Seattle Trip 08: Highlights

More photos to come, but here are some highlights from our Seattle trip!

Each morning, Addie was dying to wake up everyone in the house to play. When she was persuaded to let Uncle Mason sleep a little longer, she decided to camp out in front of the guest room door to wait for him. On her back is the little cheetah backpack we bought her at the Ljubljana Zoo. She named him "Philosopher," which impressed the heck out of all of us.

I was excited to get some kitty-time with Frida.

And there was LOTS of Guitar Hero, although I'm not exactly sure why that necessitated Mike's wig. :)

What's In the Water?

Dad just sent me an e-mail asking about one of the photos from the Europe trip. "In the segment on Piran, there are pictures of what look like buoys out in the water (Adriatic), and then ropes with some kind of plant or seaweed attached to them. Do you know what that is?" he asks.

We were confused by that at first, too!! The photos in question (including the two above) were taken while we were on the boat cruise around the peninsula of Piran. We saw the buoys from a distance and were wondering what they were. We thought maybe they were something to do with harvesting salt? For centuries, Piran was famous for salt-making. (Later, though, we learned that they only harvest salt from local salt marshes now, not from the sea anymore.)

When we finally got up close to the buoys and went down to the glass-sectioned part of the keel, we got a good look (which did not translate well on camera) at long ropes covered in mussels. From what we can tell, no special effort is really done other than hanging the ropes in the water: the mussels just choose to attach there. The view we got made it look like it was a mix of mussels, versus just one type: which was borne out on the local menus, all of which advertised plates of "mixed mussels." We ate them twice -- garlicky and buttery, yum!

Hmmm. I wonder if I know anyone who would like mussels.

Photo Highlights of Piran, Slovenia

This is the view of Tartini Square, named for a local composer/violinist, from the top of the Campanile, which was modeled on the one in Venice.

In his eponymous church, St. George slays the dragon. (Isn't it interesting that Christianity allows for the existence of dragons?)
Like much of Ljubljana, Piran is prettiest at night. This is the view from our balcony.

These Slovenian preschoolers were soooo excited about seeing a train!This is near the Piran lighthouse; the photo was taken from a harbor cruise boat.

Piran is famous for seafood, such as these mussels. (We ate them several times -- delicious!)

This sweet kitty sat next to me both times we had lunch at Pizzaria Tartini, which included what may have been the best pizza M and I have ever had.
M gets into the spirit of the local graffit.

Photo Highlights of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Views of the snow-capped Julian Alps greeted us at the airport.

We hiked through a huge natural forest, preserved in the middle of Ljubljana, in Tivoli Park.Old Town, an easy stroll from our B&B, was loveliest at night.

The Ljubljana Zoo has been called one of the most beautiful in Europe.

Photo Highlights of Amsterdam, Netherlands

How many zoo penguins, other than these at the Artis Royal Zoo, have this kind of backdrop for their habitat?

This is the famous floating flower market (Bloemenmarkt); it was just outside the apartment we rented for the first part of our Amsterdam stay.


This lighted sculpture hangs above the children's section of the new Amsterdam Public Library (Bibliotheek).
The foliage began to change the last few days we were there.
It looked even more beautiful at Hortus Botanicus, the horticultural garden founded in 1638.
This is the Japanese garden at Artis.

Slovenia is Wonderful!

(I apologize in advance for the tzpos -- Ićm typing on a Slovenian keyboard!)

As we caught the flight to Ljubljana Tuesday morning, I was a little nervous. Although all the guidebooks made it sound heavenly, we had never talked to anyone who had been here. What if it turned out to be dismal?

We need not have worried. As the little prop plane (ugh) descended and we got a first look at the country, it was staggeringly beautiful: snow'capped mountains, forests, fields dotted with sheep. That was two days ago and it was a perfectly apt introduction to this wonderful place. The people are friendly and speak great English (although I,m having lots of fun trying bits of Slovenian -- mostly please, thank you, good morning and excuse me.)

In the middle of Ljubljana is a huge ( hundreds of acres!) park called Tivoli, which includes a giant swath of forested hills, so we did a big hike yesterday. It almost could have been the Superior Hiking Trail in Northern MN. We also did the Ljubljana zoo -- my favorite thing on the trip so far. It,s one of the oldest zoos in Europe, but most of the animal enclosures are very modern: big, with lots of water and stimulating activities for the animals (very few small cages).

The city itself is charming. The guide books did it justice: it does indeed feel like a tiny version of Prague. Everything is easily walkable. We strolled through Old Town last night along the Ljubljanica river and will head over there again this morning.

Tomorrow, we catch a bus to Piran on the Adriatic coast -- about two hours from here. Luckily, we,ve been told that it,s much warmer there (it,s been remarkablz cold here). We,ll spend three days there, and although we originally planned to do day trips from there to Venice and Trieste, we,ve noticed that our itinerary feels a little rushed (five cities in three countries, all in two weeks? That,s a lot of running around), so we may save those for another trip and instead relax a bit more and enjoy being at a place with a private balcony right on the sea. We,ll also investigate whether we can do some horseback riding -- M is particularly excited about that.

Slovenia may seem like an odd destination, but I would absolutely recommend it to anyone. It,s friendly and beautiful, and can be relaxing or hopping depending on what you want. It,s turned out to be a perfect choice for us.

