More awesome videos

Our first videos were so popular that we decided to make a few more.  Enjoy!

at long last...camino pictures!

We know these have been a long time coming - we hope a few people are still checking this from time to time. These got posted in reverse order, so view from the bottom up...videos to follow shortly!

And even higher fashion in Portugal...

High fashion in Spain

In Santiago at last...someone is taking this very seriously

Giving the emergency ponchos one last airing on the final approach to Santiago

Life support machine

Galician granary

Hiking amidst the eucalyptus in Galicia

Grungy lodgings in Melide

A very appropriately sized dinner for two in Triacastela

Kirsten with her favorite saint

Gettin' cuddly in Foncebadon

D.R. strutting his stuff outside of Astorga

HB and the Three Musketeers: Roger (aka Sexy), Gerard and The Man in the Yellow Hat

Weary pilgrims in Mansilla de las Mulas

Biggest blister ever, pre-mystical healing rite

HB and Sexy

Checking on the laundry in Najera

Hey! Beer that tastes like beer!

Filling up at the wine fountain

Baguette, the universal camino food

6:30 a.m., day #2. Not terribly encouraging.

Making good use of the emergency poncho on the way into Cirauqui

Sampling the grapes of the Rioja

  Xavier, whom we thought was mentally handicapped based on this and other similar interactions, but who actually turned out to be quite bright...

Bing bing

Well, we lost our French friends Roger and Gerard (and their new third musketeer, The Man in the Yellow Hat, brought in to replace their other friend Jean who claimed he was "united in unity" with them and ditched them the next day), but Roger had begun speaking almost entirely in sound effects, so we were starting to have some difficulty communicating with him anyway. We did get some pictures before we parted ways that we´ll post here at some point. We´re now teamed up with a super speedy Spanish man who carries a large umbrella at all times, an Australian guy who´s taken to calling himself Pepe, and a German theater dude who´s into self-discovery and insistent about dessert. We´ve only got two days left ´til Santiago, though, so this is really the final stretch - Kirsten made the excellent point that, on my birthday, I might want to wake up in an actual bed in a room not reeking of body odor sometime later than 6 a.m., and it was well taken. So, we´re going to sit in front of the cathedral in Santiago on the 8th and clap for all the other pilgrims (and maybe hand out beer - it´s just so cheap). We´re hoping not to be chased by any more German shepherds between now and then, but we now know a Spanish kung fu master whose specialty is doggy defense, so we should be in the clear. For now, it´s time to go enjoy our second-to-last egg & cheese vegetarian special dinner...more from Santiago!

oh la la

Okay - we´re having no success at all uploading pictures from public computers, so we thought we´d post a little text update just in case anyone´s still reading this. We´re officially halfway across Spain - we´re still aiming to finish on Heather´s 30th birthday, and we´re pretty much on schedule. We might be ahead of schedule if we throw in any more 45 kilometer days - the first one didn´t kill us, though, and now we have a reputation as the Crazy Americans. There really aren´t that many other Americans doing this in general, though, and the others all seem to be older women, so we probably are crazier than many of the other Americans here. We´ve made a lot of new friends, including the older French guy trio of Roger (frequent wearer of sexy mesh shirt and mystical blister healer), Gerard and Jean, who routinely greet us with "Oh la la", stated with various degrees of enthusiasm based on their level of morale or fatigue. There are also a lot of old German guys who like to hang around in their underwear, but we´re trying not to make friends with them. We miss our old beer-drinking Swedish friend, John, and our ever-swearing Basque pal, Xavier (we were pretty sure we knew the F word in Spanish, but now we´re definitely sure), and we´re hoping our new Australian friend Rosemary catches up to us again. In the meantime, we´re learning the word for snoring in many different languages, and we´re grateful that earplugs block out the sound no matter what. We´ll post pictures soon...

Okay - here's a shout out to the Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron beer.  It's strong and thick, but you can really taste the Paraguayan mate cup in it (tastier than it sounds).  So support Paraguay if you see it.

So, here's a final toast to walking across Spain for the next month - sadly, we can't bring champagne in a can on the plane any more, but we'll have plenty of opportunities to drink wine out of an odd assortment of containers once we're there. Check back in for the blister report soon!

O Canada!

Okay, this is rapidly turning into Heather's own blog, so here's what I did with my time off.  I went to Hamilton to watch Zainab eat Timbits.  I enjoyed my share of Timmy's coffee and muffins. Unfortunately, Quebec still has relatively few Tim's outlets, and I was unable to get anything to bring back across the border.  (Sorry, Heather.)  But there are now a few Tim's on the New York section of I-90 so you can pick up some next time you're driving from Albany to Buffalo.  

Zainab and I did the veggie highlights of Toronto tour, which is always excellent.  

