certainly a lot has happened. But nothing that’s really made me believe KPP’s statement. Of all the stuff that has happened, both good and bad, I’ve had a hard time believing any of it was “supposed” to happen. It sucked thinking that I’d have to wait until the next July to make the change I was beginning to crave.

On November 16th, I was coming off some very eventful days. I was having a rather intense conversation with a friend, and I said off-hand, “I’ve got to get out of here.” By the next morning, the thought was still around in my head. I saw a housing posting on one of the ward listserves and knew the girl posting it. So I emailed her. By the end of the day, I had done everything I knew to do to help me make the decision, both mentally and spiritually. The decision wasn’t finally made until the next day (by now, the 18th). But then I added to stress levels of Foxy Soxy and the other roommates (all of whom I liked) by announcing I was leaving and we’d have yet another spot to fill in the house.

It became a waiting game, but finally, after two months, I found someone for my spot and I moved. And interestingly enough, into the very spot I’d checked out that day in November! Although the “highlight day” might be January 16th, the date of the actual move, the day that really changed my life was November 16th. And, like my trip to Puerto Rico and countless other things that have happened, I do believe this was actually supposed to happen. KPP’s statement can still be true. Maybe I will realize that I was supposed to still be where I was so that things would happen on this timeline, things that I haven’t found the meaning in yet but will later. There’s one thing I can certainly appreciate now, after the stress of selling my contract has been replaced with the stress of packing up and moving (a much nicer stress): the Lord can and does cause miracles to happen, and He knows what I want and need to be happy.

Things That Must Go: Part 2

2010-01-15T09:04:00.008-05:00

I’ve found more things to whine about. So here we go…

* Pretending you’re too cool to think about your wedding. I was hanging out with some girl friends from church when the subject of weddings came up. One of my friends pointed out that there’s enough talent/skill in our ward to put on an entire wedding: we’ve got seamstresses, floral designers, bakers, photographers, etc. Another girl there, who I don’t know and couldn’t spot if I saw her again, said she never thought anything about planning a wedding before she got engaged. To which I say, “Bull-sock!” I don’t know a single woman who made it four years at BYU (and this girl went to BYU) who didn’t help plan at least one roommate’s or friend’s wedding. Doing that is bound to make you think of what you’d like yourself, and anyone who says they haven’t thought about it is just too embarrassed to admit it. I know some girls don’t want to come off as looking wedding-hungry, but the fact is: we’ve all thought about it, and guys know we’ve all thought about it. So why be cagey about it?

* Wearing a sundress when there’s ice outside. This echoes an earlier Must-Go, which referred to wearing seasonally-inappropriate clothing. And yet the problem persists. I guess my blog isn’t as all-powerful as I thought it was.

* Using the word “matriarch.” Home Teachers the world over like to use this word when visiting houses of single sisters. Guys, it always makes us feel old. It wouldn’t matter if we were eighteen. No one without grandchildren should ever be called a matriarch, when the word is magically transformed into something regal and majestic. But as I am not yet a Dowager Empress, I’d rather just be called “Sister Smasherton” or “the chick who lives in that house.”

* Friends who make plans and back out of them, consistently and constantly. A few days ago, a friend of mine told a story of a guy who heard about her going ice-skating with some others and begged her to let him come. He wanted to come so badly that he convinced her change the time with the whole group to accommodate him. Then, hours beforehand, he called her and backed out. She said it was not the first time that scenario had played itself out, and that she could tell by what he said in the phone call that he had the back-out speech down to a science. I have several friends who pull that same kind of crap, and not only does it make things inconvenient (and sometimes embarrassing) for the rest of us, but it's massively inconsiderate and doesn’t exactly inspire us to invite them to things again.

* In a similar vein, friends (often guys) who make you feel like you’re priority number six. I had the following text conversation (paraphrased because I’ve long-since cleared out my text archive). The Dude was at a party at a mutual friends’ house, which I did not attend because I had other plans.
Dude: “Hey, what are you doing tonight?”
Me: “I just got back from [my activity] and I think I’m going to watch a movie. How is the party?”
Dude: “It’s fine. What movie are you watching?”
Me: “[Name of movie].”
Dude: “When are you starting it?” It seemed clear to me that he was trying to invite himself over.
Me: “Pretty soon. You are welcome to join me if you want.”
Dude: “Okay, cool. If things get boring here, I’ll head over.”

