Pics or it didn’t happen
I’m home! I really enjoyed California a lot, and although I wouldn’t say that my vacation was especially relaxing, I do feel like the time away benefited me. As promised, I am including links to my pictures from my trip to California. I also went to Disneyland, but didn’t really feel like taking pictures there.
- Los Angeles Dodgers vs Atlanta Braves
- Bullitt at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs Texas Rangers
- San Diego Zoo
- SeaWorld San Diego
Some of my favorites:
Despite the Dodgers' loss, the stadium still shot of fireworks
Cute couple dancing before the movie started
The actual name of a street on the bus route back to the hotel
This animal is not dead or dying.
Wait for it…
I have taken an insane number of pictures here in California, and will upload them to my various services (Facabook, Flickr, etc.) on Thursday. My hotel charges for internet, so technically it is available, but since I think it’s a disgrace for such a nice hotel to charge for something as basic as internet connectivity, I absolutely refuse to pay for it. It’s a good thing I can tether my phone to my computer, right? I feel so smart every time I connect. Still, that connection isn’t really fast enough to transmit large files, so I’ll wait until I get home.
Later, gators!
D’oh! I forgot to mention that I’m off to California for the next week, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be posting much, if at all. Peace out, East Coast!
Staying put
I’m back! I was on vacation for the latter part of May, and although I had an excellent time, I didn’t have much to share in the way of blogging. I spent a few days in Boston, came home long enough to repack, and then made my way to Richmond, Virginia to hang with my friends from undergrad. Stayed there for a long weekend, and then rested my head on my pillow a few times and made my way up to Canada for the wedding of a friend from my time at McGill. If you like the country and are looking for someplace to go, you could do a lot worse than Pembroke, Ontario. I love love love Canada. I didn’t take as many pictures as you might have expected whilst on my adventures, but here are a few snaps from each place:
Boston
Richmond
Pembroke
Vacation Pictures!
Here are a some pictures from the places I visited on my vacation. If you click on the city names, you can see the entire set on Flickr. I have only a few shots from Birmingham, because I’ve been to England before and only took pictures at the concert.
Did you miss me?
I made it back to the US without incident. The weather here is not as nice as the weather I left in Dublin, which is sad and funny at the same time. I had a GREAT time on my vacation, and am a little sad that I will now have to resume my normal life.
I’ll be posting some more stuff from my trip and pictures, but that probably won’t happen today. I’m sooo jet-lagged (that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it).
Belfast
So I’m having a pretty good time here in the UK. Northern Ireland is lovely, and it seems that I brought with me unexpectedly good weather. Lots of people commented to me how unusual the warm sunshine was. You’re welcome, Belfast.
For the most part, the people I met were awesome. A lot of them were really interested to hear that I was from the US and genuinely wanted to know what I thought of their fair city. Many expressed admiration and apprehension that I was on my own, and I felt like I’d traveled to a city of my own relatives. The first night, I met three older guys who showed me the local bars and told me all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. One wanted to grab dinner the next night, but I figured that it would be silly to tie myself up with the same parties two nights in a row, and nicely declined. A word of advice to anybody going to Belfast: eat early. I guess I was still in New York mode and thought that leaving my hotel room after 10 would give me time to grab food and hit the pubs, but that was absolutely not the case. I struck out at all the restaurants I saw, and was lucky to make it to McDonald’s before they, too, shut down for the night.
The next night, I learned my lesson and left to find food at 8:15 (and even that was too late to get food at some of the local pubs that served meals). I had a good dinner, went back to the hotel and watched Dollhouse and the first episode of Cupid (I’ll talk about that some time later), and then went to a couple of local bars. The people in the first weren’t really as outgoing, so I left after one drink and ended up talking with Ricky and Ian, two nice guys who work at the Belfast Telegraph. We chatted for a bit outside, but they were smoking cigarettes and I was kind of freezing, so I told them to find me when they came inside the bar.
As I sat waiting for them, this old, super drunk guy who was actually sleeping when I first walked by awakened and started mumbling to me. I have discovered that it is nearly impossible for me to understand a Belfast accent when the speaker is under the influence, so I gave him a vague smile, told him I was waiting for my friends, and went back to reading on my phone. He had just asked me to join him at his table when Ian and Ricky showed up. He scowled at us and all was well until about a half hour later, when the guys went to grab more beer and I stayed at the table. Then the drunken fossil asked me how much I would charge to go back to his home with him. At first I thought that I’d misunderstood, but he said it again and I realized that he thought I was a prostitute.