We headed up to Montreal to meet up with the physio and math crew and Zainab tried to eat Genia's super cute son, Rayan.  I still didn't get my Analysis book back from Nermein, but I guess that gives me an excuse to go back.  

 

Finally, we met up with Clare, revisited frosh week Open Air Pub (with new ID checks) and enjoyed more excellent veggie food.  Zainab also dragged us (I think Clare was a little easier to convince than I was) on a St Laurent shopping spree.  

The St Laurent restaurants seem to have all changed, but Club Tokyo is still very much in place.  We finished off the weekend at the club.  

I'm not entirely sure how this guy got into the photo, but in all fairness, Zainab does know him.  

I made the requisite Montreal bagel and Canadian beer stops on the way out of town.  The drive back was most notable for an extremely long border line and excellent hospitality from some of Heather's camp friends.    

I know a place

This is just a bunch of pictures from the amazing weekend just spent at my true home, Camp Little Notch. It truly is the greatest place in the world, and I'm not just saying that for the benefit of any Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York staff members who might happen upon this (if any of them are, though, we are definitely not standing inside the furnace in the bottom picture). I don't have too much to say about it because the whole place is a little bit beyond words for me, but it was great to catch up with people and see how much some people have changed, how much some people haven't (see Pizza Mikey, right - only Mikey...), and how deeply I'm tied to people and a place I see only infrequently these days. So, my apologies to those involved for the bathingsuit shots, but thanks to everyone who made my weekend and my entire childhood and adolescence and, well, life totally incredible...

An instructional video

This is really meant for Kirsten, but I figured I'd post it here anyway...

Jiggly Wiggly

Just some pics of Ayesha's and my camping trip last weekend...the weather forecasts were dire, but apart from some added slipperiness and diminished views on Algonquin (that improved at the last minute), we didn't have too much trouble. We were mostly disturbed by the mysterious noises that seemed to be coming from a nearby RV...that's the price we pay for car camping, I guess. Check out the amount of stuff we had for breakfast alone, though, and I think you'll see why backpacking was a less practical option. We had 3 different kinds of coffee - not exactly roughing it in an extreme sort of way. Episode #3 (aka Operation Jiggly Wiggly) of the tasting tour of halal/kosher marshmallows available in Minneapolis held a surprising twist - an unexpected hint of strawberry flavor - but it didn't ruin the s'mores, and it was still a far cry better than the last round. For those who might be interested, beef gelatin makes a way better marshmallow than fish gelatin. Anyway, we had a great time, and if Ayesha ever comes back to the States after residency, I think she might even comtinue to help me toward my extremely eventual goal of becoming an Adirondack 46er. 3 down, 43 to go...

Olympic fever

Broken - last night, for the first time this go-round, I started to get a little tired of watching the Olympics. Bob Costas is as benignly charming as ever and I continue to explore theories about what syndrome of abnormal skeletal growth and ligamentous laxity Michael Phelps might have, but I think it's time to get out from in front of the TV. So, it's a good thing Ayesha and I are going camping this weekend - no TV in the tent.

Here are some photo highlights from the last week and a half or so - Lisa at the sculpture exhibit in the NY botanical garden, Jennie grieving for Wellesley in the White House (sorry, Jennie - maybe Hillary would've done better to show her feminine side by wearing more pretty pink like you), my little cousin Makayla being christened, and my mom kicking old lady ass at the New Hampshire Senior Games.

Other highlights have included catching up with lots of extended family, going to the track, sleeping in on a regular basis, and running alongside the erstwhile Erie Canal, where I seem to startle at least one heron per run. It's probably annoying for them to have some noisy girl come pounding down the pavement at them, but I really enjoy watching them fly away in that slow-motion way they have.

For now, it's time to turn off the TV (seriously - I don't even know what sport this is) and think about getting ready for the weekend...camping pics next week!

