Wo Ai Beijing!
Although I’ve never been… We’ll visit one day though.
But for now, I’ll leave you with this song that I can’t get out of my head…
Embroidery
My friend Vida is having a baby! A couple of weeks ago, I went up to San Francisco for her and Dallas’ baby shower. They suggested guests bring a favorite childhood book so I decided on Beatrix Potter: The Complete Tales. I also decided that I’d make something for their baby too since I know how much Vida appreciates hand-made stuff.
This was my first pass at embroidery:
Two little onesies with a sheep and a bee. I referenced many different sites on the internet and these books: The Embroidery Stitch Bible and The Encyclopedia of Stitches. I plan to do more embroidery, but I think I’ll continue doing small projects since surprisingly, these take some time to complete.
Unfortunately I forgot my camera at home, so I had to rely on my iPhone for pictures of the shower.
We’re home
Everyone is asking us: Where are the pictures? Where are the blog posts? No good answer for either question. Since we took over 4000 pictures, we’ve decided that we’ll post each day separately instead of all at once. As for the blog posts, as we post the pictures there will be accompanying details about what we saw, where we stayed, and what we ate. Hopefully you’ll find it interesting.
But for starters, I’m posting this picture for my Mum and sisters. At the beginning of the trip, I was quickly reminded of the many road trips we used to take through Europe as kids with Dad. Lots of the things Brad and I saw in the past 2 weeks brought back so many fond memories. One being of the “baked bean” car. When I saw it zip past us, I yelled at Brad “Take a picture, take a picture!” and just started laughing. We loved those baked bean cars!
As we get back into the daily routine, we’ll be uploading photos and blogging. Stay tuned!
Lufthansa rocks.
At the start of our trip, we took 2 flights on Lufthansa. One from LA to Frankfurt and one from Frankfurt to Athens. Both flights were painless and the LA to Frankfurt portion was really amazing. It was refreshing to be treated with respect on both these flights unlike other airlines we’ve flown.
We were only in Frankfurt for an afternoon and evening before we caught a flight the next morning to Athens.
Frankfurt
The flight here was about as nice as a plane flight can be. We had good food and wine, a bed to sleep in, and plenty of space. We managed to sleep about 6 hours on the plane, and when we arrived it was around noon in Frankfurt.
We caught a cab from the airport (coincidentally driven by a guy whose family is from Crete) and checked into the hotel. We thought getting out and about would fend off the jet lag, but it was still pretty hard to stay alert.
Frankfurt itself is a fairly generic city; it could be easily mistaken for any large city in the US. We stumbled upon a street fair with lots of beer and food. The beer was really good, and the food wasn’t as bad as we’d been told. We had sausage, potato salad, and onion cake.
From there we walked along the river where there was another street fair and concert. By then we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel.
We both took am Ambien, but I was only able to sleep for four hours. It’s now 4am and I’ve been up since around midnight. We have a plane to Athens at 9. Hopefully we can stay awake the entire day.
Weekend with the Girls.
A few weekends ago, Mum and Caroline flew into San Francisco from Hong Kong, and I flew up from LA. We stayed with Elizabeth for a beautiful long weekend in the city. One of the four days together, we drove to Napa for a day of wine tasting. Caroline had never experienced this, so it was a real treat for us to show her what it’s all about. Elizabeth and I planned the entire day, which included both wine and food.
We decided that starting the day with Champagne is a lot easier than a full bodied red wine. So, first stop - Schramsberg. Brad and I have been wine club members since 2006 and really love their sparkling wines. At Schramsberg they offer a tour of the wine cellar in conjunction with the tasting (reservations necessary). We sat in their newly renovated tasting room and tried 4 of their sparkling wines: Blanc de Blancs, J. Schram, Brut Rosé, and Reserve.
Next stop - Frank Family Vineyards. They’re currently under construction, but we were still able to have a few tastes and brought home a bottle of their 2004 Cabernet Sauvigon (no reservations needed here). We enjoyed this yummy wine with the roast dinner Elizabeth made on Saturday night.
We were now ready for lunch. We stopped at Dean & Deluca and picked up some picnic stuff and brought our lunch to V. Sattui. We sat under trees and sipped on their Muscat. Elizabeth doesn’t drink white wine, so Mum, Carol, and I had to do our part and drink up!
After lunch we had a longer ride in the car down to Étude (reservations necessary). We tried 6 of their delicious wines including a Pinot Gris, a Pinot Noirs, and a Cabernet Sauvignon. They were super informative and Caroline learned a lot - and brought home a lot! Between Mum and Caroline, they had 2 cases of wine and were able to safely check the boxes on their flight back home. I too ended up buying a mix and match case of these wines for Brad’s birthday. We had a bit of time between the last tasting and dinner, so we headed to downtown Napa and window shopped. We stopped at a bookstore that was going out of business and scored some great deals.
Elizabeth and I thought long and hard during the planning stages about where to have dinner. We decided on Julia’s Kitchen. Julia’s kitchen is named after the great Julia Child. The restaurant is located at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and The Arts. Although we didn’t get to explore COPIA, its mission is really amazing. It’s a great place to learn and discover about food, wine and the arts.
Dinner was delicious. Elizabeth and I shared oysters on the half shell, Caroline had a seared Ahi salad, and Mum started with the mushroom soup. Elizabeth had the Don Watson Napa Valley Milk Fed Lamb for her entrée, I had the All Natural Berkshire Pork Chop, Caroline asked them to turn their lamb ravioli from an appetizer to an entrée, and Mum had the Liberty Duck a la Orange Duo. We finished the meal with a delicious chocolate tart with sage caramel; a malted milk “shot” accompanied the dessert.
The day in Napa was absolutely amazing as was the rest of the weekend, and it was a great time for the four of us to catch up. I miss them all already.
Red Bull Air Race
Jason and Ann took me to the Red Bull Air Race in San Diego this weekend, and it was a ton of fun. We had a perfect view, good weather, and the racing was even better than I expected. I rented a big lens to capture the action, and for my first attempt at sports photography I thought it went pretty well.
There is a gallery of my favorites here and a couple highlights below.
Welcome to the world, Milo!
Our friends Micah and Tiffany welcomed their son, Milo on Monday. Congratulations! Look how cute he is!
Couldn’t resist… Again!
A while ago I posted a link to YouTube showcasing a cute illustrated cat. Well, Simon’s cat is up to it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rb8aOzy9t4