Oh no, he didn’t.

Me: “I will be no one’s backup plan. Have fun at the party.”

Not to disparage guys, because I certainly know girls who do the same thing, but it really doesn’t make a person feel loved when you beg them for attention and then brush you off once you give it.

* Performing Messiah only at Christmastime. Did you know that the premiere of Messiah was in April 1742, during Lent? It’s not a Christmas oratorio! If anything, it’s an Easter oratorio. And if you listen to it all the way through, you know that viewing it as a Christmas work is an extremely narrow view. It’s like only reading Luke 2 and ignoring the rest of the New Testament (and the Old Testament, if you want the analogy to really stick).

* Online craft tutorials for useless things. In the last year I’ve discovered the craft blogosphere, and boy! is there a lot of crap out there. Today I found tutorials for the following useless items: a sewn Nintendo DS control holder, a crayon holder, a snow scraper handwarmer (um, you mean, like a glove?), an indoor hopscotch mat, and gift wrap. That’s right, gift wrap. If you’re putting more effort into the wrapping of your gifts than into the gifts themselves, there’s a problem. I do think the crocheted Dalek is kinda cool, though.

* My father calling me on Sundays. For the past five and a half years, without a single exception, whenever my dad calls me on a Sunday, it’s been right in the middle of church. “Dad,” I say when I call him back, “I have church from 11 to 2. I have always had church from 11 to 2. If you want me to answer the phone, you need to call after 2.” Imagine my shock last Sunday when he called me at 2:30… right in the middle of church in my new ward. I’m sure he’ll adjust by 2015.

Someone's either really dense or my kind of person...

2010-01-12T15:11:00.002-05:00

This might be the best headline ever.

Linkity-link.

Going Semi-Pro

2010-01-06T14:33:00.005-05:00

My CafePress store is UP! Click here NOW!

It's Pop Culture, Hoes!

2009-12-31T12:51:00.002-05:00

I don’t know if anybody else likes them, but the “this year in pop culture” entries I do are my favorites! It’s fun to keep track of what I’m filling/rotting my brain with over the course of the year.

2009 Movies Seen in Theatres

1. Duplicity
2. 17 Again (I proudly admit it)
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine4. Star Trek
5. Up
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7. 500 Days of Summer
8. Adam
9. Julie and Julia
10. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (only non-rated R English-language option at the Mall of the Emirates, but I still thought it was cute)
11. Coco Before Chanel
12. Sherlock Holmes
13. The Young Victoria

Analysis: I was actually really surprised I didn’t see more. There were a ton of movies that came out later in the year that I wanted to see: Fantastic Mr Fox, Princess and the Frog, Ponyo, An Education, etc. Maybe I’ll use those movies to fill my time during the inevitably unbearable dumping ground season of January through April.

Tangent/rant: There are a handful of movie critics out there with whom I generally agree. Plus, I can usually tell looking at the trailer or commercials for a movie if I will like it. I know my tastes, in other words. So I hate it when people get mad at me for not wanting to see a movie that I think will be stupid (He’s Just Not That Into You being an example). This year, there weren’t any movies I saw in theatres that I hated. I credit both my own taste and my preferred critics’ reviews for saving me all that money, which could have been wasted on crapfests like Bride Wars or The Fourth Kind.

2009 Movies Seen Outside of Theatres (on planes, on DVD, etc.)

1. Last Chance Harvey (technically a very-end-of-2008 release but I liked it so much I’m including it anyway)
2. Coraline
3. The Brothers Bloom
4. Angels and Demons

Analysis: I knew I wouldn’t love Angels and Demons, but I was happy to discover I didn’t hate it! The other three I enjoyed quite a bit.

TV Shows I Started Watching in 2009

1. Cougar Town
2. Modern Family
3. Glee
4. Community
5. Parks and Recreation
6. Better Off Ted

Analysis: For the first time in probably a decade, I actually watch all of NBC’s Thursday night lineup. Also, five out of six new shows are half-hour sitcoms, none with a laugh track. Could we be entering a new golden age for sitcoms?

