Physikerin Knits

My morning with the Arachnid

2012-02-15T10:19:00.002-05:00

This morning, after some core exercises and bird-watching with
Faraday, I headed to the bathroom to prepare myself for the day.

While the shower heated up, I tried to not think about my meeting later that day. I chatted with and filled the sink for Muffin. Drinking with his left paw from the sink is one of his favorite things.

Soon after stepping into the luxuriously-warm shower, just about to relax, a black, hairy, 50-cent-piece-sized spider scurried out from under the curtain at my feet. I screamed in horror and disgust (poor neighbors) and flew out of the tub.

Proceeding to battle with the arachnid, I shoved the curtain out of the tub so he couldn't hide, and doused him with water, channeling him toward the drain.

HOWEVER, my drain is partially clogged. It drains verrry slowly...so he just
swam around in the pool by it.

I sprayed him with toilet bowl cleaner...but it's almost out, so it just fizzled and foamed.

At a loss, I dumped mouthwash in there to try to poison him or something (I wasn't thinking that clearly). (I need better household chemicals.)

THAT MINTY-FRESH MONSTER KEPT SWIMMING.

Finally, the shower drained enough that he partially washed down...

BUT HE CRAWLED BACK UP THE SPOUT.

I finally smashed his evil brains over and over and over with the empty toilet bowl cleaner bottle (poor neighbors).

Though he was already in pieces, I wrapped myself in a towel to get the bleach from the kitchen to poison him further.

My lab mates should be grateful that I didn't run this morning, because I refused to shower with the corpse in a mouthwash-scented, bleachy pool of water.

I should probably fix my shower drain.

"Next time, just try a shoe."~Mom

Where was Muffin, you ask? My big, strong cat? Scared by my screeching and hiding in the living room.

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Though stressed (still in grad school and still unemployed), I'm still alive.

Today is my gramma's memorial.

2012-01-07T12:33:00.003-05:00

And I can't be there, so here is my tribute to her.

Over Christmas, my family lost someone very dear. Nama was the sweetest, most-loving grandmother a girl could want. She loved the Lord and prayed for and supported her grandchildren. She baked cookies with us and taught us to sew. With my grandpa, Nama created the most beautiful backyard garden, complete with a koi pond (with a bridge!) and forest trails. She attended so many of our (surely boring) piano recitals, plays, soccer/baseball/softball games, and band concerts. Every year, Nama and Papa hosted Thanksgiving at their house, with the requisite delicious smorgasbord, post-dinner nap, walk, and games.

Nama was an expert quilter. She (and Mom) patiently tried to teach me to sew when I was a child, working one Saturday with me to produce a dress and bonnet for my Felicity doll. After a half-made quilted table runner sat for months, we realized that it was not my thing. But, Nama gave me such an appreciation and love for warm, homey quilts. She made two for me, and they are both on my bed:

(Okay, you can only see one there.)

Nama taught me to knit one Christmas during college, though, and that caught like wildfire! Here she is, modeling a pair of socks I made her a couple Christmases later:

Tea often brings Nama to mind. While Papa, Dad, and David had fishing trips, Nama, Mom, Amy, Jenny, Aunt Cindy, Aunt Kristie, and I had our tea parties. A few times we visited the Victorian Tea Room. It was perfect. I mean, it was pink and had a turret and was filled to the brim with (really expensive) porcelain dolls. Several 7-12 year old girls had their birthday parties at the Tea Room. (I think I had one there...was that just Julissa?)

I have fonder memories, however, of tea parties at my aunts' house. We dressed up in our favorite afternoon-tea-party dresses, wore hats, drank tea like we were the Queen (if she uses four sugar cubes in a cup...), and ate proper little desserts, such as candied rose petals and mini-meringues. Here's a classic picture of Nama, Mom, my sisters, and me at one of them:

Though Nama was terrified of flying, Mom and Jenny dragged her on a cross-country flight to visit me during my second year of grad school! We showed her around Princeton and lab:

We even sat her on a train and took her to Manhattan! My dear gramma from a small town in Washington State was hilarious to watch in NYC. She rather enjoyed herself, but was a bit overwhelmed by the subway, the crowds, and the herd of zombies we saw attacking a city bus. (I'm really not joking about the zombies. It was almost Halloween.) For the train ride home, we waited in packed Penn Station for the track number to be posted. I warned them that we'd have to MOVE IT to get seats together. When the number came up, I headed off, Nama SHOVED 16-year-old Jenny out of the way, and held my hand tightly until we were safely on the train. All sitting together. :)

We had the best time when we were all transformed into little girls by the amazing American Girl Store and Cafe!

I believe that I will see her again someday, but for now, I really miss her.

Travel Time!

2011-12-10T22:45:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow, I'm flying to my first and second on-site interviews (my second interviews with these places overall). Can anyone guess where they are?

How to Finish Your Ph.D. and Get a Job, Part I

2011-12-04T20:25:00.003-05:00

I have all the answers.

Just kidding! I have no answers! Yet. I'm trying to accomplish both things, so if I ever do, I will let you know.

In the mean time, now you know where I've been. Right after the Marine Corps Marathon, I woke up early and dragged myself to main campus for Princeton's Dissertation Boot Camp. Five days of dedicated writing time with an array of breakfast and lunch-ish snacks and a constant drip of coffee? SIGN ME UP.

Mom makes fun of me for my free food fascination, but I am only behaving like any other normal grad student. I digress. Writing.

Boot Camp began with a round-table discussion in which our sergeants (lovely Writing Center staff) led our group of 20 plebes through introductions, exercises to help us define our dissertation audience(s) and good titles, and the writing of daily and weekly goals. I enjoyed chatting with my fellow cadets very much, even though (especially because?) I was one of only four or five scientists or engineers in a sea of humanities and social sciences folk. Soon, we were sent off to our assigned desks for the week. I shared a big, comfy room with two other writers.

This desk was mine for five productive days:

The impressive array of morning snacks included bananas, grapes, bagels, yogurt, granola bars, cream cheese, peanut butter, Nutella, juices, tea, and coffee. The afternoon snacks were not advertised as such, but I made a very satisfying lunch out of them: trail mix, hummus, pita chips, apples, more granola bars, more coffee, and--perhaps because it was Halloween--REESE'S!

Our bulletin boards held inspiring quotes, our goal note cards, and my dream defense date.

On the second day of camp, I turned 27! Happy Birthday to me! I arrived home that day to these beauties on the patio, courtesy of Craig and Melissa:

Also, Rachel cracked me up with this card in my mailbox:

And sister Amy's Arabic-speaking Dalek is amazing:

On Day 3, I used a bunch of books, lugged all the way over from lab:

In the afternoons, we broke up into small debriefing groups, the same each day. I was highly amused that in mine of five people, I was the only girl. Now, that's not unusual. That's downright normal. What was strange is that I was the only scientist! :)

By Day 4, I was done with a Chapter 1 draft and truckin' through Chapter 2:

I got to do some math, which makes me happy:

My group got along well. They were interesting guys with topics completely outside of what I usually contemplate: Georgian music, philosophy, ancient Japanese warrior families, and Latin American drama groups. I loved glimpses into their worlds, and I hope they enjoyed glimpses into mine...

On Day 5, we wrote during the morning and had one last debriefing with the entire squad. And pizza and cannoli (which will always remind me of You've Got Mail). We discussed our progress (we all made some), what helped (a new space, focused comrades, free food), and how we could perpetuate this motion and finish (stay off Facebook).

I highly recommend that you take the Dissertation Boot Camp if it is offered at your university (Princeton isn't the only one that does). It kick-started my writing! I left with 1.75 more chapter drafts! (Out of only five or six total, that's significant.)

I finished out Day 5 in my apartment.

Here, I learned one reason...

...for the difficulty that I occasionally have...

...working at home.

Sigh.

Since Boot Camp, however, you'll be pleased to know that I have complete rough drafts of three chapters, a 75% finished draft of another, a 33% finished draft of the fifth, and plans for the simulations for the sixth.

One major tip I can confidently offer to someone writing their dissertation? GET A BUDDY. Working with Nadine, who is writing her master's thesis, lends accountability, motivation, and camaraderie. The food at our meetings isn't free, but at least we share it. :)

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Stay tuned for Part II: "How Jess Is Trying to Get a Job".

Marine Corps Marathon: The Race I Didn't Run

2011-11-06T13:17:00.003-05:00

I've written many race weekend recaps, but this one's a bit different. I didn't run in this race, I volunteered for it!

When my stress fracture sidelined me from training, I deferred my registration in the Marine Corps Marathon until 2012 and signed up to volunteer at the expo the day before. So, on the morning of Saturday, October 29th, I packed my car for the weekend and drove down to DC! This was the day of a freak East Coast snowstorm. I drove ahead of the snow and through intense rain the entire way down the I-95 corridor from NJ to DC. Thanks to the high-speed flow of traffic and very alert driving (due to a pumpkin spice latte), I arrived at the DC Armory for the Expo in a not-too-shabby four hours.

I signed in at the check-in tent, got my t-shirt, and was asked if I'm comfortable with computers and could find numbers in a database. Yes, yes I can. The sweet morning-shift lady trained me and left. All the runners were super friendly and nervously excited. I loved checking IDs and discovering from whence they came. We spoke often of the frigid, soggy weather and hoped that the forecast was right: that Sunday would be sunnier and warmer. Someone asked where I found a Starbucks; she was quite disappointed to learn it was in Delaware.

In a mid-afternoon lull, another volunteer suggested I go inside the Armory to the main part of the Expo to look around. As race expos go, it was a good one! Definitely on par with the Philly Rock'n'Roll Half and the Seattle Marathon Expos, much better than the NYC Half Expo, and not nearly as fun as the Disneyworld Marathon Expo. I took info for the Athens Marathon (a bucket list item of mine: they run it from Marathon to Athens, like the original), ate some samples of protein bars, and avoided looking at shoes (because I have no extra money for the pretty shoes).

I offered my services at the t-shirt pickup area, and was put to work handing out bags for use with the baggage drop-off services in the morning.

My two co-volunteers were silly and fun:

Most of the runners I met at this stage were awesome, too. There were many frustrated with the layout of the expo, though--we all agreed that separating bib pickup and t-shirt pickup into separate buildings was a terrible idea, especially as the bib tent was freezing. Also, three hours before the end of the Expo, we ran out of race maps, programs, and spectator info brochures. People were understandably upset. Most of them realized that it was not the volunteers' fault and we commiserated with them. We kept smiling at the runners:

And at the Marines handing out shirts:

When the Expo ended, I drove to Amanda's house in Springfield, VA. Along with her boyfriend, Bob, we headed immediately to a Halloween party. We were appropriately attired. Bob was Dexter (of the TV show), Amanda was Daenerys (from Game of Thrones), and I revamped my Dalek costume.

Have you ever arrived at a party and been the only one in costume? Yeeeeah, now we have. We were the only adults (out of about 30) in costume. Very cute six-year-olds were. It was awkward. But their friends were fantastic, so then it wasn't awkward! We had a great time. :)

After a lovely night's sleep, I said goodbye and drove twenty minutes to Arlington, where I met Justin and Charissa for brunch! We had fabulous conversation and delicious egg, gruyere, and squash paninis.

After saying goodbye to THEM, I set about trying to get through DC to Maryland. Parts of the freeway were blocked for the race, which certainly slowed traffic, but allowed me to see some of it! I literally saw the tail end, with the last brave runners and walkers pushing through their final miles, followed by the official aid vehicles. Yaaay, Marathoners!!!

Once past our nation's beautiful capital (I saw the Capitol building, Jefferson Memorial, and Washington Monument from the road!), the traffic didn't really let up. I started going stir crazy. It took eight minutes to drive a mile on a 75-mph speed limit road. That's running pace right there.

The Baltimore-Washington Parkway sure is gorgeous in the fall, though:

I finally made it to Jessup, MD, where I had coffee with James and met his three nephews, sister, brother-in-law, dachshund, German shepherd, bunny, fish, and sixth-grader friend there to do her science fair project on electromagnets with Uncle Jimmy. It was wonderful and chaotic and fabulous.

Back on the road:

Continuing my leap-frog up I-95 from friend to friend, I paused in Media, PA, to see Erica, Dan, and Cadillac the Cat. Erica gave me delicious Minestrone soup and these for my birthday (which was later that week):

How cute is that?!

I left Media, drove through Philly, and realized that my gas light had been on quite a while. Naturally, from then on, there were NO GAS STATIONS. FOR MILES. Finally, praise the Lord, I found one. Whew.

I got safely home to Faraday around 9pm. At 9am the next morning, I'd have to be on campus for Dissertation Boot Camp...but that's a story for another day.

A Wedding in Santa Fe

2011-10-23T17:50:00.002-04:00

First: another dear friend graduated! Congratulations to Dr. Luc! He and Meg left Princeton today for good and started their road trip to California. Best of luck to them! I'll miss them!

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July 24-26, 2011
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This summer, I visited Santa Fe, NM, for the wedding of my lovely friends, Laura and Adam.

I left hot, sticky, gross NJ and arrived in hot, dry, fabulous NM with about an hour and a half to spare before the first wedding event. The hour-long drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe was gorgeous. The open space of the southwest was refreshing.

After a quick change and attempt to fix travel-hair, I walked a short five minutes to the art gallery for the dinner and jazz reception. Weddings are typically fantastic reunions: several former classmates were there! We thoroughly enjoyed the food, music, and art.

This statue startled pretty much everyone with his eerily realistic face:

Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early to run. My goal was to run 6.5 miles along this route:

View Larger Map

After huffing, puffing, and almost fainting through a very slow mile, I remembered that Santa Fe is over 7000ft above sea level. This sea level girl decided that a walk would be just fine. Plus, it allowed me to stop and take tons of photos.

I saw lots of artwork:

Pretty neighborhoods:

And desert:

I was incredibly thirsty and out of water by the time I got back to downtown, so my sweaty self bought an Odwalla green juice and bananas in a grocery store next to my hotel. Best idea ever. Then I swam in the pool for a few laps. Second best idea ever.

Laura and Adam did a wonderful job of choosing the hotel, chapel, and gallery all within a few minutes' walk of each other and downtown Santa Fe. For lunch, I found a cute cafe near the main square serving green chile nachos. (Okay, based on empirical evidence, every restaurant in New Mexico serves green chiles.)

Soon it was time to get fancied up for the afternoon wedding ceremony at the Loretto Chapel!

This beautiful Southwestern chapel is famous for its "miraculous" staircase, which was supposedly built by a strange man who disappeared without asking for pay once it was finished, and is apparently a marvel of engineering.

We eagerly anticipated the arrival of the bride.

Soon, the ceremony began!

And beautiful Laura walked down the aisle, escorted by her parents:

(I didn't realize how poorly my camera settings reacted to the lighting until too late.)

They said their vows:

And got MARRIED!

Princeton classmates rejoiced:

The reception was held at the Hacienda Dona Andrea, a lovely 45-minute drive out into the desert. They provided buses for the guests, from which we saw the big Albuquerque fires:

What a perfect reception location! It was gorgeous!

Dinner was delicious, toasts were lovely, dancing was fabulous, and the night pretty much perfect.

The next morning, we enjoyed a brunch reception at the wedding hotel and said goodbye to the gorgeous Southwest!

Childhood Friends

2011-10-08T21:24:00.002-04:00

Way back in June, I took a road trip all the way down to North Carolina. A couple of friends bummed a ride as far as DC, and then it was just me, my latte, and the open road.

After about eight hours, I arrived at the house of my dear, life-long friend Laura. Our parents were friends before I was born, so she seriously has known me my entire life. So many memories of my childhood involve her and her family. We played American Girl dolls, Barbies, and dress-up. We ran around the fort in my front yard and climbed up the scary muddy hill in hers. We giggled about boys and planned our weddings. We were homeschooled buddies, and then community-college-in-high-school classmates. She now has three beautiful children!

Though in June, she only had two: Hannah and Luke.

They called me Miss Jessica and were DARLING. Extremely energetic, engaging, and exhausting. Eight-months pregnant Laura, the kids, and I played several games of Dora the Explorer Candy Land and Thomas the Train Memory Match (I had NO idea there were so many different train characters). We dressed up Hannah's American Girl dolls (one of which was Laura's Samantha when we were little!) and took them on walks to the park.

We played Legos:

Do you see that canal Luke and I were making with the blue Legos? It took a lot of blue Legos.

On our way out to lunch one day, we locked ourselves out of the house. This would not have been a huge deal, as she lives on a military base (her husband is deployed this year) and security said they'd come by in 20-30 minutes, except that it was over 90 degrees, and she was eight months pregnant. Thankfully, we had water bottles with us, and the pool on the deck was full and refreshing, for at least Hannah:

Everyone kept cool and hydrated. We were off to lunch in no time! (After someone changed into dry clothes.)

This place had fantastic shakes and shrimp po-boys:

I had a terrific time catching up with Laura and getting to know her incredibly fast-growing children better. Are we seriously old enough to have seven-year-old kids?? Apparently!! It's sweet to reflect and realize that we've grown up. Our lives are dramatically different, but we're still good friends. :) I hope I get to meet her grandchildren someday!

In late July, Laura had that third baby! I shamelessly stole a picture of adorable Mary Anna from Facebook:

I can't wait to meet HER someday, too!

Backen auf Deutsch, Part XI: #57 Mokka-Cupcakes

2011-10-03T21:08:00.002-04:00

While I have momentum and a month-long fast from Netflix, LET US BLOG MORE. Let us do.

...why the fast? Let's just say that after watching all of Star Trek (TOS) in under three months, I need a break.

So, for July birthdays at lab, I baked two batches of cupcakes. One batch was the Schoko-Kirsch-Cupcakes mit Buttercreme cupcake from Cupcakes & Muffins, another German cookbook of mine. All I remember of the baking experience is a huge bowl of pudding with butter chunks that would NOT turn into frosting. Butterpuddingsoup died a painful death in the dumpster. I drove to Superfresh in workout clothes at 7am to buy three tubs of cream cheese frosting (don't judge, Checkout Lady). Problem solved.

They appeared a couple of posts ago, but for completeness, here they are in all their store-bought icing goodness:

My second batch was from 1 Tieg, 100 Kuchen.

