A trip to the surreal

So we drove all the way to San Jose, CA to see Roger Waters perform The Wall. It was the fastest trip possible, except for the driving parts. One day driving there, one day in San Jose, drive back the next day. The concert was surreal , except for the drunk Indian lady who kept shrieking during most of the concert, and picking fights with her boyfriend or whoever was with her. She even tried to pick a fight with us when we asked her to please quiet down.





In the afternoon before the concert we went to The Winchester Mystery House. If you've never heard of it, it is a huge 160-room house built by Sarah Winchester, the widow of one of the Winchester rifle heirs. After the untimely death of her husband and child, she visited a spiritualist who told her the souls of people who died from being shot by her family's guns were haunting her and the only way to appease them was to continually build a house -- nonstop construction, 24/7, for thirty-some-odd years until she died. She held seances to get building plans every night.

My heart's in the highlands

We're back from our UK trip. My research at the British Library didn't go as planned -- but after some retooling I think I'll be able to write a paper on the manuscript I was looking at. While in London we went to the Tower of London, the new Supreme Court buildings, a concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church, and to the British Museum.

We spent most of our time in Scotland, seeing the Highlands, Loch Ness, and Edinburgh. The National Library of Scotland and National Museum of Scotland were both amazing and highly recommended. We also took a tour of the underground vaults which was not really scary.

We only spent a day in Dublin but that was long enough to see the Book of Kells and a cathedral and walk around the city. The place we stayed at was near the waterfront so we walked down to the ocean after dark.

We already want to go back!

4 reasons to like Boston

1. Seafood. With Benadryl, in Donny's case. The best seafood we've had is at the Barking Crab in Boston. A close second was the Portland Lobster Company in Portland, Maine.
2. Walking. Even in the humidity, it's easy to walk to all the sites you'd ever want to see. Although getting to Cambridge and Harvard is definitely a bit far -- take the subway.
3. Weekend getaways. From Boston, it was an easy drive to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Our other stops besides Boston were Salem (home of the movie monster museum), Portland, ME, Sharon VT, the Ben and Jerry's factory, the Dartmouth campus, and Concord, NH.
4. History. We walked the Freedom Trail on our last visit, so this time we went to the John Adams/John Quincy Adams historic site and the church where they are buried (by the way, the correct pronunciation is "Quin-zee"), Lexington, and Concord.

Yankees 7, Angels 1

We went to Anaheim this last weekend to take in a Yankees game. Perfect weather, great game, as you can see by the score (it was the only one of the games the Yankees won all weekend). My family went to Angels games back in the day when we lived in Southern California -- the last time I was there was probably in 1994. It was interesting to come back and root for a different team. There were tons of other Yankee fans there. I think Don needs to buy me some fan gear if we make this an annual event.



Some additional stats. Don: Sun 2, Knees 0. He's the only person I know who hates sunscreen.

Brrr, Boston in January

Last weekend we were in Boston for yet another library conference. When I wasn't in meetings, we walked the Boston Freedom Trail, which passes by historic places like the Old North Church and the Bunker Hill monument. We were fascinated by the old churches and burial grounds, and liked how compact and walkable Boston was.

We stayed an extra day on Monday and rented a car to explore New England. New England is kind of a novelty since, unlike the West, you can drive through multiple states in the course of a day. We drove up the Connecticut coast, then through Rhode Island, where we drove through Newport and stared at all the 19th-century "summer cottages" -- huge mansions built by rich industrialists like the Vanderbilts -- and up to Plymouth. Most everything was closed because it's off-season, but we were able to see Plymouth Rock and stand on the edge of the cold windy bay.

After Plymouth Don wanted to go eat real Maine lobster in Maine. So we drove another couple of hours to Portland in the dark. We found a nice seaside restaurant with the help of Aaron and his internet connection (thanks Aaron!), and this is the result: one happy diner and a bunch of steamed sea creatures (the lobster's name was Joleen). All this and we made it home by 11 p.m.

Don is now trying to talk me into getting a job back East. So please tell all your stockbroker and investment banking friends to help Harvard and Yale recoup their financial losses so they will start hiring again :).

More highlights from this weekend

1. Brushes with celebrity. Don got to get his picture taken with Homer and Bart at Universal Studios (Homer said this was going to be a really boring photo, by the way).

At Disneyland, we ate dinner at the Blue Bayou restaurant. Seated at the next table was Curtis Armstrong, who you may remember from "Better Off Dead" and the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies. We kind of wanted to talk to him but he was clearly celebrating his wife's birthday, and we felt like we shouldn't bother him.


2. Don got creeped out by the Small World ride. Methinks he's watched too many horror movies! Granted, the music gets old really fast, but it was full of Christmas cheer and all.

Can you believe it's been a whole year?