Books Read

1. Size 12 is Not Fat, Meg Cabot
2. The Boy Next Door, Meg Cabot
3. She Went All the Way, Meg Cabot
4. The Princess Diaries (all of them), Meg Cabot
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling (second time)
6. Dedication, Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
7. Savvy, Ingrid Law
8. Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale
9. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (second time)
10. Jane Austen (biography), Carol Shields
11. The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, Donald Spoto
12. Undomestic Goddess, Sophie Kinsella
13. Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
14. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
15. Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie (second time)
16. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

Analysis: Wow, that’s way too much chick lit for my comfort. I’ve got to make a more coordinated reading plan for 2010. I mean, Meg Cabot and Sophie Kinsella are fun and all, but one should never continue reading an author just because her work is so readily available in PDF format. (Tangent: I thought Princess Diaries were cute enough, but the story went completely off the rails in the last book.) I rather disliked Dedication, but I was on a plane. I did like Savvy and Book of a Thousand Days, and I loved Guernsey. And of course one can’t go wrong with Austen or Agatha Christie (although both should be read in moderation, or one might suffer from fatigue the way I did with Meg Cabot). Outliers was endlessly fascinating. But Jane Eyre was definitely my favorite. That one will definitely get a second read in a year or two’s time.

My literary goal for next year is to read at least one church-y book (I’m hammering through To Draw Closer to God right now), and at least two biographies, one of which must be about one of history’s villains. Villains are delicious.

Songs of 2009: Some of these songs refer to specific people or events, but most of them are just songs that “spoke to me” during the year. They are included in the order I found them on my iPod. (Note: Not all were released in 2009.)

"My President is Black," Jay-Z
"Holla," G Love
"Far Away," Ingrid Michaelson
"Good Girls Go Bad," Cobra Starship
"We are Okay," Joshua Radin
"Being Bad," Bitter:Sweet
"Haven’t Met You Yet," Michael Buble
"Does This Mean You’re Moving On," The Airborne Toxic Event
"Sweet Caroline," Mark Salling’s Glee version
"Down," Jay Sean featuring Lil’ Wayne
"American Boy," Estelle featuring Kanye West
"Butterfly," Jason Mraz
"Hurt Feelings," Flight of the Conchords
"For You I Will," Teddy Geiger
"Be OK," Ingrid Michaelson
"We Like the Moon," Sponge Monkeys
"Just Dance," Lady Gaga
"I Gotta Feeling," Black Eyed Peas
"A Lack of Color," Death Cab for Cutie
"Fireflies," Owl City

I was going to put “You Make My Dreams Come True” by Hall and Oats, but I feel like that would be prosaic.

Fun Stats
* Movies Seen in Indie Theatres: 4 (Adam, Coco Before Chanel, The Young Victoria, and a remastered print of Rashomon)
* Plays/Performances Seen: 3 (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Poe The Pit and the Pendulum, A Christmas Carol)
* New Podcasts: 1 (Geek Show)
* Number of Books (of 16 total) Read on Computer Screen at Work in PDF Format: 8
* Blog Entries from 2009 with "Pop Culture" as a tag: 5

2009: The Year of the Tan

2009-12-24T08:14:00.010-05:00

So I usually put my Christmas letter on the blog, but this year is a little different. One of my New Years’ resolutions was to write 52 blog entries. Well, this is #71. My blog shifted more towards a this-is-what-I-do-with-my-time methodology as opposed to here-are-my-thoughts-on-random-and-trivial-subjects, so you can get a fairly decent idea of my year just by reading through this years’ entries. However, I will share a few fun facts and highlights.

The Story of My Tan
I started out the year with a nice little tan from Costa Rica (read about it here). I spruced that baby up in February in Puerto Rico (read about it here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). It really came into its own over the summer, which started off at OBX (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I also hit up Rehoboth and Virginia Beaches. I didn’t blog about those adventures so here are a couple of pictures:

At Rehoboth...

Watergirl!

LC Mikey and me at Virginia Beach

The group!

Me and Ereeen!

The tan started to fade in the fall, but I gave it a final touchup in Dubai. (I'm sick of linking, so you'll just have to remember.) :) So basically, this blog is also the story of my tan.