I was really hurt and wondered what I’d done to give him that impression. Later, I realized that being a single foreign woman alone in a bar, who then ended up sitting at a table and talking with two local men might give somebody the wrong impression, if that person was inclined to think like a pervert. But, while I realized it wasn’t worth disabusing him of his incorrect notion, I simply said no and decided not to stick around for the pitch. I went over to the guys at the bar and told them what the old dude had said. They were touchingly offended on my behalf, and when we got back to the table, the fossil kept yelling vulgar things at use. Ian, the cute one who looked like David Wright (he’s never really done it for me, but add an accent and I can start to understand the appeal) got up, looking pretty angry, and headed toward the old guy’s table, but Ricky stopped him from going over there, and we ignored the fossil after that.
We stayed at that bar until last call, then went to another one. On the way, I somehow managed to lose one of my pretty new dangly earrings, which made me sad. I pulled out the other one so I didn’t look deranged. Even though we went to another bar afterward, we got there after last call there, too, so I helped Ricky talk to a girl he found cute. Things were going well until she told him that she was 24 and he told her that she looked 28. It was not untrue, but that lost him major points, and it took him a while to recover his lost ground, and a lot of that was due to me. I guess I haven’t lost my touch and still make a pretty awesome wingman. The guys and I parted ways in the cab back to my hotel. I got out to find my earring and had no luck, but I went back out the next morning before leaving for the airport, and found it with no problem! It was a little crushed, but I think that it can be bent back into shape.
I had heard that there wasn’t a lot going on in Belfast, and I scheduled my vacation accordingly. If I’d known before booking how awesome Belfast is, and how relatively sedate Birmingham is in comparison, I probably would have spent 4 days in Belfast and only stopped over in Birmingham for the concert. I definitely intend to go back to Belfast and spend a lot more time there!
The first Jason Mraz concert is tonight, and I’m a bit worried. I’ve heard from a person who went to a concert in Brussels, and he said it was blah, and that’s exactly how one of the free London dailies described the Mraz concerts in London over the weekend. Maybe a day off will allow him to rev up and be on his A game for Birmingham. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Vacation all I ever wanted
I am 99% of the way finished with my socks, and I will absolutely NOT have to take them with me on vacation. I’ll be able to start blocking them before I leave for the airport, and I trust my mom enough to send them off after they’re dry. I’m bringing another pair of socks to work on while I’m away, but I’m not sure how much knitting I’ll get around to once I’m off the plane.
I’m going to be suffering at work for a few more hours (hey, I’m happy to have a job, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t find it annoying every now and then), and then I go home to take one more look at my suitcase (why do I feel the need to pack so many shirts? I will not appreciate that when I’m the one hauling that suitcase all over Ireland and the UK), and then I go the airport to make my way across the Atlantic. I’m so stoked!!! I haven’t been on a long-ish vacation since August, and this time I’m going by myself, so I’ll definitely get a chance to recharge my batteries.
I’m bringing my computer because I am a hopeless geek, but I’m not sure that I’ll be posting stuff to this site.
Seems like somebody is listening
Happy New Year, folks! I just got back from a lovely, frigid, relaxing vacation in Vermont, ready to have 2009 sap my newly restored will to live. I just found out that my nephew’s school won’t be opening tomorrow and that he’ll be spending the day with me, so I’m guessing that the sapping will commence pretty much immediately (kidding! I missed my little man when I was gone and am really looking forward to spending some time with him tomorrow).
I was messing around with various programs on my computer, and discovered that 1) I’ve either had another happy accident with this alpha version of Opera, or 2) they’ve actually made it work with Multiclutch. It’s too soon to say for sure whether the problem is permanently fixed, and since I’m so tired and traveled 250+ miles today, I’ve decided not to press my luck by completely resetting Opera and starting from scratch. Still, since I’d previously posted on how unhappy the lack of compatibility made me, I’m going to take this perceived progress as a shout-out. I’ll test it tomorrow, I guess, but I’m stoked that it has worked this well. In addition, I’ll upload some of the pictures from my vacation soonish.
I also registered a new domain tonight and set up the corresponding web site (why? wouldn’t you like to know), and will be talking a bit more about that later.
Puerto Rico!
I love Puerto Rico. The weather is nice, and I’m not really expected to do anything other than veg. Being with other people means that said vegging is a mite more coordinated than I might prefer, but we’re having a great time together. More when I get back!