This is my belated birthday post. I missed it by a couple of weeks, but I wanted to put something about not being 25 any more. I honestly think this might have been my favorite year yet. I can't say that defininitively because it's entirely possible that some of the popsicles-bare-feet-and-tree-climbing years would have given it a run for its money, but I really, really, really liked 25. And actually, I probably had at least one popsicle, definitely ran around barefoot, and definitely climbed a tree or two within this past year. Here are some of the things I did for the first time while I was 25 (in chronological order):
Today is Wednesday. Monday night Dane and I went to see Mates of State at the Granada, and while half the people that read this have already heard this story, basically the show started at 8 but instead of being MoS with Black Kids as their openers it was a co-headline tour with another opener, so MoS didn't go on until probably 1030 or so, which I am old and also employed, and that is kind of a tad late for a Monday night. But really not so bad, I was in bed by like one and it didn't really bother me yesterday.
But then last night we all went over to the Beckmans' for chicken and noodles and I made dirt with pudding and crunched up oreos and it was super fun, but as always with the Beckmans I stayed until like elevenish, which usually I blame on Dane and/or Jon but neither were there so I guess it's not really ALL their fault every other time we stay over there way too late. And then I hadn't seen Dane yet at all so we stayed up even later just catching up. And rescuing each other from huge-normous bugs with grabby legs that had crawled WAY up our pants and made us scream and jump around like a little girly crazy person. Or at least one of us rescued the other one, that one wasn't so much reciprocal.
But THEN I totally woke Dane up at about 5:45 by like completely freaking out in my sleep, I was having the WORST dream ever, it was totally terrifying and thank GOD he then woke me up. And we had to kind of chill for a few minutes and then Susanna randomly texted me at like 6:15, which I was still awake and trying to get back to sleep, but that is so random, so I texted her back, and then that kept me up for probably thirty more minutes, and yeah, I'm pretty pooped.
The dream wasn't even about junebugs, or any bugs, that's the weird thing. I shall tell you.
So we were in some kind of vacationy place with like a cabin, and the details of the first part are fuzzy but basically there were like mannequins in several of the rooms or the restaurants in this town, and there were these little kids (probably 8-10 years old) that kept coming to the door or just walking in and if we tried to cover up or put away the mannequin people they would get SUPER pissed and throw a fit until we put them back, and they always talked about them like living people, but never talked to them.
Then we were driving down this road, maybe trying to leave but I don't think so, and we started seeing all these mannequins hanging from the power/telephone lines over the road. At first they were sort of posed like they were some weird kind of advertisement, all in these brightly colored like shorts and polos and whatever, but then as we kept driving there were more and more, and several of them were hanging with the line through their belt loops so they were kind of hung/bent over, and then a few had it wrapped around their necks. Then all of a sudden something hit the back window of the car, there was this one sliding down the power line behind us almost like a zipline or something, and had bumped into the back of the car with its plastic legs, and kept bumping it no matter how fast we went. Then all the sudden (I was in the back seat for some reason) the window was open and these legs swung into the car, so I tried to push them out, still all plastic and hard, and then out the back I saw the mannequin drop off of the power line thing and then LAND, like, ninja-style, on the ground on both feet and start running after the car, which he caught, and started climbing in the window. That was where Dane woke me up all freaking out and hyperventilating.
Elements:
1) Coraline visual style/moods with the first part with the kids
2) Old Navy commercials with the talking mannequins
3) Brandon's story at the Beckmans' last night about when he rolled off
a top bunk as a kid, fully asleep, and somehow landed on both feet like
a cat.
Please interpret.
Two movies I've seen lately --
Dane and I went to see Sunshine Cleaning a couple weeks ago with Susanna and some of her friends. It was entertaining, but not really my favorite. I have really truly loved Amy Adams in a lot of movies, she's great and can be so adorable and hilarious and just light up the screen. There's the Drop Dead Gorgeous version, which was hilarious and genius, and the Enchanted version which is innocent and precious, and the Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day version which is sort of a mix of both of those and whom I could watch all day, and we're going to pretend the Talladega Nights version never existed, except that it was a lot like the Charlie Wilson version.