Quotes
“So just don’t go with a random guy into the desert to have sex.” –Work Buddy Sean (sage advice before my Dubai trip)
“You know the art of a well-placed curse word.” –DBDB
“Life must be hard when you have a butt for a face.” –KPP
“You get more play than most people I know.” –Speedo Tim
“Old Man Winter can suck it!” –Sade

Statistics
* Number of hotels stayed in with my discount: 7
* Number of items crossed off my “List of things to do in life”: #27-ride a camel, and #84-take off a motorcycle helmet in very dramatic fashion.
* New Years Resolutions Achieved: 4.5 out of 6. There was the one I screwed up early in the year, so I knew I wouldn’t get 100%. But I give myself half-credit for #5: “Go to Sunday School every week.” I admit I did skip twice: once to sit with a friend who had experienced a tragedy (I feel justified in that instance), and once to flirt with a guy (for which there was no justification).
* States/Territories Visited: (Maryland, Virginia, and DC don't count) 7: Colorado, North Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Puerto Rico.

Random Things that Happened
* I got hit on by a reality-show TV star while on a date.
* Trying on a coat in a store, the theft detector swung around and smacked me in the head. The outline was visible for the next half-hour.
* Pictures of me were featured twice in our division newsletter, one of which was this one:It is my goal to become the face of our company. It looks like I'm on my way!

Thoughts on My Year
All in all, it’s been a pretty decent year. I’ve gone through some crap, and some of it has been true crap and not just dinky stuff that gets blown out of proportion. I’ve had the “blessing” of meeting some people with some truly messed-up lives this year. Although it’s sad to see others going through turmoil- sometimes because of their own mistakes, and frequently through no fault or control of their own- it does make me thankful for what I have. In most cases, I would much rather have my problems than theirs.

I am very grateful to have kept my job through this recession. I like where I work a lot, and it’s been sad to see some co-workers go, and to see good friends lose their jobs. I like to think that we’re in the recovery phase, but my field in particular will take a long time to truly recover, so I’m counting my blessings that I’ve made it through thus far.

I continue to be grateful for good friends who give support when times are bad, and who add flare and excitement when times are good. And who hide their annoyance when I just can’t stop whining about something. Sade, Ereeen, Watergirl, KPP, Shauna, and Foxy Soxy all get shout-outs. My boys Life Coach Mikey, Speedo Tim, K-Rizzle, and T-Roy also deserve praise for being the shiz.

I am very much looking forward to 2010. I’ve begun compiling my list of goals, which include moving to a new house, visiting Austria, and turning semi-pro in some of my amateur artistic endeavors.

The Power of Not Caring

2009-11-24T12:19:00.002-05:00

When I saw yesterday that New Moon had broken the record for largest opening weekend, I was a bit surprised. Okay, more than a bit. I found it quite odd. I won’t say I was shocked but that indicates a more emotional response than the one I actually had. The biggest question that lurked in my head was: had I missed something?

Of course I was aware of New Moon. As an avid pop culture enthusiast, I’d been hearing about it since before Twilight came out last year. I’d read the books, of course, and was as caught up in them as everyone else was, until around the time the first movie came out and then realized I couldn’t muster the energy to be into it all anymore.

But somehow over the last couple of months, I seemed to have forgotten all about this movie. I forgot that it even came out last weekend! How did that happen? I think I figured it out:

* I found myself skipping articles about the movie in Entertainment Weekly, not so much on purpose in an I’m-too-cool-for-school fashion, but in a there’s-a-movie-I-have-no-interest-in-seeing fashion. My skipping them didn’t even register in my brain.

* Of my inner circle of friends, not one of them is interested in those movies/books. Or, if they are, they’re keeping it under wraps, because I can’t remember one person mentioning their intentions of going to the movie. Hell, KPP is a nanny to tweeners, and even she hasn’t mentioned it.

* On the night the movie came out, I was on a road trip with three other girls, during which the movie was never once mentioned.

* I have a DVR, which means I missed all the commercials. I did catch a couple of references to it on The Dish, but that’s about it.

