Allie Goes to Japan, Part 1!

Osaka was really the main destination for my trip to Japan. It was just added bonus (/convenience) that I got to go to Kyoto and Tokyo as well.

After a verrrryyyy long day (two days?) of travel, I touched down in Osaka in the early evening and met up with my boss, who had already been in Japan (Tokyo) for a few days. We checked into the hotel, and because it was already kind of late in the evening and neither of us were familiar with Osaka, we decided to get sushi at the hotel's restaurant. My first taste of real, non-American sushi! (Not my last, either.)

I already ate at least one before I remembered to take a picture.

Did you know that in Japan, they put the wasabi on the sushi before you get it? When Matt and I go out for sushi, I generally avoid the wasabi and ginger (it just ain't my thang), but there was no avoiding that sinus-clearing spice here! Thankfully they used a reasonable hand with the stuff, and the sushi was really good. I realize that I've never lived in a place super near an ocean, but the sushi was just so much ... gentler, I guess is the word, on the palate than it is in the U.S. It's fresher, and doesn't taste fishy, and is just really nice and light to eat. The plate I got had I think nine different types of fish, and my favorites were the salmon and the scallop!

The Closest Thing to Skydiving

I love having adventures, making a point to do new and cool things. My mom is always telling me that I have such an exciting life, and that hers is boring. I tell her it's all about saying yes to things, but she gets nervous and doesn't always like trying new things unless someone is doing it with her.

So two years ago, for Christmas, I bought her a gift card to iFly. It's one of those indoor skydiving places, where you're basically just hanging out in a giant wind tunnel, floating over a huge fan. We had driven past the place several times over the years, and she always mentioned that it sounded like so much fun (and to be honest, it's the closest thing to real skydiving that either of us would ever do), but I knew that she wouldn't go out of her way to do it on her own.

Well, a whole year passed, another Christmas come and gone, and we still hadn't put that gift card to use, so we figured we had to make a plan or it wouldn't happen. Matt and I were in Texas over Memorial Day weekend, and mom and I booked a session to go iFlying in advance, so we'd finally get her that adventure!

So that Monday, the two of us (plus Matt and my dad for support) drove out to Plano, signed our lives away and got scheduled for a class! There's a 10 minute or so training class you do before they suit you up and get you into the tunnel, since it's super loud in there and they have to make sure you understand the four hand signals that they will use to give you directions. (The signals are: bend your legs, straighten your legs, chin up, and relax. Spoiler alert: Mom and I are bad at relaxing.)

We got our gear (suits, earplugs and helmets), and filed into the tunnel. There was a booth where someone was controlling the tunnel, filming the sessions and controlling the clock so the instructor would know when it was time to switch us out, and a narrow seating area where all us flyers sat waiting for our turn. We each got two flights, one to get our bearings and figure out how our bodies should be held, and then another where we got to try cool moves, like floating way up high in the tunnel!

Mom in flight!

It was kind of nerve-wracking at first! When you get into the tunnel, you're hit with this massive wall of air coming up from below, and the instructor is telling you to keep your chin up, and I'm like, "but I can't breathe with all this air rushing up my nose!" There was a moment of panic when I was like, crap I've gotta figure out how to not die while I'm in here! But thankfully that passed within a few seconds, breathing was totally possible, but Mom later told me that I looked super freaked out for the first little bit!

Meeee!

After we'd all gotten our turns, the instructor got to show off some moves also, like shooting up high really fast, doing loops around the tunnel and flipping around!

Our instructor, Dominic, was really awesome, and very helpful. We got certificates at the end where they noted all the moves we accomplished (things like "flew in a stable body position," "turned 360 degrees left and right," and "flew in the tunnel with minimal assistance"), so that's pretty cool. :) He also told us that we were the stiffest people he'd ever worked with, so ...

It was an awesome experience, and Mom said she had so much fun, and I'm so glad we got to do it together!

Things That Are Not The Color They're Supposed to Be

When we first moved to Virginia, I was browsing on Pinterest for cool things to do around here, when I came across this image.

I have no idea what the original source is. I have looked and looked and looked.

And I immediately thought, "I want to go to there." The pin described it as "Cherry River, West Virginia." So I looked up Cherry River, saw it was a 2.5 hour drive from us, decided that we would go when spring came, and stopped thinking about it.