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#57 Mokka-Cupcakes
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I'm leaving this translation as an exercise for the reader.

These lovely cupcakes have instant coffee in the batter. Thus, if you visited me right this moment, I'd feed you pumpkin spice cookies and your choice of espresso, French press, or instant coffee. I'm prepared.

Don't come over now. I'm about to go to sleep.

100 grams of brown sugar and more instant coffee, besides the usual 300 grams of powdered sugar, 2 Tbsps milk, and 60 grams of butter, make this quite the decadent frosting. It's incredibly sweet. Lick the spoon at your teeth's risk.

The intended garnish is a chocolate-covered espresso bean, but I used 70% dark chocolate I had lying around.

These were another success! As with most of the Backen auf Deutsch recipes, the cake is a bit more dry than I like, so I'd try more milk or butter next time, maybe? Tips, anyone?

With the frosting, however, the cupcake was delicious.

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Changes made:
~Only in the garnish
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Next time would:
~Try to make the batter more moist.
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Perfect for:
~Caffeine AND sugar rush!!!
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Backen auf Deutsch, Part X: #46 Schmetterling-Cupcakes

2011-10-02T20:35:00.003-04:00

It's been ages since I've baked out of my German cookbook! I tried two recipes over the summer, and will now catch up.

We have to go all the way back to the 4th of July! Friends hosted an Independence Day bash on a beautiful sunny afternoon. We BBQed ribs, we made our own Slip'n'Slide, we drank patriotic drinks (red-white-and-blue Rocket pops in vodka, anyone?), and we ate dessert. Lots of dessert.

My contribution was a batch of cupcakes. Specifically, basic, delicious, vanilla cupcakes.

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#46 Schmetterling Cupcakes
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Schmetterling=Butterfly
Cupcakes=Cupcakes, helloooo.

They supposed to look like this:

See! Butterflies!

Coincidentally, I first learned the beautiful, delicate word "Schmetterling" on another 4th of July, way back in 2008. On the last day of the Lindau conference, everyone (including Erica!) took a two-hour ferry ride across the Bodensee from the island of Lindau to the island of Mainau.

Mainau is owned by the family of the late Count Bernadotte, which also hosts the Lindau meetings.

The Countess (his daughter) was a delightful hostess the entire meeting, and gracious enough to pose for many pictures:

Mainau has beautiful flowers...

...statues and fountains...

...a castle...

...and a butterfly house!

Hello, little German butterfly:

Back to cupcakes.

The recipe was straightforward, with no strange or new ingredients.

Now, butterflies are great, but they aren't classically patriotic. I made small decorating adjustments involving marzipan and food coloring.

Voila!

America!

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Changes made:
~Only obvious superficial ones
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Next time would:
~Possibly make wee Schmetterlings?
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Perfect for:
~your basic vanilla cupcake! Try it with crazy frosting flavors! Any flavor!
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A reminder to any new readers: I'll gladly email you an English translation of the recipe if you want to try any of my attempts to date.

This was recipe 10/100! 9/10ths of the way to go, folks!

Muffin is displeased.

2011-09-27T10:43:00.002-04:00

Faraday is not happy at the vet., a photo by moosicalmath on Flickr.

Faraday was quite the Grumpy McGrumpypants at the cat clinic today. Mr. Man hissed, growled, scratched, and bit...but was declared handsome and perfectly healthy.

He's home sleeping it off.

I know it's stressful, Kitty! Hope you're pleasant tonight!

A Chronicle of Culinary Contemplation

2011-09-25T19:04:00.000-04:00

After last year's bountiful harvest, Kelsey and I rejoined our local CSA this summer. The first weeks were a bit lean (perhaps all of our late rain?), but it certainly picked up.

Following is a litany of my summer labors:

With multitudes of gorgeous eggplants and countless garlic bulbs, we made buckets of baba ghanoush. I don't have tahini, but I keep sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds on hand. With a bit of fiddling, it works well.

We received bunches of basil, cilantro, chard, and arugula. I discovered that all of those greens can be turned into delicious pesto! Whatever I couldn't finish in a week was processed with oil, salt, nuts, and sometimes Parmesan or pecorino cheese. I froze a ton of it for the dark winter times.

In contrast to light summer times:

Also stuffed in my freezer is several bags of homemade tomato sauce. Some weeks, Kelsey and I each got 10lbs of tomatoes. Oh yes. I've found that tomatoes can be incorporated into almost everything I eat and STILL I cannot finish that much in a week! This recipe is tasty AND used up farm basil, onions, and garlic!

Salsa uses up tomatoes, onions, garlic, and beautiful peppers.

Two weeks in a row, we got a few pounds of potatoes. I experimented with making gnocchi. My gnocchi is unbelievably ugly, but pretty good! Especially with homemade tomato sauce or pesto!

Faraday approves:

Now, one method I use to eat my veggies before they spoil is blending them into smoothies. Kale is particularly delicious, but lettuce, chard, collards, baked squash, and even roasted beets will do. Oh yes.

With enough milk, bananas, frozen berries, and maybe some chocolate sauce, you'd never know the difference.

Two weeks ago, I had THREE watermelons in my fridge! Besides snacking on it and adding it to my breakfast smoothie, I've made it a bit more adult. I added farm mint and not-farm vodka.

Mmmmm. Kelsey and I drank those two lovelies while she helped me clean out my closet. It was much more relaxing than the time we introduced Faraday to Atticus:

My poor boy doesn't play nicely with others.

I knew the seasons were changing when one week we received summer squash and watermelon, and the next we got winter squash and pumpkin! Fall food and clothes are the BEST, and I'm so happy it's here. :)

Faraday is perplexed by my attempts to photograph vegetables in a dark apartment after sunset with a phone camera (because real camera was left in California, driven up to Washington state, and may be mailed to New Jersey tomorrow). Faraday better remember who feeds him.

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On a note unrelated to CSAs, marathon sessions of Cupcake Wars inspired me to buy a huge frosting piping tip:

The boys at lab obliged and ate my creations.

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On a second, completely-unrelated-to-food note, I knitted a Dalek this summer. The pattern is called EXTERMIKNIT! and was SUPER fun, though I winged the eye stalk and indicator lights.

He exterminated three of my tiny wooden DPNs. Broke'm clean in half. I put them to good use: their bits support his plunger arm, gun, and eye stalk.

He brings me such nerdy joy.

Tschüss!

There is a season--turn, turn, turn...

2011-09-19T22:06:00.004-04:00

It's been another summer of change.

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A time to plant, a time to reap
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As the first years in my program arrived in July, my cohort and I officially became sixth year graduate students. Like other G6s before us, we hit the wall of urgency to leave, discontent with our thesis research, and "OH MY GOODNESS WE ARE GETTING SO OLD...HOW YOUNG ARE FRESHMEN THESE DAYS??"

It was not this glamorous:

My core group of friends, solidly marching through this weird, wonderful, awful, awesome world of academia, has started graduating and leaving the state for real jobs. There was Audrey, who introduced me to running and even organized a race with Luc and me! (Her husband, Colin, graduated this spring, too.) Ben just graduated, taking my dear friend Rachel with him. We all enjoyed cultural outings together, like the Nutcracker. Rachel was one of my favorite baking buddies. Rachel, Ben, and I drove out to Minnesota for Audrey and Colin's wedding IN 24 HOURS STRAIGHT. (We took two days to come home.) At least Audrey, Rachel, and I gchat constantly...our reality TV show gossip and major life ponderings can continue uninterrupted!

Josh and Meg graduated this year, and Luc will graduate (hopefully!) in a month. Together, we had our book club, FTC, we learned how to run, we ran a crazy mud race, and we also celebrated out-of-state marriage.

We all really did a lot.

While I'm so happy for them (and other friends who got out this year, too!), I am quite sad to be left behind. I'm grateful for the great times we had at Princeton and how we helped each other through the terrible times. I look forward to visiting Chicago and the Bay Area. Yay couchsurfing! You've been warned!!

In case you're wondering, I intend to leave next year. The Old Students frequently said that there comes a time in everyone's graduate career at which you realize that you've had enough, you'd like a real salary, and you wouldn't mind more than one room (those of us in studios, at least). My own research is picking up, and I'm confident, Lord willing, that I can finish in early-mid 2012.

Barring the world ending.

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A time to build up, a time to break down
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Remember how I was training for the Marine Corps Marathon?

Literally the week I officially started the training schedule, I developed a sharp pain in my right shin. I immediately stopped running and saw the doctor, who confirmed my fears that it was most likely a stress fracture. I had to quit for at least four weeks. In fact, I had to avoid running until I was entirely pain-free for a week!! A month later, there was no improvement, so I deferred my MCM registration to next year. It was heartbreaking, actually.

I've tried to keep fit by biking, swimming, and aqua jogging. I've actually progressed from pool running for only 30 minutes up to 1:30:00! It can be incredibly boring, but I've acquired the ability to appreciate it as a quiet, peaceful time to myself. As quiet as a full university pool can be.

The good news is that today, almost TEN WEEKS into my recovery, I walked outside. For two miles. On the towpath, in the sunny, crisp, just-becoming-Fall air. It was glorious. If I stay pain-free this week, I'll add a minute of light jogging to my walks next week.

Oh yes. We are back to almost square one.

I'm keeping my goals to myself. Rest assured, all of you, encouraging and nay-saying alike, I'm treading carefully.

On the bright side, I'm using this missed race as an opportunity to give back! All of my races have been so wonderfully supported by volunteers. I'm going to volunteer at the MCM in DC on October 30th. Anyone wanna join me?!

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A time to dance, a time to mourn
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I'm planning a dedicated post on this, but relevant pictures are on the camera that I left in San Diego. My mom is going to mail it to me eventually.

We were in San Diego to remember the life of my dear grandpa, known affectionately to his grandkids as Cooga. He passed away way back in November, but this is the first chance the entire family (and fabulous more distant cousins) had to reunite. Just two weeks before, my unofficial extra grandpa, my great-uncle Roy, passed away. The weekend was a beautiful time of remembrance, comfort, and love.

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And a time to every purpose, under Heaven.
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In closing:

That weekend Irene came to visit.

2011-09-05T22:31:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, the east coast experienced two unusual natural disasters in a week. Unusual for New Jersey, at least. First, there was the tiny earthquake, which shook the lab buildings just long enough for us to check the internet for confirmation. Indeed, my Facebook feed was quick to inform, an earthquake was felt from NC to Toronto! While it didn't match the great quake of highschool, it was kind of exciting.

Second, of course, was Hurricane Irene. Weathermen predicted mass destruction. We received several warning emails from lab, Princeton, and even my massage therapist. At first I didn't believe it would hit badly, but the closer it got, the more urgent the preparedness messages became. So, I bought water bottles, batteries, candles, canned foods, cat litter, and cat food. The grocery store shelves were quite empty by Friday morning.

On Saturday, I woke up early to vacuum (while there was power). After watching my neighbors make five trips to the storage room with their patio furniture and BBQ grill, I battened down my veranda, too. The air was very heavy and warm. An on-edge feeling of anticipation encompassed the apartment complex. We watched it shut itself in and waited for the rains to come:

We started to get bored, so we did a salsa workout video on Netflix. Okay, only I did that.

We watched a lot of Star Trek. We adore Spock.

In the evening, it started pouring. My patio became a small pond quickly. Thankfully, it never reached my door. When the winds started, I got ready for bed, using what I expected to be the last of my light wisely. I made a huge batch of smoothie for Saturday's breakfast. Sure thing: we lost power around 11pm. Even through my earplugs, the wind was incredibly loud. Faraday slept securely on my chest all night.

I woke up to sunshine, heavy wind, and no power. Naturally. My patio was dry, but I saw a truck attempt to drive down the road, shooting water up on either side. It got halfway before deciding to back up.

Praise Jesus for gas stoves and French press! I enjoyed my morning cup of coffee and smoothie while reading by the natural light of the glass doors on a pile of Moroccan poufs:

A quick walk revealed that two out of the three exits from the complex were flooded:

This is the Ice and Flood Zone:

My Droid kept me linked to Facebook, which again proved incredibly useful. The township's police kept their fans fantastically well-informed. I never thought I'd "like" them, but I felt much less alone knowing how my town was fairing. Irene certainly messed it up. At one point, my apartment complex was a black hole--people could drive into it on the one-way street, but couldn't get back out. Princeton itself was basically cutoff, between flooding and downed trees.

Meg and Luc live in downtown Princeton and made a hilarious movie of their epic weekend.

When I got bored, I visited Nadine and Raphael. I brought them disaster food, so brilliantly prepared by me during times of greater power:

It got really dark. I went to bed early, after discovering that lab was closed on Monday. This was actually disappointing: my phone was dying and I was soooo tired of the dark. BUT! Finally, around 10:30pm, just as I was falling asleep, THE POWER RETURNED. Yeah!

Monday dawned bright and sunny and full of power. The internet informed me that traffic was awful on the roads that weren't still flooded. I decided to stay home, but after several more episodes of Star Trek (Spock started to look rather attractive...), I needed to take another walk. My neighbors all did, too--everyone was going stir-crazy!

The floods already receded:

I checked on the towpath, and was so sad to see its damage:

The bridge is ruined. :(

My friend captured this picture of the other end of the towpath:

But you know, if the worst thing that happened to me personally was damage to my favorite recreation spot, I was blessed. Many people were hit worse.

My phone's camera accidentally turned this shot into an Impressionist painting:

The lake water is so high:

Okay, it hadn't all receded:

The most amazing picture I found of my area was from here:

By Tuesday, I was so happy to get to lab. Three days with mainly the kitty for company was a bit much. As cute as he is!

Two Conversations. Wien und Praha, XIII

2011-08-21T16:16:00.000-04:00

My summer's been a bit of a doozy. After polishing off Wien und Praha, I'll let you in on some of that. I have a backlog of baking, traveling, running (and lack thereof), and cooking adventures to share! Amongst it all, I promise that I've been working on my thesis research and even looking for jobs while I'm at it.

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April 13, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day after my guided tour and opera trip, I was exhausted. My sniffly nose in Vienna turned into a full-blown Cold of Death. The skies over Prague opened up and drenched us. The perfect storm of a situation to keep tourists inside. I couldn't do that, though! I mustered the strength to slowly wander my way from coffee shop to bookstore to mulled wine stop.

In the Staré Mĕsto, I sauntered back by the Astronomical Clock and through the Easter Market. The Old Town was much less crowded than the day before.

I will not attempt to remember how many trdelniks I ate that day.

I found another gigantic Easter egg:

Intending to find a museum on the castle side of the river, I crossed the Charles Bridge.

Just after passing the not-weeping, yet still kind of creepy, angel...

...it started pouring again. Sigh.

I ducked into a charming, empty cafe and promptly bought:

Mmmmmmmmm.

Their free wireless and beautiful view of rain on cobblestones kept me entertained whilst I dried out and warmed up.

Though I consulted the map several times, I kept getting lost on the twisty roads and eventually gave up trying to find the museum. My nose needed Kleenexes every couple of minutes, which increased my apathy and decreased my willingness to spend money.

However, a charming, hole-in-the-wall bookstore caught my eye. A darling little old lady, of the pink cheeked and soft white haired variety, was the only person in it. In Czech, I greeted her and asked if she spoke English or German. She said, "Both! Which do you prefer?" I requested we try German. For the next while, we had a wonderful conversation in German, English and even a little Spanish! Her husband was a journalist in South America when they first got married. She showed me practically every book in the store (mainly books about Prague, in several languages). I bought postcards, a lovely little book on Prague in English for myself (the German ones were too expensive), and one in Spanish for my dad. As we said goodbye, she complimented me on my language know-how and was surprised that an American had even my meager skills. ;) Her parting gift to me was a travel pack of tissues. Bless her soul.

Conversations like that are partly why I love traveling alone. Would we have chatted so much if I was with friends? Maybe...but this next one, most likely not!

To save money, I decided to try out a cafeteria-style restaurant. The price was certainly right (~$5 for a smorgasbord), and the quality was to be expected. This cafeteria was clearly for locals and not tourists--when I didn't figure the line/order card/food station etiquette quickly enough, a server suggested I find a cafe. Sigh. Eventually, with my tray of overflowing borscht (turns out: ew) and goulash (looked like the day before's...but definitely tasted like a cafeteria version) in hand, I searched the crowded restaurant for a seat. My guidebook said joining tables was normal in this situation. I found a very old, nice-looking gentleman sitting alone and asked with minimal Czech and hand motions if I could sit with him. We ascertained that he knew no English and I knew no Czech. However, we found common ground in German. His German was even more broken than mine, but between it and charades we had a lovely lunchtime. After sharing where we were from and what our families were like, our conversation turned to Japan, as the earthquake and tsunami had recently hit. He then pointed out (with grand gestures and and explosion noises) that the US made Japan sad once. We were quiet for a moment. He broke the silence by saying that my hair was pretty.

"Thanks!"
"Is it real?"
"Um, yes!"

Next, he wanted to know if my teeth were real.

"Yes..."

Lastly, he motioned, "are THOSE real???"

He received a glare and a chastising, which he took while giggling heartily. Cheeky fellow.

At the end of the meal, he offered to pay for my lunch. I thanked him profusely, but said no. Should I have let him pay?

Wiped out, I retreated to my pension for a short nap. I found a wonderful cafe just minutes from the pension (check out Al Cafetero if you're ever in Praha) and spent an hour or so reading and drinking delicious espresso. After adding milk to the first shot, I followed the guy's advice and tried it black. It was creamy and smooth. Using their free wireless, I blogged, too.

Fortified with caffeine, I returned to Old Town. I found a wonderful stand in the market selling mead from Slovakia. This honey wine, in fact! The sweet bearded man gave me a warm sample--just the thing for the increasingly damp day. I bought a couple of small bottles and stuffed them, clanking, into Berlin Bag.

At the edge of the market, very brave, freezing young folk dancers were entertaining the crowd:

I watched for a while, until I started shivering. Popping into a restaurant off the square, I bought a glass of warm mulled wine and read some more.

For dinner, I had a hot dog from the market and grilled cheese. No, not a sandwich. It was literally a big slab of cheese that had been cooked on a grill. It was INCREDIBLE.

