7 posts tagged “travel”
One of the things that the Beloved and I have really gotten hooked on in the past year has been cooking-competition shows – namely Top Chef and Iron Chef America. She insists we’re not “foodies” but I think we’re closer to being them than not.
One of our favorite additions to Iron Chef has been the newest IC – Michael Symon. He’s personable and cooks in a style that we really like – typically taking everyday comfort food and putting a high-end cuisine spin on it.
We had pretty easy travel and arrived in Ohio on Friday night early enough that we were able to enjoy dinner at his restaurant Lola in downtown Cleveland. Lola was hip and urbane with a small, but really interesting menu and wine list.
We split a couple of appetizers – a shredded beef pierogie that had mushrooms and horseradish (very good) and a slab of bacon (think small bacon-steak) served with pickled tomatoes and toasty cheese that was phenomenal. For entrees, the Beloved had a black bass that was very good and I had a fantastic venison loin that was grilled to perfection and served in a red-wine chile sauce. Yum!
Overall, the food was excellent and the prices reasonable by high-end restaurant standards. The service started out a little aggressive – as if they were trying to turn the table over pretty rapidly (it was busy). But after we made it clear we meant to take our time and linger, they really backed off and let us enjoy ourselves.
A great way to kick off our long weekend.
Oh, nevermind…
This weekend, the Beloved and I are heading off to Ohio for a wedding in her family. We arrive in Cleveland late on Friday and drive off to umm – errr – some other place in NE Ohio for the wedding Saturday morning.
I was thinking about it this morning. I haven’t been to Ohio for at least 10 years. Should be interesting. I’ll post this song from Over The Rhine (who are from the Cincinnati area), which is truly one of my favorite songs ever.
It’s pretty much going to be all family time, so I don’t know that there will be much of a sight-seeing report on our return, but we’ll see how it goes. I promise I’ll play my Scrabulous turns when I get back.
Ok – bag is backed. Briefcase is bulging. Presentation is ready. Will call for the cab to the Flughafen (gotta start integrating the dozen words of German that I know…) shortly.
Not taking a computer, so I probably won’t be back here for a couple of weeks – so don’t drop me from your neighborhoods, or force-quit our Scrabulous games, or anything crazy like that.
Tschüss!
So, one of the perks of my scientific career has been the chance to travel to scientific and/or business meetings in various places around the globe – Sweden, Switzerland, Cabo San Lucas, Wisconsin, Japan…
This Friday, I return back to the Fatherland to attend and speak at a scientific meeting being held in Berlin, Germany. Pretty exciting for me, the presentation is a big deal (to me) and I haven’t been to Germany in 20 years (ugh) and the last time I was there, East and West Germany were still separate.
As is often the case, there is the opportunity to tack a vacation on to the end of these conferences and so The Beloved is coming over on Tuesday (the final day of the meeting) and we’ll split the next 10 days between Berlin and Munich. We’d thought that we might want to go back to Hawaii this year in the spring, but who wouldn’t rather spend two weeks in Germany in February with the dollar doing so well rather than hanging out on Kauai? At least we should beat the crowds.
One reason to go to Munich and Bavaria is to spend a little time discovering the Ancestral Betz Homeland. As near as we can figure from my family history, my particular branch of the Betz-family emigrated to Philadelphia from Bavaria in the 1850s.
No one in my family is aware of any current relatives still in Bavaria (nor are they aware of us apparently), but I’m still excited to go back and see what I can see there. As near as I can determine, the Betz’s in Germany made their living being hired thugs. Ahhh, family pride.
So, the next few days will be spent making sure that I have all my stuff together. I pretty much finished my presentation yesterday, so that was good. So, has anyone been to either Munich or Berlin recently and have any recommendations???
So here it is: August 1st.
It’s an auspicious day at The Aerie, because it is the beginning of my birthmonth! (Woo!)
Oh… birthmonth you ask? Well, it seemed a tad limiting to cram all-birthday oriented activities into one 24-hour period, so rather than a birthday, we decided you get a birthmonth. So yeah, I’ll be even more self-absorbed and insufferable for the next 30 days than usual. (Actually, I’ve already been on the “don’t buy anything for yourself” blackout since mid-July, which is always sort of fun, though makes cruising Amazon fairly infuriating).