So. It's now spring. Last week, I told Matt I wanted to go see Cherry River on Sunday, now that things are blooming. And we searched high and low and could find NO MENTION of pink trees. No other photos from people who had been there. No travel blogs listing it as a place to see. I asked my boss, who is from West Virginia, and she said she'd never heard of this, but went ahead and asked some of her hometown friends, none of whom had ever seen anything like this either.

They suspected someone took a picture of a river and stuck a pink filter on it. Plus, none of the other photos of Cherry River I found look like this at all.

I was disappointed. LIES, ALL LIES.

But that's okay. Matt and I decided that we'd go out and do something new on Saturday instead, so we found ourselves at a roller derby bout in Roanoke. It was pretty awesome; I'd never been to see roller derby before, and it was a fun experience, the two of us trying to figure out how the game was scored and watching the derby girls try to hip-check each other out of the rink.

(Side story: Matt and I went for a walk after work yesterday, and I told him I wanted to do some blogging. He said, "About your hair?" and I said "No, about Cherry River," and he said, "You could call the post, 'Things That Are Not The Color They Are Supposed to Be,'" and I laughed and laughed, so there you go.)

BTdubs, I LOVE MY HAIR. I went in Saturday and it took like three hours to get all the bleaching done and lavender added, but it turned out so awesome and I love it, and my colorist said it would still look good as it fades into lighter purple, with shades of pink and silver and blonde. It's like My Little Pony in the best possible way. 

Also, thanks to the bleaching experience, I now know that a whole head of blonde is not something that looks good on me, so now I don't feel like I have to try that anymore.

A Few Hours in Frankfurt

I may have missed seeing the Red Light District in Amsterdam, but I sure found out where all the prostitutes and sex shops are in Frankfurt!

So. I got lost on my way back to the train station. I had an eight-hour layover in Frankfurt, so I planned to take the train into downtown so I could wander around and see the city. I was there on a Monday, so most of the museums were closed, which was kind of a bummer. But the one I REALLY wanted to see — the Jewish history museum — was not only closed for Monday, but closed through 2018 for renovations! #themoreyouknow

Even though my plans for the city didn't really pan out, I did wander around Frankfurt and see some cool churches and shops.

Thankfully, the city is laid out in a grid so it wasn't too difficult for me to read a map. (I am notoriously bad at directions. For some reason, my mind assumes that the direction I am going must always be north. It rarely is.)

So I had finally gotten comfortable enough with the map, in that I had managed to find my way to this cool old church (Alte Nikolaikirche) and back, so I was feeling confident enough to wander off the main drag that the helpful lady at the tourist office told me about. I moseyed through a nice park that had a statue of Beethoven that looked like he'd just been caught having a threesome.

It's totally because of the expression on the face of the girl on the right. Scandalous!

I found the Alte Oper opera house and decided to rest my legs and people-watch for a while.

Frankfurt is a big financial hub in Europe, so I saw lots of smart bank workers in fancy suits and pretty shoes.

And then, assuming that I knew the general direction from which I came, I wandered back that way. And got completely turned around.

I knew I was in the wrong place when I walked past a casino midday and saw a woman in micro-shorts and heels with her stomach bared, when I was regretting not having my heavy coat with me.

—————

In addition to hookers, I also saw more cool buildings!

Statues holding up a bridge!

Gold detailing and strung lights!

An American restaurant that presumably serves Chicago-style food! (I did not eat there.)

One of my favorite parts of the day was ducking into the Alte Nikolaikirche church. I took some photos outside, and then I wasn't sure if it was open for visitors or not, so I tested the door, not wanting to disturb any worshippers.

Inside, it was empty save for this older gentleman. I'm not sure if he was a church member or a historian or what, but he told me all about the church, and about some of the pieces of artwork and stained glass. Some of the glass creations had survived World War II and were now on display in this 11th century building!

Gravestones depicting the man who gathered land to create the city of Frankfurt, and his rich wife.

Crazy hair day. A 4 a.m. wakeup call will do that to you.

I also loved that there was a big river that cut through the city and that there were nice walking bridges across. There was an accordian player performing on one of them! That was so cool.

There were locks all around the bridge.

After I had a quick, late lunch (not much to say about it; most places in Frankfurt I popped into to try to get out of the cold did not take credit cards and I only had a few euros that I had gotten from my co-worker, so I just had a simple sandwich), I made my way back across the bridge, back to the train station and shuttled back to the aiport in order to get ready to fly back home! (The gate agent asked me where I was headed. I said "the United States!" He told me that wasn't good enough, that I needed to tell him WHERE in the U.S. So, that was embarrassing.)