Then there's the Junebug, Sunshine Cleaning, Doubt Amy Adams, which is kind of all quivering bottom lip and wide blue tear-filled eyes and defeated smiles and Lucille Ball hand-wringing (know what I mean?) and this mix of innocent and sweet and pitiful and desperate. That one was just done one too many times and turned up to 11 in Sunshine Cleaning and may have ruined that whole Amy Adams for me for a while. Probably only for a while though.
Then they had this plotline with Emily Blunt, whom I also happen to love, that was kind of awkward and never really went anywhere, and I'm not sure what the point of it was. I mean I kind of get it, but sometimes it seems like "let's throw a few controversial-ish themes in there, even if they don't lend to story or character, just because it'll make us more Indie and will take the place of creative plot twists and if people have a problem with it we'll call them narrow-minded."
BUT THEN.
Last night we watched Let the Right One In, which I pretty much loved completely. I've had less time to think about it, so that could be part of it, but I was just sucked in. It was unbelievably refreshing to me how they told SO much of the story in shadows or off-screen or only showing you the few moments before something happened. It's like they actually believed that I have my own imagination, or something. Crazy, right?
I wished I saw it on the big screen, because even on our teeny one in non-HD, it was just one of the most beautiful movies ever. It opens with a kid walking through snow (or at least that's in the first couple minutes) and my immediate thought was "ew, I'm so glad we don't live where it's that cold". 20 min later I was like "I want to go to SWEDEN." Just soooo soo pretty. I was sold even with the screwed-up American subtitles. I hate it when you can TELL they say this whole long sentence and you even recognize a few words or a name, and then the subtitles are all "NO, THANK YOU." And you're like "Come on! I know that's not all they said." I guess I'll just have to learn Swedish.
Anyway, worth checking out. Kind of gory, and not really terribly cheery, but not scary like I thought it would be, not at all. Just beautiful and sweet. In a little bit of a murdery kind of way. And with the second kid named Oskar that I've loved recently, the other being Oskar Schell from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Dane nixed it as a kid name though. Too bad.
This weekend was super fun. I think there's some rule of non-crappy blogs where you're not supposed to talk about your weekend, or something. But since mostly my mom and my mother-in-law read this, I think they don't mind.
Friday after work I was going to run but fell asleep (for like 2 hours. Oops.) Then Dane and I went to this thing at the Village about Christianity and environmentalism and why God is all about being green. It was good and I got free shopping bags. To leave in my car every time I go into the store. I'm working on that though. Roy was there and afterwards we went to Chick Fil A and then to this place called the Greenhouse I think and I had a Guinness and Roy is hilarious and it was really fun.
Saturday I got up and drove to the Colony in the like THIRTY DEGREE WEATHER with ridiculous wind and did this super intense playground workout with my karate class. Then, when I could barely lift my arms, I picked up Dane, my dad, and Anna Claire and we went to paint for like 4 hours at World Impact. It was like we were the little Trading Spaces team (ok I don't even think that show is still on and I'm sure there are new ones I would reference if I was like With It, but I'm not) except for they didn't do the time lapse montage with the funky music that makes it look really fast and easy.
Went and dropped off Dad and picked up Jill and took the girls to Monsters vs. Aliens which was actually hilarious. I laughed quite loud many more times than I expected to. Seth Rogen's B.O.B. was the funniest part, I think, but there was a lot of fun stuff. I recommend seeing it with a 7- and a 12-yr-old, if possible.
Then back to the Beckmans' house to hang out for a couple of hours. It's kind of weird when you housesit for your good friends a lot, and then when you're over there supposedly as a friend just hanging out you start to want to go over and refill the cat bowl or fold up the blanket on the couch or sweep up the kitchen or pack up the pizza and put it in the fridge. I told Denise that and she was like "you know what? Go for it." That's Refridgerator Rights to A Whole Notha Level.*
Sunday evening we went over to the Swindles' which is always sort of like being at home except 10x better. Especially when Stella isn't sick any more and is hilarious and fun and dancing around like a ballerina. I think Dane is like her favorite (non-parent) person in the world. We had curry chicken and minty-apricot couscous and this really good beer that kind of tasted like blueberries maybe? And some wine and tons of music talk that may or may not have bored Robin to tears, but was so fun for me. Oh right, and between the blueberry beer and the music talk was two pounds (POUNDS!) of strawberries, two bananas, and 4 melted Hershey's Special Dark bars that we put away in about 5 minutes. In all, an EXCELLENT evening.