Ciao!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

And we're off, almost! We fly out tonight at 7:40; the flight will be about nine hours -- a prospect that's far less icky than it would have been yesterday because we were able to get slightly better seats last night.

Tangent: Over the weekend, we called to see if we might be able to upgrade using miles. Nope, but the funny part came when Mason asked, just on a whim, how much it would cost to pay for an upgrade. The answer: nine thousand dollars. EACH. We laughed pretty hard -- couldn't we probably rent a private jet for that?

We'll be back in time to be at work on Monday, September 29. I'm hoping we come home to a lovely Minnesota fall, rather than an early dose of winter. But given that it's going to be almost 80 degrees in both Ljubljana and Venice today, we might even be able to enjoy a nice last dose of summer while we're gone.

And one last thing: believe it or not, we're each taking only a single backpack for luggage. All y'all who like to call me "high maintenance" can suck it. ;)

Two Days and Counting!

It's been a flurry lately -- both at work (for both of us) and home -- but in two days, we'll be on the way to the airport ready to catch our nine-hour flight.

Not long ago, we weren't sure exactly what we wanted to see and do. Where did we ultimately decide to go? See if you can tell from the photos below -- one for each of the cities on our itinerary.

City 1: City 2:
City 3:
City 4:


City 5:

Give up? Here's the answer key:

1. Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2. Ljubljana, Slovenia
3. Piran, Slovenia
4. Venice, Italy
5. Trieste, Italy

Venice and Trieste will be day trips from nearby Piran (Venice by ship, Trieste by bus). We may also be able to do a day trip to Utrecht from Amsterdam, but we're trying to balance the "see lots of cool stuff" desire with the "don't make yourself too busy to enjoy the trip" mentality. If we get too crazed, we'll skip Utrecht and maybe Trieste. Can't wait!

Found Photos

When M's laptop crashed during an online final exam in law school, we decided he needed a new one. Therefore, his old laptop became mine. As it got older and slower, I used it less and less. At some point around late 2006, I pulled off all the files I thought I'd really need and moved them onto the new one, but there were a few folders I missed for whatever reason.

Last week, I needed to find some work stuff I did back in 2004, so out comes the cranky old laptop. Other than ridiculously long start-up and file-opening times, it wasn't too bad. I pulled off the work files and poked around for other stuff I might want. As part of that process, I stumbled across a couple of photos I'd forgotten about.

This one's pretty innocuous -- just a nice photo of the two of us from Jill and Aaron Anderson's wedding. (M was a groomsman, I was a first-time videographer.)

Although this second photo was also taken after a wedding, it bears little resemblence to the one above.

Yes, that is indeed M, along with my cousin Garth (taking a swig from the bottle of vodka hidden behind his jacket) and my youngest brother, Phil, vogue-ing in the front. This photo was taken on the streets of Seattle at approximately 2 a.m., quite a few hours after my middle brother's wedding reception had wrapped up. Not all of the details of the situation are clear, but here are some of the facts, as I remember them.

• Contrary to rumor, we didn't steal this bottle of vodka. We (read: Mason) did, however, sneak the bottle into a salsa club by somehow reaching around the bouncer and setting it on the stage where the band was to perform.
• Dad (who took the photo above) was somehow unaware that we had done this and couldn't understand why we kept ordering diet Cokes and then reaching under the table. (Looking back, I can't really understand it and I had the benefit of knowing what was going on.)
• This was the same club where a very nice girl in her late 20s -- who happened to be sporting a pair of sideburns (truly, more like mutton chops) that were fuzzy enough to look Dickensian -- tried to teach us to salsa, with mixed results.
• It's possible that Phil might have been singing "I Think We're Alone Now" on the dance floor at said club.
• And no, none of us were in college at the time. Clearly, we had forgotten that.
• Oh! And we kept referring to the bottle as "the football." I'm quite sure that we woke any number of nice downtown Seattle residents up that night as [one of the three guys] tackled [one of the others] on the street whilst the third guy [or maybe it was me] yelled, "Hey, don't crack his head on the curb and for God's sake, don't drop the football!"
• And yes, this photo was briefly my screensaver in July 2004. :)

Tickets Booked!

At one point, M and I thought we'd get to Europe about once a year. Why not? We don't have kids, we love travel and it's something that we could make work financially.



Of course, that was before four years of law school, bar exam prep, M hunting for a job, me quitting my former job without having another one lined up (the Summer of 2006 was pretty rough for me and getting out mattered more than anything), both of us in new jobs at new places, and the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad merger/conversion. As a result, we haven't been back to Europe since we got married in Prague in 2004.

Until now! We're still finalizing details about our late September two-week vacation (how many days in Slovenia? how many days in Prague? hotels or hostels or both? travel within Europe via plane, train, bus or a combination?), but this afternoon, we booked our flights to and from home. Suddenly, the trip feels a lot more real. :)

Seattle Trip: Couldn't Help Noticing...

... the similarities in these two photos, taken about 30 years apart. :)

Seattle Trip: Phil the Stud

Seattle Trip: The Firestarter

Seattle Trip: The Lovely LSB

Seattle Trip: Addie's Self-Portraits

Seattle Trip: Down at the Beach