aimee's day out

Sunshine and a high of 40 degrees (F) has never felt so good.  I rode my bike to Boston to meet up with Marie and Will at the New England Aquarium.  Thank goodness for student vouchers - ticket prices are so exorbitant that you'd think it was Sea World.  (That is an exaggeration - I just googled it and a single day pass a Sea World is $70.)  We looked at all of the exhibits, but of course we were most excited for the adorable PENGUINS!

After the aquarium we headed back (I biked, they took the train) to Cambridge to have dinner at my favorite - The Friendly Toast!  Their menu is so big, and I tried something new this time - New Hampshire scramble: asparagus and goat cheese.  So good!  I swear, everything I try there is my favorite.

I checked on google maps, and my round trip bike ride was today was about 7.5 miles.  I guess the beginning of winter is a bad time to think about becoming a super sweet biker, but I'd really like to become a super sweet biker.  Nothing too intense, but ~40 mile day trips around New England would be nice.

One more note about winter cycling - Will sent me this article about using zip ties to make snow tires.  Unfortunately it won't work on my bike because I have rim brakes, but isn't it a great idea?  My brakes are mostly useless in the winter anyway because my bike has steel rims, but the zip tie isn't able to fit between the rim and the brake.  I'll just bike on sunny days like this, and spend the rest of the winter walking around town.

Mr. Phil

Although it's been a few months, I'd like to post about how we celebrated Phil's birthday.

In an effort to spend less money on *things* and more money on *awesome experiences and adventures,* my gift to Phil was tickets to see Louis CK at the Wilbur Theater in Boston.

 

The theater itself was so great - right on the subway line, and it had an old, (dusty) charming feel to it.  Our seats were in the very last row of the balcony of the theater.  This was our view of the stage:

 

 And this is us.  Phil is frightened because the balcony was steep!  And didn't have a hand rail.  So we had a great view but felt like we could tumble down and over the edge if we weren't careful.

Louis is amazing. One of his jokes was him imagining the casting of the "Goodbye, Jews!" girl in Schindler's List. So good! I hope Word ends up on Netflix soon so that you'll know what I'm talking about.

That was Friday. On Saturday, I threw Phil a surprise party (a fiesta, really - there was a pinata) at our apartment. I forgot to take any pictures, but it was a lot of fun! I am still a little surprised at how well everything went, haha.

Portland

{Friday}
packing
flying across America
DirecTV on JetBlue

{Saturday}
breakfast with the family at a French cafe
lunch with Joe's fiance, Tessa at the outlet mall
bowling at The Grand Central
tapas at Andina
coffee at Powell's

{Sunday}
brunch courtesy of Phil's father
pinot tasting in Dundee
-Argyle Winery
-Daedalus
-other one...
sushi happy hour at San Sei

{Monday}
geocaching on Mount Tabor
habanero fritters at Salvador Molly's
pinball at Ground Kontrol
Voodoo Doughnuts (I had the Portland cream)

{Tuesday}
travel all day
plants vs zombies
layover in Long Beach
pad thai and red curry from Panvimarn

Live Free or Die

Spring in New England is beautiful when it's not raining.

Last Saturday, Oksana, Olga, and I got a zip car for the afternoon and drove to Portsmouth, NH.



Me in front of the Portsmouth Light. The informational sign said it was the tenth lighthouse to be built in North America.

While I was there I picked up this book [The Whale by Philip Hoare] because I've been eying it at bookstores for a while and the shop in New Hampshire happened to have a signed copy left from an author event. Once I finish some of my overdue library books, I'll start into this one.

Brooklyn

Phil and I took the BoltBus to New York to visit Priya and Rahul for a weekend. I met Priya in Bremen, Germany, where we were summer research fellows at marum. One of the best things about my summer in Bremen was cooking with Priya and exploring the city, so it was great to be able to capture that again for a few days in Brooklyn.

I took a lot of pictures, so I'll make an album on facebook. But these are a few of my favorites.

We are so not interested in you. Go away.

Hanging out at the Brooklyn Flea Market.

Where are we what should we do how do we get there how late is it open? iphones to the rescue.