And thus ends Allie's First Big European Trip. Hopefully I'll get to go back to all these places someday, as there's still so much I'd like to see and do!

Have you been to Frankfurt? Are there any other places in the world where people actually play the accordian?! Do you prefer researching places to visit, or just wandering?

I'm Here For The Food: A Love Story for Milan

I really, really loved Milan. I got to spend four magnificent days in the city (one and a half of them on my own), and while we did some things for work, I'm not going to talk about them here.

I loved the food. Oh my gosh, the FOOD! I had fresh pasta three times while I was there, and it was just so amazing and creamy and wonderful. I had gelato twice. Gnocchi once. Panna cotta for breakfast, which blew any panna cotta I've had completely out of the water. Lemon sorbet that was more like a creamy drink than an ice cream, but was oh-so-good.

"After" photo of a melt-in-your mouth salmon taglioni in cream sauce. Sorry, I didn't get a "before," but it was basically the same but with a significantly larger amount of pasta.

I ate as much of the deliciousness as humanly possible, but almost every restaurant we went to in Europe asked me if the food was okay, because I could never actually finish everything I ordered. If only I could have taken a cross-continental to-go box!

Gelato #1 from a street vendor near the Duomo cathedral. Italian Cream flavor, and it was amazing.

Italy made me realize how much I love eggplant, when it arrived on a vegetariana pizza. (In the U.S., it's one of the few veggies I find generally kind of icky. It's that thick skin, it makes it hard to eat.)

Fresh pappardelle with porcini mushrooms. We asked the hotel concierge for a restaurant recommendation, and she recommended a restaurant where they would come pick you up (at the NH Hotel off Sesto Marelli). The sign on the place literally just said "Ristorante," and the food and wine and dessert were all fabulous.

The most unusual pasta dish I've ever had. It was a ricotta-walnut-chili pasta from the Sheraton Milan Malpensa restaurant before a 6 a.m. flight to Frankfurt. I had to ask the waiter if all the flowers and leaves were edible! Also, I love that every meal in Italy starts with prosecco. Mmmm prosecco.

I could basically just wax poetic about the food forever, but I won't bore you. If you have not been to Italy, get to Italy if just for the food! I could just eat the whole city and be perfectly happy.

Castles and Canals in Holland

Even though I flew into Amsterdam, and had a day to spend there, I spent more time in the Eindhoven area than Amsterdam proper. And that was okay, because I actually think I liked Eindhoven better.

Though it's hard to argue with beautiful canal views.

Amsterdam was bustling, busy, people everywhere. I usually love bigger cities, but I felt so overwhelmed when I got there.

It was way more crowded than it looks in this photo.

Also, every train station I saw in Europe was super duper fancy. 

This one had a golden weathervane on one pillar and a golden clock on the other side.

I saw coffee shops (which don't sell coffee), and cafes (which do sell coffee), and walked along some of the canals.

You may think this looks like a nice place to get coffee, but you'd be wrong. This is where you go to buy weed.

(Dear Mom/Grandma/Nana/in-laws, no I did not buy weed in Amsterdam.)

I saw the huge multi-block line for the Anne Frank house and, sadly, decided not to wait in line (since my original plan of going first thing in the morning and getting in line before it had even opened didn't pan out due to Allie's panicky insanity). I also didn't manage to make it to the Red Light District, which I had heard such interesting stories about and wanted to see for myself.

Some people live in the canals on house boats! This isn't one of them.

So I guess Matt and I will just have to come back sometime so I can see the things I missed.

There were people on bicycles and little motor-bikes everywhere! In fact, I saw a four-story parking garage that was only for bicycles!

In comparison, Eindhoven felt much calmer, like it was a more moderate-sized city that people lived and worked in. It was greener, felt more peaceful, while still having plenty to see. (I went there to meet up with my co-worker and go to visit one of our company's European distributors.)

Of course, I may just be biased because my first morning in Eindhoven started with Nutella for breakfast, and my first morning in Amsterdam didn't.

I wish I knew what this castle was called! I didn't catch its name and I couldn't find it in a Google search! 

In addition to all the work stuff, the distributor asked me what I most wanted to see in Europe, and I said castles. So he took me to see one!

