Glorious Grey Gardens

Soon after moving to London, I was chatting with my brother online, telling him how beautiful Kensington Gardens were, despite the grey weather. Being a native Texan, he had trouble processing how grey = pretty. I did a quick google search for pictures to try to demonstrate how lovely and striking the grey sky looked against the green grass and trees but came up blank. I couldn't believe that I couldn't find any images that had manage to capture the park's beauty with its frequently grey skies. So here are a few of my amateur iphone shots attempting to do just that:

A selection of orinthological discoveries

Light at the end of the tunnel

A mud-hound's delight

Should you be interested in checking out the grey gorgeousness for yourself, you shouldn't have any trouble finding the Kensington Court Crew as we spend A LOT of time in the park, strolling around, taking up a disproportionate amount of sidewalk space and keeping an eye out for Dillon's future bestie, "Georgie."

Uh Oh...Surprise Visitor

This little hellraiser just slid under our back door and decided to camp out in our kitchen yesterday.  Anybody have any suggestions?  Really could use Tsunami's assassin skills about now.

Looking Westward

Sometimes its easy to forget that we once again live in a seaside city facing West.  Theoretically, we should have 365 days of glorious sunsets over the ocean.  But then add one hefty dollop of the notiorious San Francisco fog that creeps into town late in the afternoon and add a healthy palette of grey to the gloomy Pacific beaches and you don't  usually get crowds of people clamoring to watch the sun sink down over the Western horizon.


Enter Indian Summer and a week of fog-free afternoons and you have a mad dash westward to catch big orange retire for the evening.

Our trip to Baker's Beach not only allowed us to discover a gleeful nude beach but also gave us a glimpse of one of our most popular, yet elusive residents: the Golden Gate bridge.  For those of you that have visted SF, you probably saw this ole gal covered in her traditional white shroud.

Never ones to feel constrained by traditional definitions of how things "should" be done, our sunset picnic for that evening consisted of Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches from the questionably sanitary Saigon Sandwich in the Tenderloin. Top that off with a little rice-banana-dessert-suprise, and you have a pretty perfect little Monday night.

The Finer Things in Life

A recent excursion to the De Young fine arts museum allowed me to showcase the impressive cultural offerings of our new city and the importance that fine arts play in our lives here.  

OK, I can't continue any longer with this charade.... it was free day at the museum and I thought it would be more fun to view the impressive collections with others that were sure to be as equally clueless as I.  In actuality, with our artistic knowledge combined (my "mastery" of Latin America + Addie's obsession with colonial America + 2 kids with cultural parents + Michael's eclectic college coursework), we could follow along fairly well.

The actual structure of the de Young is equally impressive as its collections and we braved the crowds to check out the viewing tower, which overlooks Golden Gate park and part of city.  If I had to describe the structure, I might say that it is, "Constructed of warm, natural materials including copper, stone, wood and glass, the new de Young blends with and complements its natural surroundings. Ribbons of windows erase the boundary between the museum interior and the lush natural environment outside, and four public entrances segue naturally from the park’s pathways, welcoming visitors from all directions."  What is really crazy is that the museum's website describes it in exactly the same way!

Never ones to rush the finer things in life, we took the opportunity to stroll the rose gardens after leaving the museum and were moderately impressed with the array of varietals and some of the clever hybrids the gardeners had engineered.

After a tranquil day viewing lovely specimens of natural and human creation, we looked forward in anticipation to the beer, fast food, and jam band music fueled weekend that was to come.

Sunday Morning Mystery

I am going to prelude this post by saying that this is probably something that my mom wouldn't want me to post about.... saying that it would "embarrass the family" or something like that.  Something similar to the time when I accidentally brushed my teeth with hydrocortisone cream or the time when I sprayed myself with industrial strength bug spray meant for use in an outdoor space 6 hours before human use.  But having little to no pride, I am going to publish anyway.  For you, my reader.  Its all for you.  Because if you can't laugh at the misfortune of others, what can you laugh at?

On Sunday morning before heading out to a much-needed breakfast taco brunch, I noticed some discoloration, redness, and broken blood vessels on my chin.  I instantly freaked out.  I don't particularly mind having bruises the size of my hand on my leg, strange growths on my wrist, or random rashes, but I simply do not like when things are wrong with my face. Not cool.  After running through the various options of what might have caused this outbreak with my personal nurse (aka mom), we came up with the following possible triggers: 

1. The water from the mountain spring I drank on the hike the day before.    
                    A) Was there pee in it? Possibly.

                    B) Chemicals? Who knows.

                    C) Bacteria? Probably.

2. The leaf that I blew my nose on while hiking.  Seemed like an eco-friendly option at the time, but then again some leaves cause angry outbreaks...