The most intriguing part of the birthmonth is that I was instructed to take Monday the 13th off from work. Why? Because we are leaving for “Secret Weekend” that Saturday! The Beloved will be (presumably) taking me away for a weekend getaway as a surprise present. (We did this once last year (pre-blog or I’m sure you’d have heard about it…), when I arranged for us to have a weekend in Laguna).
I, of course, have been trying to wheedle out of her where we’re going, or (maybe more subtly) what clothes will I need to have clean when we leave, or will I need to pack toiletries in a zip lock because we’re flying rather than driving. So far, she has been impervious to my queries.
So, my thought is that for a weekend trip its gotta be reasonably close either by car or by air (so Hawaii’s out). Some thoughts…
… also any other ideas out there for pre-determining? (Actually, I sort of like the not-knowing – that’s what makes it such a special treat! I’m such a lucky guy!)
Janie tasked me with coming up with 10 things that most people don’t know about me. I had made a similar attempt at something similar a while back, but I’m game, so lets see…
- Like Janie, I share the same middle name with one of my siblings. Though its not Lyn. Its Francis. It was my dad’s first name. And he had HIS dad’s first name as a middle name. Must be a Betz-thing.
2. I once sang “Country Roads Take Me Home” doing karaoke during a business trip to Japan.
3. At a grade school recital rehearsal (I think it was 3rd grade), I was stung by a bee, passed out, fell off the riser I was on, falling onto the stage floor. This prompted Ephraim Nieves to shout, “O my God, he’s DEAD!”
4. I once drove from Chapel Hill, NC to Camden NJ and never once used my turn signal. (It was a Jersey-driver test of honor sort of thing)
5. Eight states left! Based on Cori’s post the other day, I looked into World66 and was surprised when I input the states that I have been to. I know I was in Oregon during a family trip when I was a tyke, but I don’t really remember it, so I didn’t think I should count it.
6. My brother gave me my first driving lesson in his slick 1977 Monte Carlo (it had a landau roof -- classy). The first thing I did was drive up onto the curb and nearly into a telephone pole. My dad completed my driver’s education.
7. I participated in high school musicals. The photos from my senior year performance in “Pippin” are ashes.
8. I interviewed for a position at DuPont after I earned my PhD with the one of the biggest hangovers of my life (my old college roommate lived about a block from the hotel I stayed at – we stayed up drinking). During the seminar portion of the talk, I couldn’t get nervous, b/c I was so focused on staying coherent. I aced it and got the position.
9. In grad school (and at various places since), my nickname was “Bubba”. A good percentage of people that know me, still use that as their primary way to address me.
10. The first movie I can ever remember going to see (I think I was ~5 yo) was Disney’s “Song of the South” -- apparently I went around singing Zipidee-doo-dah for weeks.
Open tagging-season for all that would like to participate!
Finally getting to post after being on the road for the New Year's Holiday. Just a quick update.. we had a great visit to the East Coast seeing family and friends in a Midlantic tour from DC to New Jersey to Elkton, MD and then out again via Dulles. Flights were pretty painless, though the initial thirty minute early arrival into Dulles was wrecked by having to wait an hour and 50 minutes for our bags. Stinking United.
So it struck me on Monday morning as we were making the drive to the airport (from Elkton, about a 2h drive) that we'd drive on the major interstate arteries for both coasts, I-95 and I-5 in a single day --- and I got to thinking about the differences between them.
I rarely drove on interstates growing up in NJ. In the east, interstates were laid down on top of roads and communities that had existed for more than a century. They are a way to get from one distant place to another to avoid local congestion. To get from one place to another locally, you'd almost always take a state-route or a US highway.
In California however, the interstates are used everyday -- to get to school, to the grocery store, to work, even to the beach. Even the state routes have evolved to be "interstate like" -- high speeds, exit ramps and no traffic lights. You only get off the freeways when you've already reached your destination. They're integrated much more completely into daily life -- maybe that's why they're referred to colloquially as "the 5", etc.
Also, another difference is the speed. I think little of going ~85 mph on I-5 (everyone else is), but was very aware of staying in the flow of traffic on I-95, which was about 70 mph.
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