A Weekend Get Away

The city has so much to offer, but sometimes you need to take a trip to New Hampshire to get back in touch with your inner "New Englander."

We headed out to New Hampshire pretty early Saturday since we had so much planned. It was one of those beautiful fall days when the sun is shining and it's in the mid-60s. Our first stop was Brookdale Apple Farm in Hollis, NH. The cashier gave us our 1/2 bushel bag and we figured it was pay by the bag so we set out on our merry apple picking way. We filled our bag to the brim with over 60 apples. We got a nice mix of baking apples and eating apples. When we got to the check out we realized it was "pay the weight" of your bag. It was all good though since our apples were so delicious looking. I have to say that I really thought this apple farm was well organized and very clean and bug free (a big plus in my book)!

Our next stop was Parker's Maple House for a lovely rustic lunch. Then it was on to Miller State Park to see the panoramic view of all of the big mountains in New Hampshire. I'm not a huge state park person but the views were beautiful and we snacked on apples while we walked around so it was pretty nice.

After leaving the park we headed over to the Candlelite Inn in Bradford, NH. I can't say enough positive things about this Bed and Breakfast. The inn keeper was so sweet and told us all about the fun happenings going on. Plus, we stayed in the "Blue Room" which is of course my favorite color! We put our stuff away and headed over to The Fells- a historic property with beautiful gardens and forests.

The Fells was amazing and one of my favorite parts of the trip. The ecological walk along Lake Sunapee was beautiful. The historic home was beautifully decorated and the gardens were gorgeous. There was even a fairy village which made me think of building fairy houses with my classes when I was a classroom teacher.

We quickly headed back to our inn before heading out Daniel's Restaurant in Henniker, NH. We had a great table overlooking a river. Who knew red onion would taste so good in lobster salad? After a delicious dinner we headed over to the Bedford Village Inn to try out Corks Wine Bar. It took us a while to get a table, but I'm really glad that we waited. You know it's a good experience when you have six wine glasses, thanks to a wine flight tasting, on your table and a dessert that everyone else is staring at. I have never enjoyed a dessert so much as I enjoyed the Chocolate Bag. The Chocolate Bag was a eight inch chocolate molded sandwich bag filled with white chocolate and chocolate mousse with assorted berries and Chambord soaked sponge cake. It was so delicious. We left full and very, very happy.

The next morning we decided to live the small town life by hitting up the Chowder Fest Challenge by Lake Sunapee. We had a tough day ahead of us... 16 chowders to taste :-) There were a couple of scary chowders...who in their right minds makes a Chinese Manhattan Clam Chowder...but most of them were delicious. Our favorite was the Guinness Beef Stew but I don't think it ended up winning since these small towners were totally confused about it. With full bellies we decided to return to the city and catch the end of the Patriots game.

I certainly enjoyed my weekend away... but I was right back at the River again this morning!

The City in the Fall

One of my favorite seasons is fall. I love the change from hot, humid, oppressing heat to cool, crisp air. I love that I can take advantage of walking around the city without fear of melting. Lately I've been taking a loop around the Charles River in Harvard Square. It's so peaceful and makes me so happy.

There are some other great events/happenings this fall to look forward to:
*The Revels (this already happened and I didn't get to go this year but I went last year and it was so fun...it is a chorus that sings on the pedestrian bridge on the river)
*Oktoberfest in Harvard Square- always a fun time
*The Regatta- by far one of my favorite annual events. Hopefully the weather will be nice!
*Evening baseball at Cardullo's... can we say playoffs!

I drive through Harvard Square to get to work, and for most people this would be super aggravating. But for me, it's a kind of therapy. It helps me forget how much I don't want to go to work in the morning, and relaxes me after a long, ridiculous day. Brattle Street is amazing and if I was to ever win the lottery I would buy a house there. I love seeing all the people in the square. I especially love the cool, hip Cambridge couples. I aspire to be them.... actually I like to think JO and I are one minus JO drinking coffee and wearing a man scarf :-)

Reality Check

Since everything seems to be falling apart in my professional life I decided to revisit my resolutions. At a workshop I went to today, I learned that you need to look at small, manageable goals and not everything going on. My resolutions were:

1) 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day
2) Purell, Purell, Purell!
3) Going to the gym 2-3 times a week
4) Minimal use of frozen lunches
5) Mandatory blogging time- I find it therapeutic
6) Monthly maintenance of communication with friends that live far away
7) Read each week (more than just a magazine) and watch one movie per week
8) Regular attendance at "Book Clubs"
9) Leaving school at school (I put this on the list but it will never, ever happen... my friends enjoy my stories too much...and I couldn't possibly keep it all in... it could kill me)
10) Cooking more!