3. General clumsiness.  Always a possible culprit, but in this case it wasn't really an option as I certainly would have remembered jacking my chin on something hard enough to leave a mark.  Nevertheless, it was not ruled out as my tendency toward clumsiness overruled the reliability of my memory.

Over breakfast tacos, I contemplated possible causes while Jared made sure to keep a safe distance from me in the event of any possible infectious diseases.  When I took a sip of my water, revelation struck!  I knew what caused it!  The night before, Jared had very inconsiderately passed his hiccups on to me.  Not a very gentlemanly thing to do. One of our companions suggested her tried-and-true cure of drinking water out of a glass from the opposite rim while leaning upside down.  Having already tried holding my breath and the whole sugar on the tongue thing, I was game for anything.  I secured my lips on the opposite rim of the glass while leaning over and attempted to drink.  Unfortunately, gravity and the pressure of the drinking motion caused the glass to stick to my face.  Ergo..... popped blood vessels! Discoloration! Redness!  Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary.

On the usefulness of following directions

This weekend Jared and I decided to get out into the great and beautiful wilderness that surrounds the city of San Francisco.  We settled on the closest and most popular hiking area, Mt. Tam, located just across the Golden Gate bridge from the city.  With hundreds of different trails with varying levels of difficulty and duration, we figured this was a good place to start. 


We settled on a trail that would take about two hours and lead us through a Redwood forest (exhibit A) and then along the side of the mountain that overlooked the coastline (exhibit B).

                                 exhibit (b)

             exhibit (a)

Unfortunately, we missed the turnoff for our desired trail and ended up adding on an extra hour of hiking.  This wouldn't be a huge deal normally, except for the fact that this extra hour was somehow completely uphill and we didn't bring enough water.  Being the ever-resourceful mountain woman, I solved the water problem by filling our bottle from the trickling mountain stream.  I figured that I would rather possibly drink someones pee than have no water at all and be dying of thirst (didn't bring up this thought process with Jared, BTW).  Despite the small detour, we made it back to civilization safely and learned our lesson about trail maps and extra water.

Performance Update: New Activity Alert

A surprising number of our readers have expressed interest in receiving continued updates regarding my progress toward my weekly performance metrics.  I am sorry to say that unless a spreadsheet master (aka Jared) starts updating my numbers in Excel, you are not going to be seeing a chart each week.  So from now on, I will just be adding anecdotal updates and tagging any posts detailing activities that would count toward achieving said goals under "performance metrics." 

So, here's the first update:  I have a new activity that I feel is productive in two of my performance categories(Apartment Organizing and Physical Activity): gardening! 

We have a small garden behind our apartment complex that has over the past weeks/months/years turned into a frightening and dangerous jungle world.  I have spent the last week or so trying to make the garden a place that is accessible to humans and can be entered without fear of impalement by the various thorns and branches jutting out into the walkway. 

For those of you who know me well, you know that I cannot accomplish any task without creating a few enemies along the way. Please meet Enemy #1:

The dreaded thornea shitheadius (its real Latin name, I swear). I have no fewer than 3 splinters in each finger from this little branch of fun, despite the fact that I was wearing gloves the whole time. Not only is this little guy thorny, but he has very deep roots. It also apparently haunts the local forests because this picture was taken in a national park nearby.  We are not friends.

Never one to let my enemies hold me down, I dominated that little branch and have turned our garden into a happy urban retreat.  The fact that no one will probably ever use this area since we have a huge park across the street is insignificant. The point is that one must triumph overall enemies, big or small.

Who Says XXXXL Shirts Are Out of Style?

Not Justin "Guess What Ladies I Now Play Bass" Cohen.  I apologize for tearing open those ever tender scars that Cohen formed when he departed Dallas, but the D.C. celebrity was recently spotted flaunting his vintage J. Hughes "Farewell Tour" tee on the slopes of A-Basin.  Notice the off-center lettering ...

and the über-exact profile logo....

Man that is one badass shirt.

This Just In...

Stephen "Cuddles" Carleton and Justin "Hey Ladies I Can Play the 90's Chicago Bulls Intro Song On My Keyboard All Night Long" Cohen have amazing vertical skills.  Not sure where they got it from but they sure were kickin ass that day.

Me on the other hand would have been lucky to out jump Uwe Blab in my early 90's Pearl Jam attire.

Breakin' the law!

No one has ever accused me of blindly following the sometimes-arbitrary suggestions called "rules."  So when we noticed that our apartment rooftop could be accessed via a creaky, poorly lit, back stairway we forged ahead despite signs prohibiting passage ("it is a violation of your lease agreement to use the rooftop for anything other than emergency purposes").  From an early age, I realized that things are usually forbidden because some people hate fun and excitement.  Our rooftop is no exception as it offers fantastic views of the city skyline and the undulating expanse of the city's neighborhoods.