So, what does that mean? Did I manage to find the eight women in America who are not Twi-hards, and those happened to be the people I’ve spent my time with over the last two months? Am I losing my pop culture sensitivity (I was out-Ausiello’ed by one of my road tripping friends on Saturday)? Have I drifted to the fringe of mainstream society? Or is a record-breaking opening weekend really not the big deal it’s being made out to be?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know this: I am very aware of the opening date of Sherlock Holmes, and I know exactly where my ass will be on December 25th: in a movie theatre seat, with a popcorn and large soda, watching Robert Downey Jr in all his accented glory.

PS. This is all I can remember from each of the Twilight books: Twilight- Bella and Edward shack up, a dude tries to kill her. New Moon- they break up, she sulks, she goes to Italy and something almost happens. Eclipse- Uh… there are more vampires, and Bella watches Edward and Jacob kill them. Breaking Dawn- they get married, Bella becomes a vampire, and then a battle does not take place. 2560 pages, for that.

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night

2009-11-06T14:54:00.006-05:00

Another successful Halloween! And once again, because people are awesome, there were costume parties over two weekends! So I went to three parties! Hooray!

The Brick House Party- 2nd Edition!

Ereeen and her roommates hosted an amazing party at their row house in DC (it doesn’t take much to make it look haunted, at least on the outside). Their friend and my super-distant cousin Michelle set up a studio on their back porch and the following ensued:

My Star Trek uniform ended up being a huge hassle to put together. Odd, considering how small it is… The pointy boobs were the least of my problems. Still, it was cute and I got some good attention in it. I liked the turtleneck top. I got that in Dubai!

With Doan, the Vulcan. I like this pic because I look like a dork, and she knows it.

With Eddie and Ereeen. I look like an anime character here.

The lovely hostesses of the party: Autumn in the front; Jane, Marianne, Kelli, and Ereeen. I made Ereeen’s tutu and I think that’s my necklace she’s wearing.

KPP and Ereeen.

(Not at a party)

My hallmark costume of the year was DBDB’s Stryper costume. I made everything here except the yellow T-shirt, black undershirt, and shoes. I would be lying if I said the pants fittings weren’t intensely awkward.

Frankly, I think the costume looked better on me:

KPP said the sexiness of this picture is slightly decreased by the pastel pictures of shoes and purses on the wall.

The Barn Dance

For the barn dance, I was a springtime fairy-slash-woodland pixie-slash-nymph.

I’m flying!

Foxy Soxy (using an old costume of mine), KPP, and me

With Breakdancer Brian (complete with his own cardboard dancefloor)

Bing Ding had a cop-out costume (Smarties pinned to his pants)

Beach House Buddies! Heidi and Scott

The Zombie Party

I’m just now realizing that I don’t have any pics of my full zombie costume (which was really just an excuse to go goth a little).

Here, with Ereeen, you can see a fair amount of my costume. Thanks, Dubai! I got the corset, skirt, and belt on my trip! In fact, I actually didn’t sew anything for this costume. I know!

Sade’s white trash zombie costume was fantastic! (Those are my overalls. Yes, I own overalls. I don’t think I’ve worn them once since I moved to DC five years ago.) And do you recognize Tobias? It’s Humungus!

Here are some stats:
* Costumes I wore: 3
* Costumes I made for others or loaned stuff for: 5
* "Scariest" costume: Hands down, the guy fairy at the barn dance.
* Runner-up: the kissing booth guy. The sign for it was right over his crotch. Think Justin Timberlake on SNL.
* 2nd Runner-up: the girl who looked like a guy dressed as a girl.
* Best cop-out costume: Tollestrup's American Gothic/Mr Rogers' sweater.
* Lamest cop-out costume: Sorry, Bing Ding. "Smartypants" is just lame. (I still love you.)
* Fave costumes not made by me ;) : Merry and Sarah, the tourists; and Tim, the dapper old man.

Anyone got any ideas for next year? For the first time since 2005, I don’t already have a costume in mind!

I've let myself be defined by a quiz.

2009-10-30T08:25:00.005-05:00

So this morning I randomly took an Interior Personality Quiz, 'cause I felt like it. This was the result:

Hmm... look familiar?

I'm so glad I didn't grow up in an orphanage school...

