A Mixture of Light and Shadow!!!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Washington D.C.


Last weekend I went to D.C. I wasn’t that exited about the trip, because I was going by my self, so I decided to take Baby Pooh with me and it turn out to be one of the best trip I’ve had. Full of adventures and cool new people.I arrived early on Saturday morning and went straight to the hostel to check in, met some people who gave me some useful tips. For example, that the hotel Washington has a restaurant on the roof from where you can get an amazing view of the city.

I went to the
white house



where I saw many people bitching at and about Bush in different and funny ways. My self-guided tour continued to the
Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and the Washington monument all of wish I fount interesting in a way. My favorite was the National WW II memorial, very moving and beautiful.


Then I went from monuments and memorials to all sorts of museums at
the National Mall. Where my favorite was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, but in general the whole street and basically the amount of museums, one after the other one, was impressive!!Finally and after an incredibly LONG walk I got to the U.S capitol which is a VERY beautiful Building.



At night I got together with a group of people at the hostel and we took a tour around some cool neighborhoods and embassies, it was very interesting.


We ended the night at
Dupont Circle, which is the gay area, saw the famous Chess players and finally went bar hopping for a while with people from London, Spain, Brazil, Poland, Mexico, France, Germany and the U.S. We were a pretty diverse group, which added a lot of flavor to the night.On Sunday, I got together with Inma, one of the Spanish girls and we went and explore some more interesting places,


like
Georgetown, the wealthiest neighborhood of the city, where we saw the Georgetown University which is an amazing building and the oldest Jesuit school of the country. We also went to the Washington National Cathedral, another beautiful building and where I heard a service that seem to be more a politic speech than anything else… We continued to the Pentagon, Chinatown and finally we got to Adams Morgan,


My favorite neighborhood being the most ethnically diverse, full of funky bars and offbeat shops where we had a GREAT Ethiopian dinner.


Washington D.C is in my opinion a very special city, amazingly clean, full of contrasts and nice people. But it is one of the cities where I wouldn’t wanna live in.Fun facts: the metro has a carpet and it’s CLEAN.The streets are letters, numbers and the big ones are named by the states, for example the big shopping street is called Connecticut and the one where the white house is at is called Pennsylvania.There is a Mc Donald’s in some of the museums, but the prices are double of what you pay in any other Mc Donald’s on the street.All the museums are FREE.I had a GREAT time!!

Monday, September 18, 2006

Chris' Birthday!!!

On Saturday Chris turned 30 and to celebrate, he wanted to go back to his alma mater Madison,Wisconsin, where he went to college and lived for four and a half years AND where Pooh Bear was born.


We left Chicago on Friday night just after I got off work. 2 hours later we were in Madison, we walked for a while on state st, the city’s main drag and the quasi-pedestrian zone (kinda similar to the European ones)
Around 11:30pm, I took him to the
Nitty Gritty, (which is the birthday bar of the city where the birthday boy gets unlimited free beer in a special mug), there we welcomed his birthday!!! I brought a blueberry pie, which was “funny” because apparently in the U.S one has to eat cake on his birthday, not pie!!!


On Saturday, we spent the whole day touring the campus. Chris showed me the college grounds, thedorms/houses where he used to live, the places where he used to eat, study and drink… etc. It was very cool and gave me a much better understanding of who is Chris!!


Madison is a beautiful college town surrounded by lakes with the capitol in the heart of the city. Very lively but on this day the energy (and school pride) filled the air because there was a home football game. Everyone was wearing either red or white, which are the
UW-Madison colors and when the game ended, everyone was celebrating and the marching band was playing and dancing down the street. It was cool!! We also saw the empty Camp Randall Stadium after the game and Chris showed me the house where he used to live with Brian (Buddy B) who I met back in Germany (almost 2 years ago during Munich’s Oktoberfest).


I’ve decided, that if I ever have kids, I REALLY want them to have the American college experience, no one in the world has something like this… it seems to be very nice!!