After shivering with my gooey hunk of cheese and watching more tireless dancing, I re-visited the mead stand and, much to the burly man's delight, bought a couple more little bottles and one big bottle. He thanked me with another utterly amazing cup of hot honey wine. No beverage has ever been so warming.

While I considered using my free ticket for the Prague Ghost Tour, and possibly seeing my names-forgotten British friends from the tour the day before, in the end I couldn't fathom staying out in the Old Town that long. Once back at my hotel room, I packed. Remember the five bottles of mead? Yeah, I didn't think that through. I wrapped them in plastic bags, clothes, and prayer.

Around 4am, I left the pension. I was pleased that the unmarked van I boarded indeed dropped me off at the Prague airport. Due to barely-awake-daze, I lost my boarding pass in the five minutes it took to get it and go through security. The security guard made me walk all the way down the terminal to an exit to baggage claim to get back to the check-in booths. Exhaustion made me frantic and irrational, but the Lufthansa associate was quite calming and simply reprinted my boarding pass. Whew. Back on the other side of security, I spent most of my remaining Czech crowns at a candy and coffee vending machine. Then, I was on my way to Frankfurt.

My layover was a few hours long. I happily hung out in the bookstore, drank espresso (though many of my fellow airport cafe patrons opted for large beers...at 9am), spoke German, and read.

Ensconced in my aisle seat, ready for the long flight, I experienced conflicting emotions.

I was realllly sad to leave Europe, because I adore it:

But I was reeeeallllly glad to be flying home to see my kitty, sleep in my own bed, and not live out of a suitcase:

Writing Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic on my U.S. Customs form was awesome. That's the most countries I've ever visited in one trip!

I couldn't bear to check in baggage claim or on the shuttle, but at home: SUCCESS. My Easter Market mead stash miraculously survived Continental's baggage handlers:

And no, it was not all for me. I shared. Specifically, with my cat-sitters.

Said fluffy cat was SO thrilled to see me:

Overall, this was an amazing experience. I'm so glad physics has given me the opportunity to TRAVEL. As much as I often (ahem, currently) dislike grad school, I'm quite grateful for my life.

Thanks for sticking with my travel logs, dear readers. On to new topics!

Tschüss and na shledanou!

Carmen! Wien und Praha, Part XII

2011-07-24T17:09:00.005-04:00

Last time, I left you just as a sprinted out of the metro station after a full day of touring Prague, possibly very late to see Carmen at the Státní Opera Praha.

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April 12, 2011
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I hastily arrived at my hotel room in sweaty disarray with approximately twenty minutes to eat, change, and walk to the opera. That morning, I had the foresight to set out everything I needed for the quick change, so in a whirlwind of flying clothes, shoes, and bags I transformed from City Tourist into Opera Enthusiast. With no time for a shower, my windblown and rain-soaked hair improved very little, but I was presentable. And praise the Lord for protein bars.

Mirror shot of my dress, the same one I wore to the Vienna Opera, in a different configuration:

Out the door I flew! The opera house was only 1.2km from my hotel, but I was in heels and I quickly realized that in this shorter configuration, my dress was quite dangerous in the wind. Surely one of the most stressful walks ever concluded at the gorgeous venue with FIVE MINUTES TO SPARE.

I found my seat, which only cost about $40 and was incredible:

This view would be a well over a hundred dollars at the Met in NY or the Vienna State Opera House. Note that this picture is not zoomed-in at all. It was my view of the stage:

My new opera glasses from the Naschmarkt in Vienna were wonderful. My other pair (left safely at home) have a higher zoom, but for this close of a seat, the Vienna glasses sufficed.

The subtitles (...surtitles...) were in German, Czech, and English, conveniently.

Carmen was quite different from Anna Bolena (spoiler alert: except for the tragic ending). The music, of course, is universally recognizable:

The costumes, set, and overall tone were much brighter, more colorful, and quite merry (spoiler alert: until the end). It was beautiful to watch. It was more comfortable to watch--front row parterre box seat vs. back row balcony standing.

However. After such rich, breath-taking, chill-inducing voices in Vienna, only Carmen herself (played wonderfully by Jana Sýkorová) really stood out. Several other voices were jarring and thin. I also didn't resonate with the story. Carmen (the character) just bugged me.

I still completely enjoyed my evening. :)

Like the ticket, the intermission food and drink were quite cheap. I supplemented my earlier protein bar with a delicious prosciutto sandwich and a glass of champagne (as you do). Seats were scarce and my heel-clad feet hurt, so I made friends with an elegant gray-haired couple and shared their table.

Back in the theater, a nice person walking to his orchestra-level seat took my picture from below:

The busy day started to catch up with me and I fought to stay awake. But I did, and it finished with a flourish:

Crowds of opera-goers headed my direction for a few minutes. Then, I was alone on the dimly-lit streets, trying to keep my dress from blowing away in the wind, not catch my heels in a cobblestone, and walk with purpose and authority should any disreputable person get any ideas. I reveled in the fact that I knew my little area of Praha well enough to do all of this without a map, wrong turn, or confused study of street signs. No one mugged me or even glanced at me shadily. I returned safely to my room, and collapsed, exhausted, in the aftermath of the evening's earlier hurricane.

Umbrellas and Brits. Wien und Praha, Part XI

2011-07-10T19:14:00.001-04:00

Whew, I must wrap this series up before I completely forget the details of my time in Prague! Bear with me; we probably have 2-3 posts left. :)

My first half-day in Prague was quiet and spent in a newer part of the city. On the second day, I walked all over the beautiful, old, historic Praha city center.

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April 12, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My hotel provided breakfast, which was like a combination of German/Austrian and Moroccan breakfasts I've had: breads, yogurts, Nutella, hardboiled eggs, nuts, juice, coffee.

Then, I walked to the Státní Opera Praha to pick up my ticket for Carmen that evening. While I waited for the box office to open, I chatted a bit with a young Czech mother and her five-year-old daughter. She was there to buy tickets to her daughter's ballet recital IN the State Opera house! Her English was very broken, but much better than my Czech. ;)

At that point, I could say: Dobry den (Good day), Prosim (Please), Djekuji (Thank you), Na shledanou (Goodbye), and Kavy (Coffee). You know, the basics.

After obtaining my opera ticket, I jaunted over to Wenceslas Square to buy a tour ticket. Erica recommended the six-hour Ultimate Walking Tour of Prague. It included lunch, a boat tour with one free (espresso or alcoholic) beverage, and a bus up to the castle. As she instructed, I found a yellow umbrella-clutching woman next to the Wenceslas horse statue.

She led the French-speaking tour, though, so I had to wait about twenty minutes for the English one.

In the meantime, I enjoyed Wenceslas Square, a huge, open shopping area.

Finally, this awesome Czech guy named Radek (ignore the spelling) introduced himself to the group of about 15 people. Most were British; there was one Indian man and two people who adamantly said they were from Pakistan, though they were clearly American (and not even ethnically Pakistani). We were confused, and they didn't really talk to anyone else for the rest of the tour. Huh.

Side note: For anyone traveling alone: I highly recommend guided walking tours. This was the first I'd taken, and I loved it. Two British men and the Indian man were also solo travelers. We had lovely conversations throughout the day! The rest of the Brits were also really nice--everyone was social and curious about each other. :) Sadly, I cannot remember ANY names, but if you were on that tour: thank you. It was a pleasure spending the day with you!

Radek led the tour with knowledge and humor. He was friendly and spoke to everyone individually on the walks in between landmarks. While he hasn't done much traveling outside of central Europe, he's incredibly well-informed, with a masters-level history degree. He quite enjoyed quizzing us about our home countries, or teasing us when appropriate.

On the walk through Wenceslas Square, he informed us that no one in the Czech Republic knows that one Christmas carol, and that while Wenceslas was pretty good (he's Bohemia's patron saint), he was actually never king. The square is quite important in modern history, as it was the site of the 1989 Velvet Revolution demonstrations and the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia. Radek was actually in Prague for a school visit and saw some of the protests!

It started pouring just as we ducked into the Lucerna theater to see David Černý's political statement:

We wandered through part of the new city ("for you American lady, new means 14th century") and I made a mental note to return to the Easter Market!

Radek took us into the underground subway station to show us a really old wall. It was old. I don't remember anything else about it. Yeah. But here he is! Blurrily!

We followed the yellow flag (he ditched the umbrella when it got crowded) through the alleys to the Old City...

...where we saw the famous Astronomical Clock!

The square had another Easter Market and was awfully packed with tourists:

Next was the Jewish Quarter, where we saw Europe's oldest surviving synagogue, the Old-New Synagogue:

The Old Jewish cemetery has about 100,000 bodies in it according to Wikipedia, and 200,000 according to my guidebook. The tombstones date from 1439 to 1787:

Next, we took an hour-long boat ride on the river. I chatted a bunch with the Indian guy and the young solo Brit guy. As it was cold and drizzly, we all appreciated the chance to sit and warm up with a free beverage. Mine, naturally, was espresso.

We just enjoyed listening to Smetana's die Moldau (named for the river on which we floated) and watching the view:

St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle hill:

Kafka Museum:

The Charles Bridge:

This hill, on which a giant metronome now sits, has an insane history. First, a 50-foot high Stalin monument was built there in the 1950s and was removed in the 60s. Then, in 1996, a 35-foot-tall statue of Michael Jackson was placed there as a promotional stunt.

Theeen we walked more! Thankfully, not too much before we had lunch.

I had real Czech goulash, which was not what I though it was. It was much better. The beer was good, too.

Here's the blurry gang!

At lunch, Young British Dude (who had "only been to Prague once before, with his mates, for a stag party, so he doesn't really remember it...") and I bonded with Young British Couple who were both middle school teachers and really needed time away from work.

Fortified, we trooped over to the world-famous Charles Bridge:

Blue sky peeked out by the time we crossed!

We caught a tram up to the Prague Castle.

First stop: the Summer Gardens, created by Ferdinand I for his wife, Anne.

(see the TV Tower?)

The Ball Game Hall, the Míčovna (according to the Prague castle wiki, though it doesn't have its own page), was built in the 16th century as a place for sports similar to tennis or badminton (says the link above).

It was destroyed in WWII and restored in 1952...by the communists. Notice a small change they made?

We continued closer to St. Vitus' Cathedral and the palace...

...and arrived just in time for the changing of the guard:

Good job, men.

Inside, Radek quizzed us about the event portrayed in this stained glass window. Any guesses? I was the only one to get it right! See the end of the post for the answer! :)

Note that the pretzel was not in the Biblical description of the event, but perhaps one was there:

Or the window was paid for/commissioned by a baker.

Our stay was short, and my pictures do not do it justice. But it was beautiful.

We left the cathedral as shadows started to fall:

And I found more evidence of Maria Theresa's extensive European reign:

At this wall, overlooking Prague, Radek left us. We had a slightly awkward group goodbye and tipping moment, and he was gone. The Brits, Indian, and I took a gazillion (approximately) photos of the gorgeous, red-roofed view:

Five of us--the Indian and British guys, and a British couple--wandered back slowly toward the Old City and Wenceslas Square.

We leisurely strolled, discussing meeting up the next night for the free (with price of tour we just finished) Ghost Tour of Prague, until I realized I had an hour get from the Charles Bridge to Vinohrady, eat dinner, fancy up, and walk ten minutes in heels to the Opera.

The Young Solo British Dude sped up with me, but we got lost.

This is the direct route:

View Larger Map

We were clearly not taking the direct route. So, we hopped on the subway, which thankfully he had already figured out, and thankfully, my hotel was only a block from a stop. I left him with a quick, over-the-shoulder goodbye, and SPRINTED to my hotel.

Did I eat, change, and make it to the opera on time?? Did I ever see the British/Indian friends whose names I can't remember again?? Stay tuned for the final chapters of Wien und Praha. ;)

**The stained glass window depicts Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down to the believers in Acts 2!

Happy Belated Father's Day!

2011-06-21T15:22:00.004-04:00

As I was away this weekend, I didn't have a chance to pay tribute to my daddy on the blog actually on Father's Day. (Though I did call him!)

My dad is a wonderful father: he's always loved and supported me, worked hard as an engineer for the Navy to provide for us, and taught us about Jesus. He taught us the practice of not blindly accepting doctrine, but checking it against the Bible. He helped Mom homeschool us, especially highschool math--and wouldn't let me ever say, "I hate math" during my temper-tantrum, math-disliking years (I finally fell in love with math at algebra). He can sing almost every song on the oldies station. He's a terrific mixture of serious and goofball.

He instilled in us the importance of maps:

He loves Don Quixote and Sancho Panza:

He does hardcore things like build houses in Morocco:

He loves animals, including Farad:

And Daddy really loves Mommy:

Thanks for being so terrific, Dad! Love you!

P.S. Dad and Mom signed up to walk the Seattle Half Marathon in November, the day before their 30th wedding anniversary! They were inspired by the expo last year, when they realized this race has entire official walking divisions for the half and full. They're training seriously and doing fantastically! :D

Dobrý den, Praha! Wien und Praha, Part X

2011-06-13T21:46:00.000-04:00

We're finally moving on to the Prague part of my big European adventure in April!

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April 11, 2011
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After spending a day in Bratislava, I left my wonderful Viennese home (Hotel Alexander), U- and S-Bahned to Wien Miedling, and waited.

I settled into my seat, where I napped, read, listened to music, drank coffee, and enjoyed the view for the next five hours.

For the first few hours, I shared my compartment with a young, overly-affectionate Czech couple. Note to young couples: people stuck in a small room with you for three hours do NOT need to see demonstrations of your love for each other. Ever.

They left in Brno, though! Welcome to the Czech Republic! :D

Like when we crossed into Slovakia, I was thrilled when signs switched from German to Czech. :)

Soon, we arrived in Prague! I admit, I was a little apprehensive. Mostly excited, but a bit nervous. Again, the language question bothered me, but then every single travel guide or website about Prague emphasized over and over: The Pickpockets. The cleanliness and shininess of the interior of the Praha hlavní nádraží (main train station) was a good sign.

The crowded of smoking young folk around the exterior was not. But whatever. By the time I got outside into the sunshine, my practically-unquenchable excitement for New Places displaced the concerns. Prague was toasty-warm. After removing layers of clothing, adjusting my bags, and orienting myself to the map and surroundings, I trudged off in search of my next home-away-from-home.

My first attempt at crossing the busy Wilsonova and Legerova streets was not the most efficient, but I eventually found a pedestrian tunnel. In about ten minutes I arrived at the Náměstí Míru (Peace Square), with a charming Easter Market, and then it was a short couple-minute walk to Americká street (easy to remember!) for my hotel.

The family-run Holiday Home Pension, Vinohrady, looked like a nice, old-ish apartment building. The reception office was completely dark, but the door was open. English instructions on the door said to ring the buzzer on the door, but this just made the phone in the reception office ring, as far as I could see. A few minutes later, someone ran down from upstairs and breathlessly asked how I got in. "The door was open..." "...oh." She took my pile of Czech Korunas (not Coronas), told me about included breakfast and airport shuttles, and showed me to my room. For one person, the room was quite large. I had access to a kitchenette, but never used it. The closet was spacious and had safe. The bathroom was TINY, but had all the conveniences I needed. The bed (two twins shoved together) was comfy. (My only real complaint: the towels were so SCRATCHY.) I'd stay here again: I felt quite safe and was not worried about my possessions at anytime. For the price, the comfort was perfect. :)

After a brief rest, I explored the neighborhood of Vinohrady. First, I stopped at the Easter Market in the Náměstí Míru and ate a sweet pastry Edmund and Amber recommended: a Trdelník. They wrap pastry dough around metal cylinders, bake them, and dip them in sugar, cinnamon, almonds, whatever. So good, and I lost count of how many I ate. (Five in 2.5 days, possibly. They were really, really cheap. And good.)

I set out on a Lonely Planet guidebook-suggested walk around Vinohrady. From the square, I headed down Americká, past my hotel and through pretty shops, until it turned into Kopernikova and hit a big park. Amid much construction, I couldn't find an entrance to the park, so I walked back up Rybalkova and up to Hradešinská.

Sights along the way:

And what?!

Suddenly, amid the yellow-ish brick and cement of the shops and homes, the Žižkov TV Tower loomed over the landscape:

The Soviets built and left this for Prague. It's quite out of place--one might call it even an eyesore--but the giant creepy babies crawling up the side (by David Černý) turn it into art. Strange, media-loving, zombie-baby art.

More beautiful examples of spring in Europe:

Getting closer to giant crawling infants:

On Vinohradská, I passed the Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord:

I ended back near my hotel and had dinner just off of the square. The restaurant had free wifi, good red wine, and delicious cheese. I ordered a fried cheese appetizer and a Greek salad...which had a ton of cheese. I left so full of cheese. Mmmmm.

Tired from travel, I called it an early night. :)

Baby Shower!!

2011-06-06T13:18:00.002-04:00

I'll get back to Wien und Praha soon, but for now, let me tell you about the first baby shower I've ever hosted! My classmate, Craig, and his wife, Melissa, are expecting their first child in July. Meg and I threw them a shower on Saturday, June 4th.

My patio was the perfect setting, especially as it was a warm (if mostly overcast) summer afternoon.

Meg made an amazing fruit punch from a frozen mold of strawberries, kiwi, and orange slices in a bowl of pineapple juice and sparkling cider, and I made iced coffee:

We totally took over the lawn and set up a BBQ station (thanks, Josh, for the grill, and Luc, for the grilling!)

Here are the guests of honor and my co-hostess; Craig, Meg, and Melissa:

Melissa's coworkers came and enjoyed the expansive array of appetizers Meg and I made:

Our classmates joined us, too, including Erik and his adorable pregnant wife, Andrea!

After eating (a lot), we played lawn games--several rounds of Ladderball and one game of croquet (which I totally won, if you follow my family's rules). Then, the parents-to-be opened gifts!

I gave them an ALMOST-finished stuffed dragon. Heh. I was so close.