I have been successful with #1, #2, #3, #4 (only once), #5, #8, and #10. When you look at that it seems like I'm having a great start to my year. I must say though, none of these resolutions are necessarily work related :-)

I'm Having a Bad Day

This week I kept true to my resolutions for a better school year for two whole days. Today though, after a particularly stressful day, I've broken almost all of them! Since I can't write about my work annoyances, because I could get in trouble, I'll write about some other, much less stressful, annoyances in my apartment building... just because I feel like I need to vent a bit!

First, let me reiterate that I love my apartment. It's the Cambridge version of a Downtown Boston apartment. I'm smack in Inman Square, 10 minutes from Central, 10 from Kendall, and 15 from Harvard Square. Plus, my apartment is pretty big in terms of "city" apartments. Sure we pay a lot but in the end it's worth it... and if we ever have a mortgage it will most likely be less than our rent so it will feel like we are saving money :-)

We have a rather big living room and a huge kitchen! I will probably never have a kitchen like this in any other place I live. We can fit about 15 people, at least, in there. We have more cabinet space than I ever dreamed possible, which is a really good thing since we went a little overboard in Crate and Barrel and wound up with over 50 glasses of varying shapes and sizes. No problem thanks to our multitude of cabinets. Even with the absence of a garbage disposal, it is an amazing kitchen. It makes me happy and I love it. Sure our bedrooms are on the smaller size, but I can't complain since our bedroom has a partial Boston skyline view. Plus, the bedrooms are in the back of the building so we never hear any street noise. Also, living on the third floor has allowed us to keep our heat bill quite low.

Our apartment is rather well constructed. We never hear any of our neighbors. Even the people that live next door and blast their radio at 10:00 in the morning. The only way I knew that they did that was I happened to be in the stairwell when they cranked up the volume. That's really the only time you hear another tenant...if the stairwell doors to your apartment are open. At least that's what I think!

So I adore living here. I wouldn't want to move. That's why these two annoyances are labeled as annoyances..not problems.

I'll start with the doorknobs. We seem to have very "mind of their own" doorknobs in the living room and the bedroom. For instance, on the day of our house warming party I was cleaning the bedroom and my boyfriend had gone out to grab lunch for us. In order to vacuum the entire room I had to shut the bedroom door. I vacuumed and was all set to clean the kitchen, when in an unfortunate incident, I became locked in the bedroom. The knob wouldn't turn correctly and I was stuck in the bedroom just like that. I didn't have my phone, but I did have a tv, so I took a break until JO could rescue me. I yelled through the door that I was stuck in the bedroom, and after he stopped laughing, he was able to jiggle the handle in such a way that I was able to get out. Ever since then, I never shut the door unless I have my phone with me.

The bedroom door, and the bathroom doors, are really the only ones we close. But with the warmer weather (well what warm weather we had this summer) we've been closing the living room doors to keep the cold air trapped in there. This led to another unfortunate incident a while back. I was trying to bring in the butter, salt, and napkins for corn, when I got locked out of the living room. I'm not as afraid of being trapped in the living room though. It overlooks a major street in Cambridge, with lots of people I could yell too for help.

The other annoyance has to do with the neighbors. For the most part I really love my neighbors. They don't bother us and we don't bother them. They are always nice and polite. The sweet foreign family in #2 helped me bring in all of my stuff from my Cape vacation in to the building. The people in #4 seem super cool...and I would totally want to be their friends if given the chance. People only live in #1 every few weeks...I think they may be hiding from immigration but they seem really nice. That leaves #3 and #6. Lets start with #6. There are three people that live there...and it's the apartment next door to us. They are really nice, a very cool eclectic Cambridge couple and a friend of theirs. The boyfriend may actually be our landlord which makes the following situation all the more difficult to navigate.

The apartment is really not meant to house three individuals. Even though it is big it just doesn't work for three people. As a result they have taken over the landings in the front and back of our floor. The front landing is an oasis of their shoes and winter gear. I can totally deal with that because once the girlfriend moved in she totally organized all of it and it's not in my way at all. What I don't like, am annoyed by if you will, is the box of towels/blankets that they have positioned on one of the larger stairs that go downstairs. It's weird and I don't like it. But they don't complain about us so I can look past it.