Dutch castle not open for visitors today, but it was still neat to see.

It had a moat and everything! (The distributor had actually gotten married inside it!)

Later, we all went to dinner at a really nice restaurant that used to be a brick factory.

De Steenoven Galerie, where I had tomato basil soup, salmon hollandaise and delicious red wine!

We also walked to lunch at a local hotel and I had a wonderful salmon-cream cheese sandwich. I got to see a Dutch windmill, and the distributor told me that it used to mill flour (and happened to be attached to a closed bakery that used to bake with that flour)!

Of course, jet lag was the worst. I took the train from Amsterdam to Eindhoven on the first day, and kept falling asleep on the train. I was in bed by 6 p.m., only to be woken up for dinner around 8:30 p.m. (pear and mushroom risotto), so I dragged myself up for that because I wanted to make a good impression.

Sorry if you're not interested in hearing about food. The food was one of my favorite things about this trip, especially in Italy.

After a day in each city, I packed up my carry-on and we took the train back to Amsterdam to catch our flight to Milan! Can I just say that I have never had a more chaotic airline experience than I did on the way out of Amsterdam? There were no seats near the gate, and when they said it was time to board the plane, everyone literally just surged forward and crammed down this little staircase and I got stuck behind a whole mess of people even though my ticket said Priority Boarding. It was insane. Apparently transportation in Europe is a free-for-all, because no one seemed to do any transporting in an orderly fashion.

Have you ever been to the Netherlands? Do you prefer visiting big cities or smaller ones? What's the most chaotic travel experience you've had?

It Turns Out I'm Really Into Old Architecture. And Cats.

Alternate title: Did you know it's possible to pickpocket yourself?

It turns out that I might not be the biggest fan of traveling alone. For reasons that are entirely my fault and may not be representative of my actual feelings on traveling in general.

Yes, it's empowering and all, being able to find your way around train stations and cities you've never been to before. It's amazing to be independent and immerse yourself in another culture where you don't understand the language. It's great being able to do the things that you want to do, when you want to do them, without having to take another person's interests into account. (Want to sit outside an opera house and observe the fashionable locals? Done. Want to eat gelato for lunch? Obviously. Want to wander around a foreign castle looking for feral cats? ABSOLUTELY I DO.)

So it was a massive bummer that, when I first set foot on foreign soil, the first thing that I learned was that my debit card — which I had gotten solely for the purpose of going abroad — did not work abroad. And I had $10 cash in my pocket, because I had expected that I would be able to withdraw Euros with my debit card.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

I had a scheduled day of sight-seeing in Amsterdam before meeting up with a co-worker, followed by several days of meetings and tradeshows, with two additional solo sight-seeing days in Milan and Frankfurt at the end of the trip. And realizing that I was on my own with one international credit card (and one U.S. credit card with huge international fees) and no other money was TERRIFYING.

So I did what any irrational human being would do. I split up my two credit cards (one into my wallet, the other into my luggage). I had hidden it in a separate compartment in my purse that would have been harder for pickpockets to get to. And then I promptly forgot — in my complete panic — that I had done so and flipped out when I couldn't find my own wallet. So I essentially pickpocketed myself, and spent two hours wandering around the Amsterdam train station trying to find something that had been in my purse the whole time.

EXPO (World's Fair) in Milan, Italy

I think that if I hadn't started off my trip on this note, I probably would feel better about traveling alone. Outside of that, there were no major mishaps, and I had a really awesome trip. There were a few things I wish I'd had cash for — turns out many of the little local eateries and cafes in Frankfurt don't take credit cards, and the Sforza Castle in Milan was having trouble with its credit card machines and so I didn't get to do any museum tours inside — but otherwise it wasn't a huge problem. Even the Milan train station had an app so I could buy tickets via Paypal!

Alte Oper (Opera House) in Frankfurt, Germany

With that behind me, I will share some better stories from my trip soon. :)

Have you ever traveled alone before? What are your favorite travel activities?

Take My Advice: Don't Throw Long-Distance Parties

Back in June, I threw a bridal shower for my sister. In my head, it was going to be perfect! I had made a big grocery list and had asked my dad to pick up ingredients. I was going to make a beautiful brunch spread, with baked brie and hash browns and fruit dip and blintzes. I would have plenty of time, since I was flying in at a reasonable time the night before!

So why on earth did my dad and I end up at Panera Bread 45 minutes before the start of the shower?