Bog Road

I love the northeast - I really do. Mostly, it's the shapes of the land, the smells of the soil and the trees and the friends, family and memories that live here that make it feel like home to me, but I love other things about it, too. I love the ubiquitous Stewart's Shops with their cheap, tasty ice cream (and the hygienically questionable make your own sundaes) and, of course, the availability of a wide variety of exciting beers I've gone without for three years (this hotel even sells them by the bottle in the lobby - Harpoon and Smuttynose, no less). I even love the metastatic proliferation of Dunkin' Donuts - I'm not sure all of America runs on Dunkin', but the parts of it north of Baltimore and east of Pittsburgh certainly could, assuming their insulin secretion is up to snuff. I'm a total sucker for their iced coffee - I haven't succumbed to the lure of the donuts themselves yet, but travels in Canada last summer made me a Timbit snob and I haven't quite gotten over that yet. I've got the ice cream and beer to flesh out my caloric intake, anyway. I also love the straightforwardness of the northeast - I know people in Minnesota thought I spoke my mind a little too much, but I'm no match for the total stranger who looked me in the eye the other day (while I was engaged in the very offensive act of ordering a milkshake) and said, "Fuck you, white trash." Okay, she seemed a little off-kilter in general - I've never seen anyone attack a quaint glass bottle of chocolate milk quite like this woman did - but I appreciated her willingness to speak her mind. Also, I went for an absolutely gorgeous run today (definitely on the Best Runs Ever list) on a road in New Hampshire called Bog Road - I really should not have been as surprised as I was when, after a couple of miles, I ended up at...a bog. Not a quaking one, but definitely a bog. I grew up in suburban Houston, where streets have pretty nature names (Coral Sands, Willow Shores, Sycamore Lake) that typically reference things that in no way occur in nature within, say, a few hours' drive (past the oil refineries and megachurches). While I appreciate the imaginary - I once had a set of no fewer than 8 made-up siblings, and I really like the show Dragon Tales - and understand the power of wishful thinking, especially in arboreally bereft areas like the outskirts of Houston, it's refreshing to have things be a little more literal. More on recent fun activities once I can coax some pics off my new camera...

Two short documentaries

I had to suck it up and use Google video to get these things to work, but I think it's worth it to share these extremely well planned, professional quality films.  Enjoy.

Also, I changed the settings to allow comments without a Google login.  So if you have something nice to say, please do.  

The Venga bus is coming

to North Carolina, in the form of a just-barely-big-enough (thanks, Sorenson's mover guys) 12 foot Penske truck careening over the mountains as its driver takes scenic through-the-windshield photos like this. Of note, the only purpose that mirror served was to block this shot (well, and to reassure us that the back of the truck was in fact still connected to the front). Photographic mishaps aside, it's good to be back here where we can get a quart of sweet tea for 89 cents at Bojangle's and the people are friendly - the guy who tried to hitch a ride in the truck even admitted that his request was "real sketchy," and was nice about it when Kirsten turned him down. So far, we've caught up with a few friends here, taken the Ayesha Kadir Chapel Hill nostalgia tour, finally met Boot Steenker, unloaded all of our spare stuff onto Kirsten's parents (thanks, Deb and Bri - and Kilgore the cat, whose room is being taken over by boxes) and realized that living in Minnesota for three years has made us about as tough as soft serve ice cream in the summer heat. Oh, and we made a little bit of time in between Food Network afternoon programming to send back our acceptance letters for our jobs in New Zealand. I suppose we will have to go back to work eventually...blast. For now, though, it's off to New York for Heather and on to hardcore boards study time for Kirsten...more soon!

Faster than a speeding bullet

is the speed at which we flew across the prairie from Minnesota to North Carolina...well, not quite. Illinois is really long, especially when you drive the entire length of the state in one go (and the rhyming pro-gun signs in the cornfields are more annoying than amusing, really). We broke up our trip with some pizza at the Monical's in Arcola (thanks for the recommendation, Deb-O) and with a requisite visit to the "giant" Superman statue in Metropolis. We were most impressed by its ungiantness - there's a big statue of a grocery clerk at the other end of town that really looks bigger (though some guy eavesdropping on our conversation swore it isn't). Ayesha made a solo detour to Carbondale to get some St. Louis specialties - Fitz's root beer and Ted Drewe's frozen custard - from Schnuck's (an actual grocery store name - almost as good as Piggly Wiggly, but not quite). After we conquered Illinois, we blew through western Kentucky before pulling off in Nashville, Ayesha's birthplace/college haunt, for a night with the extremely gracious Hans Willi (sans lederhosen), Marianne and Morty the dog. We didn't get a picture of Morty, but he played a good game of tug. Partly in his honor, but mostly for nostalgic purposes, we stopped by Fido coffee house in the morning before setting off over the mountains for North Carolina - their super tasty muffins became crucial for endurance when we got stuck in traffic getting around the exploded car in Knoxville...

Welcome to Wisconsin

This is a very emotionally loaded video shot in the parking lot of the Spirit Seller liquor store in Hudson, Wisconsin, site of many a Sunday Sconnie run (okay, maybe we only went twice - we like to plan ahead). We actually rehearsed this repeatedly prior to the final take...

Bye Bye, Beautiful

We're sure Minnesota was sad to see us go. After all, we are the Beautiful Twins, as evidenced by our fetching kanga-belly dancer hat outfits. This picture was snapped just after we performed a hybrid Turkish-Tanzanian traditional dance to celebrate our departure. We expect to see an even better dance from Cecily next year - she did inherit the hats, after all...