Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Life is Crazy

The title pretty much says it all. April is a month of unpredictable weather, the return of flowers and bees, and drama. Lots of drama. Like the play I am ushering at on Friday...Tartuffe. Should be interesting...

Anyway, this is just a quick update to let my lovely readers know that they can also be watchers. That's right, I have started my very own photoblog at the following site:

http://www.imgblogs.com/pov/


Enjoy!

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Philly and...New Jersey?

A beautiful summer-like day in the historic city of Philadelphia. First stop, the art museum. Really big staircase. Really big building, too. Nice pictures, sculptures, chandeliers, knights in shining armor, etc. Next we wandered outside for a while. I tried to take a picture of a big bumblebee that was taunting me. Then we drove down to the historic district, parked under the visitor center, and started walking.
We walked a lot. Mostly in circles, or rather, squares. We saw the port with an Irish monument, many famous buildings, pidgeons, cute children, and much more. I love the cute little gardens on practically every corner. I took lots of pictures, especially of flowers and birds and almost of a squirrel. (They're not as friendly as on campus, or at least not as friendly as the birds were.) We spent several hours trying to find a restaurant, with little success. We did find a library. It was little and cute and had a big section in Chinese. We eventually decided just to get the car and go find food somewhere else. So we retrieved the car from the garage and ended up on the Ben Franklin Bridge. To New Jersey. I took some nice pics of the bridge. Going both ways...
Eventually we made it back on track, got off at King of Prussia, and decided to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. While waiting for a table, we explored Borders. I read the first two chapters of The Virgin Blue. The food was very good. I had the pecan encrusted catfish, which came with mashed potatoes and corn succatash. And strawberry lemonade. It was delicious. The food was probably the best part about today. Ok, definitely. From the fresh marble bagel this morning, to the strawberry shortcake ice cream at snack time, to dinner, it was really, really good. So while my feet might not be very happy, my stomach's not doing too bad. And since I didn't use my meal tickets today, I can stock up on pizza for the rest of the week. :)

So yeah, Philly goes on the list of places I could possible live someday.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

This Weekend's Field Trip

So, Baltimore. Specifically the Harbor, Pratt St., and Camden Yards, as well as a few side streets and the watch tower which probably has a more official name than that. It was a nice sunny day, which accounts for the slightly reddened face (sorry, Mom, no sunscreen), but still pretty chilly, which accounts for the shivering most of the game. We shifted our seats a few times because we wanted to sit in the sun until the game started, then people kicked us out and I was getting nauseous in my ticketed seat from the guy next to me who was drooling. I suspect he was using tobacco or some such thing and that combined with the smell of beer and motion sickness from the drive almost pushed me over the edge. So we moved down a row and only got kicked out of our seats one more time, for a total of three.

The game, despite being the purpose of the trip, was not as exciting as one would wish. It was interesting to note that there were about an equal number of Orioles and Red Sox fans, and a very tiny minority of Yankees fans. The Orioles took an early lead, but lost it all a little later and never caught back up. I don't believe there were any home runs, although I might have missed one in there somewhere. Fortunately, it wasn't too long of a game, although even so, we left early to beat the crowds, supposedly so we could find something to eat, even though that never happened.

On the way back to the harbor, we came across a magician entertaining the crowds. He wasn't very good, or at least the first few minutes weren't. I was hoping he would juggle or spit fire or something so I could take some pics, but instead he made bad and mostly inappropriate jokes. We soon moved on to explore the shops with sparkly things and the Cheesecake Factory.

The only other item of note was the bathrooms. Being female and all, one has to make mention of the poor quality encountered and to applaud the little things that were okay. By far, the best restroom was that at the ball park, the only bad part being the cold water, which didn't much help the shivering. The next ones I tried were in the shopping center place and the door didn't have a lock or even stay closed, so I passed until the next building. Not a good idea, although the door did lock. Most of the stalls didn't have any toilet paper and there was no paper towel either. I survived, though, so all's well that ends well.

Oh yeah, and we talked the pretzel guy into giving us a discount. Wasn't even a very good pretzel, but better than nothing. So that's it. Baltimore. Lots of cool apartments, tons of restuarants and bars, little boats shaped like the Loch Ness monster, student discount tickets to the park, historical buildings, elevated walkways, and a really cool B&N we stopped in to find a map, since they just dump us in the middle of the city without any directions. Who knows, maybe I'll go back some day...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The First Annual Edible Book Festival at ACL

My new mission is to spread the joy that is Terry Pratchett's books. Therefore, I made a cookie cake in the shape of a disc and drew a map of the continents as described in the Discworld series. This was my contribution to the book fest. There were actually a number of creative entries, 11 or so in total. Some notable ones were the Velveeta Rabbit, Crepe Expectations, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made out of fudge, and a really cool looking James and the Giant Peach cake. I don't remember who won, because that is how my brain works, but everyone who entered gets their name on a bookplate in the book that they used. The other coolest part was that they had bagel chips. I haven't had those in years. They were very yummy...

Saturday, April 01, 2006

I Want to Be a Producer

I really want to live in NYC someday. So much to do, so many people to watch...

Anyway, I think we made it there in record time this morning, about two hours. Enough time to watch the Princess Bride. :) We always get dropped off at Bryant Park and from there the search for the bathroom begins. I think we spent the most time looking for a bathroom the whole day. Soon we'll be experts on where to find them...We had lunch at Cafe Bonjour, where I tried key lime soda and an egg salad sandwich. Both were good, except for the eggshells...Next, after some more wandering around, on to the theatre! Despite my fear of tripping or leaning too far forward and falling off the balcony, I managed to stay safely in my seat. We were about six floors up, but at least not in the back row like last time. The show was very good. Funny and musical and all that. And we even missed the rain. Afterwards, we wandered around trying to find an affordable restaurant. We ended up at Sbarro, which had really good pizza and a quiet downstairs. Then we wandered some more, partially in search of another bathroom. We went into three bookstores, several shoe stores, GAP, Dunkin' Donuts, a Japanese sweet shop, and a hotel. Oh yeah, and even the subway, in search of a bathroom. Later, I was again reminded of how crazy you have to be to drive in NYC. One car hit another right in front of our bus and the driver wasn't even going to stop, but luckily decided to go around. We almost ran over a couple people, too. I took a few pics, but am too tired to upload them tonight. And my poor feet will need about a week to recover.

I finally bought a t-shirt that says I <3 NY. $3. Cool.

Isn't it cute?