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary this weekend. In some respects it doesn't seem all that long ago that we got married, but it also seems like forever ago. We escaped single-digit temperatures in Utah to go to Disneyland and Universal Studios for the weekend. Unfortunately we got rain and rain and rain at Disneyland, but it was still a great day at the Magic Kingdom despite the cloudy wet skies. But 60 degrees and wet is much better than 7 degrees and icy in my book. It was sunnier the day we went to Universal, which was fun, but we kind of wish we had gone to Disneyland a second day, or at least left a day later to go back to Disneyland.

Chi-ca-go

Last weekend Don and I went to Chicago - I had to be there for the American Library Association conference. We spent Friday night and Saturday sightseeing; Sunday I was in meetings all day and Don went to a Cubs game. Some of the highlights:

--The huge Picasso sculpture a block away from our hotel. I remember seeing a cool photo of it in one of my elementary school textbooks, or maybe the encyclopedia. Yes, I was a nerd and actually read the encyclopedia for fun sometimes.
--Meeting up with my old friend Sara and her husband, John. They took us to a cajun restaurant and Don ate a huge plate of crawfish.
--The weather was surprisingly good -- just humid enough.
--Navy Pier at night. We walked all the way there from our hotel. We ate ice cream and played mini golf. We said hello to the guy who was handing out clubs, and he said that we were the first people who struck up a conversation with him in his entire shift. Kinda sad! He gave us a free round but the people in front of us were super slow - I think they thought they were playing against Tiger Woods or something.
--Tall building tours. We went to the top of the John Hancock Center building on Saturday, and went to the top of the Sears Tower on Sunday. They have this new thing at the Sears Tower where they've built these glass observation booths onto the side of the building, on the 104th floor. I think they've only been up for a few weeks. You step out from the main room onto a glass platform -- it's kind of freaky but amazing at the same time. Here is our view from one of the booths. Too bad it didn't turn out better, I forgot my real camera (shocker) and had to use the camera on my phone instead. Click on the photo for a better view!

Vacation Awesomeness

Yeah, we met Spongebob. Jumpin' Jupiter is right!

Our latest travels

We got back Sunday night from our 9-day trip to North Carolina and Virginia. We spent five nights with Don's mom. We played lots of Killer Bunnies with Malorie and went with her to an amusement park called Carowinds (Maggie can officially add South Carolina to the list of states she's been to).

We rented a car and drove up to Charlottesville, where Maggie had a conference. On the way we stopped in a town called Valdese, North Carolina, where Don's great-great grandfather and his family immigrated from Italy. We came at the wrong day and time, everything was closed, but we did take pictures. Don's great=great grandfather helped build the town's big Presbyterian church:
Charlottesville involved Maggie sitting in meetings all day while Don got to play and have fun! We got to hang out with Don's friends the Joneses and his cousin Nick and Nick's wife Amanda and their new baby.

Magic Mountain

We needed a Weekend Away From Utah, so we drove down to Six Flags in Southern California and rode roller coasters until our heads were spinning (which happened by coaster #3, but we kept on riding). We went on all the major rides except one which wasn't running. Don insisted on riding in the front all the time. It was pretty intense! One coaster the seats extend off the side of the track and actually rotate while you're going through the curves and loops. You don't know what to expect. Another one you actually ride suspended on your stomach so it's like you are flying.

It wouldn't have been a real California trip without Don inhaling In-N-Out every day, or stopping at the store in Vegas to get his own In-N-Out beach towel. Now we just need to take a beach trip.


This picture is from one of the few quiet moments of our day. We went on a water ride and got pretty soaked -- so we rode the carousel to dry off.

Our Honeymoon

For our honeymoon, we spent 18 days in Spain, Morocco, and Scotland. In Spain, we went to Toledo, Granada, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Santiago de Compostela, and spent a little bit of time in Madrid and Tarifa. We stayed in Fes and Rabat in Morocco, and in Scotland, we visited Edinburgh and Glasgow.

This picture is from the bullfighting ring in Sevilla. They only have bullfights in the summer and at Easter time. The box at the upper right is where the royal family gets to sit, though we were told the queen is against bullfighting.

The weather was very uncooperative. We only had a few days of sun. We experienced rain, fog, snow (in southern Spain!), sleet, and even a hailstorm.

We saw a lot of museums, palaces, and old churches on our trip. We literally walked around the old city of Toledo and tried hiking Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, but didn't get very far, since my shoes kept trying to slip off. We also did some pretty random things, like going to a bowling alley in Madrid. Don won -- surprise, surprise. He creams me at bowling on the Wii too (the only thing I can do really well is hula hoop).


In Scotland, I spent most of my time in conference sessions, while Don got to go explore on his own. He walked up a lighthouse in Glasgow and toured underground in Edinburgh. He also got to experience the British health care system because of some dental problems. We definitely want to go back to Scotland and see more of the countryside. We also didn't get to spend enough time in Morocco. We hope we will get the chance to travel again soon!