Luckily, on Saturday night we did have an emergency- a beautiful sunset that required picture taking- and had a valid excuse to access the rooftop.  Enjoy the fruits of our rule-breaking emergency.

Glamping

Glamping-verb (used without object)\ [glam-ping]

         1. to camp in style

         2. a style of camping popularized in the movie "Troop Beverly Hills"

         3. term invented by Liz Hawthorne to explain the only suitable method of sleeping outdoors

Last weekend, we joined a group of friends in Greyton, a town about 1.5 hours west of Cape Town for a weekend in the great outdoors.  John and Liz had visited this location in the past and offered it up as a possible list-worthy item.  John loved the place so much that he once attempted to romance the cleaning supplies.  His enthusiasm must have caught on because on the first night he, Jared, and I stayed up until about 4:30 singing, dancing, and generally annoying anyone within 5 miles. I even managed to incorporate John's beloved broom into a rousing rendition of "Putting on the Ritz" ("Young Frankenstein" moaning included).

Despite the well-warranted disciplining we received from the management the next day (John to camp manager: "4am? Izzit? Shame, man."), we had an awesome time with our adopted South African family.

(Maya and our new friend "Toro")

Full Moon Fever

Now that we have finally been given our departure date (Mar 23), Jared and I have been making lists of things that we absolutely must do before leaving town.  Only two items on the list earned a special star, which indicated things that we would have to miss our departure flight if we hadn't done.  One was eat lunch at Mzoli's. Check.  The other was climb Lion's Head mountain on the night of a full moon. 

This one was a bit harder because, as we all know, a full moon only happens once a month.  Knowing that our time in SA was soon coming to an end, we set Feb 28 as the "must climb" date. Normally, this would be totally do-able.  Although the climb is a bit steep and challenges some peoples comfort with heights (Mom: "I am not scared of heights, I just don't like being up so high"), we both knew that we were up for the challenge.  Enter the Sauvingnon sloppy fest and things get a bit complicated... lets just say that there were several times that I thought that I was going to either pass out, puke, or fall off the mountain and I was in better shape than my beloved companion.  Despite the physical hardships and sauvingnon blanc-flavored sweat, we made it!

Not only did we make it to the top, but we got to watch both the sunset and the moon rise.

Although we did not linger for the stargazing and wine drinking that was to come, we had an amazing sense of accomplishment and the light of the moon to help us down the mountain (which apparently wasn't enough to keep me from scraping my knee).

We have now officially checked the two specially starred items off the "to do" list, so there is a chance that we might just make that plane...

A Ratnakara Virgin No More

So amongst the numerous and most triumphant firsts that we racked up during our trip through the Garden Route (golfing with baboons, stingray fishing with Prince Charlie, wild oyster shucking in the Knsyna Lagoon, and avoiding a hyena shake-off after her afternoon urine bath) one feat was unacceptably left unheralded. Well no longer. After an incredibly scenic and rugged 30 minute hike down the Kranshoek coastal cliff, Lindsay plunged into icy waters of the Indian Ocean for the first time. Congratulations Lindsay!

The Smoke that Thunders

"The Smoke that Thunders" was the traditional name for Victoria Falls before Sir John Livingstone "discovered" the falls in 1855.  I have to say that I think that the first name was better suited as the falls create a mist that can be seen and a roar that can be heard from miles away and do not bear any resemblance to Queen Victoria.  Jared, Kirsten and I visited the falls last weekend and were thoroughly impressed and felt that their inclusion as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World was well warranted.  Waterfalls also happen to be my personal favorite natural phenomena, so I was pumped to check out the famed falls first hand.  Not only did we get to walk so close to the falls that we were completely drenched from the mist, but we also got to check them out from a helicopter and from a sunset cruise that was way more relaxed than our previous experience in Cape Town the week before.

Our Cape Town friends, Liz and John, are helping a 3rd grader out with his "Flat Stanley" project and asked us to take Stan on our trip to the falls. My account of Stanley's adventures in Zim and a few more pictures appear on Liz's blog in this posting.  Despite a few setbacks due to evil malaria medications, we had an awesome trip overall.