They gave it back so I could sew on his other leg, wings, and face. ;)

Erik and Andrea's little boy, Caleb, was GREAT entertainment:

Our only "real" shower activity (Meg and I loathe typical shower games) was decorating onesies with fabric markers:

People actually enjoyed it! I was so happy. The designs were mostly a mixture of 20-something male humor and graduate student geekiness (we were all physicists, chemists, chemical engineers, or microbiologists, besides one lovely psychologist).

Naturally, I had to make the cake! Craig and Melissa (and Meg, Luc, and Josh) play D&D, so the cake had to be a wee bit geeky:

It tasted pretty good, too!

I finished the dragon over the weekend and delivered him to father-to-be at lab:

He was so hard to give away! Sooo friendly!

We had a delightful time blessing our friends, and can't wait to meet their little baby boy!

ODDyssey Half Marathon, Philadelphia, PA

2011-05-30T21:49:00.003-04:00

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May 22, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last post, I told you all about the circumstances leading to creating a Dalek costume and running my fifth half marathon, the ODDyssey Half, without a time goal. Here's the actual race recap.

The race started at 7am in Philly, which meant that I woke up frightfully early, at 4:30am. Like all half and full marathon mornings, this began with a peanut butter sandwich, lots of water, and caffeine (a latte, today). My confused kitty groggily requested, received, and rejected breakfast, opting to curl up and go back to sleep.

Around 5am, Audrey jogged up to my doorstep! She has a marathon in June, and her schedule called for 20 miles. She got three of them done before meeting me.

We picked up Amanda and headed into Philly. The starting line location was the most convenient ever; it was in Fairmount Park, with huge FREE parking lots. Audrey left immediately to run four miles before the race started.

I was so excited!!

Amanda was, too--she hoped to set a new PR!

Of course I had to take some goofy shots as a Dalek:

Amanda and I walked the half a mile or so to the race area, right next to the Please Touch Museum. (As opposed to "don't touch", I believe?) We had about twenty-five minutes to spare and got in the interminable porta-potty line. We spotted plenty of other costumed-folk: a ladybug, a couple of flowers, a horde of Wonder Women, many manly men in dresses, some pirates. It was finally our turn. From inside, I heard the starting gun. Oops. At least it was a chip-timed race! Our chip times are about three minutes behind clock time.

Amanda ran with me for about a mile to warm-up, and then off she ran in search of her PR! I settled into a good groove and enjoyed carrying my whisk and plunger during the first four miles that circled around and back to the starting/finishing line. Several people called out, "I LOVE YOUR COSTUME," but no one acknowledged if they knew what I was. ;)

I'm on the left:

After the first four or five miles, we headed down to the Schuylkill River for the first of two long out-and-backs. I'm not a fan of retracing my steps, preferring instead to run loop courses, but at least this gave us plenty of chances to see all of the costumes!

There's the award-winning plug and socket duo:

Royal wedding guest:

Captain Jack Sparrow:

The dish who ran away with the spoon:

The car:

And girls I ran near for quite a ways, the cop and robber:

We ran up the river until we saw the famous Philadelphia Art Museum, and then we turned around and ran back. We passed the road leading back up to the finish and started the second out-and-back for a couple of miles along the river in the opposite direction.

While the river and trees are quite pretty, it would've gotten rather boring without the entertainment. There was an obstacle course: a huge bouncy castle with slides and ladders off to the side. I didn't run over it, but Audrey did. She said it was fantastic. Two teens were playing an over-sized game of Jenga and allowing participants from the race. There were a few stations with DJ-ed or live music. The best part, on this muggy hot day, were the Water Balloon Men. Sadly, they missed me with both balloons they chucked at me. Guess I was running too fast? ;)

The weirdest thing is that this "out" part of the out-and-back felt downhill the whole way, leading me to really worry about running uphill for the last few miles. When I turned around, though...a bunch of the "back" was downhill or flat... Good? Perhaps the heat muddled my brain.

I enjoyed seeing Audrey and Amanda twice!

They looked strong and happy!

I kept pace with what looked like a father-daughter pair for the last two miles. She started fading, so he kept up a steady stream of encouragement. I decided to eavesdrop and claim the encouragement for myself, and it really helped! :) Especially going up the legitimately steep hill that was the last half mile or so. While they ran the whole way, I ended up walking a bit of it...but I still beat them to the top. ;) Sometimes, walking is just faster.

Nearing the finish line, I dug deep and sprinted to the finish! Amanda caught me, barely, despite this dude's head:

I finished around 2:27, my slowest half marathon time. :) It was, however, one of the most enjoyable!

Amanda got her PR, with a time around 2:15! Audrey indeed finished a total of 20 miles that day, still running the race part at a very respectable ~1:45!

We received our medals and finishers' pint glasses, and broke them in with a free post-race beer. Here we are, enjoying a pint at 9:30am:

Please note the banana in my holster and the granola bar in Amanda's shirt--the post-race food was excellent, in that we got a lot of it and had to get creative to carry it!

"Rocky's lesser-known little sister" came up to ask what I was, so I introduced yet another person to the wonders of Doctor Who. Maybe she'll go watch it. ;)

On the walk back, a coconut water van suddenly pulled over and started handing everyone free drinks! Woohoo!

I'm still not overly fond of coconut water...but I like it enough to drink it for free.

We stopped for Starbucks in downtown Philly, and were home by noon. :D

The medals really are awesome. It's the first I've gotten that's actually useful--it's a bottle opener!

In conclusion, while it was super fun to run in costume, enjoying the scenery without a time goal, I'm not going to register for another race until I'm back on track with my training, health, and pace. I'm doing a modified spring training program (running only 3-4 days a week, with longer long runs, and biking/strength training/resting on others) until I start marathon training in August. I might do another half in August or September, and possibly some 5-10ks, but running the marathon in under 4:30:00 is my goal of the year. :D

The Dalek Dress: Exterminatingly Awesome Race Attire

2011-05-24T22:51:00.000-04:00

What do you do when you've just run your fourth half marathon, you're registered for your fifth half marathon, and shin problems and record-breaking bad allergies soundly KO your PR plans?

You remember that the ODDyssey Half Marathon in Philadelphia, PA, strongly encourages costumes, and you snap out of your funk!

About two weeks before the race (May 22, 2011), while chatting with Erica online, this thought hit me. We were discussing our love of Doctor Who (remember my sister's and my Gingerbread TARDIS?) and instantly decided that I simply MUST become a Dalek.

The Daleks are the Doctor's archenemies. They are an alien race of mutants who are permanently housed in large robotic structures, which closely resemble salt and pepper shakers with lights, a plunger, and a whisk attached. In other words, they look like this:

source

source

I knew how I would do it, too. I'd find inspiration from some incredible girly Dalek costumes I'd seen all over the (geeky part of) the internet. Specifically, I consulted both these ladies and this video.

First, as I have no sewing machine, I wasn't going to actually make my own dress. Target has plenty of cheap swimsuit coverups and sundresses right now, though. And, as I'd wear it on top of running shorts and a sports bra, it didn't have to fit perfectly/cover everything. Piece of cake to find this (but in black):

source

While the look of hot-glued hemispheres for sensor globes is definitely truer to the Dalek, I doubted they'd last after 13.1 miles of abuse. Instead, I chose to stitch on felt circles:

Turns out, it takes me an awfully long time to baste 32 circles to a skirt.

Faraday was my charming craft partner, and my awesome TARDIS cookie jar was a terrific tool box!

Not trusting a strapless dress to stay put while I ran for over two hours, I stitched the front of the dress to an old sports bra:

Finally, I pinned on my race bib and I had a Dalek dress!

Now, naturally, a Dalek costume requires accessories.

First: the headgear. My inspiration pieces used headbands. My head is large. Elastic headbands don't stay, and hard headbands give me a headache. I used something that was comfortable and also quite practical: a running visor. I cut an elastic headband in half and sewed it to the visor just over my ears, so it lay across my head:

This was so I could take my light bulb "ears"...

...and attach them in the correct place. It's really haphazard (I left this bit til the day before the race. I kid not.), but I stuck Scotch tape inside and outside so I had a non-sticky flap of tape and sewed that to the headband. Yep. I'd try to do it differently if I had time. ;)

IT HELD THOUGH. I lost no piece of my costume over 13.1 miles!

I wasn't going to have an eye-stalk, but while perusing Target (this is like a Target ad, except that I don't get paid for promoting them...) for a plunger (for the costume), I found THE most amazing sponge. This one.

Does it or does it not look like a Dalek eye?!

I ripped (gingerly) the sponge off of the plastic tube to which it is glued and painted the yellow part black. Newsflash: it takes a painted sponge a very long time to dry in NJ humidity.

Finally, I stitched it to my visor:

Silly, cheap, just-sturdy-enough-to-last.

Lastly, what would a Dalek be without its appendages? Easy-peasy: the whisk. $1. Fab. Harder: most costumes go with an actual plunger, but all of the ones at *ka-ching!* Target were industrial size and there's no way I'd carry one on a 5k, let alone a half marathon. What to do, what to do.

I saw FUNNELS.

YEAH.

I stuck a plastic rod from a broken kitty toy through the funnel and borrowed electrical tape from lab to encase both. Using black felt with a sticky back, I covered the inside of the funnel.

(I also decided to wear those black wrist sweatbands, from a costume in college.)

I thought the funnel needed a bit more punch, and wanted to tie it together with the pink sports bra I'd wear for reals under the cheapo one sewn to the dress, so I added pink duct tape (I may never buy regular again). My plan was to carry the appendages for at least a few miles at the start and again at the finish, when the cameras are usually out in full force, but figured I'd get tired of them at some point. Happily, my fuel belt has perfect little elastic loops on each side:

Here's the best shot of my dress; you can actually see the contrast between it and the felt circles:

I'm all ready at the start of the race!

Faraday is not afraid of the Daleks:

This was a super fun, easy project! I'm pumped to already have a new costume this year, for whatever parties come up, and it was a BLAST to wear while running! I'll do a proper race recap once the official pictures are available, so stay-tuned for the tale of my slowest ever, but one of my favorite ever, half marathon. :)

EXTERMINATE!!

Let's visit Slovakia! Wien und Praha, Part IX

2011-05-20T20:06:00.001-04:00

Once again, I took so many pictures, so please go see more at your leisure. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 10, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Months ago, my good friend Meg told me that if I visited Vienna, I had to take a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. While I only barely scratched the surface of Vienna on
Saturday, the next day, I took the U-Bahn to the Wien Südbahnhof. I arrived an hour early, because I hate to be rushed in unfamiliar circumstances. This train station consisted of a tiny cafe, restrooms, and outside platforms. I bought coffee and walked well out onto a platform to find a bench in the sunshine. The wind ripped through the station. I was freezing by the time the train arrived.

Thankfully, the Österreich Bundesbahn train was quite comfortable and warm! The ÖBB provided a "Bratislover" pamphlet detailing (in German and English) the stops on the hour-long ride between Vienna and Bratislava and describing popular tourist sites. It nicely complemented the photocopied library book pages I brought with me. While watching the beautiful Austrian scenery change into lovely Slovakian landscape, I planned my day. Green rolling fields, pretty forests with little streams, and tiny towns with rusty cars, swingsets, and the occasional farm animal lined the tracks. I was thrilled when the street signs changed from German to Slovak. Our conductors switched languages with the border crossing, too.

I'd been learning basic Czech phrases in preparation for my Prague trip (to follow the next day), and ascertained that they should be understood in the Slovak Republic, too. Still. This would be only the second country I'd visited without taking a year of college classes in its language first, so I was a wee bit nervous. And I feel so sad using the excuse that "everyone speaks English".

(Those college classes: English, Spanish, and German. [Okay, technically, I've never taken a year of college classes in the English language. {This could explain some things.}])

Armed with my map, a smile, and some prayers, I left the train station.

Bratislava around the train station is like New Jersey around the airport. Not pretty. Just kind of dirty.

However! A short 10-15 minute walk landed me at the Presidential (Grassalkovich) Palace, which was quite pretty:

Empress Maria Theresa rides her horse in its garden:

From the palace's front plaza, you can see a bit of the nondescript part of the city, with hints at its beautiful old areas. Notice the Bratislava Castle in the background to the right, and Michael's Gate peeking out to the left:

(Pause: I must defend New Jersey, my adopted home state. It also improves the farther one travels from transportation hubs. Parts are *quite* beautiful.)

I am always intrigued by the contrast of old and new. Michael's Gate was originally built in the 1300s, but modified in the 1750s:

I am also fond of local wildlife...

...and perplexed as to why KFC and McD's are all over the world. Everywhere.

Soon, I reached the Staré Mesto: the Old City or Historical Center:

After a brief stop in a tourist center (to get another free map), I headed to the start of my self- and guidebook-planned walking tour, stalking runners on my way:

In the charming Hlavné námestie (main square)...

...I stopped for lunch in a bagel shop. While not traditionally Slovakian, my bagel sandwich and latte were delicious.

Then, I started my tour. I admired the Old Town Hall with its cute dormer windows:

I said hello to Knight Roland, one of Napoleon's soldiers, and a guard in a booth:

I compared the Jesuit Church...

...to the Franciscan Church...

...and found that only the latter explicitly banned ice cream.

Next, I was pleased by the pastel pink Primatial Palace:

It's known for being the site of the signing of the 1805 treaty between France and Austria. Unrelated, it has a statue depicting St. George slaying a dragon.

The narrow stone streets reminded me of the medina in Fes.

I bought a couple of souvenirs and had to speak for the first time in the country. The shopkeeper didn't really speak English, so we smiled and pointed at things. She helped with me the pronunciation of thank you (ďakujem)!

Finished with the Staré Mesto, I began my trek up to the Bratislava Castle. Along the way, I caught my first glimpse of the Nový most (New Bridge):

The Hrád (castle) is on quite the hill.

Which means it had fantastic views of the city and the Danube:

St. Elisabeth of Hungary has a lovely statue in the park:

Soon, I walked a different way down the long hill.

And was briefly tempted by "Welcome! Beer, Food."

Underneath this massive new bridge,

Is a terrific pedestrian and bike bridge:

At the top of the bridge, there's the UFO restaurant, where you can watch, taste, and even groove.

Here's a good layout view. To the left is (obviously) the Hrád, to the right is the Staré Mesto, and directly behind them is the train station.

The wind blew incredibly hard on the observation deck of the tower:

Notice how GREEN the grass is! When I left New Jersey, it was a brown, dead, end-of-winter color. Spring had clearly arrived in Austria and Slovakia!

This is difficult to read, but the frosted window says, "Enjoying the view?"

It's in the women's restroom, at eye-height when one is doing one's business. Ahem.

If the wall couldn't be a window, it was mirrored in that little WC. I decided to give y'all a chance to see my wind-chapped self.

As quickly became a theme on this trip, I warmed up with a cappuccino in UFO. :) The server automatically greeted me in English, and I spent my respite eavesdropping on an English-speaking group of Brits, Americans, and Germans.

I walked back to the Staré Mesto and found the embassies of a couple of my favorite countries:

The Slovak National Theater is quite gorgeous:

The relaxed Man-at-Work sends his greetings:

A sweet young gal with a cute puppy offered to take my picture as I was struggling with a self-portrait:

"I know, I'm always on my own, too," she said, with a smile and British-with-a-hint-of-something-else accent. :)

Chilled to the bone and super tired, I wandered up to the Hlavná Stanica and waited for my train. I had a wonderful time in Bratislava, and highly recommend it as a day trip from Vienna!

On the ride, I napped, read, munched on almonds (the last of my airplane travel stash from home), and spoke a bit of German with my seat companion. While language was not at all an issue (English and charades sufficed), I noticeably relaxed upon re-entering Austria. I'm by no means fluent, but I feel so at home around Deutsch. :)

Back in Vienna, I U-Bahned to the city center to exchange euros for Czech crowns, and have a last hearty Viennese meal of meat and potatoes. I bought cute little petit four zum mitnehmen back to my hotel. After packing up for the morning's early departure to PRAGUE, I ate my dessert and SLEPT.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T22:08:00.003-04:00

It's still barely Mother's Day, so here is a quick tribute to my beautiful mom. My loving, smart, Godly, hilarious mom. She homeschooled all four of us from Kindergarten until we started college. She bakes us apple pies, she cooks us stew. She dances for us. She always answers my random cooking questions without judgement (possibly a little laughter).

She's an excellent travel companion.

She's an expert Moroccan whitewasher:

She loves the Northwest (and Dad):

And thus, Faraday and I send her our love. We tried taking a picture by ourselves:

Didn't work so well.

So, we walked over to a neighbor's. By "we walked", I mean, I walked while carrying a wide-eyed cat clinging to me for dear life.

We survived, Mom, we did:

Much love to Nama, also--what a beautiful and wonderful gramma you are!

Love!

An awful lot of Habsburgs and Markets. Wien und Praha, Part VIII

2011-05-05T18:52:00.003-04:00

I took too many photos to post here, so please go see more if you're interested!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 9, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a wonderful night at the opera, I woke up bright and early for my first full sightseeing day in Vienna. I fortified myself with delicious Hotel Alexander breakfast, packed Berlin Bag (my trusty travel companion since my first trip to Germany) with my guidebook and camera, and trekked up to the Spittelau U-Bahn stop.

I enjoyed a relaxing twenty or so minute train ride down to the Schönbrunn Palace, a beautiful former residence of the Habsburgs, Emperors of a Whole Lot.

A hilarious contrast was the Östermarkt (Easter market) in front of the beautiful Baroque palace:

Before exploring the extensive palace grounds, I shopped around the market. One could buy an Absinthbowle...?

Hungarian marionettes:

And most ubiquitously, delicately hand-painted eggshells:

The palace grounds were completely free. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so I opted to not pay for the inside tour and instead just enjoy the gardens.

Behind the palace were acres of gardens, mazes, and walkways. The Great Parterre was lined with mythological statues made between 1750-1775.

Across the Great Parterre from the Palace was the Gloriette, up on the hill:

I trekked across the gravel to the Neptune fountain...

...where I surreptitiously and shamelessly took many pictures of runners. There were runners EVERYWHERE. Deep in the depths of my shin-related hiatus, I was jealous. But they rocked.

Schönbrunn is home to the world's oldest zoo, founded in 1752.

(See another runner?!)