2009-10-29T14:27:00.002-05:00

I haven’t posted anything on the blog for a while, and I’m getting sick of seeing that “road to nowhere” pic when I go to check out my blog roll (because apparently I can’t be bothered to set up a Google Reader). So I’m gonna write about an awesome thing I read.

So I just finished Jane Eyre. I know, right? I can’t believe I haven’t read it before. It’s one of those books that every girl is supposed to read before she dies. Well, I have to say, I loved it! It’s at times very funny, thought-provoking, and always thoroughly engrossing.

My favorite passage in the whole book happens right after Jane has discovered the truth about Mr. Rochester’s lunatic wife in the attic. I guess a spoiler alert could have gone there, but come on. The book is 160 years old; you should know the basic plot.

(Tangent: My roommates and I have been referring to our neighbors as “the Rochesters” for like two years, when we started noticing random moaning/whining noises coming from the house. I thought maybe they just had a crazy grandma with them, but eventually- well after the nickname was coined- we found out they actually have a teenage handicapped son. Who would have thought?)

Anyway, back to the book. So Jane and Mr. Rochester can’t get married, ‘cause he’s already married, and she knows she’s gotta get the H outta there. He is trying to convince her to stay with him, and maybe marry him in another country that doesn’t already know about his marriage, and da-dada-da-da… Anyway, she says (in her head) the following:

“Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

I don’t even know where to start; there’s so much awesomeness to discuss! Now, Jane isn’t a character that I see myself in, or who I would necessarily want to be like. But I want to be like her in this respect! I like to think I’d stick by my guns in every circumstance, in every trying situation, but holy cow!- it’d be hard to in this case. It’s so easy for me to forget myself in charged situations like this one. And I admit, there have been times where I haven’t stuck to my guns, so this is definitely something I need to internalize.

Luckily, it all works out for Jane, and likely wouldn't have if she hadn't kept to her principles. So the next time you find yourself unable to marry your true love because he's shackled with a crazy wife that he keeps in the attic, do what Jane did and escape before dawn and somehow end up on the doorstep of the cousins you didn't know you had! I know I will!

How do I feel by the end of the day

2009-10-09T07:12:00.003-05:00

Dubai can be a quirky place, especially with all the construction. To that end, in my last Dubai blog entry, I highlight some of the oddities I encountered.

The road to nowhere...
Isn't Dubai a magical wonderland of construction sites? Google Maps is laughingly out-of-date, and so is T-Roy's GPS. (PS That's the Palm in the background.)

The iPod building, in Abu Dhabi. Doesn't it look like an iPod in a docking station?

One of Dubai's projects hit by the recession

Please, do not distrub.

Uh yeah, that ladder is really not secure in any way. Not sure what these guys are trying to accomplish. (PS This is one of the as-yet-unfinished Metro stations, which I think look like a Pixar underwater sea creature, but I still can't put my finger on which one.)

It took me days to figure out why the floors of bathroom stalls were always wet. They have spray hose bidets in them!

It almost looks like the bench is alive, and feral.

It’s getting very near the end

2009-10-07T07:41:00.002-05:00

This is the second-to-last blog entry I intend on posting about Dubai. You can soon move on to your regularly-scheduled blog-stalking!

These are just pictures that I liked. This blog entry is intended to highlight my mad photography skillz:

At Souk Madinat Jumeirah

Looking up the Burj Al-Arab atrium...

So sparkly! (The dude with blurry legs was actually trying to get out of my picture, which in turn made him more apparent. Oh well.)

I love macro mode.

At Dubai Mall.

This is still a sucky picture, but the best one of the Burj Dubai I took. Hey, you try taking a picture of the tallest building in the world!

I found this carpet very tempting.

Spending Someone's Hard-Earned Pay: Shopping in Dubai

2009-10-06T11:31:00.003-05:00

I came across a lot of odd things whilst shopping in Dubai. Here are some of them:

1993 called, they want their shoes back.

Who needs a clothesline? Keep it classy, Karama!

The famous skull belt: I tried to bargain for this twice, but failed. They would never agree to a price lower than a Hot Topic clearance price. And if I can't get it for cheaper than a Hot Topic, then what's the point, right?

At the same store with the skull belt, T-Roy tried on these snazzy and not-at-all-shoddily-made shoes. I like that they changed the election year.

