Hvar, Hvar, Hvar

Lovely Hvar, with your lovely pebbly beaches and your wonderfully clear water and your lack of roving elderly tourist groups. Hvala!

But it's also time for us to leave Croatia and move onto Istanbul. I can't wait.

An update on books read:

Finished in Dubrovnik: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I liked it, and I should probably read it again once I've read his other books. That's the trouble with starting with the last novel that he wrote.

Started in Dubrovnik and finished in Dubrovnik: Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

I probably shouldn't have chased Vonnegut with Vonnegut, but Elliott wasn't done with Blade Runner yet, and I didn't feel like reading Pamuk. I didn't like this one very much. There was just no point, which was perhaps the point. But I had no connection with any of the characters, and active loathing for Rumfoord, and the ending just left me with a sense of "That was it?"

Started in Dubrovnik and finished on the sweltering bus to Split: Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick

Fun book. Now I really want to see the movie.

Dinnertime. Muesli and vodka. Yum.

PS: A Tally of Books Read

Bought, started, and finished in Rome: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Utterly delightful and addictive. I read it in about two days over 5 or 6 hours. Will probably get the next book(s) in the series as soon as I see them in an English bookstore.

Re-started on the train to Lecce, finished in Lecce: The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

I always forget how much of an utter bastard Amis can be, or rather, his characters. In this case, though, the hyper-intellectual, self-loathing, pater-hating Charles Highway is a fairly transparent alter ego. No wonder Kingsley was pissed at him for writing this. Still, exquisitely odious prose (like a posher version of Irvine Welsh). Adolescence really is a disgusting period of life.

Bought today, started, but will probably put down for the time being: The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk

Currently reading: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

My first Vonnegut, and he's much more accessible than I thought he'd be. Also, more sincere and much funnier.

End of Italy, Beginning of Croatia

We finally escaped from Italy. I say "escaped" because we departed from Porto di Bari (not, I'd like to note, Porta di Bari, which is a door, ahem), and Bari, while situated on the coast, is a pretty soulless place. The concrete, 90 degree angled streets were especially jarring after all the charm of Lecce. A comparison: In a little over a day, we had three great meals in Lecce, including yummy cocktails at perhaps the only modern Brazilian bar in Lecce. In our seven hour layover in Bari, we had some greasy pizza and saw some teenage boys fondle themselves in their bathing suits.

Anyway, now we are in Croatia. In the walled town of Dubrovnik, which is every bit as beautiful as advertised. Though infinitely hotter than I ever thought possible. To stave off heatstroke, we went to a hole in the wall bar/concrete beach this afternoon, where we took a couple of dips in the Adriatic, drank some beer, and read a little. Pure heaven. Just wait 'til you see the pictures.

We just finished having a delicious seafood meal, and will go later to the Troubadour, a jazz club apparently founded by a member of an ex-Eurovision band. How awesome is that?

Ciao for now.

Lecce - where the entire town goes on siesta

We're in the small town of Lecce right now, where it was deserted only a few hours ago. All the shops were abandoned for naps in some underground sanctuary. Or something. It's a nice counterpoint to Rome, or culinarily, a digestiv after Rome's five-course meal. Here are some highlights from the past five (!) days:


At the Palatine.



Dinner the first night at Cul-de-Sac, an extraordinary wine bar with around 1,400 bottles of wine.



EUR is for lovers.



Asian nuns at the Vatican.



Renzo Piano's Parco della Mùsica outside the city center.


The plan now is to find a place that serves alcohol and maybe some food. All the bars (including an Irish pub called James Joyce) are closed at the moment. My suspicion is that all the people who work in the shops then work in the bars, so the hours can't overlap. Anyhow, wish us luck. We only have until tomorrow noon here, then it's back on the train to Bari, and then an overnight ferry to Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian coast.

In Roma

I'm already worn out, and we've only been here for a day and a half. However, in that time, we've managed to cover a good 1/3 of the city. No wonder my feet hurt so much. I love it here so far, except for 2 things: the humidity and the tourist hawkers. Pictures to follow once I've found an Internet place where I can upload them.

For now, ciao, darlings.

Las Vegas = Sahara

At least it does tonight. The wolf is at the door, and it's bringing all the accumulated sand and dirt in the world with it.