New Zealand Flashback (Part 1)

So since this is our blog we get to make our own rules here.  We have decided that to take a quick trip back in time and update our faithful blog reader(s) about how our quest through New Zealand went down.  In honor of the original inspiration behind this trip, we’ll make this a mythical three-part epic with a new chapter dropping every time we feel like typing up a new section.  Without further ado…part 1:

So after the ruckusness (yes it’s a word) of our wedding , we needed to get out of town for a little bit of R&R.   New Zealand was the choice and wow that flight took forever.  We left Austin around 6:00 p.m. on a Monday and then landed in Auckland 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday.  We may have skipped a day in there somewhere, but that’s neither here nor there.  Anyways, pictures are better than words so lets kick off a montage:

So this is the Auckland skyline.  Amongst this lineup the Sky City Tower is the obvious standout, with the whole needle-thing going on.  The last night of the trip we actually stayed at the hotel there and gambled away our last New Zealand dollars betting on when bungee jumpers would leap off of the sky deck.

Gnarly Factoid: Only 4 Million people live in New Zealand and 1.2 Million of those live in Auckland

Yeah so this is me big timing some other tourists aboard our Whale & Dolphin Safari.  So if you are starting to ask “what is the deal with these two and whale watching?” well I don’t have an answer for you.  Maybe the big fellas are subconsciously drawing Lindsay to them in order to thank her for her non-mammalian diet.  Anyways, this righteous pic is of the legendary Blue Whale….turns out this was only the 2^nd one the safari guide had seen in 17 years so, needless to say, we felt pretty awesome afterwards.

So this was embarrassing:  I paid a bouncer $100 to get Lindsay and I into Auckland’s exclusive 5 Below Bar and to get upgraded into pimptastic Russian parkas with Isotoner ski mitts, but after going to the bar and getting us drinks, I returned to find Lindsay copping a feel of this naked ice dude. Turns out he was a pretty cool guy though so no big deal.

It may not look it, but this was probably the most intense moment of our time in the land of extreme sports.  We are in the Hertz parking garage about to hit the New Zealand highway in our brand new bizarro-world Ford Focus.  Unfortunately for Lindsay, she lost the pre-drive paper-rock-scissors match and got 1^st shift.  Overall, our time in Auckland was a good time, but New Zealand isn't about city life.  In order to get this trip started, we needed to step it up a bit.

Okay, so first stop on our North Island road trip was Rotorua, the land of hot springs and weird Kiwi thrill rides.  Luckily, these hot spring all reek of sulfuric gas (a la rotten eggs) and this big boy was right outside of our hotel room. Nice romantic choice of hotel room, huh?

Alright, bizarre adrenaline rush #1… street luge racing.  That dude in the blue helmet was about to get run off the road by my nasty Mario Kart skills.  As for Lindsay, she is actually about to slap some kid that started mouthing off about being a more radical racer than her.   She refrained from the physical beat down, but made sure he ate asphalt before it was all over.  Bottom line, Texas owned the mountain that day my friends.

Bizarre adrenaline rush #2 = Zorbing!  Pretty simple process.  They drive you up the hill, put you in a huge plastic ball and then fill it with warm water (good cause it was like 50 degrees outside).  A quick nudge and you are spinning around inside while the ball is bouncing and rolling down the hill.  Tops out at less than a minute, but it was totally worth it.

So after issuing beatdowns on the street luge and getting all twisted in the Zorb, we were feeling a lot more confident about getting back on the road in our Focus.  How could you not with such a fly ride.

So its no Africa, but New Zealand has its fair share of wildlife.  On our way from Rotorua to Waitomo we were lucky enough to witness these rare black & white hill-grazing bovines and then later caught a glimpse of the world famous shepherd and mega-sheep dog combo.  That sure was a groovy little drive.

Aww yeah.  Welcome to Waitomo my friends.  Population 215 and home to the world famous glowworm caves (actually world famous this time, unlike the shepherd & mega sheep dog thing from earlier).  So seeing as the whole reason we were here was to get extreme with an underground cave adventure, we had to stay in equally wild accomodations.    The Waitanic and the Hobbit Motel definitely fit the bill.

So yes we look really tough with this sweet gear on, but man was it clutch.  Our outfits consist of a wool base-layer fleece, an arctic-rated thermal wetsuit with a an additional over-layer jacket, thermal booties, gnarly red helmets, and some killer boots.  For two hours we abseiled, ziplined, tubed, swam, trekked, and climbed through this massive underground cave system all under the luminescence of the glow worms.  It was by far the most physically grueling and ridiculously freezing cold thing we did on the trip.  It was awesome.

So other than the caves, there wasn’t much to do in Waitomo, so we shortly set off on the road again towards Wellington.  When you are making good time, the last thing you need is a delay, but its kind of tough to get mad when its caused by a hundred or so sheep that happened to sneak out onto the highway.  Plus we got to help the dogs get them off the road with some skilled driving and horn honking.  We eventually made up the lost time and completed our relaxing and scenic journey through New Zealand’s North Island.

Stay tuned for Part 2....