*This paragraph is not meant to imply that Denise's house is in any NEED of blanket-folding or kitchen-sweeping, but I mean, she has 2 kids and is kind of renovating her kitchen right now. The work is never done, I'm sure.
On Tuesday evening-ish we headed to Henley-on-Thames, on the recommendation of Angela. It was an adorable little town and I kind of wish I had money to take advantage of all the cute shopping. Mostly the rare and antique book shop. And the boots. Ugh! The boots.
We got there a little bit on the late side, having come by train from Paddington Station. Our room was absolutely heavenly (especially after our smelly hole in London, which actually was probably a steal considering how much we paid for it). We stayed at a place called Milsoms, which was another Angela recommendation. It was sort of between a pub and a restaurant, like you walked through a pub and on the left was the reception area and straight ahead was this gorgeous restaurant.
Our room, and our bathroom which was up some steps from the room:
So when you walked out the door of our hotel, to the right was this view (1st picture) and a bit down the street on the left you'd hit the river:
That night we stayed near the airport at a really American-y hotel that had a full restaurant, a pub with pub food, a full cafe, a playground, a projector screen with the Manchester U game on, and a convenience store all in the lobby. Some British HGTV and this awesome sort of talk-faux-quiz show with Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry, and then to sleep. Next day we tried to blow the last of our pounds in Heathrow (which is totally not hard, btw), and then HOME!
And that is the end.
P.S. Dane has a lot more (and some much better) pictures here. And also tons of pictures of me, including whole action sequences of me doing riveting things like putting my hair in a ponytail or reading a book or going up an escalator.
SO! Friday night we took a flight to London, were picked up at the airport by Nick and Angela's friend Bakhir or something (not sure how it was spelled), and off to their apartment. Some drinks and some catching up, and then to bed.
Saturday morning we had breakfast at a little stand (me) and a little cafe (Dane and Angela) and Nick headed off crazy early for a retreat thing. Then we went to a market, not sure what it was called, but it was near Kensington Station. Here's us at the market:
Sunday we got up and went to Angela's church, where she works as one of their video producer people. It was really cool and kind of similar to a lot of ones over here. I think I expected it to be more different, but not really. Main difference: it was in this super old fancy cathedral. But other than that, pretty modern, a lot of the same songs and stuff that we do. The sermon was on service and was really good. People were super nice and I saw approximately 97 pairs of boots that I would absolutely buy in a heartbeat. Seriously people, London is like the City of Amazing Boots.
We had lunch at Angela's and sort of just hung out for most of the afternoon (Dane and I, after breaking our necks trying to see everything in Edinburgh [City of Ridiculous Amounts of Stairs/Hills] in 4 days, and looking forward to doing the same thing in London, were up for a true, restful Sabbath.) Nick got home and we went and had dinner at their little local pub, like a block from their flat, which was adorable and homey and so refreshingly not touristy at all. It was quiz night. I had a few (read: one, but kind of fast) and accidentally sort of yelled out the answer to a particularly American question, being all proud that I'd know it. It was embarrassing. Then we played Scrabble, I won once and Angela won once. A tie-breaking final round will have to wait 'til they move back stateside.
Here's my Sunday roast, and us and our lovely hosts:
From there, that night, we found our way to the Royal Eagle near Paddington Station and Hyde Park, where we'd stay for 2 nights. It was... a hotel. With... a bed. And running water. That kept us off the street. For that, I suppose, it was worth the money. It was also teense and kind of musty and had a horrible, no, I mean HORRIBLE smell coming from the bathroom. Not sure what it was, not particularly sewage-y or mold-y or dead-thing-y, just weird and gross and on all the towels. It worked for a couple nights, but I can't say I was sad to leave.