Up up up I climbed to the Gloriette:

From which you can see amazing views of Vienna:

I paused in my journey to have an Eiskaffee (coffee with ice cream in it) in the Gloriette Cafe. The waiter was just a touch on the snooty side and I felt awkward photographing my drink. So I didn't. I regret that now.

Next, it was to the woods!

I met an adorable squirrel with AWESOME ears:

I stumbled across the Obelisk fountain, built in 1777. The hieroglyphs on the obelisk supposedly tell the history of the Habsburg dynasty, however, hieroglyphs were not in fact deciphered until 1822. Soooo whatever. Looks cool?

Finally tiring of the beautiful park ("Schönbrunn", by the way, means "beautiful fountain"), I hopped back on the U-Bahn and headed to the Naschmarkt.

This wonderful open-air market has many permanent stands selling fruits, vegetables, coffee, Döner kebab, scarves, candy, bread, fish, chocolate...and a huge flea market with anything you've ever wanted to find used and cheap! My prize find: a beautiful pair of opera glasses. (The day after I saw the opera. By this time, though, I had purchased a ticket to Carmen in Prague, so I knew I'd use them.) They are pink and silver, (as the somewhat sketchy saleslady claimed) antique, and work just fine. I took pictures at the opera house in Prague, so you'll see them soon.

I walked a bit over to the Hofburg Palace (another Habsburg residence), stopping first in the Burggarten to say hello to Mozart:

And then on to the palace:

I sat a spell in the Volksgarten on the other side and then said hello to Parliament:

Exhausted, I caught the D-Tram back to my hotel for a good nap. Yes.

Refreshed, I D-Trammed back down to die Innere Stadt for dinner and a performance of Bach's Johannespassion at Stephansdom. And photos.

Stephansdom:

Walkin' around:

I made the mistake of eating dinner outside. The wind was biting cold. I froze. So immediately after finishing, I found a warm cafe and ate a slice of famous Sachertorte (with a side of heavy whipped cream) VERY slowly.

It was REALLY good.

I ate ALL of the whipped cream, too.

For REALS.

I perused some shops to kill more time before the concert:

Heh heh heh.

And then, it was time to go inside.

I bought the cheap tickets (of course), and so sat in the left aisle, directly to the left of the choir. I mean if I turned my head 90 degrees to my right, I could stare at the choir's profiles. The orchestra was to my right way behind me. The acoustics were...unique. ;)

My seat block:

My view of the choir's chairs, and the interesting contrast of Old Cathedral and New Technology:

Cathedrals are COLD. I shivered the whole time.

Applauding the conductor:

Despite the temperature and the unique acoustics, it was a fabulous experience to cap my very full Viennese day!

New BOWLS.

2011-05-04T20:55:00.003-04:00

Last Sunday, I baked Tiramisu cupcakes for lab. More on them in another post. Briefly, baking necessitated a bowl for batter, a bowl for frosting, and a bowl for filling.

I had one (1) proper mixing bowl.

I re-purposed a sauce pan.

It was sad.

So yesterday, I bought these:

I am prepared for anything.

Stay tuned for more Wien und Praha--I'll visit Habsburg residences, make a sweet purchase at the Naschmarkt, and catch a Bach concert.

Someone officially hates the camera, though it LOVES him:

Mawage! Mawage is what bwings us togetha today.

2011-04-29T08:15:00.003-04:00

****************************************************************************
Congratulations, Prince William and ~~Princess~~ Duchess Catherine!
****************************************************************************
(Sorry, I just learned she won't hold the title of "Princess" until Charles is King?)

I have shamelessly been caught up in Royal Wedding Mania since the beginning. Since the speculation started, really, that Wills would marry Kate. I'm most definitely in the huge group of 20-somethings who had a crush on Will when we were tweens and teens. The infatuation is long gone, and I'm just quite happy for him and his lovely, classy, poised, wonderful bride! ;)

***For those of you who don't care, come back next post. I promise this is the only one on this subject. ;) ***

This morning, my alarm blared at 3:55am. I leaped out of bed with a spring I can never muster for a morning run. I hugged my incredibly confused, groggy cat, and then madly searched for live streaming of pre-ceremony coverage.

I was quickly joined online by my BFF, Bethany JO. She, the dear, is in Washington State, so it was 1:00am. We chatted for the next three and a half hours. We spent two of those hours watching a huge horde of British people arrive in the most INCREDIBLE hats. Seriously. Hats. Galore. Why don't we wear amazing hats, I ask you?? Hats that clearly serve no useful purpose! Victoria Beckham's and the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie's hats were the craziest. You can clearly find better pictures all over the internet, but you can see the Princesses on my screen shot:

We streamed coverage from CNN, the official Royal YouTube channel (heeheehee), and BBC. Yes. At. The. Same. Time.
The media coverage is incredible. Only a few stalwart souls were awake on Facebook with Bethany and me, but HATS OFF TO YOU, MY FRIENDS.

For those of you in Britain with no timezone excuse: I do hope you were out partying.

Look at Google Doodle from today:

Love Google!! :D

My sister, Amy, who is in Morocco, joined us online in time for the ceremony. We were struck by the size of the crowds, the beautiful Abbey (which I visited on my only trip to London!), the pomp and circumstance, the boys choir, the organ, the trees (inside), the adorable Queen, the smartly uniformed William and Harry, the cute wee bridesmaids and lovely Pippa, and of course: the gorgeous Catherine. Her dress was beautiful. I am not normally fond of long-sleeved wedding gowns, but hers looked perfect on her. As did the tiara--quite fit for a princess!

Bethany left me for bed around 4:30am her time. I took a break from royal coverage to shower and get dressed for the day. I'm wearing my Easter dress, because it's a special occasion, gosh darn it!

My dress, on Easter:

(The salad, which I'm proudly displaying, is my first attempt at making my family's traditional Caesar salad. My grandpa passed the recipe on to Dad, who sent it to me. He even gave me a pep talk Easter morning over the phone before I made it. Never fear! It was delicious.)

Don't worry, I was back in front of my computer in time for THE KISS! The tradition, apparently, for royal British weddings is to not kiss at the ceremony, but to kiss for the first time in public as husband and wife on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. I'm sure you've already seen better pictures online, but here's another screenshot:

It was fantastic. I'm so glad I woke up to watch the historical event, even if it's all a wee bit silly. I do wish it was a US National Holiday like it is in the UK, but I'm off to lab in my bright blue lacy dress for as long as the Caffeine can keep me conscious.

Cheers to the happy couple, and many prayers that they stay strong together!

A Night at the Opera! Wien und Praha, Part VII

2011-04-22T22:09:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago, six friends and I decided to expand our cultural horizons and attend the opera. We bought season tickets to the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. Four Fridays after lab, we dressed up, took the train to Manhattan, ate dinner, and enjoyed a world-class production of classic opera in box seats. One of my first blog posts described such an evening. We saw La Traviata, Tristan und Isolde, La Sonnambula, and Il Trovatore. It was a wonderful experience! A couple of us bonded with a researcher at lab over opera. He stated, however, that he "only attends the opera in VIENNA."

So naturally, while in Vienna, I HAD to go!

Vienna has a couple opera houses, but I couldn't wait to see the inside of the Vienna State Opera.

I was willing to spring for an actual seat. A little personal splurge. How often is one in Europe?? No price is too small!

Until one realizes that the cheapest seat left is 100 euros, and one can get standing-room only tickets for three euros.

What kind of grad student can't do THAT math? Standing it was!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 8, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three Oxford friends joined me: physicists Edmund and Joseph and archaeologist Amber. My poor Princeton self was outnumbered. It's okay. They are fabulous.

Good thing, too, because after dressing up (natch) and D-traming it down to the Opernring, we chilled in line for over an hour:

I mean, we queued.

Finally we were allowed inside! We were there to see Anna Bolena by Donizetti:

The premium four euro standing-room tickets for the Parterre (main floor) were sold out, but we successfully purchased three euro tickets for the Balkon (balcony). Next, we ran to the queue for choosing "seats", enjoying the architecture while waiting:

The Met is beautiful, in a posh, modern way. Die Staatsoper was extravagantly, elegantly gorgeous.

Once we climbed the stairs and waited in line (queued) for about twenty minutes, we frantically tied our scarves around almost chest-high rails to reserve our spots. We briefly pondered whether the scarves would be there upon our return, but concluded that the opera crowd should be fairly trustworthy and honorable.

We then FLEW out of the opera house to find dinner. It was, oh, about 6:30pm, and the doors were going to close promptly at 7:00pm. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how we ended up eating hot dogs and pizza from a street vendor before our night at the Vienna State Opera:

(Please excuse my crazy black-and-white printed shirt matched with different-crazy black-and-white printed purse. One can only pack so much when one wants to travel "lightly".)

Amber and I were yawning and truly craving coffee to power us through three hours of standing, but alas, none was quickly found. We skipped up to our "seats", at which point I realized I needed to change my shoes. Yes. I packed a classy black
convertible dress (worn as a skirt here), cute heels, and thank GOODNESS fast flats. In the restroom, I stuffed the heels in my purse and padded back to my spot at the rail in my "hopefully don't look too much like slippers from afar" flats.

Apparently, they had to chase a couple of people off, but no one took our scarves! We were in the back row of official standing spots, elevated slightly above the first row of standers, who were slightly above the stadium seating in the far right side of the balcony. There were screens with the text in English, German, or French for about every two people. Thankfully, I was surrounded by Brits and an Australian. I can't read German quickly enough.

The lights dimmed, the audience applauded as the conductor walked to his place, and the orchestra played. For half of the first scene, we couldn't see a THING. Anna Netrebko began singing beautifully as a despairing Anne Boleyn, who just realized that Henry VIII lost interest in her, but she was standing out of view. We worried. Deeply.

Thankfully, she moved eventually. The choreography was excellent in that respect--we saw something interesting at least half the time! ;)

The costumes! Ooooh the costumes were brilliant! Beautiful, rich, velvety Tudor dresses and poofy man-sleeves. Purples and reds and blues. Long, silky, brunette hair on Anna and blond hair on Giovanna (i.e. Jane) Seymour.

Giovanna was played by Elina Garanca. She and Anna Netrebko were absolutely amazing. Their parts were both so full of emotion (um, hello, it's a tragic opera) and their voices gave me chills (that's a good thing). They are both coming to the Met this fall for its production of Anna Bolena; I might go see it again. Not even joking. They were that good.

By intermission, my feet hurt. But I was doing all right! Surviving! Yes! We wandered about and got drinks. My champagne was six euros: twice the price of my ticket.

I found the evening's composer:

We were so glad we dressed up. We'd be quite out of place otherwise. I did see one or two women in jeans, but for the most part, they were all in lovely dresses.

During the second half, my feet complained. Everyone began a subtle, uncoordinated dance, shifting back and forth between feet, leaning on the rail, stretching calves, balancing on one foot... Occasionally, someone sat on the floor and just listened for a while. It was ideal when someone in front of me did this--then I saw so MUCH!

The opera ended as history predicted. Quite dramatically and tragically.

We gave it a standing ovation. ;)

But no seriously, everyone did.

Anna Nebtreko is blurrily in purple, Elina Garanca blurrily in blue:

I must say, overall, three euros was a steal and standing through the pain was well worth it.

We caught the U-Bahn back uptown and found some delicious gelato. Ein Kugel Ferrero Rocher und ein Kugel Baileys Eis, bitte! Finally, we returned to our hotel and called it a pretty much perfect Friday. :)

***If you are interested in getting standing-room tickets at the Wiener Staatsoper, this is a good description on how to do it.***

Stomach. Wien und Praha, Part VI

2011-04-17T19:10:00.002-04:00

A wee update on my running life: I'm registered for the Philadelphia ODDyssey Half Marathon on May 22nd. However, between the NYC Half and the Vienna trip, I experienced sharp pains in my right shin, bad enough that I visited the doctor. We agreed that I wouldn't run on the trip and would ice it and take lots and lots of ibuprofen. Now that I'm back, I'm gingerly attempting to run again. Saturday's 1.2-miler was fine, though afterward, that same ol' place on my shin was sore. So, I'm continuing to ice and praying that everything heals in time for a semi-decent race. :)

Also: AUDREY is running the Boston Marathon tomorrow!! YOU GO GIRL!

A wee update on my baking life: I just made pretzels! Beautiful, soft, salty pretzels!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 7th, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During the workshop, I ate breakfast at my Hotel Alexander every morning. Every morning, I happily mixed nuts, granola, canned pineapple, and canned peaches into (most likely whole fat) strawberry yogurt. I drank a big glass of multivitaminsaft (multi-vitamin juice) and several mugs of coffee with milk. A couple days, I was hungry enough for bread with Nutella, too. Delicious. :) I enjoyed sleepy conversations with whichever of the boys (I was the only girl at the workshop) stumbled down at the same time.

Upon arrival at WPI, we'd fill plastic mugs with more coffee and milk, and grab a couple of tasty Viennese cookies for the morning talks. My favorites involved chocolate. Always.

Lunches varied. I'm sorry to say that I actually had a wrap from McDonald's on the day of my talk; I was in a hurry, it was there, it was fast. This was only the second time I've been to a McD's outside of the U.S., I think, so perhaps I'm still okay. ;) My favorite lunch routine was when we ate at a little Italian place (good garlic soup and pizza) and then got espresso (are you counting?).

The fabulous workshop admin lady replaced breakfast refreshments with afternoon refreshments by the time we returned: ALL NEW cookies, and of course, MORE coffee. My favorite afternoon cookie was a Biscuit d'Orange.

All of this was good, but by Wednesday, I was sincerely missing these:

Thankfully, there's a supermarket near the hotel! :)

When I returned to my room that afternoon, I was amused to see that the maid realized I was using both blankets and made my bed with both:

The conference organizer/fearless leader set up dinner for about 25/30 of us at 8pm. I was quite sure I could see a bunch of the city before then, so I immediately set out with my camera.

Just north of the hotel and campus is the Wien Energie power plant designed by Hundertwasser:

Turning around and heading back south, I wandered parallel to the Danube (die Donau) Canal until I could cross to the wonderful paved pedestrian path along its eastern banks.

I saw so many runners ALL over Vienna. I was quite inspired, and also quite jealous. :) The Vienna Marathon was TODAY! Wouldn't that be a fun one to do?

I crossed back to the western banks...

...and found evidence that spring arrived in Austria and reasons for my sniffly nose! :)

I happened upon the Servitenkirche:

And beautiful, hand-painted signs that Easter is coming:

This is for my dad, the rest of our family, and memories of Muppets:

Soon, the graceful spires of the Votivkirche rose above rooftops along with the moon:

It, like Stephansdom, appeared to be under renovation.

Just a bit up the road was the Rathaus (town hall):

The bicycle crossing man amuses me:

Hee.

Behind the Rathaus was a huge crowd of people, enjoying a lot of booze, while listening to some guy on a guitar.

I couldn't figure out who it was, because it was suddenly 7:40pm and I was halfway across town from dinner! Aaagh! Thankfully, a metro stop was right there and the connections were fast. I arrived quite sweaty and disheveled only a couple of minutes late. Score!

The restaurant was called Stomach. It was tiny, but quite lovely. I had a great dark beer, incredible duck with white beans and pesto (made of some delicious green I had never heard of and can't remember), and fried goat cheese with strawberries for dessert. SO GOOD.

One of the physicists, Edmund, brought his Australian archaeologist girlfriend and her two colleagues. I sat at the end of the table with them and another physicist. It was so refreshing to discuss non-physics! We heard fantastic stories of Egyptian travels and sarcophagi being smuggled out in the 1940s in Swedish submarine torpedo tubes and such.

We were pleased to meet the restaurant's adorable kitty:

Made me miss MY kitty! ;)

There was talk of visiting a Scottish pub (in Vienna) afterward, but the groups got split up and I was glad to go to sleeeeep!

Nights out. Wien und Praha, Part V

2011-04-15T21:52:00.003-04:00

I'm home now! With Faraday, my nail clippers, fruit smoothies, and regular-sized shampoo. It's the little things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 5, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the conclusion of this day, I bought a week pass for the metro and took the U-Bahn down to the beautiful old Vienna city center. I met Chris and Hannah at Stephansdom (Stephan's Cathedral). This lovely couple are friends of Meg, live in Massachusetts, and were in town for a different conference. We ate at Figlmüller's Weinhaus:

It was wonderful! We had their house red wine, a delicious pumpkin-seed-oil potato salad, and grilled chicken. Loverly.

After, we walked around a bit and found this beautiful face:

Well hello.

I also got my first view of the Wiener Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera house):

Breathtaking.

Finally, while waiting for the tram back to my hotel, we admired Astronaut Barbie:

Heehee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 6, 2011
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Wednesday, after a full day at the workshop, I decided to eat on my own (forgoing the expensive restaurant the group chose) and try to find the Belvedere before it closed. On the way to the U-Bahn stop, there was a small döner kebap shop. I. Love. Döner. Deliciousness. I arrived at the Karlsplatz stop and stepped out to see the amazing Karlskirche:

The Belvedere is not far from the church building, but I couldn't find it. I walked around in circles and ended up in cute shopping areas. I found gelato. It was yummy.

Finally, I returned to Karlsplatz, after the museum would've closed. Sigh. I was about to get back on the train, when I saw the opera house in the distance! So I walked up there.

They were broadcasting Das Rheingold, live from inside, on a huge screen!

At least fifty people were bundled up and sitting on plastic chairs to enjoy free, high-quality Wagner:

I took my dear D-tram back up to the Hotel Alexander. On the way, however, we smelled smoke and stopped suddenly. Several firetrucks were blocking the road, fighting a fire in a beautiful building in front of us. We got out and watched the flames rise from the top and smoke billow around us. When our eyes began stinging and we started coughing, we shut ourselves in the tram. About ten minutes later, the trucks moved and let us by. I hope everyone inside was okay. :( For the rest of the night, my chest was a little tight, but it was fine in the morning. Surreal.

when it rains... Wien und Praha, Part IV?

2011-04-13T10:31:00.001-04:00

Having seen what I want to see in this, my budget-ish visit to Prague, coupled with cold, drizzly, windy weather: I am cafe-hopping. I should probably lay off the espresso...maybe find a nice glass of wine next.