The back landing is another story. Again, if they weren't so nice, I probably would've gone all Jen Lancaster on them, but they are nice...and may be our landlords. (We were told our landlord was a woman who one the lottery, bought our building, and then moved to Florida. One night JO was out at a local bar and actually ran into the couple that lived in our apartment before us. They said #6 was our landlord...so who knows.) While the front landing is organized the back landing is not so much. They keep their recycling out there, a laundry hamper, one of the big stairs houses their mop and bucket, and on occasion they leave dirty pasta pots and actual bags of trash out there. I actually did end saying something about the trash because it reeked and I was afraid of bugs. Yesterday I almost fell down the stairs when I tripped on a set of venetian blinds that were propped against the air conditioner they are using as a shelf. Again, if they were annoying this would really be a problem. But still, it bugs me a little bit.

The people in #3 though could be a real problem. Shortly after we moved in we had our friends over. We broke out our new Rock Band equipment and started playing. Granted it was late, and we didn't notice, so when #3 knocked on our door we felt really bad. Until, that is, his major complaint was not that we were playing the drums and singing karaoke at 11:30 at night. No, his major problem was that we walked too much. Excuse me??? I'll try not to walk anymore. We blew him off, since that was such a lame complaint. He hasn't given us any more trouble but I always feel like we have to look out for him. Lately he and his girlfriend have been leaving the front and back doors to their apartment open in an attempt to garner a cross breeze (umm...until today's high was 68???) So yesterday I my radio on and I went downstairs to do my laundry, leaving my back door open, when he glared at me. Well, you know what? The only way to hear noise from the other apartments is when you have the doors open. It's your fault, not mine...get an ac!

He also glared at me when I went downstairs to dump the smelly water left in my vase. I couldn't dump it in the apartment, it smelled too gross. I would've gone out back but people were eating out there and I didn't want to gross them out. So I went to dump it on the sidewalk, near a tree. The vase was quite heavy and he had just unlocked the front door to come in so I asked him to hold it. At that exact moment our friend showed up and tried to unlock the door...I don't think #3 liked that our friend had a key...but you know what. He has a key for two reasons:
1) We don't have a buzzer (another annoyance) and he visits a lot
2) He can come rescue me the next time I get locked in the bedroom.

Even though these aren't the real annoyances I would like to blog about, I do feel a bit more relaxed after venting.

Charles River

So my idea of planning "fun city outings" when I know I'm going to have a bad work day worked like a charm today. With every crazy email, comment, and annoyance I just kept my mind focused on what a peaceful afternoon I would have. And you know what? I did!

I walked from Inman to Harvard, cut through JFK park, and down the river to the Pedestrian Bridge. I walked back towards JFK park via the Boston side of the river. Then I cut back through Harvard Square before returning to Inman. It was so nice to see Harvard Square so full of people. The last few times I've gone it has been very empty... college kids don't seem to rise before 10:00 a.m. on the weekends :-)

Now I'm celebrating all of that great exercise with a frappe. Not an ordinary frappe though...a Christina's frappe. A few years ago my friend was on a big frappe kick so we tested them out all over the place. I can say confidently that Christina's has the best frappe in the area! I'm justifying this frappe by focusing on all of the Calcium I'm getting!

It's all in the perspective!

Resolutions

I'm taking a hiatus from talking up the city to post my ten resolutions for a better school year. I'm a teacher so September is always a tough time of year. Summer vacation ends rather suddenly and you're right back into the work thing. There used to be a time when I loved the new school year... it was exciting to meet the group of kids you would be spending six hours a day with for the next 180 school days. Since leaving the world of classroom teaching for a specialist position I don't have that same excitement that used to get me out of the bed on September mornings. In fact, since JO is away on vacation for the next two weeks I'm a little worried about who is going to prevent me from not going to school in the morning. I would love to go back to classroom teaching, but seeing as the economy is m.i.a. that's not an option at this point.

As a result, I've made a list of my 10 resolutions to ensure that this school year isn't completely stress filled.

I will preface this by saying that I made this last week as I was sitting in my office contemplating running away and hiding from work related stress... and in only 3 days back at work I've broken several of them so I'm going to start again tomorrow with a clean slate.

1) 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day
2) Purell, Purell, Purell!
3) Going to the gym 2-3 times a week
4) Minimal use of frozen lunches
5) Mandatory blogging time- I find it therapeutic
6) Monthly maintenance of communication with friends that live far away
7) Read each week (more than just a magazine) and watch one movie per week
8) Regular attendance at "Book Clubs"
9) Leaving school at school (I put this on the list but it will never, ever happen... my friends enjoy my stories too much...and I couldn't possibly keep it all in... it could kill me)
10) Cooking more!

Also, on particularly awful days I'm going to see school as a 7 hour obstacle to doing something fun in the city. For example, tomorrow I'm going to go for a nice long walk along the Charles River after school.

The Road Trip Revisited

As I said in my last post, I was M.I.A. for a few weeks due to a "staycation" and a mega-road trip.