I was all set to arrive in Texas around 8 p.m. We were at cruising altitude, we would be landing in Dallas in about 20 minutes when the pilot announced that DFW airport was not accepting any flights due to a lightining storm. Instead we would be re-routed to Houston, and would head to Dallas when it was safe to do so.

(As a fun little aside, I should probably add that at the time, I hadn't seen Matt in about a week. He was in Dallas for a conference, and I had stayed in Virginia. I texted him to let him know I was going to Houston. Turns out he was at the same Houston airport waiting for his own connection! And I couldn't even get off the plane to say hi!)

Anyway, so by the time I landed in Dallas and managed to get to a different terminal so that I could get transportation out of the airport, it was 10:30 or 11 at night. Too late to do much besides mix fruit dip and prep things for the next morning.

So the morning of the shower, I delegated like a champ. I had my mom on the blintzes station, Rachel making deviled eggs, and I got the brie and fruit and hash browns going. When there was a spare 10 minutes, I took the world's fastest shower and got dressed, only to come downstairs and realize that I had forgotten to put the brie in a ramekin, and so it had melted all over the baking sheet. The crepes for the blintzes were sticking to the pan and tearing, so we couldn't put filling in them. The hash browns were not frying up like they were supposed to. We were going to have no food at this shower, besides the croissants and pies my dad had picked up at Costco! (But thankfully, I guess, there would be mimosas, so maybe people would forget their hunger?)

He said we should suck it up and order some pizzas, but the invitations had said it was going to be an elegant brunch, and I'm stubborn. So we rushed out to Panera Bread, leaving the kitchen a disaster, and ordered a whole bunch of breakfast sandwiches sliced into quarters. We arrived at my aunt's house — with the few remaining food items we'd been able to make work — with barely any time to set up, but my aunt and cousin are awesome and helped me get everything done at the absolute eleventh hour.

The mimosas helped too.

And the party was really fun! No one was the wiser about the disastrous morning. Because Rachel and her friends studied fashion design in school, we played the toilet-paper wedding dress game, and I had asked her fiancé some cute questions about their relationship so we could play the Newlywed Game. I got to see a lot of family members whom I don't see often enough, and had a great time.

Yes, this is what my aunt's house looks like all year round. Complete with terrifying Christmas butler statue.

In my thank-you card, Rachel told me it was perfect just the way it was. :)

But I've learned my lesson. Next time I throw a party, I'm having it catered!

What are some lessons you've learned while party planning?

Dear Spa Castle, You're Awesome

In general, I have a hard time splurging on myself. I don't particularly like spending money, especially on something that I deem frivolous, which is most everything. A few months ago, my sister basically had to talk me into spending money on myself for something I really wanted (Versace Eros Pour Femme perfume. It's lovely, but I hate how expensive fragrant water is!). I always ask Matt for massage gift certificates for my birthday each year, and that is the only time I end up going to day spas.

So when my sister's other Maid of Honor, Christina, announced that Rachel's bachelorette party would be at Spa Castle in Carrollton, Texas (suburb of Dallas), I was SO excited. A built-in excuse to splurge and unwind!

I mean, a night in a nice hotel and two days where the sole purpose is relaxing? Uh, THERE. (And uh, also a chance to see my sister…)

It was SUCH a nice experience. There were pools with swim-up bars and massaging jets, saunas of varying face-melting temperatures (up to 186 degrees! plus one "ice" sauna that was like, 59 degrees), heated relaxation rooms, and hot tubs all over the place. And that was before we even got to the actual spa services!

For all my typical high-strung-itude, I don't know that I had ever felt so chill. We hung out in the various pools and hot tubs. We explored all the warm rooms and struggled to breathe normally for two minutes inside some of the hotter ones. I got a 30-minute Korean "chair" massage that was actually on a table, and it was delicious. (I thought my sister had booked my Swedish massage, and she thought I had booked my own, so the 30-minute one was the only one they had that was at the same time as both Rachel's and my cousin Autumn's 60-minute massages.) Plus, awkward, but it turns out butt massages are like, really awesome?!

After we'd spent sufficient time in the spa, we went to find our hotel room, which Christina had decorated and loaded with candy, games and a veil and crown for Rachel! Plus, we got robes and slippers to relax in for later!

We got dressed up and went out for dinner at BJ's Brewhouse before heading back to the room to hang out and play bachelorette games.