A $10,000 cell phone, and it doesn't even have Shazam.

Ski Dubai, rising magestically above Mall of the Emirates.

At THE One: If I walked into this living room in someone's house, I think I'd just turn around and walk out.

This is at S*uce, the store with the gutra-inspired clothing. I just loved the wallpaper and the gold hangers, not to mention the cool paper lanterns. It kind of reminded me of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Okay, I have two beefs with this ad campaign: 1) The phrase is a bit cliché, don't you think? I mean, hasn't it been used, ad nauseum, for the last 40 years? 2) Nothing in the display case actually features diamonds, or even rhinestones. Not even in the picture of Liz Taylor. Very odd...

Does this salesman in the Gold Souk look like:
A. A lurker
B. A pedophile
C. Manos
D. That Guy
Further proof that moustaches are gross.

I loved the juxtaposition of the traditional Emirati kandoora and "business time"-wear.

I would have bought this shirt for Rob-n-Shauna had it come in the right size. I am now volunteering to make this little outfit for Dennis!

The Grand Mosque Revisited

2009-10-06T07:34:00.003-05:00

So, one of the first things I did on my trip to the UAE was go to the big mosque in Abu Dhabi (called the Sheikh Zayed Mosque). Unfortunately, I was still figuring out the intricacies of T-Roy's computer and ended up not posting as many photos of the mosque as I felt was warranted. So here they are!

This mosque is the largest in the UAE and the 6th largest in the world. It can accomodate 40,000 worshippers. It opened in 2007, so it's also pretty dang new.

That's actually me in the picture (in my abayya).

This mosque boasts both the world's largest carpet...

...and the world's largest and most expensive chandelier.

Dubai Trip Stats

2009-10-05T08:05:00.006-05:00

* Days stayed: 7 or 9, depending on if you count travel days
* Movies watched on the plane rides: 5
* Books brought with me: 4
* Books actually read: 1 (Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell)
* iPod playlists made for me by dear friends: 4
* Number of bags packed for the trip there: 2 (carry-on and personal item)
* Number of bags packed for the trip back: 4 (two checked bags, carry-on, and personal item)

* Number of trips to the Bastakiya: 3
* Number of successful trips to the Bastakiya: 0
* Number of mosques visited: 2
* Most Calls to Prayer heard in one day: 3

Karama Mosque

* Most unexpected new food: Vege-mite
* Favorite new drink: mango juice (it's more like a smoothie... so delicious)
* Least favorite new drink: Saffron camel milk
* Number of times I hate hummous: 7

* Number of times I peed in the Mall of the Emirates: 5
* Number of times I peed in the Mall of the Emirates between 7 and 8pm: 3
* Number of belts purchased: 3
* Favorite purchase:
Meet Hiroshi, my ninja!

* Least favorite purchase: the frog heads! Troy made me do it! :)
* Favorite new stores: Bershka and Centrepoint

* Official song of the trip: "I Gotta Feeling" by Black-Eyed Peas

This trip has been brought to you by the letters M and H and the number 9.

Dubai "Day" 9: Super-Tuesday

2009-09-30T10:14:00.002-05:00

So, not really much to report from my travel day. Against all odds, my airport experience was actually pretty good! Both flights were on time, and I even landed at Dulles an hour early!

Highlights:
* I got two hours of sleep. T-Roy had planned on staying up all night, and when I woke up, he was playing "Command and Conquer" with his roommates and Josh.
* There was a group of Russian girls on my first flight, and I dubbed them the "Skank Squad." It was obvious that one of them had been shopping in Karama.
* I saw a lady in a line in the Doha airport who was clearly wearing two dresses, and one of them had not been zipped up in the back.
* I sat next to a hottie on my long flight.
* On the "watch your flight status" channel on the TVs, they had a compass which had the four cardinal directions, and Mecca, on it.
* When the US passport control guy asked me my occupation was, I said "office lackey." By that point I'd been awake for about 20 hours.
* On 495 on the way home, I saw a truck that was ON FIRE!!
* One of my Sheikh Mohammed bobbleheads did not survive the journey.
* I stayed awake until 7:30pm, which meant I was up for 23 1/2 hours.