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"You think everything is so close." Wien und Praha, Part III

2011-04-10T16:33:00.002-04:00

Karlskirche, a photo by moosicalmath on Flickr.

The internets don't want to upload all of my photos today. Here's the one that slipped past the guards and posted! This, my friends, is Karlskirche, near Karlsplatz, Wien, Österreich.

I've had such a lovely time in Vienna! The workshop ended well (er...my last days were good; it's still going on without me now). I have new directions for my research and a better understanding of my colleagues' work. Best of all, I got to know more interesting people and became quite familiar with a beautiful new city!

A European friend this week said, "you Americans come over here and think everything is so close."

But it is.

If you consider that I grew up on the west coast and routinely roadtripped with my family for 30 hours through only three *states*.

I moved to the east coast, and realized that I could drive through at least *five* states in *three* hours (depending on traffic).

So European country-hopping? No probleeem.

Today, I jaunted off to Bratislava, Slovakia, for a few hours. It's only 14 Euros roundtrip for the hour-long train ride from Vienna. I had a terrific time by myself in a new country and will post many pictures of that someday, too! :D

Tonight, I'm spending my last night in Austria. :(

Tomorrow, I'm off to the Czech Republic!!! Stay tuned for details of my third country in two days! Ha!

Stress-free! Wien und Praha, Part II

2011-04-05T13:08:00.002-04:00

This is kind of how I felt at midnight last night, while I was editing slides...

...I gave my talk today! It was moved up from Thursday, so I had a very late night of last-minute preparations, which even continued this morning up to noon. I gave it at 2:30, didn't die, and don't have to worry as much for the rest of the workshop. Sweet.

In the last three days, I've eaten two meals of Schnitzel (fried breaded pork) and one of Cordon Bleu (fried breaded chicken stuffed with ham and cheese), accompanied by really good and quite-vinegared potatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage. Today, I am avoiding the fried-breaded-deliciousness. I'll have more before I leave...

To get to WPI, where the workshop is held, we walk around or through the University of Vienna and some very interesting buildings, which remind me of space pods at a space station:

I adore this tram station:

And this sweet graffiti:

Heeheehee.

This is the largest sign we've found indicating where WPI actually is, which led to a few lost physicists Monday morning:

Finally, I must leave for dinner in the city center (finally, on my third evening here, I'll see the pretty downtown!). Enjoy these pictures from my hotel bathroom:

Pretty sure I've never seen such amusing English choices in Europe before.

Tschüss!

Guten Tag, Wien! Wien und Praha Part I

2011-04-03T17:09:00.001-04:00

Still in a jetlag-stupor, from only sleeping an hour or so on the flight and another hour in my hotel room, I am nonetheless happily in Vienna!

The flight over was smooth. I was impressed by Lufthansa's selection of food and beverages (particularly the complimentary wine and post-dinner Bailey's or brandy). My seat was beautifully an aisle in the middle five of our big 747. Though my nearest neighbor snored, he was pleasant when awake! Our connection in Frankfurt was tight, but both my advisor and I made it with ten minutes to spare.

And my passport received its third German entrance stamp.

Sadly, it means I didn't get an Austrian stamp. Silly EU.

A driver and prof from MIT were waiting for us and we drove off through green and sunny Österreich! Seriously: it's like 75 degrees.

At my hotel, I took an amazing hot shower. So long, travel grime! I met up with a plasma buddy and we ventured out to find a Geldautomat (ATM) and real food. Gyros and a beer composed my first Austrian meal. :)

After a thorough nap, finishing Mockingjay WHICH I STARTED ON THE PLANE IN NEWARK, uunpacking, and perusing my Vienna guidebook, I found more plasma people in the lobby. We walked to the other hotel (the posh one with our bosses/advisors), found a very Austrian pub, and I ate Wienerschnitzel. In Wien. :D

(It tasted exactly like Schnitzel in Berlin, but don't tell anyone.)

Finally, I'm back in my room, ready to drift off to dreamland any second.

Gute Nacht!

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Backen auf Deutsch, Part IX: #18 Kokos-Lamingtons

2011-04-02T09:33:00.002-04:00

Heute fliege ich nach Wien, Österreich! Today, I'm flying to Vienna, Austria! In honor of a German-speaking land, here's the latest installment in Backen auf Deutsch.

Our March birthdays at lab were Nik and Jeff. Nik specifically requested walnut brownies, and I specifically wanted to bake out of 1 Teig, 100 Kuchen again, so I did both.

I had most of the ingredients for this recipe, so my decision was easy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#18 Kokos-Lamingtons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kokos=coconut
Lamington=Lamington

As always, I started baking pretty late. Like around 9pm.

Thankfully these are super easy and the batter tastes suuuper good:

I'm getting so good at measuring using my food scale. I needed 360 grams (I doubled the entire thing) of sugar, and would you look at that??

Mmhmm.

Awesome Mixer Version 2 arrived recently (Version 1 stopped working entirely, so Sears mailed me another) and made mixing the batter a breeze:

The batter was a lovely, light vanilla-cake-batter flavor. Nicely contrasted with the rich Ghiradelli brownie batter.

While the cake baked, I decided to give you a mini-tour of highlights in my apartment.

First, naturally, there is Faraday, meine Katze:

Next, here are my most recent medals, meine Medaillen:

Turning to the bookshelf, we find the books (meine Bücher) read by my book club, FTC (The Finer Things Club):

Minus The Hunger Games, which was out on loan.

A shelf over, the books I intend to read are chillin':

I get to start Mockingjay today on the trip; I'm soooo excited. It's a terrific series!

Books I'm currently reading adorn the coffee table:

I'm not a good monogamous reader.

Finally, these beauties were done!

They needed to COMPLETELY cool...but it was about 10pm and I was getting sleepy. So, the cakes sat only as long as it look to mix up chocolate frosting.

After pouring in the dry ingredients, all 1080 grams of them:

I questioned the directions. Only ten Tblsp of melted butter and 2/3 cup boiling water for all of this???

That's what it said.

I trusted it.

It worked!! I'm in awe.

The cake was definitely NOT cool, but I had to get movin'. I cut it into cubes, added a cube to the frosting, rolled it around...and it mooshed. Yep. I squished it together, rolled it in coconut:

And continued for a few, sad more:

Finally, in total frustration, I decided to turn the batch into cake balls:

I TOTALLY ENJOYED mashing the warm cake into the soft frosting. It was glorious. I mixed in coconut, rolled it up into little balls, and refrigerated them until morning:

The brownies had their own special problems. I aimed for chewy and slammed right into gooey. We ended up buying vanilla ice cream and serving the "brownies" like hot fudge! It was DELICIOUS. The boys were thoroughly satisfied.

The cake balls were also a complete success! A couple people said the combination reminded them of pralines. They were enjoyed all week, because I made so many. Yeeeeaah!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changes made:
~doubled the recipe
~turned it into cake balls instead of Lamingtons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next time would:
~Try cooling the cake completely. Like forever.
~Attempt to actually make Lamingtons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perfect for:
People who like coconut and rich chocolate!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BURGERS!

2011-03-25T10:27:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've been making all sorts of burgers. Delicious, flavorful burgers.

Oh wait. Not this kind:

MEATLESS burgers! Veggie burgers! Yes!

Don't run screaming. These taste nothing like beef, and I don't eat them like they should taste like beef. They are not cow-replacements, or those weird frozen veggie things.

This week, I made falafel burgers and ate them in a pita with yogurt sauce (Greek yogurt, scallions, parsley, and salt). I made kidney bean burgers using that recipe a couple of weeks ago (with the beans replacing chick peas, naturally), and they were delicious with veggies, salsa, chips, and cheese. I'm going to experiment with mini black bean burgers (and salsa) as appetizers for a book club meeting next week--I'll post the results (if they are worth sharing).

An old stand-by is lentil burgers, from Women's Running magazine from May/June 2010. It's an easy, delicious recipe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lentil Burgers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 cup cooked lentils
1 diced onion
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 chopped garlic cloves
1 Tbsp cumin
1/2 tsp cayenne powder
salt and pepper to taste

Combine everything in a food processor:

Form into patties. Heat a bit of oil and cook the patties over medium-high heat for three to four minutes per side.

Serve on a bun, with some grains, or just some vegetables and greek yogurt.

Veggies like kale chips! Take this:

And this:

And bake it 'til it's crispy:

Mmmm.

I'm going to run again tomorrow, for the first time since the race. It's been a great little break, but I'm ready to MOVE!

NYC Half Marathon, March 20, 2011

2011-03-20T21:53:00.003-04:00

This was an awesome race! My goal was to start conservatively, speed up outside of the park, and run around a 10:30 pace. Mission: ACCOMPLISHED! Out of four half marathons, it's my second-best. :D

First, we had to get to NYC. NJ Transit is normally convenient and reliable for me, but it hated Aud and me this weekend. After 45 minutes sitting on a still train with a system-wide power outage, getting dropped off at another station, ten minutes watching three cops run up and down the train aisles with no explanation, we got moving and arrived in the city only two hours later than planned.

We briskly walked fifteen blocks downtown to the race expo, where we got our bibs, new tech-tees, and swag bag (microwave popcorn, elastic exercise band, and Axe shower gel anyone?). The expo was disappointing; it was small and had no free samples. What?! I know. I did grab a flier for a marathon in Ireland...

Quite hungry by this time, we stopped at the first hole-in-the-wall bagel shop we found. So delicious. Then we subwayed up to Lincoln Center, had coffee and a cookie in a European-style cafe, and saw the 18th or 19th movie adaption of Jane Eyre. It was really good! Jane Eyre isn't my favorite story (Mr. Rochester is no Mr. Darcy), but it was a beautiful rendition.