Monday we walked through Hyde Park and to Buckingham Palace and watched the changing of the guards. It was all so posh and military and precise, until the marching band pulled out their music stands and made a little semi-circle and played a show tune medley for the gathered crowd. Which, even though the gay American couple in front of us was cracking up and seemed maybe a bit disillusioned, I thought it was really fun and showed some personality. Some pics:
From there, we grabbed dinner on the run and made our way to the Victoria Palace Theatre for the musical. Aside from our "view obstruction", which we were told was absolutely no big deal and only mattered if you were like less than 5' tall (which was actually a giant brass bar straight through our line of vision), it was really great. It's one of my absolute all-time favorite movies, and it took a bit to get past a few huge differences. One of the absolute best parts of the movie is the T. Rex soundtrack (with a little Clash thrown in), which I listen to all the time and kind of missed. That and the Julie Walters character I thought was totally miscast, but I probably would have with anybody but Julie Walters. I looooved the '80s British political comedy, I think my favorite song was one called "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher", and the like 12-yr-old Billy was amazing.
This one is a bit wordier, isn't it. I didn't take as many pictures in London so I just have to tell everything.
These are a bit out of order, but the Odeon and the Victoria Palace Theatre:
Lunch at Pizza Express, which was not very express at all but actually kind of fancy and expensive. I had bruscetta. From there to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge:
So the next day, Thursday, we went on the bus tour of the northern part of the city. It was kind of less exciting than the other one, but it was still cool. We went up to the Firth of Forth and saw some really cool architecture. For some reason I took almost no pictures on that tour. Oh, I remember. The first tour, we went on the top level of an open-air-top-level bus. It was a taaaaaaad cold. So for this one, we went on one where half of the top was covered, which was nice, but there were windows and poles in all the views, so I think that's why I didn't take many pictures.
Here's one though. I don't know what it is, I think it's gardens around Holyrood Palace. The next one is the Queen's bath house, where she'd have to run from the castle in the cold to take a bath, or at least that's what our tour guide said.
After that tour we went to the Castle. Here's the front, a view from the sort of walkway thing that's in front of it, and us:
A view from inside the gates, the entrance to the dungeon, and the inside of the feast hall. And yes, that is snow.
A couple of sweet views from the castle walls, one of them I think you can see the water, all the way over New Town on a cloudy day. Edinburgh really isn't that big, at all.
Then we went on this thing called a Vault Tour. So the short version: The hill that the castle is on was basically carved by glaciers, like, hundreds of thousands of years ago. There's the big giant hill made of rock, then what they call "the tail", which is what the royal mile is on, that goes out like the tail of a meteor from one side. So going any direction from the Royal Mile, basically, you have to go down into a valley thing before you go anywhere else. Somebody built a bridge south over one of those valleys hundreds of years ago. The bridge was on pillars that made really tall arcs. A short version and a sort of diagram is here. People sort of filled them in and made this whole labyrinth of little rooms underneath the city. They weren't really owned by anybody, so there were a lot of squatters, bootleggers, brothels, and other shady stuff. And also parties. Anyway they got closed up for over a hundred and fifty years and accidentally discovered by this ex-rugby player who bought a pub, and tried to knock out his walls to make more storage space. The tour people were the first ones to go in and sort of clear them out in the late 1990s. Now they do these tours and tell stories of murderers that lived or worked down there and the kinds of things that went on. It was really interesting and entertaining. The vaults, our lovely tour guide, and some cubby holes used for storing moonshine, children, etc:
This is this really cool-looking graveyard where Adam Smith is buried (and I just love old graveyards):
We also went to the Museum of Edinburgh that showed all these plans for the city and artifacts. I kind of loved it for how smallish and podunk it was. Especially after going to the Museum of London, which was extremely fance. Dane's favorite part was the hundreds-of-years-old potential plans for the New Town, seeing the one that had won out, which is now a big chunk of the city, versus what it could have been. It was really interesting.
Then we went to the Museum of Childhood, really briefly. They just had all these examples of lessons or toys or games or clothes, all kinds of things from all different eras having to do with children and how they lived. We got there with only about 30 min left 'til closing, so we didn't spend a ton of time.
St. Giles by day and by night (once again, basically right out our front door):
Fish, aged cheddar and tattie cakes, with greens, at Deacon Brodie's Pub and restaurant. From there we had drinks at a little place I think called Tass? They had live Scottish bluegrass, I swear like a 9-piece band, which was about 55% of the people in there. It was so nice. Dane tried Scotch (for the second time). Fun fact: Deacon Brodie was this guy who was a successful businessman and widely respected town council member in the 18th century. He was a cabinetmaker. When working on people's cabinets, he'd make copies of their keys and he turned into a quite successful theif by night, to pay off gambling debts. The dual-life aspect of the whole thing was Stevenson's inspiration for Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde.