Pretty bridesmaids and friends!

Me, Rachel and Autumn. You can't really tell, but I'm wearing my beautiful yellow heels.

(Also, the Spa Castle hotel room was awesome. All seven of us crammed into this two-room suite, with blow-up mattresses in addition to the beds the room had. Rachel and Autumn and I all ended up sharing this giant memory-foam bed, and I slept like a rock. In the morning, once both of them were awake, I tried jumping on the bed to see if they noticed, like in the commercials! And they said they barely felt any movement!)

We did go back to the spa right before it closed at midnight, and then again the next morning for pedicures. That's when we decided that we needed to come back here the day or two before Rachel's wedding to make sure she relaxes! We might try to drag my mother, who would probably hate it because she doesn't like nudity (a lot of naked people hanging around the changing rooms and ladies-only saunas) or massages (because she doesn't want people she doesn't know to touch her). Plus we basically had to drag her for a manicure a few Christmases ago.

But yeah, I pretty much can't wait to go back. Why did I never know this place existed when I was, you know, LIVING IN DFW?!

What is the best bachelorette party you've been to? How do you like to relax? And what was the last thing you did to splurge on yourself?

Life List Fail: There Were Cows, But I Wasn't Allowed to Milk Them

"I didn't know learning to be a farm hand was on your list," my friend Chelsea said.

It's not. And it's really silly, but I think it would be pretty cool to get to milk a cow, and so it's on my Life List. I've heard it's not as easy as it looks.

We were at the Virginia Cheese Festival. (How's that for irony.) It was a lot of fun! There were cheese-making demonstrations, and cheese-sampling flights, and three floors worth of vendors with bites of cheese to try. There were some really good cheeses, and some unusual ones (mulberry chevre? habañero mango cheddar?). We tried goat cheese, and sheep's milk cheese, and cow's milk cheese (and when I got home and told this to Matt, he said, "Cow's milk cheese is just CHEESE.")

The cheese flight, which was guided and really informative, with cheeses from Caromont Farm.

And I learned a lot. I learned that goat cheese is called "chevre," which is pronounced "shev," and that cheese washed in cider is really delicious. (That's the cheese on the right, above.) I also learned that the rind of brie is actually white mold, and that kind of grossed me out and confused me because I like brie but other moldy cheese varieties are gross. I don't know my life.

Anyway, so we're sipping chardonnay and tasting cheeses and plotting which ones we're going to come back and buy later, when I heard that there were cows outside among the outdoor (non-cheese) vendors. And I said that we had to go see the cows and see if we could milk one! And Chelsea thought that was weird, but agreed that she'd take a picture if I managed to do it.

Cheese tasting selfie. 

So we went out to see the cows, and there were two little brown cows and one bigger black-and-white cow that was lazy and laying down under the tent in this little metal corral.

I love cows! I did get to pet the two brown ones. Chelsea happened to know the woman who owned the farm, and told her I wanted to learn how to milk a cow.

And the woman told me they had this thing that you could "learn" on, but it was basically just a piece of wood painted to look like a cow, with a rubber udder attached under a tank of fluid. Not exactly the same thing. (I did not attempt to milk the fake cow. I'm pretty sure that was meant for children.)

So I didn't get to milk a cow, but it was still an awesome day.

Do you like festivals? Are you a cheese connoisseur? Would you want to milk a cow?

Things That Broke My Heart in May

Remember when I showed you some large buckets of dirt and bragged about how green my thumb was going to be this year?

Well, I was doing everything right. I had those suckers in direct sunlight all afternoon, and I watered them before bed every night, and I tracked my little pots' progress in the Sprout It app on my phone so I knew they were doing what they were supposed to. I all but sang lullabies to them.

And the leaves of my sweet carrots and beets got HUGE. (At least in my opinion.)

Some of them were over six inches tall. So when Sprout It told me it was time to harvest them, I didn't question it.

I picked the largest-leaved beet and started to pull it up, and the roots were thin enough that they all snapped. I thought, "That's weird, beets are supposed to have sturdy stalks. Where's the beet head?" And so then I dug all the way down to the bottom of the container looking for the beet. There was no beet. So then I panicked and ripped all of them up and dug through the entire container looking for beets, to no avail.

If I had been in a right frame of mind, I would have left the others to continue growing, but I was like IT'S TIME TO PICK THEM WHERE ARE THE BEETS WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME THAT I CAN'T GROW BEETS.