Continuing uptown on the 2, we arrived at her aunt- and uncle-in-law's Harlem apartment. They sweetly made us a huge batch of spaghetti and gave us the run of their beautiful three-story brownstone. We called it an early night after the first episode of North and South (continuing with British period dramas).

~~~~~~~

Aaah race mornings. They dawn so early. 5:30am is no time to eat a toasted peanut butter sandwich, yet it must be done. We couldn't figure out their coffee contraption, so we drank some black tea. And water.

We alternated briskly walking a block and lightly jogging two blocks in the dark for the 1.5 miles to the race's start at 95th and Central Park's East Drive. The moon was full and bright, hanging low over the buildings across the pond. After dropping off her sweats at the baggage drop and standing in the porta-potty line for ten minutes, we split up. She got to start way up in the 4th corral; I was back in the 10th. There were 14 or 15 total!

I froze. It was about 35 degrees. I did meet a friend from Daily Mile for the first time in person! We exchanged bib numbers online, but were shocked that we actually found each other in the corral. His planned time was faster than mine, though, so we separated as soon as we started.

Finally, at 7:30am, we were off! We inched toward the start line, and actually crossed it around 7:40.

Here are the elites running away:

The first eight miles were in Central Park--that's about 1.3 laps. I had heard the hills in Central Park were hard, but seriously, after the Seattle Marathon, those were NOT hills. ;) They were short and gradual enough and we had plenty of downhill to recover. I'm glad we only had eight miles in the Park...I was only just getting tired of it when we left.

Here I am around the 10k mark!

We entered the city at 7th Ave. Running through the skyscrapers was incredible. My slowest miles were the two including Times Square--I guess I was too enamored by the sights. ;) This is apparently the only annual event which completely closes Times Square, besides New Year's Eve. The crowds were great too! They had "Broadway stars" leading a sing-along (complete with lyrics on a screen behind them).

They got FIVE photos of me scrunching my nose:

Aren't you glad I shared one of them?

Then, we turned right on 42nd, entered the home stretch and headed south on the West Side Highway. Around mile 10.5, I started to get a bit mentally unsettled, but calmed down by reminding myself that we had less than a 5k left. I can focus for that long. The last three miles were speedy! The Hudson and even Jersey City were pretty in the sunshine. DJs pumped music every half a mile or so, and the sidewalks were filled with supportive cheering squads. I personally liked the "800m to go!", "400m to go!", and "200m to go!" signs, though they drove Audrey nuts. ;)

My last 200m dash was super strong!

I finished with an official time of ***2:17:51***.

Whew!

It was better than both Philly halves (#1 and #3 [I apparently wished to forget it and didn't blog it]), but not Asbury Park (#2). In terms of course, it's by far my favorite.

I received my shiny medal, space blanket, and recovery food bag. I've never gotten a recovery food bag--usually bananas, bagels, fruit cups, etc are on tables for the taking. It was not impressive. The bag contained pretzels, a water bottle, and a smashed, rotten apple. Great. That is my only big complaint about the race.

Audrey was waiting for me by the baggage claim. She PR-ed with a 1:36:42! That qualifies her for the NYC Marathon (outright--no entering the lottery). You know, to go with her Boston Marathon, for which she qualified last year and is running next month. She's my hero. :)

Joining about twenty other space-blanket-clad runners, we bought bananas, juice, and lattes at Starbucks with sweaty bills kept safe in our running gear's mini-pockets. Then, we shivered on the looong subway ride from Battery Park up to Harlem.

After a refreshing shower and lovely chat with her family, we walked up and over to Columbia to meet my friend Sarah for brunch! The walk was hazardous--an uneven sidewalk landed me on my hands and knees. My favorite jeans ripped and I lost a dime-sized patch of skin on my palm. Boo. :( Sarah provided me with neosporin and bandaids. All will be well. A plate of home fries, whole wheat toast, a brie-apple-bacon omelet, and a Bellini hit the spot!

One more subway ride, fifteen minutes of a delayed NJ Transit train (*shakes fist*), and seventy-five minutes of napping later we were back in Princeton. Whew!

Overall? If you can get in, RUN THIS RACE!

Happy Birthday, Faraday, and Welcome, Spring!

2011-03-17T13:59:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, March 17th, St. Patty's Day, my little kitty turned two. Yes, I know his birthday--or at least the day his adoption papers claim it is! They also claim that he was born on Staten Island, and the rest of his short history is described in this post.

He used to be so little!

Now he's kind of big:

I, naturally, have an album devoted to Faraday, if you need more cute pictures. (Just IMAGINE how many pictures I'll take of my possible-future-children!)

It's an incredible 80 degrees today in NJ. My windows are wide open, letting in bird chirps from the trees and crew coach yells from the lake. The breeze is cool and smells so FRESH!

Tomorrow: Audrey and I head to Manhattan to attend the race expo, see the new Jane Eyre movie, spend the night with her relatives-in-law, and run the NYC Half Marathon on Sunday. My right leg has been bothering me, and her ankle's bothering her, so here's hoping we race intelligently and finish strong and whole. ;)

Beautiful Ruins

2011-03-12T14:46:00.001-05:00

I found this on my run this morning. Isn't it gorgeous? The sunshine glittered on the flooded forest floor. One week to the NYC Half!

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er...here's the picture.

2011-03-09T18:15:00.001-05:00

Silly blogger app.

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HR1, CR, Members, and the Hill People

2011-03-09T18:09:00.001-05:00

Do you like the picture? While trying to remain professional, I could only snap a quickie as we left the House's side to catch a cab to the Senate's turf. I've been to DC more times than I could list, but my West Coast heart still gets a jolt of tourist-excitement whenever I visit.

Wandering around the Rayburn, Cannon, and Hart buildings was pretty sweet. They are definitely nice office buildings, with normal people running about their daily business, with interns and older staffers, with cafeterias and long lunch lines. But then one notices the nameplates...of House Reps, Senators, and committees which determine to a very large part how our country runs, plans, and spends. One sees Charles Rangel and Ron Paul in the sub basement walkway between House buildings. Whoa.

I've never been particularly political, but most researchers in fusion energy (and other mainly government-funded disciplines) have to take an interest. You know, if we want jobs and futures. Whatevs.

It's more than that, though. It's energy independence, global leadership, and a BETTER AMERICA GOSH DARN IT.

Ahem.

So, today was highly educational. I learned the actual budget situation: the proposal which would devastate US fusion research but probably won't pass, the next proposal which is bare-bones what we need and not progressive. The offices we visited agree with and understand our concerns. Hopefully, they can convince their colleagues that while cutting government spending is important, don't do it here!

Sidenote: I met my advisor's grad school officemate and ate delicious frozen yogurt. Not at the same time.

In closing, SUPPORT ENERGY AND SCIENCE RESEARCH!

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Now...why am I leaving on a train??

2011-03-08T16:12:00.001-05:00

I love trains. I've taken them from Seattle to Olympia, from NYC to NC, from Trenton to Boston, from Munich to Berlin, from Tangier to Fez. I get to take one in April from Vienna to Prague (and hopefully from Vienna to Bratislava). Today? Trenton to DC, to have a chat with members of Congress (or at least their staffers) about their commitment to a little thing called science.

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Backen auf Deutsch, Part VIII: #83 Karamellisierter Apfelkuchen

2011-02-25T19:18:00.002-05:00

Welcome to another Backen auf Deutsch post!

First. I'm sitting on one of my Moroccan leather poufs, exhausted after a full day of moderating for the NJ Middle School Science Bowl. It was a blast! I love the students' enthusiasm. Tomorrow, we get to do it all over again with the high schoolers. SCIENCE!

I will probably go to bed at 8pm. Not even joking.

On Wednesday, I registered for my third marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon!

They are ALREADY sold out. This race is going to be awesome.

To prove that I still knit, on this here "physikerin knits" blog, here's a picture of the afghan I recently finished for Meg and Luc's wedding. Which, if we're counting, was four months ago.

(pre-woven-in-ends)
Here's their full gift ("a date night in"):

Public Service Announcement: Wegman's olives are yummy, but do not come in shatter-proof jars.

Boo.

Now on to CAKE! This was for our graduate department's February birthday club.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#83 Karamellisierter Apfelkuchen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karamellisierter=caramelized
Apfel=apple
Kuchen=cake

I turned on some Doctor Who or Catherine Tate Show and set to it. To fill a 13x9 pan, I doubled the recipe. The batter is a simple vanilla cake with lemon zest and LOTS of butter:

The topping is the labor-intensive part. Take beautiful Granny Smith apples:

Do this to them:

And finally this:

An apple-peeler-corer would've been useful.

I did not need to double the apples; I had about two apples' worth of slices leftover, so I saved them for my breakfast smoothies.

Have you ever made caramel? The process was like MAGIC! I added a ton of butter, a barrel of sugar, and a bit of water to a pan over low heat and started stirring. The butter melted and mixed with the sugar to form a grainy paste. I stirred and stirred. I checked the directions again closely and stirred some more. Just when I was about to doubt my German and find the dictionary, the grainy paste miraculously and almost instantaneously dissolved into a smooth, bubbling, brown caramel mixture! It was beautiful. Go try it.

(I should have taken pictures.)

Now, this cake is an upside-down cake. First, I spread caramel on the bottom of the greased 13x9 pan. Then, after dipping the apple slices in lemon juice, I set them into the soft caramel. Finally, I spread cake batter on top:

After a good 50 minutes and most of a Tom Baker episode later, the cake was golden-brown. Remember how it's an upside-down cake? Yeah, I needed to get this:

Onto this cookie sheet:

...before it cooled too much and the caramel stuck to the bottom. Right. So, ready, set, pray hard, flip-the-super-hot-glass-pan-over-onto-the-cookie-sheet-GO!

PRAISE THE LORD! I DIDN'T BREAK ANYTHING!

But will it lift off without destroying the cake? Hmm...

YES! YES IT WILL!!!!

There were some losses:

But I dealt. With a spoon. And knife.

Sadly, I couldn't serve it warm. It should be. The grads once again devoured it anyway. Barbara brought vanilla ice cream, too! The cake is quite moist and dense, the caramel super sweet, and the apples let us pretend it had some nutritional value. Overall: success!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changes made:
~Doubled the recipe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next time would:
~Serve it warm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perfect for:
~Breakfast
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And finally, I leave you with a picture of Man-Who-Wishes-He-Could-Attack-the-Geese:

Isn't he TALL?

Okay, maybe I'll be in bed by 9pm. Goodnight! :)

Post-run bliss

2011-02-19T15:21:00.001-05:00

Nothin' like chocolate soy milk after ten miles in 30mph winds with 42mph gusts.

This should be closely followed by a hot shower, real food, and a mocha.

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Guess what I'm doing?

2011-02-18T20:02:00.001-05:00

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Buffalo (Chicken)

2011-02-18T14:18:00.004-05:00

While I don't remember the first moment I knew I was in love with buffalo sauce, I'm quite sure the feeling won't fade anytime soon. Buffalo chicken pizza, buffalo chicken salad, buffalo chicken wraps, buffalo chicken dip, buffalo chicken WINGS (of course), buffalo chicken nachos...and now "buffalo" looks very strange.

Buffalo chicken pizza is the preferred Mover Payment of Choice for Meg and I. Buy us some and we just might unload your moving van for you.

Buffalo chicken wraps and salads are occasionally served the lab cafeteria. They are basically the only meal I'll buy from lab, as I prefer to pack my lunch. Kelsey and I wait eagerly for Buffalo Chicken Day and are CRUSHED, absolutely devastated, when the online cafeteria menu lies and they don't serve it.

Do I go too far? Nay. It is not possible.

Recently, I've fallen in love with buffalo (chicken) nachos and buffalo chicken dip.

We'll start with the dip.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buffalo Chicken Dip
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the recipe, and here are some pictures:

Frank's Red Hot sauce is incredible. It's good on ANYTHING.

This is why one shouldn't eat this dip very often:

Green! Green!

Yummy:

Will my fellow Super Bowl party attendees notice?

No, because ya mix it all up:

I served it at a Super Bowl party with celery, chips, and cheddar wafers:

It was a MAJOR hit.

Kelsey pointed out that it would be good in a wrap with a ton of lettuce.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buffalo (Chicken) Nachos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night I made these nachos, I didn't have chicken. Otherwise, I'd prepare it as for the dip.

My nachos are fairly self-explanatory and usually involve whatever looks particularly delicious in my fridge. Be creative!

Start with chips:

Grate a lot of cheese (cheddar or pepper jack? Whatevs) and toss in some feta or blue cheese:

Chop up some pretty veggies:

Throw it onto a cookie sheet:

And broil it on high for a few minutes, until the cheese melts and the chips start to burn (right before the smoke alarm goes off):

Try to artfully transfer to a plate and fail miserably:

Note that you probably need more cheese, then enjoy!

Love it.

Today was absolutely gorgeous--it was a sunny 71 degrees F this afternoon! The spring weather is making me crave fresh fruit and veggies badly. (I ate so many carrots, green beans, and apple slices at lunch that I couldn't finish my sandwich.) The farm share should start up in a couple of months! The snow has melted enough to let me run all over again! I'm so excited for my ten-miler tomorrow! My next race is in just over a month! Yaaay!

Loves

2011-02-14T21:37:00.002-05:00

My Valentine (the cute fluffy one on the right) used his allowance to buy me this beautiful new pair of Brooks Glycerin 8s:

Isn't that the sweetest??

After he gave them to me today, he posed for a photo shoot:

Hope your days (all of them) are filled with love!

Jess, Faraday, and the awesomest new purple pair of running shoes.

Backen auf Deutsch, Part VII: #24 Bienenkorb

2011-02-08T18:30:00.003-05:00

Here's the first Backen auf Deutsch installment of 2011! I was commissioned to bake the dessert for our graduate department's January birthday party. (If you give me money for ingredients, I'll bake you a cake, too.) We had two birthday-folk: Lee and Clayton.

As you possibly have gathered, it's wintery over here.

So, I chose a bright, sunny, cheery recipe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#24 Bienenkorb
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bienenkorb=beehive

Isn't that adorable?? As I don't have the correct pan, mine looked different, but it turned out all right.

I love cooking with my food scale. Dump, dump, dump. No measuring cups needed.

The batter was divine. Freshly-squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest made it taste like summer. Or at least spring...

Considering how all previous cakes have been smaller than expected, I doubled the recipe. It perfectly filled two nine-inch round cake tins.

Faraday wanted to help:

He's a bit big for a shoulder-cat, isn't he?

My new neighbors, Nadine and Raphael, came over to use the internet. They happen to be German! Once she finished checking email, I recruited her to make marzipan bees with me. Just like the marzipan bat situation, I dyed my fingers black for two days. The bees were much easier to mold and completely adorable.

(She made the two little marzipan Bienenkörbe.)

Nadine and I are slowly speaking more German to each other. Er, I'm slowly speaking more with her--she's clearly quite comfortable with the language. ;) Understatement of the post: speaking a foreign language is so much harder than reading it.

The icing was an amazing confection of butter, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and honey (it was a beehive cake, after all). I was skeptical and thought it might taste like my honey-lemon cough drops, but it didn't.

We attempted to created more of a beehive shape by cutting out a circle from one layer, sticking it on top of the bottom layer, and arranging the leftover cake pieces around it at an angle. We used a lot of toothpicks. We had issues frosting it, even though I used my new spreader:

It looked mostly not-sad:

The bees saved it!

Heehee. We couldn't stop giggling at our cake crawling with insects.

We were charmed.

Also that day, I whipped up homemade oreos (but didn't cover them in chocolate), just in case people didn't like the cake or there wasn't enough.

(See the new cake carrier?? Love it.)

I'm thrilled to report that this cake was DELICIOUS and devoured so quickly that I barely saved one piece from the jaws of a second-year grad student for Lee, who actually missed his birthday party.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changes made:
~Doubled the recipe to fit two nine-inch round cake tins
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next time would:
~not bother fiddling with the shape and just cover it in bees
~well, maybe add more bees
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perfect for:
~people who like honey and lemon
~anyone who likes super cute little bees
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My next baking purchase will be this pan. Guess what I'm baking in the near future and I'll mail you a batch of cookies.

Running. And purchases.

2011-02-07T21:50:00.005-05:00

I'm going a little stir-crazy. At least where running is concerned. After tripping on crunchy snow last week and smashing my knee (it's still purple) and narrowly missing being hit by a car, and then slipping and sliding on ice while clinging to a guardrail which, minutes later, was hit by a skidding car, I'm doing the right thing and giving up. I am. I'm giving up on running in my beautiful outdoors until this snow recedes. COME ON, SNOW. RETREAT ALREADY.

I'm a little slow, I know. Rachel yelled at me.

So that means...the treadmill. (Or the 8x100 indoor track.) Today, I was MOST pleasantly surprised, I had a terrific treadmill run! It was absolutely enjoyable! I credit Pandora's awesome Ladytron and Basshunter playlists. May they be as motivational next time.

After treadmilling, I chauffeured Kelsey and Nadine to the grocery store, where we spent too much time so I became RAVENOUS.

This saved my life, and my passengers' lives, too, probably:

I also impulse-bought something. I succumbed to the pretty label. I bought this:

SOLELY because it is "Moroccan". The baby blue doesn't hurt either, but Morocco really catches my eye. Want to sell me something? There you go. (This is, incidentally, similar to how I buy wine. True story: tonight I bought a bottle of Merlot from this vineyard.)

Faraday just woke up from his nap, purred, and is staring at me. Perhaps I should go cuddle him.

Ice World

2011-02-02T13:21:00.001-05:00

The ice is melting and turning the world into a soggy, soggy place, but it sure is pretty!

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"OPEN YOUR MOOOOUTH!" or, World Traveler Visits New Jersey

2011-01-31T17:55:00.003-05:00

My middle sister, Amy, age 21.88, is pretty cool. A few years ago, she lived in Japan, teaching English to Kindergartners. A couple months after that, she attended school in Sweden for a semester. Two years ago, she and I visited Morocco. Last year, she moved there for six whole months and Mom, Dad, and I visited her. (Oops. There's a blog thread I never finished. Heh.) After all of that exciting travel, guess which exotic location was next on her list???

NEW JERSEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

She arrived late one Thursday, exhausted, but excited to see her favorite (ahem, only) older sister and of course, Faraday.

I greeted her with a crayon-ed sign, because that's the best!

We slept in. I made her a latte and a green smoothie. I headed off to lab for a few hours and left her with Faraday, my laptop, and the espresso machine (the girl's a barista, when not touring the world; she'll need seconds).

While flapping away with FORTRAN, I received this adorable picture:

That evening, ten friends, Amy, and I had dinner at the most amazing restaurant in the area: Banzai Hibachi Grill. We always order the hibachi dinner, which comes with salad bar, soup, fried rice, noodles, shrimp, and two or three of chicken, scallops, or steak, PLUS ice cream (red bean or green tea are the best). We also have to get warm sake, because that's amazing. So much food. SO much. It's all grilled right in front of you with massive amounts of garlic by super enthusiastic chefs who ridicule you the whole time! Awesome! They make flaming onion volcanoes, blow fire all around, squirt cooking alcohol into your mouth with condiment squirt bottles, and throw vegetables at you. (The last two actions are accompanied by "OPEN YOUR MOOOOUTH!!!", which became the catchphrase of our sister weekend.)

Here is our chef (and Meg):

One always leaves Banzai reeking of garlic and with enough leftovers for at LEAST one more filling meal. Love it.

Saturday morning, dearest Amy and I took the train up to NYC. Dear, eight-degrees-Fahrenheit NYC. Yes. It was cold. We stepped out of Penn Station and froze. We found the nearest Starbucks and warmed up.

We froze in Times Square:

We found Magnolia Bakery in Rockefeller Center and warmed up:

Mocha.

Chocolate orange.

Delicious.

We visited a few more stores and froze. We warmed up in the Olive Garden. (Soup, salad, and breadsticks for girls on a budget, baby. Plus lots of seating in the theater district. Plus clean, empty bathrooms.)

Finally, it was time to line up at the Minskoff Theater for the matinee showing of the LION KING!!!

It. Was. So. Cold. Have I mentioned? Can you truly understand how cold the single digits are? Probably a bunch of you can. Minnesotans and Wisconsinites. *shivers*

THEN IT WAS TIME TO GO INSIDE!

We had terrific seats, right in the center and near the front of the mezzanine. We sat next to a darling three-year-old boy, who remained quietly enthralled the entire show. The Lion King was incredible. COMPLETELY incredible. Rafiki opened the show with her (yes, Rafiki is played by a woman) unbelievably strong voice and gave me goosebumps.

(source)

The animals slowly and majestically lumbered on stage from all directions; some were even up with us! The entire thing was so gorgeous and inspiring that I choked up for most of it. I know, I know. I felt a lot like this (thanks Piper!):

BUT I AM SERIOUS. YOU SHOULD GO SEE IT. IT WAS WORTH THE EXORBITANT AMOUNT OF MONEY IT COST. (But Ticketmaster Person, you are the lowest form of human being for charging me $2 to email the tickets to myself.)

Later that evening, Amy the Sweetheart bought me dinner! We had yummy Turkish food at Akdeniz. I've been there a few times (including with our brother David) and it is always delicious. (The servers aren't bad, either...)

Chilled to the bone, we decided to hoof it and catch an early train home. Good thing--we were exhausted.

Sunday, we went to church, where she got to meet some more of my friends. We enjoyed an afternoon in Princeton, wandering around and seeing The King's Speech (TERRIFIC).

That night, we made pasta and watched Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart:

Monday, I skipped lab. We were bums. She made bacon, I made smoothies and dirty chai. We watched Doctor Who with Faraday.

We may have had Cheez-its for lunch.

Then I drove her to the airport. :(

The beauty heads back to Morocco soon. I love you, Amy!

Toys!

2011-01-29T20:28:00.001-05:00

My two new prize possessions. Oh the fun I'll have!!

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Guinness Stew

2011-01-27T10:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, I like snow when it begins with a showy lightening storm (THUNDERSNOOOOW) and ends with labs and universities closing because it's THIGH-HIGH. WOO!

Today would be the perfect day to make Guinness stew, but alas, I have no meat. Boo.

You should, though! The recipe I use is from my mom. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guinness Stew
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 Tbsp paprika (be generous; the hotter the better)
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
1 lb-ish stew meat
1 big onion

1 can or bottle of Guiness
28 oz can stewed tomatoes
some carrots
some yam
some potatoes
some whateveryouwant
some love