I parted way with my good friend at the at the airport...and headed over to meet JO in terminal A. We were ready to hit the road for an 8 day, 1,000+ mile "mega road trip" from Phoenix to San Francisco. As you know, I love the city life so I was a little uneasy about so much time in the car driving through deserts and other desolated areas. Additionally, one version of this trip had us driving through Death Valley where it is typically 120 degrees. Needless to say, as much fun as I knew I would have on the trip, I was a bit hesitant to go on it. I like my vacations to be relaxing- one place over an extended amount of time. This trip featured a different location almost every day. The trip was also back to back with my amazing Boston "staycation" so it would be hard to top that.

Apparently there were weather issues while we were in Boston so Continental did us a favor by putting us on an earlier flight to Newark to catch our connector to Phoenix. Score us! We rushed through security and enjoyed a very quick 40 minute flight to Newark. Had we been more educated on the airports of the Eastern seaboard we wouldn't have blown off our captain's message, "We are right on time...quite surprising for Newark!" Away we went to kill two hours in Newark before our next flight. I was slightly grumpy since I hate to fly and I had just said goodbye to my best friend for an undetermined amount of time. So when we sat down to eat our McDonald's and I happened to feel something sticky on my arm I wasn't too happy to find melted ice cream all over our table and my arm. I rushed off to the restroom to disinfect. I returned to finish my burger but was interrupted again when JO pointed out that my shirt was now also covered in the pink grossness! Having completely lost my appetite I threw out the remaining burger and fries and set out to buy some Purel. Eight dollars later we went to check in on our flight status and it said it was on time! We hit up some of the shops and returned to our gate to get ready to board. No plane in sight but the status still said on time. Long story short- our "on time" flight status never changed but we left two and half hours late!

I'll spare you the details of our ridiculous flight which included no food service and no blankets!!! We landed in Phoenix and were greeted by the "dry" heat you hear so much about. At midnight it was a balmy 97 degrees. We grabbed our bags, got the rental, and headed out to our motel in the "ghetto" of Phoenix, arriving around 1:00 in the morning. The motel itself wasn't bad but we hardly slept because we were both so hungry so it wasn't surprising when we woke up at 8:00 ravished by hunger. In a stroke of pure luck the McDonald's was located right next to the Dunkin Donuts where a medium ice coffee cost me 54 cents and made me very happy.

We set out for the Grand Canyon. Along the way I experienced difficulty with the rapid and frequent changes in elevation, an asthma attack, and the desert. That being said the Grand Canyon was beautiful and quite breathtaking. We continued to drive to Las Vegas. Along the way we saw the Hoover Dam. I'm not a gambler, and I don't like to watch, so my big Vegas plan was to lounge by the pool and relax. Unfortunately our hotel's pool had a stipulation- if you use it be warned that they have a live webcam and are allowed to use your image and/or voice in print and other media. I'm an elementary teacher so this was most certainly a no go for me. Combined with the heat I was pretty grumpy during our stay in Vegas. There were some highlights though- the Paris Casino was great, lunch at Mon Ami Gabi delicious, souvenir shopping at the ESPN Zone was fun, and the fountains and lions were cool. We had some run ins with less than friendly staff at our hotel so we were both in a bit of a mood when we headed out for Mammoth Lakes, CA via the desert! Apparently I was quite upset because I had a bit of a freak out in the desert and once again when we drove through two mountain ranges.

I'm just going to say it- I do not like the desert. No part of driving for three hours through the desert is fun for me! I'm not intrigued by the desolation! I'm a city girl... I like noise, I like people, I like hustle and bustle. JO did a nice job of calming me down and navigating the mountains finally delivering us to Mammoth Lakes, CA. I was ready to relax the night away in our hotel but JO convinced me to head outside. I'm so glad we did. This actually ended up being my favorite place on our trip. Mammoth Lakes is this cute mountain town that is a skiers dream in the winter and a haven in the summer. It reminds me a lot of North Hampton, MA. The big attraction are the series of lakes set into the mountains. They are absolutely stunning and actually got me contemplating how fun it would be to camp around them... and I am not a camper!!! After driving around the various lakes we went to dinner at Slocumb's which the front desk lady had recommended. It was by far one of the best places we ate on the trip and exactly what I had been hoping for on vacation... total relaxation! When we got back to our hotel we decided to use the hot tub in the "outdoor" spa... it was so much fun and we could see all of the stars!

Of course, the next morning we had to get right back in the car but this time I was excited because we were going to Yosemite National Park. Growing up I had heard a lot about the park from my dad who had gone when he was just out of college. I've always wanted to go... again surprising for me since I hate most things "nature." It rained a little bit at the beginning of the day but the sun broke out and it was a beautiful day.