Some views and political art from St. John's Cathedral:
Friday we dropped off our bags on the other side of town after we had to check out of the room. Then we went to St. John's Cathedral (above) and to the Dean Gallery and the Museum of Modern Art, on the western side of town near the Leith River. The Dean:
View from the MoMA, and a cool tree that we saw during the (short) walk between them:
A little walk along the Leith, just for grins:
St. Mary's Cathedral, on our way back, along with its cool doors (one of these is for you, Susanna):
Another REALLY cool graveyard:
And then that night, after a Wannaburger (which was like 2 more pounds to eat IN the tiny fastfood place as it was to eat OUTside the tiny fastfood place in the freezingness), we got on a plane and flew back to Heathrow and were picked up by an extremely friendly "broad Egyptian" guy friend of the Chadwicks', and then back to their place. We'll pick up there in EPISODE 3. If you can stand the suspense.
This will likely be a couple of parts, because PICTURES! I have a lot more pictures that I'll probably put in my Kodakgallery but it's just not really feasible to put them all here. Like, pictures of almost every single meal and of like a skillion buildings. I can email those albums to anybody who asks.
First of all, this is all we took for 11 days, two people, in the winter:
Flight was long but not too bad. We got to Heathrow at like 8am and had an 11am flight to Edinburgh. I think it hit Dane harder than me. Watched Doubt on the flight, interesting movie. Not quite what I expected. Also I read a book called Neverwhere over most of the trip, by Neil Gaiman. It's a silly fun adventury book, but it's set in all these specific places all over London and kind of either describes or assigns these really fun atmospheres/personalities to them, mostly the Tube stations. So it was a good London trip book.
Day 1, sprinkly-weather-hair, our first glimpse at old town and the Castle:
First lunch, this sandwich was amazing. At a place called Pret A Manger, which it turns out is this huge chain of sort of semi-organic freshly made sandwiches and stuff. Corned beef, mustardseed mayo, pickles, spinach, on a baguette. Delicious.
Me on the bridge in front of Old Town:
This is the back of Dane, the sort of back/side of the National Galleries, and a decent view of New Town from near the Castle Hill (the real one, with the castle on it, not the one in Carrollton, ha ha.)
This is Dane hauling our stuff up two lengthy and super-windy flights of stairs to the apartment we stayed in while we were there. Literally like a 3-minute walk from the castle gate-thingie, on the royal mile. Also: the stairs, and the view from our balcony:
Our bedroom (with not-all-that-Ltd Edition Jetlag Dane), and our living room:
Out our building and onto the Royal Mile, take a left, maybe 10 more feet and here's your Royal Mile view, including St. Giles Cathedral:
So that first day we walked around and then moved into our apartment, then went and had dinner at the Filling Station (which, as it turns out, even though it's right in the middle of all the quaint little pubs and super historical stuff, is a chain. One that happens to be sort of Friday's-esque, and also themed around the US and Route 66. Disappointing. Good fish and chips, though.)
Then we went to this tiiiiiny pub that was literally right below our apartment, kind of tucked into one of the little archways a few feet off the main road, the Royal Mile. It was called the Jolly Judge. There, we had our Guinnesses. They were good. And also, Dane got the wi-fi password from them, which just so happened to work in our room, as long as you hung your arm off the right side of the bed at just the right angle. You can thank them for most of our tweets from the first part of the trip. If you go to that link, the entrance to the pub is down the stairs, but the entrance to our apartment was right behind those picnic tables.
Then we went home. I slept for 13 hours. Yeah yeah, sue me.
Wednesday we took a bus tour of Old town and first New Town, or whatever it's called. There are, like, phases. Kind of the main stuff.
