Staying in Seattle
I’m in Seattle for the rest of the week, talking to tweens for a research project at work. I just flew in this morning. I’m traveling on an expense account, which is nice (I got a car service to the airport, for instance) even though I’m being careful not to abuse it. Staying at a nice hotel, too.
Travel | Comment (0)Lessons: Biking Against the Wind
Next lesson: Riding a bike into the wind is hard.
Okay, I kind of knew this already, but it gives me an excuse to tell the story. Christmas and I had been talking about a trip to the Loire valley (chateau country) during our stay in France, but hadn’t really made any definite plans. Christmas suggested that we should bike around, as opposed to renting a car or making do with the train system.
So for two days, we biked around the Loire valley. On our first day we stayed around the town of Blois, where we visited the local chateau, which was a weird, Frankenstein’s monster-like creation of four different architectural styles, all jammed together. I’ll probably have pictures sooner or later.
On our second day we took a longer trip, to Chambord and back. Chambord is, by many accounts, the most beautiful chateau in the Loire valley (and that’s saying something). Not only was the chateau itself beautiful, but the ride to and from was beautiful too, passing through charming little French towns and farms and fields and so on.
It was windy, though, that second day. Particularly on the ride back, we ended up riding into a strong wind for a good chunk of the distance. And man, that makes the ride seem a lot more difficult.
(Link to all of the lessons from my France and Iceland trip)
Travel | Comment (1)Wandering in Queens
Sorry, there won’t be a blog post today. I’m pretty exhausted.
You see, I went for a wander in the city again today. This time, I was checking out a couple of parks in Queens. First I wanted to go by Flushing Meadows Park and check out the lakes. I walked around the first lake, then tried to walk around the second, which was part of some kind of wildlife preserve. Aparently you aren’t really meant to walk around it, so I ended up walking along the expressway that runs on one side of it. Not a good place to be–no sidewalk, for one thing–so I was looking for any kind of path that would lead me back to actually walking around the lake. I saw one, and followed it. But it petered out after a little bit, and I ended up picking my way through what was practically a jungle, with a swamp on my left (the side toward the lake). I came to a fence on my right, and figured I’d follow it back to civilization. Unfortunately, the fence and the swamp slowly converged, eventually leaving me with the choice of climbing over the fence or wading through the swamp. Fortunately, a nearby tree had fallen onto the fence, so I climbed the tree over the fence. That didn’t put me in a much better position, though: I was now on a narrow path between two fences, and the other one was much higher, with razor wire at the top. I followed the path, hoping it would lead me out. Eventually I saw that the two fences were encircling a train yard. Finally I came to a break in the inner fence (the high one with the razor wire), but the break would put me inside the train yard, where I clearly wasn’t supposed to be, so I tried to stick with the path between the fences. It didn’t work, though–the two fences came together, leaving me forced to go through the train yard. Fortunately, there’s a general rule with these secured locations, that once you’re past the security, everyone assumes you have a right to be there, so nobody said anything to me, and I eventually found an exit onto a road. So I was around the lake. My next goal was another park nearby, called Forest Park. Now that I was out of my little labyrinth, I was able to find my way to the other park without much trouble. Forest Park is beautiful–it’s a real forest, and much wilder than the other parks I’ve seen in the city. I wandered through it. My next goal after the park was a cemetery that, according to my maps, was supposed to abut it. I got to the far end of the park, but the road I was on curved, when I knew the cemetery should be straight ahead. Furthermore, the road was curving onto the expressway again! I didn’t want to go back there, so I backtracked and found a little dirt path in the direction I thought the cemetery should be. The cemetery was there, all right, but there was another fence around it, and no obvious way through. I eventually found a low point in the fence and climbed over it–my second fence climbed today!–and found myself in the cemetery. I wandered around there for a while (and stumbled across Jackie Robinson’s grave) before making my way to the subway.
So yeah, after being in a jungle, a swamp and a forest and jumping two fences, I’m a little shagged out. That’s why there’s no blog post today. Sorry.
Attempted humor, NYC | Comment (0)Lessons: Digital Cameras and Horses
Okay, lesson one: Don’t take your digital camera horseback riding.
Iceland is known for its ponies, so Christmas and I decided to go riding while we were there. We found a place not too far from Reikjavik that offered half-day expeditions. It was a very fun ride. The ponies were really cute–they’re all shaggy. There was a dog along on the ride, that had the perfect life. It got to run alongside the line of ponies, or usually in front of it. It got to splash through the little creeks we crossed, and play with other dogs, and chase ducks, and just run and run and run. It looked so happy. We got to gallop briefly, which feels really nice. I’m not sure I’d ever galloped on a horse before, and it feels really different from trotting.
But anyway, my camera apparently didn’t like all of the vibration from the ride. It’s not that I fell off or anything, but when we stopped at the halfway mark, it wouldn’t turn on. It’s in the shop now. And that was only the second day of the trip, so I missed out on a lot of great pictures, although I did take some with Christmas’s camera.
(Link to all of the lessons from my France and Iceland trip)
Travel | Comment (1)Lessons from France and Iceland
Thinking about how to present stories from my vacation, I think I’ll write here a list of important things I learned on the trip, then go through them filling in the story behind each one. If I’m really organized, I’ll even come back to this post and link each lesson to the story, once it’s written. I may also come back to this post and update it, if I think of more lessons.
Lessons I learned on my trip to Iceland and France:
- Don’t take a digital camera horseback riding.
- Riding a bike into the wind is hard.
- Riding a bike with two heavy backpacks, one on your back and the other on your front, is worse.
- If you show up at a French restaurant at 7 PM you’ll be the only ones there.
- If you acknowledge the guy at a cheese shop as the expert, and just put yourself in his hands, he’ll find you some great stuff.
- I can pass for Danish, at least for brief periods.
- The “Grand Canal” at Versailles is bigger than it looks.
- Let go of your face if you are light, and check the lighting.
- Seriously, don’t take a digital camera horseback riding, especially not an expensive one.
“Literati” Subway
I apparently took the “literati” subway home yesterday afternoon. Looking around me, I saw people reading “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoyevski, “Sidhartha” by Hesse and “Absalom Absalom” by Faulkner. And there I was with my copy of “The Stand” by Stephen King. I felt a little out of place.
NYC | Comment (0)Back
I’m back from my trip. Still jet-lagged a bit, and busy at work, so I’ll tell stories about the trip when I can.
Travel | Comment (0)