After Yosemite we continued to drive for four more hours (a bit more driving than I could really deal with) to arrive in Sacramento, CA. I've heard good things about Sacramento and I was certainly excited to be back in a city! Plus I had researched a couple of delicious restaurants so I was excited to hit up the city even though it was a Sunday night. After driving around the entire city we came to the conclusion that we missed the memo- nothing is open on Sundays in Sacramento... and very few people are even outside on Sundays. I am still mystified by our experience in Sacramento- maybe it has something to do with the budget woes in California. We were able to find one pub open at the late hour of 6:30! During dinner I heard several of the other diners complaining that it was cold out... it was 70 degrees out! As a New Englander this made my blood boil but I digress.

We had to get a good night's rest since the next day was a big one- Napa Valley. Back when JO planned the trip I was quite nervous that we only had one day in Napa Valley. Since JO would be driving, I would have to be the one doing the majority of the drinking. I didn't think this would end well at all! Due to ridiculous amounts of traffic we were a bit late for our first winery. We had a lovely picnic, the weather was beautiful, and shared a bottle of wine. Our second winery was equally beautiful and we had a private table and concierge for our tasting which was super relaxing. We had a third winery planned but that didn't happen due to the fact that that would have been a lot of wine!!! Instead we set off for San Francisco, our final destination.

I am sad to admit that I was sleeping off the winery so I missed driving over the Golden Gate Bridge :-( but I recovered quickly and was surprised with The Westin St. Francis as our hotel. The Westin is absolutely gorgeous and has glass elevators to take you to your room... we were on the 29th floor which led to a spectacular view. Tourists actually come to the hotel to ride the elevators. Our hotel was right in the heart of Union Square and we wasted no time hitting up the local diner and all of the awesome shopping... I'm talking a 5 floor Old Navy and a gigantic Gap! You name it the store exists in Union Square... even my beloved Paul Frank has a store there. We turned in early so we could enjoy a full day of tourist activities the next day. I love cities and hadn't been to a "new" one in a while. I was eager to compare it to Cambridge and Boston.

For all the crap the MBTA takes I have to say it is a relatively easy system of travel compared to the MUNI and BART systems in San Francisco. Some buses only come at certain times of the day, often you have to take 3-5 buses to get anywhere, and they are always super crowded. Think green line on game day and increase it more! The public transportation was really the only negative of my experience in San Fran.

We figured out how to navigate the MUNI and arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge. We walked all the way through the park down to Fisherman's Wharf. It was beautiful out and quite fun. We stopped for lunch at the Blue Mermaid and then headed over to see the sea lions. I could've stayed there for hours. As it was we watched them for about an hour. I loved them!!! We toured the piers a bit more before heading back to the hotel to take a quick nap before heading out for the evening.

Quite by accident we stumbled onto the B Restaurant located near the MLK Jr. memorial. The B had a great atmosphere, and Prosecco by the glass! Yummy! After dinner we walked around Union Square some more.

The next morning we were back on the MUNI, not the bus but the cable cars! I know the cable cars are a must experience in San Fran and now that I have I think I have my fill. I can't even imagine having to take these as a commuter! It was fun at first but after a little bit I couldn't take the herky jerky bumps every two seconds. Also, most of the tourists on the cable car "Ohhh" and "Aww" on every hill on Nob Hill which is quite annoying. We exited at Lombard Street which has 8 hairpin turns on it. It's absolutely amazing and I can't imagine what driving down it would be like. We walked over to Ghiradelli Square but missed out on the yumminess because it was only 10:00 a.m. and nothing was open! Oh well! We walked over to Telegraph Hill to see the wild parrots on our way to Coit Tower. I quit half way up the stairs that lead to Coit Tower because I'm a wimp who is ok with being a wimp. We changed up our route, grabbed some lunch at a cute pub along the way, and ended up the Ferry Building...a sophisticated version of Quincy Market.

One of my favorite things about San Francisco is that every day there is some sort of Happy Hour promotion going on. JO and I wondered the streets looking for the best deal and found it at Zingari's. Five dollar drinks and half price food. We had a great time relaxing and eating yummy appetizers. Then we headed out to find the French neighborhood and had a delightful dinner at Cafe Claude. We finished the evening with drinks at the Clock Bar at the Westin.

Our trip home was much less uneventful then the trip out, although the clearly married man next to me on the flight home from Seattle did have six vodka cocktails and spent the whole flight flirting with the stewardess.

I learned that I hate the desert, that it's fun to visit other cities, but that in the end my heart belongs here... where everything is at my doorstep!