I've been somewhat productive while I've been at home these last couple of days. Granted, nothing related to say, trip-planning, but there has been knitting. Lots of knitting. Here is a small glimpse of what I accomplished in four days.





It's the Ene Scarf from Scarf Style, and hopefully, it will keep my head warm in Boston.

Well, that didn't last very long, did it?

I've been packing and panicking for the last couple of days. We've also been trying to fit more quintessential San Francisco experiences in.

On Sunday afternoon, we had tea at Samovar. I had a really strong black tea with a matcha brownie.


Mmmmmm....

Elliott had the full on English tea service with a lemon tart, a scone, and a salmon crumpet. And contrary to the picture, he enjoyed it very much.



Except for when I snuck a bite of the lemon tart.

Day Eight - Penultimate* Day at Work

I cleared out most of my desk, had yummy Thai food with a co-worker, then yummy cake at a birthday celebration, re-read Neil Gaiman's Stardust (which, by the way, they've made into a movie!) and finished the second sock for my dad. It almost makes me sad to leave work tomorrow.


*Penultimate meaning second to last, not last, as we all learned from Danny and Casey on Sports Night.

Tag Sieben - Book recommendations?

Getting back to the other half of what this blog is purportedly about: books. I never travel without a book (or several) to read. I took Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting to Mexico, Persuasion to England, and The Remains of the Day to Wales and Paris. But I'm at a loss as to what to pack for this trip. For one thing, it's my first long vacation. Seven weeks without internet access and a steady supply of socks to knit (though I will take a small project with me) makes for a very restless Yao. I don't want to take anything from my current fiction stack, so it'll have to be a new book or something that I haven't read before. So, any recommendations? I'd like something in paperback and preferably modern but not necessarily.

PS: Elliott would like me to report that he's taking one Vonnegut book, Nabokov's The Gift, possibly one non-fiction book, one of the few Murakami books that he hasn't read, and possibly a book by Orhan Pamuk (though it'd be a little cliche to read it in Istanbul, especially if we try to stalk him in Nisantasi).

PPS: I think that Elliott really should update his own blog.

Day (Late) Six - Links Galore

Er, can we all pretend that it's still May 15th?

Here's what I meant to post had I not conked out early on Tylenol Cold.

New York Times review of Hitchens's new book that makes me actually want to pick it up

Murakami has a new book out

Ooooh, shiny collider

Gacked from a knitting blog that I read: Arcade Fire in concert, from NPR

Stupid YouTube video

Day Five - Last Monday at Work!

Because I was so excited about this week being my last at work, the universe decided to punish me by having me work for 5 hours straight this morning. Ooof.

Now I'm relaxing with a nice cuppa tea and the socks that I'm knitting for my dad for Father's Day. So, as promised, sock pictures.

These are the ones that I knit for Elliott's grandma, Betty.



(Ignore how weird my calves look.)

And what I'm knitting now:



Makes you want a pair of hand-knit socks, eh?

Day Four - Sundays are for Miscellany

Our dinner party went pretty well last night, especially the fireworks interlude (provided by the local radio station KFOG) between the main course and dessert. Good timing, guys.

I know that I promised pictures of the food we made, but as always happens, I forgot. However, here is a picture of the resident dessert chef making an apple puff pastry tart.



And the table.



The official menu was:

Spring mix salad with mango and avocado with guava vinaigrette
Stuffed bell peppers (with turkey sausage and just plain veggie) with cous cous
Apple puff pastry tarts with honey
Blackberry pie (that Thomas brought)
A selection of ice creams from Bombay Ice Creamery

And now we're off to take over the city, as we do every Sunday. Ciao.

Day Three - Catching Up

Last month, Elliott and I went on a mini-holiday to California's Central Valley for some wine-tasting and buying. We stayed at a small town in Paso Robles, and drove out to the nearby wineries.

They looked like this.



We toured a cave filled with barrels of wine.



We drank a lot of wine, and "stomped some grapes."



And smelled some flowers.



All in all, it was a fantastically relaxing trip. We drove back up on the 1 and saw Big Sur.



Or rather, Elliott did. I was too busy trying not to puke into a plastic bag.

The end.