This is St. Andrew Square, in New Town:
Edinburgh Castle from below the hill. You can tell why they put it there:
Entrance and some tour bus pictures of Holyrood Palace, which is evdidently where the Queen stays when she comes to Edinburgh:
After the tour we went to the National Gallery art museum. I wrote down some of my favorite stuff, but I don't have it with me right now. Oops. This particular gallery kind of said it was impressionism but also it had about a skillion of the Madonna-and-Christ-and-hairy-baby-John-the-Baptist paintings, Titian etc. I think every museum in Europe like has to have a bunch of those unless they're specifically Modern Art. It was really sweet though. I have to be honest, we went to a lot of museums, some history and some art, and I can remember very vividly certain things about artworks and artists but I can't really remember which of the museums they were in. My favorites, I think, were the Dean Gallery and the MoMA near the Leith. Those come later.
We went and ate at the World's End, which used to be the end of the city. You can still see remnants of the old wall there from like over a thousand years ago. I had steak and ale pie, chips, and a beer. It was goooood. Those following me on twitter will remember my beautiful Scottish scenic view as well.
Then, (THEN!) we went to the Elephant House, which is where a near-destitute Joanne Rowling first dreamed up Hogwarts and Voldemort and little Harry Potter over coffee and a gorgeous view of Edinburgh Castle. The nerd in me freaked out and squealed a little. The outer me had a really good latte and shared a piece of cake with Dane.
So this about sums up me and blogging, from great NZ philosophers Bret and Jemaine (of Flight of the Conchords):
"A catch 22 type dilemna has struck kiwi band Flight of The Conchords in relation to updating the band news on their website. Members of the band (Jemaine and Bret) have noticed that whenever they are doing things that could be reported on the website, they are too busy to update the website. In addition, whenever the band members have some spare time in which they could update the website, there is usually, as one member put it, 'nothing going on'."
So yeah, that's been me lately. Usually the longer I go without posting, the more interesting things actually are. Same for journaling, I've always been so good at journaling when things are incredibly boring or kind of depressing and I have absolutely zero records of super awesome fantastic times. Oh, and photos. My semester in Europe has pretty much no pictures of any of the fun stuff and tons of like monuments or scenery that you could just google and look up. I'd rather live life than watch it through a digital camera.
So obviously the past few weeks have been like AMAZING since I haven't posted. We went to rodeos and museums and out with friends and met new people and I've run about a thousand miles and read about a zillion books and ate fantastical food (and some gross food) and seen great films, and I'm also in karate. Which is totally fun and I always thought after about 15 that I was way too late to be a beginner, but that is most definitely not so. Watch out for Abbey the black belt pretty soon here. (By soon I mean not soon.)
Things that I'm thinking about recently:
1. Radiohead with the drumline on the Grammys last night was fantastic, I've seen that done but that idea with that particular drumline with that particular band with that particular song was just like magic.
2. I never realized until I was in Spain how much I love Mexican food, I had a similar experience in Quito when they took us out for Tex-Mex, and lately (especially with a trip to Joe T.'s) it's like the most amazing thing ever.
3. I wish there were about 11 weekend nights a week because Dane and I love going out with people 2-on-2, I mean big groups are fun but sometimes exhausting and I feel like I usually end up talking to the same people all the time at those things. And the list of people we want to go out with/have over is growing a lot faster than we can keep up with.
4. I CAN'T WAIT for Andrew Bird March like 22nd or something, everybody should go look him up and then buy tickets to the show.
5. Oh and also it's weird to think that that's actually after our trip to Britain which we haven't even started planning yet. And which I'm not telling you when or how long it is, wily internets.
Ideas for blog posts always come in multiples and usually I try to stretch it out to the next day but end up forgetting, so oh well.
I love this and had to share. It's from a book called Jesus for President:
"Perhaps the greatest seduction is not the ANTI-GOD, but the ALMOST-GOD. ... That's what's so dangerous about ideas like FREEDOM, PEACE AND JUSTICE. They are all seductive qualities, close to the heart of God. After all, it's the beautiful things we kill and die for. And it's the beautiful we market, exploit, brand, and counterfeit.
"...Most of the ugliness in the human narrative comes from a distorted quest to possess beauty. COVETING begins with appreciating blessings. MURDER begins with a hunger for justice. LUST begins with a recognition of beauty. GLUTTONY begins when our enjoyment of the delectable gifts of God starts to consume us. IDOLATRY begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image-bearer is worthy of worship."
Oh my where to begin...I know NOTHING about interpreting dreams but this makes me want to learn. Or to NEVER... read more
on Sleepy.