Sprout It also said it was harvest time for the carrots. They only fared slightly better. Don't be fooled by their close-up; they were only about the length of my pinkie finger, if that.

Can I tell you a sad story? (Because this sad story needs a sad-story predecessor.) When our seedlings (that we were growing separately from the carrots and beets) were all sprouted, we waited a tiny bit too long to get them into pots. Matt was convinced they were all going to die (they did) and so I got home one night really late, and it was pouring rain, and I found him out on the balcony trying to pot all these little seedlings by himself.

It was also raining when my beets didn't grow and my carrots weren't ready, and I was digging through the dirt looking for the non-existent bounty. And once I found I had none, I decided to stand out on the balcony in the drizzle for a little while, hoping Matt would get home soon because I was depressed and I wanted to be dramatic for a minute. But it was cold and he didn't get home fast enough, so I just took my sparse carrots and beet leaves inside and washed them. And Matt cooked the greens up as a side dish to go with dinner.

I am really disappointed they didn't grow, but I learned to let things grow longer if they don't seem ready, and to not rip my whole garden up in a panic.

I still have a basil plant, a cherry tomato plant and a hot pepper plant going, so hopefully those will fare better. So far I have one tiny hot pepper and another medium-sized one, and six little tomatoes. And the basil's looking mighty fine. I must try to be patient.

Have you successfully harvested anything so far this year? Do you have any garden fail stories that will make me feel better?

Matt's Gonna Run a Half-Marathon!

Every year on Thanksgiving, Matt and his sister and his dad go into downtown Austin early in the morning and run the Turkey Trot. It's a five-mile course through downtown.

I never run the Turkey Trot. His extended family has its own "Turkey Trot" at the same time in which we all go trotting around their neighborhood, with no particular distance specified, and then eat breakfast together afterwards. I participate in the walking and the eating. It's a good way to feel better about the massive quantities of food we'll likely consume later in the day.

But what surprises me is that Matt rarely trains for the Turkey Trot. He'll occasionally run a mile or two in the days beforehand, but last year I'm fairly certain he did not run at all in preparation for it. He pulls a Barney Stinson, says running is easy, and then just does it.

Barney Stinson: How To Run A Marathon from Basri Haitam on Vimeo.

A few months back, Matt sent me a text message over lunch.

Yes, we text in complete sentences, with proper punctuation.

He has fallen into the same pit of grown-up-hood that has previously befallen the rest of us: now that he is done with grad school, he had nothing to work toward. He needed a new goal. 

He fully admits it will probably be painful. Especially because running in Virginia is nothing like running in Texas, because Virginia is very hilly. But he's been starting to train, running three or four or seven miles a few times a week. I'm really proud of him, and I'm really glad I won't be running. (We have a friend from Texas that loves running half-marathons, and she might get to come up and run the race with him, and that would be pretty cool. We'll see.)

The good news is, he won't even have to worry about training for the Turkey Trot this year?

Have you run any races? Do you have any advice for him? And what should I write on the giant poster I'm going to make to cheer him on from the sidelines? :)

"For you, in my respect, are all the world."

"Then how can it be said I am alone // When all the world is here to look on me?"
- A Midsummer Night's Dream

I just finished taking an online Shakespeare class. It was through Coursera, and was a free four-week massive open course in which we read four Shakespeare plays and discussed them, and watched clips from the movies that have been made about them.

Video "lecture." This format is pretty awesome.

I really enjoyed the class. I had read two of the plays before (Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), but I hadn't picked up any Shakespeare since high school, so it was like re-discovering something and seeing it with whole new eyes. The other two plays were The Tempest and Much Ado About Nothing, and I was especially looking forward to the latter, as it had been on my to-read list for quite some time. (I didn't end up liking The Tempest much. It was really confusing to me, but I really liked Much Ado. And then I watched the Emma Thompson/Denzel Washington version of the movie, and it was also really good, and Matt even enjoyed it once he figured out what was happening.)

Though can I tell you something about A Midsummer Night's Dream? I think it was my sophomore year of high school, our theater department put on that play. I've looked for photographic evidence, but unfortunately I found none.

Before I started re-reading the play, I could not for the life of me remember the name of the character I played, nor what the play was actually about.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is about a wedding, and actors that are to perform a play during the wedding festivities, and a terrible love triangle (square?) in which a woman, Hermia is engaged to a man named Demetrius, though she's in love with another man, Lysander, and her best friend Helena is in love with Demetrius but he thinks that Helena is horrible. It makes for some very amusing poetry.