Tag Zwei - Anticipation Is the Better Part of Pleasure

Today was going to be sock picture day, in which I post pictures of all the socks I've made during my recent sock-knitting phase (which started shortly before Christmas and is on the downswing at the moment and which has resulted in a total of 8 pairs of handknit socks). But I was so tired from trip-planning last night that I never got around to taking pictures of the socks. So no sock porn today, but I'll try to put it up this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, Elliott and I are having a dinner party tomorrow night, and so far it looks like most people can make it, but our friends tend to be a bit, um, flaky, so my fingers are crossed. And I'll take pictures of the as yet to be determined but sure to be yummy food we're making.

Stay tuned!

30 Posts in 30 Days

I'm shamelessly stealing the idea of 30 blog posts in 30 days from a blog that I regularly read. This is day one.

I'm ridiculously excited about our upcoming trip, despite all the headaches involved in planning how to get from one place to another. I swear, Croatia is like the steel trap of Europe. Once you're there, it's really hard to get out, unless you're prepared to pay a ton of money to fly. Hence, Elliott and I are reduced to taking a 31-hour bus (NB: it may actually be longer) from Zagreb to Istanbul. Luckily, Istanbul looks like it's worth it.

A Good (Not Quite) Year

I can't believe I just used that hideous Russell Crowe movie as the title. Oh well, moving on.

So, my profile needs a little updating since Elliott and I are moving out of the Bay Area and out of our beautiful, centrally located (half a block from the best bakery in America) apartment. We'll finally going back to school (graduate school at Columbia for him, the smartypants, and law school for me). Goodbye, 9-5! Hello, crushing student loans!

To celebrate at our newfound freedom (before school begins, anyway), we're taking a 7-week trip through Europe. So far, the plan is to go from Rome to the Puglia region in southern Italy (maybe) to Croatia to Istanbul to the Turkish Aegean coast to the Greek Cyclades islands to Athens and finally to Cologne to visit some of Elliott's relatives. Y'know, I've typed out this itinerary probably dozens of times by now, and it still doesn't sound real to me. Rome! Dubrovnik! Istanbul! Wheee! And we'll probably get to meet up with some of our friends in Europe, too. Double wheeee!

For those whom I won't be seeing this summer or for a long while, I'd like to post travel updates to this blog, so you can see some of the amazing places that we'll be visiting. Sound good? Gut. Bis dann.

Mmmmm.... food

Proof that the best food is made at home:



That is chicken tagine with apricots and topped with glazed almonds by Herr Wimmer. I made the salad, which was spinach, romaine hearts, tomatoes, cucumbers, and hard-boiled eggs tossed with a blackberry vinaigrette.

And now? We get to have blackberries, peaches, blueberries, and raspberries covered in honey and cardamom. Yay for summer.

Update

I'm alive. And emerging from the cocoon of work and the apartment to start the law school application process. Which is also when, paradoxically, I decide that I need to hang out more with the friends I haven't seen in a while. Maybe to counterbalance all the dreariness that writing a personal statement (ew) will generate.

Unfortunately, actually following through on all the plans I'm making depends on how well I'm feeling on any given day, and lately, I haven't had very many good days. Rare is the day that I don't have one of the following: a migraine, a stomache, or nausea. But I'm going to see a doctor about all these symptoms, so hopefully I'll feel better soon (or get an artificial stomach or something).

In other news, do not watch a movie about pedophilia and childhood trauma before bed because oh my god, bad dreams.

In current news, I'm working on my personal statement under the influence of energy drinks. Uh, any insight you may have into why I should go to law school and/or why I rox0rs would be very helpful. Danke.

I can't believe it's been over a month since the last entry. Sorry about that. Moving and cleaning and craigslisting for furniture has kinda eaten up the last three weeks of my time.

But now it is spring, our new home is mostly furnished (see below), and a long lost (to the vagaries of Washington, D.C.) friend is in town. All of which is to say that the drudgeries of moving and of the relentless rain have finally let up, and it's time for eating and drinking with friends, farmers' markets, frolicking in the sun, and reading books again. I'm ashamed to admit this, but since Nick Hornby's Polyphonic Spree, I have only finished three books, Howard's End and two light fantasy books. I am still in the "middle" (more like the beginning) of Anna Karenina and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, but neither feel like springtime reading. Any recommendations, fellow bookworms?

I have to go to the symphony, but I leave you with the promise of a post dedicated solely to all the wonderful food we've made recently.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

We're moved into our new place. Well, mostly moved in, and mostly unpacked still. Next time we're doing this, I'm getting movers. And selling my unwanted books beforehand.

Pictures later.