Thank you Priya and Rahul! Please come and visit us in Cambridge soon.

a nerd's life

I think yesterday was such a great culmination of beautiful weather, a great city (where else can you think of that has a week long science festival?), friendlies, yummy food, and hardly a responsibility to distract me from how much fun I'm having.

Mr. P and I rode along the Charles River bike path for 5.5 miles to the Museum of Science, which had a cute little telescope pointed at the sun.

yes, a telescope can be adorable

Then we strolled through the museum for a few minutes (they were doing a demonstration with a sheep's lungs! this is a serious museum, folks), and then rode to the Science Festival Carnival, where we met up with Russell.

Newton's cradle made out of tetherballs, and a girl with a sweet backpack learning physics

a maker bot, which prints things (like the figurines on the right) in 3D

Best part of the carnival: looking at jello under the cross polarized filters! Thank you, mineralogy. We then walked to the Miracle of Science, a bar in Central Square which, according to P, has the best burger around (my veggie burger was also delish!). Eric joined us for lunch, then we all walked to the MIT Museum, which has crazy awesome holograms, but my favorite were the kinetic sculptures. Ice cream at Toscanini's, then we all played kubb (remember my first encounter with the game?) at P's house. After Russell and Eric headed home and we retrieved our bikes, we noticed a flyer advertising free poutine at the Queen's Head. Yes please! At this point, I was wearing pajama pants under my skirt to keep warm for the bike ride home, but a free Canadian delicacy is worth the major fashion blunder.

nickel for Charlie

A few months ago, Mr. P and I found our first geocache in the woods near Fresh Pond. Geocaching is great because sometimes you need an excuse to go outside and enjoy a beautiful day, or even a day that is just cold and not super-duper cold. On Sunday we revisited one that had given us grief in the past--we thought we were at the cache site, but actually we were across the street! And even once we crossed the street, we spent a good amount of time poking around before we were able to find the 'magnetic micro.'

Letterbox

Mr. P and I went on an adventure in our neighborhood by finding a letterbox. If you haven't heard of it before, it's kind of like a geocache, but instead of GPS coordinates, you figure out clues that tell you where to go. The "cache" is a handmade rubber stamp that you put in notebook. This one was found in a tree about a mile from my house.

fluff fest

It was news to me that neighboring Somerville is home to fluff, or marshmallow creme. Phil and I went to the fluff fest, the annual festival celebrating Somerville's ingenuity.

The fluffmobile.

Me as fluffboy, the super hero of the day.

Sam Adams

I just uploaded the photos of my Pentax from the past few months, so here are a few activities since I've moved to Cambridge.

Mr. P's fall birthday was the perfect excuse for us to take a surprise (for him) visit to the Sam Adam's brewery. Their free tour and free sampling room fit with my unemployed budget, and I think Phil had a great time. Not being a beer drinker myself, he got my 4 ounce sample to boot.

Phil in the tasting room.

Enjoying myself in the gift shop.

My gift to Phil: the amazing sillly straw.

New Everything

I moved to Cambridge, MA on September 5th.

9/13--Candlepin bowling in Davis Square. Scores: BC: 57; MP: 59.
New Puebla (sketchy authentic Mexican place with tiny tacos): Tacos Lupita near Porter Square

9/12--Geocaching around Fresh Pond, Cambridge Water Works

9/10--Job interview for Youth Leadership Corps

9/9--New old bike from craigslist: blue ROSS three speed cruiser

Travelblog II

Readers, if you are still out there: visit my Summer 2009 Travelblog

Taiwanna-be

I returned from my journey around Taiwan a half-day ago.

For someone who spends a large fraction of her time and mental capacity thinking about the earth, I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we live on a beautiful giant marble, and I was on the other side of it for two weeks.

--星

P.S. I learned this dance at KTV.

Throop Poop

On Tuesday I realized it was spring--it's hard to tell sometimes, because California is always balmy and pleasant.

A turtle had ventured a few feet away from her turtle compatriots into the bushes a few feet away from the Turtle Pond. Fearing she might be lost, Marie reached down to pick her up but noticed she was hovering over a hole. She was laying eggs! A few were visible in the hole she had dug and I even saw one plop out of her bum like a white glistening poop. (I know eggs don't really come from a bum.) After that she proceeded to fill the hole back in with dirt until it was barely conspicuous.