~~~Put paprika, salt, flour, and meat into a bag and shake it all up.
~~~Brown the stew meat in oil.
~~~Chop an onion, throw it in there next, and brown it.
~~~Dump the browned meat-onion mixture into a Dutch oven (Mom's favorite) or a crock pot (my favorite/all I got).
~~~Add Guinness, tomatoes, carrots, yams, potatoes, etc.
~~~Cook VERY SLOWLY for a long time. I.e. until everything is soft and delicious. I believe it was in my crock pot on low heat for 4-6 hours?

Eat with bread. Yum. I used goat cheese biscuits. Drink a Guinness. Sigh with contentment.

Here's the illustrated version:

Put spices in a bag:

Add some meat:

Shake it up!!

Add beer:

Add vegetables:

Check on Faraday:

Annoy Faraday with your love:

Take a walk in the snow:

Check on crock pot:

Enjoy with a beer and biscuit!

How to Cope with a Northeastern Winter

2011-01-26T16:37:00.002-05:00

Every winter, I say, "BRING ON THE SNOW!" I'm one of those annoyingly optimistic people who loves the cold and thinks snow is a beautiful blessing, not a annoying curse. I'm the type to claim that I even enjoy running in the snow.

At least...I used to be.

Sometime between the Great Winter of 2010 and this here Great Winter of 2011, I fell out of love with it. I STILL like cold weather, as long as it's over 20 degrees F. I STILL like snow, as long as it's on a day I don't have to a) drive anywhere or b) run anywhere. I'm tired of digging out my car! I've had enough of high-stepping through snowdrifts at a 12:00 min/mile pace! (And don't even suggest the treadmill.)

My running trails look like this:

But on days when lab closes early (*cough*today*cough*), and I arrive safely home after slipping all over the roads, I still appreciate the beauty of it. A mug of dirty chai, some Doctor Who, and delicious home-cooked meals and the cat and I are HAPPY!

What have I been cooking lately? Some WONDERFUL recipes.

First, please try EatLiveRun's Black Eyed Pea Stew with yummy sausage. I used kale instead of collards, because I heart kale. I also didn't have vegetable broth or soup, or chicken bouillon cubes, so I added water and extra spices. It was excellent when served with tortilla chips!

Second, eat these brown sugar meringues, because they are perfect. We made them using my new mixer:

Kelsey and I ate an entire batch one evening while watching many episodes of Psych. Amy and I ate an entire batch over two days, while watching Doctor Who and Hamlet (the David Tennant and Patrick Stewart version). Yes. We did.

Third, do combat the meringues with a healthy kale salad, because we heart kale and have some leftover from the soup.

Fourth, you should have a second dessert. Or two. Make some fabulous chocolate chip cookies:

And for no good reason other than you have yolks leftover from making meringues, whip up some Citrus Curd. I don't like tangerines, so I substituted lime juice.

Lemon sugarrrr:

Absurdly delicious:

Finally, go high-step through a snow bank for three miles.

Or at least take a walk!

I also recently made Guinness Stew, but as it's a recipe I got from my mother and I took detailed-ish pictures (more than usual), I'll devote the very next blog post to it. :)

I'll then get back to my sister's visit!

Contrast

2011-01-26T14:18:00.001-05:00

My day in the northeast...versus the pets' day in the northwest. Sigh.

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A peek at our day.

2011-01-22T20:23:00.001-05:00

Details to come.

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Sister Time

2011-01-21T00:37:00.001-05:00

Look who I found at Newark!

Faraday is uncertain, but intrigued. They will soon be buddies, I'm sure.

We have until Monday to find out!

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Bellingham with the BFF

2011-01-16T19:19:00.003-05:00

In December 2010 (so long ago), I spent a couple of days up in Bellingham, WA, with my best friend forever, Bethany JO. Beth and I go way back. We met at a slumber party around when we were ten. We instantly bonded over the devastation that our young foodie selves felt when we were only allowed one slice of pizza for dinner and NO DESSERT. At a SLUMBER PARTY. THE HORROR.

We reconnected a year or two later, when we cleaned house and watched the children of a woman in our church pregnant with triplets. Then, we were in homeschool band together. Now, still BFFs.

She collected me from SeaTac and we started the two hour drive north to Bellingham. First things first: Cedars called. This is without a doubt the best Indian food I've ever had. Their coconut or mango curry with lamb and their bottomless chai were staples in college at UW. I'm positive they've been on the blog before.

Fueled by countless mugs of chai, we chatted long into the night. The next morning, she went off to work like a good girl, while I slept in and woke up to:

NELLIE, Bethany's dear cat. She is a friendly lap cat who makes weird chirping noises at birds.

After a slow, relaxing morning, I walked through cute downtown Bellingham to Starbucks, where I entertained myself for a couple of hours until Bethany was off work:

I thoroughly enjoy meetings friends of friends whom I've heard about for years. I was a wee bit overwhelmed, however, by the evening's activity: a 30-person lingerie shower. Oh yes. They were super fun girls who welcomed me, fed me delicious taco salad (with ranch dressing. Who knew. I am in love.), and bought the blushing bride many, many embarrassing gifts. Ahem. Sarah, you'll look terrific. Nice to meet you.

Our final day was an adventure back down to Seattle. A mission we set for ourselves: find affordable and beautiful sock yarn and sock-appropriate double-pointed needles (DPNs) for Bethany's very first socks.

Beth drove me down picturesque Chuckanut Drive, singing:

We stopped at Michael's along the way. Michael's had sock yarn, but not the right DPNs. We moved on.

We saw some snow north of Seattle:

But then it was gone.

Another culinary tradition of ours is Trophy Cupcakes. They have ALSO been on the blog before.

Beth got her staple, Chocolate with Vanilla:

While I chose a new one, Chocolate with Cream Cheese:

Trophy, in my opinion, is the best I've ever had. They even beat Magnolia Bakery, my favorite in Manhattan. A key difference: Trophy has the perfect amount of frosting. Magnolia has too much. I'm never able to do this to a Magnolia cupcake:

(Never fear, Magnolia, Amy-sister and I will visit you next weekend. We still love you.)

The Wallingford Center (home to Trophy) has a beautiful little yarn shop. They had wonderful DPNs and gorgeous yarn. Sadly, it was for at least twice the amount I spend on supplies myself. Bethany tore herself away and we kept looking.

We continued our tour of Seattle eating establishments with lunch at Red Mill Burgers on Phinney Ridge. Red Mill Burgers, as they claim, is one of the Top 20 Burgers You Must Eat Before You Die, according to GQ and Oprah. Our burgers were, in fact, delicious.

Next up: Starbucks. Next door. Heh. We had to charge my Droid, a.k.a. our guide. While sitting, I knitted. Thinking that such a cute area must have a yarn shop, we checked my phone: YES! Just three streets down! We zipped over there and found that the prices were no better than Wallingford. Oh well. She gave up, and I sent her off to the awesome Knit Picks, my source for all needles and affordable yarn. :)

Finally, we had to part ways at the ferry terminal. Much love to you, Bethany dear!

Green

2011-01-08T11:35:00.001-05:00

Best Saturday morning drink ever.

Courtesy of Joy the Baker.

Happy Weekend from Snowy New Jersey!

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The Gingerbread TARDIS

2011-01-04T14:49:00.001-05:00

Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly...my family knows them all well. Another family fav is the Back to the Future trilogy. Therefore, it may come as no surprise that when, sometime last year, my siblings and I were introduced to Doctor Who, we were hooked. Really hooked.

But I'm still on Season 5 with Matt Smith, so NO SPOILERS.

He's good, but I miss David Tennant. :(

Anyway! This Christmas, David, Jenny, and I exchanged many pieces of Doctor Who merchandise. (Much to the confusion of our grandparents. Our aunts are fellow Time Lord fans.) Like this shirt, or this sonic screwdriver flashlight, or (my favorite, from Jenny to me) this TARDIS cookie jar.

There's also the necklace I made for Jenny, out of a cufflink:

Back to the TARDIS though. The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is the Doctor's time machine spaceship. It looks like a British Police Public Call Box from 1963, because its chameleon circuit broke and stuck that way.

In my search for unique, geeky Christmas gifts, I came across this blog post, on constructing a gingerbread TARDIS. The day after I flew home for the holidays, Jenny and I set to work.

We chose to use this gingerbread and frosting recipe.

We cut out carefully measured patterns:

We mixed the dough with Mom's incredible KitchenAid:

We danced:

We consulted the directions without getting flour on the computer:

We used steak knives to cut out building blocks:

See those little leftover square pieces? They were DELICIOUS.

Believe me, the entire family was gingerbread-dough-filled that evening.

The baked pieces weren't quiiiiiite, shall we say, straight? Precise? Their corners weren't exactly, oh, right-angled?

Whatever! We make it work! We do!

We frosted four little Police Public Call Box signs, with baggies, toothpicks, spit, patience, and love:

We made little paper window panes:

Then, assembly began. We used frosting spreaders, spatulas, and fingers to cement the uneven walls to each other and the base. Getting the door to stand ajar was tricky; we finally propped it up from the inside with a cookie cutter until the frosting hardened. It looked rather messy. Adding the corner pieces, roof, signs, and a whole lot more frosting spruced it up to our satisfaction:

Note the wonky door and awesome door poster:

What TARDIS would be complete without a Time Lord?

David added some graffiti:

And then we had a photo shoot:

Our creation was displayed until Christmas Eve, when we wrapped it in plastic and froze it while we were in San Diego. Yesterday, we thawed it and started gnawing on it. It's pretty stale...but good dipped in milk, coffee, or hot chocolate!

Sadly, Gingerbread Doctor met his match in Golden Retriever Maddie. I don't think he'll be regenerating from this one.

A Mountainous Day

2011-01-01T21:19:00.003-05:00

The year Twenty-Eleven began this morning rather congestedly and coughy, necessitating an unfortunate shortening of my planned weekend trip to Seattle. Two late parties and an overnight stay had to go. Boo.

However! After a delicious German pancake and sausage breakfast, Amy, Susanna (our visiting AZ friend, whom we met in Morocco in 2009), and I got on a ferry and headed to the Emerald City for the afternoon.

The Olympics were glorious in the sun today!

Amy gave Susanna a tour of the waterfront, while my dear friend Alicia picked me up and drove to B&O Espresso. I had a Mocha Valencia and smoked salmon and goat cheese quiche. We shared creme brulee and great conversation. :) I met Alicia while swing dancing in Seattle my senior year of college. We hadn't seen each other for three years, and that is really unacceptable. She's too fabulous!

Now, we are ferry-riding home, watching the sunset over Mt. Rainier. My cough has gotten worse, but the day in the cold was worth it. Time for some tea.

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Heeellooo 2011!

2011-01-01T03:36:00.001-05:00

May your year be as fluffy and warm as her fur and bright and golden as her eye.

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Camels and gorillas and bears, oh my!

2010-12-30T00:50:00.003-05:00

Aunt Betty and Unke Roy are the cutest couple in the world. They've been married for almost 60 years, and still perform magic shows for the children's hospital, sing in choirs, and hold annual memberships at SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo. They are the best zoo guides ever.

Aunt Jody, Cousin Nik, Dad, Mom, David, Amy, Jenny, and I met them in Balboa Park at the zoo. Not as mobile as they used to be, but always enthusiastic, Betty and Roy sent us off on the Skyfari air tram across the zoo while they shuttled to meet us at the elephants.

On the way, we stopped at the polar bears, and enjoyed the most amazing display of bear-happiness we've seen in our long relationship with zoos. A young female bear rolled and somersaulted through the water, biting and submerging a foam toy, while her twin brother watched from the shore of the habitat. She swam over every so often to reach up and snap playfully at his face. He snapped back, and then she returned to her toy, alone.

At one point, she dug into an underwater crevice in the rock and pulled out a traffic cone! She stuck her face into it and paddled around, like a Conehead. It didn't impress her brother.

See the cone sticking out of the water?

Finally, she crawled up on the rock behind him and chased him into the water! Woohoo! They wrassled and fought like our golden retrievers used to.

After (I kid not) at least twenty minutes of great bear time, they both exited the pond, exhausted and ready for a nap.

We moved on to the Elephant Odyssey with Aunt Betty and Unke Roy. The elephants have a huge new enclosure! It's beautiful! There's also a new area to watch trainers as they clean and care for the big beasts individually in ginormous holding cells. We saw a dear elephant get her feet cracks rinsed with a hose, and another immerse each front foot into--oh yes--Epsom salt baths for her pedicure.

Jody, Nik, my family, and I caught a few more animals on our own. Highlights include the Peccary (insert classic family story of Cary Grunt and Gregory Peccary from 40 years ago), the camels (I last saw them in a butcher stand in the Fez Medina), and the capybaras (huge guinea pigs!!).

We said goodbye to Betty and Roy at the orangutans, where we heard the story of Janie. This ape loves to fix her hair with the help of mirrors held up by guests. Sadly, Janie didn't feel like primping during our visit.

These are not Janie.

Later, we saw the gorillas. Dad adores gorillas. My whole life, Dad has imitated silverback gorillas by walking on his hands and knees in a rather stately manner. We only saw one gorilla this time, but he was quite dignified indeed.

This is not my father.

Nearing the limits of our desire and will to visit animals and walk all over in cool weather, Mom bought churros for us. Thanks, Mom!

Daddy and his sister, Aunt Jody:

Nik, my awesome cousin, and our awesome snack:

We bid the zoo a fond farewell and drove to Betty and Roy's house for a short visit and to give annual hugs to Dad's cousin Mike and wife Joan. This house is one of my top four nostalgic favorites of all time. Covered in Christmas, Disney, and Zoo paraphernalia collected and saved over their life together, it never gets boring. After a lovely chat and tasty goodies, we hugged them goodbye until the summer. <3

Merry Belated Christmas!

2010-12-26T12:49:00.001-05:00

I just got a blogger app for my Droid (in fact, Blogger-droid app). I'm trying it out from a cozy van full of eight beautiful people on the way to the San Diego Zoo! My immediate family, my aunt Jody, and my cousin Nik are meeting my great-uncle Roy and great-aunt Betty. We can't wait to see how it's changed since last time...at least seven years ago?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Backen auf Deutsch, Part VI: #58 Ingwer-Cupcakes

2010-12-23T17:10:00.003-05:00

One of the best (and worst) things about December is all of the delicious baked goodies, which are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I contributed a lot to their ubiquitous-ness this season.

My sweet friend, Erica, whom I met at the 2008 Lindau Meeting in Germany, drove up from Philly one Saturday to eat lunch downtown, knit socks, and bake desserts. We made a batch of my mom's Candy Cane cookies and also chose a spicy ginger cupcake recipe out of 1 Teig, 100 Kuchen.

Which, by the way, is apparently also in English.

So here is our batch of Ingwer-Cupcakes!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#58 Ingwer-Cupcakes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ingwer=ginger
Cupcakes=cupcakes

The batter was pretty simple and included a ton of cinnamon and ginger.

Yay Erica!

While the cupcakes baked, we got the candy cane cookies ready:

SO GOOD.

The best part by far was the candied ginger. I am now obsessed with candied ginger. I will take gifts of buckets of candied ginger. Candied ginger.

Finally, we gave them two thumbs up! :D

The cupcakes themselves weren't too sweet, which was complimented perfectly by the very sugary, lightly orange-flavored buttercream frosting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Changes made:
~none!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next time would:
~add nutmeg and candied ginger to the batter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perfect for:
~candied ginger lovers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And because he hasn't been on the blog enough lately, here is Faraday in his box:

The Seattle Marathon, November 28, 2010

2010-12-17T13:13:00.004-05:00

While the joy of spending Thanksgiving with my family for the first time in four years was a good enough reason to fly across the country, the fact that the Seattle Marathon was that Sunday didn't hurt in the decision-making process! After running my first marathon, the Disney World Marathon, in January, and a few smaller races here and there, I was ready for another 26.2 miler. I trained and trained. I traveled to Rhode Island and Chicago and even Germany and kept training.

My lofty marathon goal is to run it in under 4:30:00. My "this race or at least the next race" goal is to finish in 4:45:00. Knowing that the last several miles of the Seattle race were uphill AND I was recovering from a chest cold...my goal was to be under 5:00:00, or at least beat my Disney time of 5:13:50.

The Saturday before, my parents, brother (David), and I drove to Seattle over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge:

We checked in at our hotel on 5th Ave, and walked a short couple of blocks to the race expo. I shouldn't compare anything to Disney...but the organization and layout was nowhere near as efficient. True to our family's tradition, though, we had hours to kill, so we just patiently waded through the lines and chaotic crowds. I got my race number, safety pins, timing chip, race shirt, and swag bag. We tried many sports drinks and bars. I finally bought a Tiger Tale.

Mah bag o' swag:

David, Mom, Dad, and I took the monorail from Westlake Center to the Seattle Center, where we saw the Seattle Shakespeare Company's performance of Hamlet. It was quite good. I was struck, as I always am, by how many cliches Shakespeare invented.

We met Bethany (a friend instrumental in my running obsession) for dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. She was running the half marathon, so we both needed some good ol' pasta. Soon after carbo-loading, we returned to the hotel and called it an early night.

Early on the morning of November 28th (my parents' 29th wedding anniversary, by the way), I quietly shut myself in the hotel bathroom and starting eating my peanut butter bagel and drinking water. I got dressed in my Disney marathon shirts (long-sleeved over short-sleeved), laced up my shoes, and velcro-ed on the annoying timing chip:

(It's a large enough to race to use the D-Tag system, for goodness' sake, instead of this bulky monstrosity which caused a cut on my ankle that is still healing!)

Once I fueled and clothed, I woke my parents up to say goodbye...

...and enjoyed a very brisk, 32 degree F, one-mile walk to the starting line at the Seattle Center. It was calming and focusing.

I arrived just in time to catch Bethany as she started her half marathon in a flash of pink!

After the 17,000ish half marathoners were off, the 2500ish full marathoners accumulated at the starting line.

I found the pace group for my goal time of 4:45:00, and decided to follow them for a while. While waiting, I chatted with an older guy who was running his 37th marathon of the year. He was from Florida, and complained about how "cold" Washington was that day. I informed him that it was EIGHTEEN DEGREES when I ran my race in Florida, so this was downright BALMY. He didn't have much to say to that.

Soon, we were off! From Seattle Center, we ran down 5th Avenue by the shops and hotels, including our hotel! My dear family screamed encouragement at mile 1:

We ran past Safeco and Qwest Fields and on down I-90. I pulled ahead of the pace group on the steep downhills, but made sure to run conservatively. Within a few miles, I warmed up enough to tie my long-sleeved shirt around my waist.

We ran about two miles across the I-90 bridge, over Lake Washington, to Mercer Island. Then, we immediately turned around and ran back across the bridge. Hmm. Out-and-backs can be really boring, but there were a few interesting characters who passed by me. Like Superman. But my favorite? Kiltman. If you know a tall, good-looking man who ran the Seattle Marathon in a kilt, do let me know.

At the turn-around, I turned on my music. There are different philosophies about running with music...I say, if I'm going to be running by myself for five hours, I can bring Muse, Basshunter, Scooter, April Smith, and the cast of Glee.

Once off the bridge, we took a left and ran along the lake to Seward Park.

Don't I look EXACTLY like a T-Rex?

I saw KILTMAN again as he left the park! GO KILTMAN!

Somewhere in the park, the pace group caught up with me and I followed it again. I passed the half-way mark at 2:24:35!

SADLY, during mile 16, I had to use the port-o-potty. Thankfully, this race had them a'plenty, and the one I used was miraculously still clean and well-stocked with hand sanitizer. (In this respect, Seattle beat Disney!) I timed myself: I lost just over two minutes.

I totally lost the pace group, of course, with my pit stop. Somewhere after this, I started run-walk intervals--five to ten minutes of running, thirty to sixty seconds of walking. By now, the group of racers in my vicinity had settled into the people who'd finish with me. We spent the last six or seven miles alternating passing and being passed by each other. Once my walking breaks synced with a woman who was racing her THIRD MARATHON in THREE DAYS. She has my deep respect.

Around mile 20, the injustice started. At mile 20, people are really tired and things start to hurt. Various parts of them. In the Seattle Marathon, the hills start. The uphills. The steep, awful uphills. After beginning to power up them, I decided to save my strength and walk. I hate hills. A couple hills were too long to walk the ENTIRE thing, so I ran-walked. Long long long. The worst hill had a water station just at the top: the volunteers congratulated us for surviving. THANK YOU. THANK. YOU.

At some point, we left pretty Seattle neighborhood for pretty Seattle woods and trails overlooking Lake Washington and, on the other side, the University District and Husky Stadium! GO DAWGS!

I gave up on 4:45:00 pretty much in the restroom, but for sure on the hills. I still believed I could finish in under 5:00:00, though.

FINALLY the hills seemed to be over and we had less than two miles left. Mile 25 was actually a lot of downhill, which was BEAUTIFUL. That close to the finish, I sped up. I FLEW down those hills.

Oh no! Another uphill! No matter, I JUST PASSED SUPERMAN! I AM BEATING SUPERMAN!

What?? One more uphill! How rude!

But then, I entered the finish chute, where my mother and sisters spied me!

I kept going!

I HEARD DADDY YELL MY NAME!

I CROSSED THE FINISH LINE!!

I was SO CLOSE to my goal of being under 5:00:00: my official chip time was ***5:01:48***.

(The 5:48:14 in the picture is counting half marathon time; the 5:03 is full marathon clock time.)

I was relieved to survive the hills and at least get a new, shiny personal record (PR): I beat my Disney time by 12:02. :D

A marine gave me my medal:

And, after finding water, bananas, chicken broth, and hot chocolate, I gave cold sweaty hugs to my family! I could barely talk to them, however. That chest cold? Turned into a sore throat and destroyed my voice. Something about running for five hours in the cold...

They are the cutest support team I've ever had! :D

On the way home, we got Arby's (cheddar and beef sandwich, curly fries, and chocolate milkshake) and Starbucks (caramel brulee latte). I had calories to replace!

So, my goal of finishing in under five hours eludes me for the present. But don't worry--I plan to run the Marine Corps Marathon in DC this October. And up next? The NYC Half Marathon in Manhattan on March 20. :D