Reading it brought back so many memories from high school. I was cast as Hermia, and I was horrified when this boy that I thought was icky (no idea why, now) was cast as Lysander. Though I never had to, I was terrified that I might have to kiss him. (I had never kissed anyone, and didn't want Ickface to be my first.) Especially because I was totally head over heels for this guy that lived down the street from me, who was also in the play. Creepily enough, he got cast as Hermia's dad, Egeus, but it was like, the highlight of my life at the time to get to spend rehearsals with him, though nothing ever happened between us. (High School Allie pretty much only had unrequited crushes, until she went to Homecoming with High School Matt senior year.)

Your turn: tell me about your high school self! What were you involved in? Who did you have a massive crush on? (Or, if you'd rather, have you read Shakespeare? What is your favorite play?)

Life List: I Fully Support Your Avenging

I've wanted to go to a drive-in movie for literally years. YEARS. There was one in Oklahoma City when I was living there, but for some reason in four years of college, I never once made the trip up there.

I'm not even totally sure why I was SO into the idea. I mean, the only time I'd ever even seen anything about drive-in movies was this:

Why was there a swingset in front of the movie screen in Grease?

It just seemed so quaint! Like going back in time.

Anyway, we discovered that there was a drive-in theater nearby, and so Matt suggested we go see The Avengers: Age of Ultron when it was playing last weekend.

Starlite Drive-In Theater

We got there pretty early and there was already a line of cars pulled along the side of the road waiting to get into the gates before they opened. Once we got in and got our tickets, a sign directed us to park in the back three rows because we were in a truck.

We picked the first of the back three rows to get closer to the screen.

Once we parked, we made for the snack bar. Typical snack-bar foods. I can't say I was super impressed by the options, but we had brought a small cooler's worth of food in with us too, so we had plenty of snacks for the movie.

You can see in the photo above that they even had those audio boxes you hang on your window! I tried to use the one next to us, but it wasn't working. I'm not sure if they're supposed to work, or if the theater stopped using them since you can now play the audio over your car speakers by tuning into a specific radio station.

They didn't show any previews, which was fine by me, but there also weren't any cute, old pre-show snack-bar ads like Grease had, either. Oh well.

I hadn't seen the first Avengers movie, nor any of the movies of any of the other superheroes involved, with the exception of the first Iron Man. So I didn't really have any expectations for the movie. But I thought it was pretty good. There were a lot of explosions, and you had to ignore the reality of some pretty big things like gravity and science, but it was entertaining, and I was just excited to be there. :)

It was a lot of fun, and definitely a different experience! Matt thinks that once we trade my truck in — likely before next winter, because there were times I thought I might die in Esmeralda this past winter — if I end up with a smaller car, we should come back and park in one of the rows further up. Even though there weren't that many rows, we were still far enough back that he had some trouble seeing the details of the movie, with his bad eyesight. (I thought it was fine where we were, but I would have liked to sit closer too.)

Have you been to a drive-in theater? And here's my real question: Who would win in a fight, the Avengers or the X-Men? (I had this conversation with Matt the other morning. He said Thor would destroy the X-Men because he was basically all powerful. I said Magneto would destroy Thor, and Iron Man and Captain America too. He said Magneto wasn't actually one of the X-Men, but either way, Hulk would destroy Magneto. What say you?)

Virginia List: Our Trip to Charlottesville Went Off With Basically No Hitches

We went to Monticello! Matt took a nice panoramic photo and I photobombed it and ruined it.

For our belated dating anniversary/early wedding anniversary (who knows anymore, we've started calling the months of March through May "anniversary celebration months"), we planned a trip out to Charlottesville, Virginia. The ultimate goal was to see Monticello, the house/plantation/estate that Thomas Jefferson built that also kind of doubles as his presidential museum. We didn't really make any specific plans outside that.

When we were looking for a place to stay, Matt went on AirBNB and found this guest house on the outskirts of Charlottesville that looked really cute, and it was on a little farm! I was really excited to see some goats. They also had chickens and a rooster and a little pond full of tadpoles and fish, and some cute puppies.

Goats named Nutmeg and October!

Isn't this place just the cutest? The dogwood trees had just bloomed. (Those are the white ones.)