We went to the Terrace, in the backyard of Memorial Union, which was one of my favorite places. It has agreat view of the lake, free live music or some kind of performance going on everyday, they are one ofthe few student Unions that sell beer (26 different“good” kinds) and the place just has a very good vibe. I really liked it.


We also made a failed attempt to eat German food atthe
Essen Haus, but the food was very bad, so we left and ended the night at the silver dollar playing Hand Shuffleboard. It was a great experience, Chris seemed to have a good time (which was the main idea) and I definitely did as well!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!! And until the next one…

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Disney World!!




This was a different kind of trip…being able to see
Disney World through Hanna and Liam’s eyes was just awesome. They were the happiest two kids I’ve ever seen!!Everyday we had a special dinner or lunch with their favorite characters. We stayed at the Grand Floridian Resort, which was just amazing. I had a lot of time for my self and I saw a lot of cool things. My favorites were:the splash mountain at the Magic Kingdom, the test track at Epcot and definitely, the best was the Aerosmith rock n’ roller coaster at MGM studios.

I really had a GREAT time. Shopping was nice as well, although ridiculously expensive!
The food was VERY good, we went to a Norwegian restaurant, were I had Scandinavian food, which reminded me of Denmark!!
HERE are some more pictures!!

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Freedom Trip!!

Labor’s day weekend was just awesome!!
FROM L.A to San Francisco...
On Friday I flew into L.A, rented a car and the adventure started!!
I got together with Dilson, which was SO good. I didn’t see him for a long while and we share such a crazy history, that it is always good to see him and bring back all those memories .

Labor’s day weekend was just awesome!!On Friday I flew into L.A, rented a car and the adventure started!!I got together with Dilson, which was SO good. I didn’t see him for a long while and we share such a crazy history, that it is always good to see him and bring back all those memories


Saturday very early we stared our road trip with an American breakfast at Denny’s, had our last view of L.A and headed to Malibu, where we stopped and swam for a while, and got some tips about where to stop. Later on, we continue along Pacific Coast Highway (highway 1) stopped in every scenic viewpoint and even in the ones that weren’t marked or aloud.

Santa Barbara, we missed an exit at Morro Bay, so we drove thru the mountains for a while we had to sleep in Santa Anna, after discovering that there was no way we could make it to San Francisco that night.





Next morning we continued very early again and went to the Laetitia Vineyard, in San Luis Obispo, which was closed, but we manage to get in, see all the process, eat grapes and buy some wine.

We continue to Point Lobos (Marcelo’s advice, which was definitely a highlight of the trip) where after walking in the forest for a while, we found the most amazing and lonely beach, where without any hesitation we jump into freezing water at 6pm and had a great time. We continue to Monterey and then Santa Cruz, where we had very good Mexican food. Finally, after passing San Jose, we arrived to San Francisco and went directly to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is absolutely breath taking and even more after such a long journey.




Knowing that we spent more than the time expected on the road and that we didn’t have much time left to see San Francisco, we decided to see as much as we could that nigh. We met very nice people and everybody helped us and gave us advice. We went up to twin peaks and had a great view of the city, then we went to the civic center, the opera house, the Japan center, and Mission, we ate Indian at Castro in a place called Naan and Curry, recommended by some guy at the hostel, we stayed at a very nice hostel at Fisherman’s Wharf which had an awesome view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.



Next morning after 2 hours of sleep we continue discovering beautiful places like Lombard street, the Golden Gate Park, China Town, Union Square and the cable cars and I have to tell that one of the biggest highlights of the trip for me was driving as fast as I could up and down the hills in San Francisco, you really feel that you are flying. If someone wants to try, I highly recommend Webster and Fillmore streets. Finally we crossed the bridge one more time and went to the airport. Lucky girls until the end, we got a full road for each of us in a FULL plane, so we could finally sleep.


The trip was AMAZING, I wouldn’t change anything, I REALLY enjoyed every minute!! It was cool to do whatever I wanted, stopped whenever, drive how im used to, don’t sleep or eat much and had lots of fun!!
To see more pictures click HERE

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Hannah's first day of school!!!