downtown boston

Here I am with my black coffee and the Providence Journal, listening to Stornoway (anyone who hasn't heard 'Zorbing' please look it up on youtube right. this. second) just like any other Sunday morning...but this is not just any Sunday morning. Today is FAMILY REUNION SUNDAY: 150+ members of my Italian family all eating under the same roof. A tent roof. Outdoors. This only happens every 10 years, so I'm quite lucky to be visiting in my home state this weekend...

Anyway here are some photos from Boston!

Our first (only) full day in Boston started off like all good city days...outside in the sun, with an iced latte at a beautiful little café. This is Café Vanille in Beacon Hill, I haven't ordered a chocolate croissant since I was in Belgium (with Kelsey!) and this one was divine. In the state of mind I'm usually in when I wake up at 8am (jet lagged) this is a necessity.

If you ever go to Boston, set aside PLENTY of time to walk around Beacon Hill. We were there before the stores were even open (a first in my life) and then went back later that evening at sunset. I can't believe this is in the center of Boston; it's so calm and practically deserted, I can't believe people actually live in these dream houses!

But of course the cutest street in all of America (as a construction worker stopped to tell us) is ACORN STREET. Just look at this...

Could the people who live here be any cooler? No big deal I'll just park my BRIGHT RED VESPA outside my multimillion-dollar townhouse...

Brief cultural moments on the Freedom Trail: sadly I don't remember what these buildings are, but there were schoolgroups outside both of them, so there must be some history to be found here...

Faneuil Hall Marketplace: it's stuffed to its eyeballs with tourists (ie screaming children) but worth a visit anyways...

Then we walked into the North End, the Italian area of Boston, and found a hole-in-the-wall Italian family's bakery that ended up being a highlight of the trip. We spent ages looking through their heavenly selection of pastries but ended up choosing Boston Creme Pie (appropriate!) and sat on a doorstep across the street to devour it.

Walking around the North End: We walked into a boutique and asked a girl working there if she had recommendations for where to eat lunch, and ended up talking with her for half an hour about all her favorite places in Boston (and sharing study abroad memories of course). People are so friendly here!

Aaand then we got on the metro to Harvard Square and managed to see probably 6 more neighborhoods in the same day...those photos coming later!

love,

-a

boston: day one

Two weekends ago I took this lovely minivacation with my friend KELSEY. I met this little angel in the airport in Glasgow on my first day in September...I stumbled into the terminal at some ungodly hour like 8am and, fresh off a 20-hour journey from Oregon, I just happened to run into another girl who was as lost trying to get to the university as I was! Since then we have had the best times together...eating mostly, but some proud cultural exploration moments too. (if you can call talking politics with two Dutch boys in a Utrecht snack bar at 2am cultural exploration?) Anyway, we've been all around the Netherlands and Belgium and Glasgow together, and now that we're momentarily on the same side of the pond again, Boston was the obvious meetup for the next weekend trip. 

Our first day was pretty typical: my train and her bus both happened to be an hour and a half delayed, Kelsey's bag ripped by the time we met in South Station, and after a tussle with the subway system we finally arrived at our hostel only to find that our room had been overbooked. What better start to a relaxing weekend getaway? But things fell back into place...we even ended up with a private room at another place right across from Fenway Park. We had a lovely evening walking around Newbury Street and ate dinner at this beautiful little bar/restaurant called Otherside.

I ordered a vegan BLT (yes it was one of those places) and Kelsey got some lettuce wraps...a brief moment of healthy eating before the tornado of bakeries and ice cream that would attack our weekend.

Newbury Street:

J.P. Licks ice cream...there should really be one of these on every street corner in New England. How else to survive a summer here?! This place is amazing...they even have a gigantic teacup inside, just like Disneyworld. But much better ice cream than Disneyworld.

Also: take a close look at the cash register in this next photo...the people in line in front of me ordered Cucumber and Lumpy Primate ice cream. Why didn't I get a better look at them?

Sometime when everything else closed, we went back to our hostel and checked out the "Panoramic Lounge" on the top floor. Look at the view of Fenway! Not that I really pay attention anymore, but I was raised in a house that WORSHIPS the Boston Red Sox, so I've been bragging about this for the past two weeks straight. We couldn't see anything except for a few little baseball caps in the upper seats, but still...

Planning our next day's adventures...

More Boston photos soon! happy Friday everyone!

LOVE

-a

one day in D.C.

Some photos from the only day I took my camera out in D.C.! First off let me just say that I love this city but that weather has GOT to go. It was so humid and sticky all day and then as soon as I got off the metro on my way home to the hotel...FLASH FLOODS!! what is this place??

Anyway I was so thrilled to see ANDREA again, one night I went to her house for dinner and the next day I met her near her job (my friend the future ruler of the world) for lunch at Cosi. When her Blackberry started ringing with work emails we said goodbye and I walked down the street to the Sculpture Garden. It's a very cool place to walk around and eat lunch outside, here's one of my favorite pieces:

 When it got too hot outside, I walked to the National Gallery of Art before meeting my friend Melanie later that afternoon...

This museum is colossal...I walked in thinking I'd just take a quick look but ended up getting lost in there for 4 hours. They have a bunch of exhibits going on right now, like the Matisse cut-outs (really beautiful and HUGE), a ton of Beat photographs from Allen Ginsberg's collection, and a big Mark Rothko exhibit too. I even ran into one of my old roommates from my first university in California (which is 3000 miles away...) small world!

There's so much to see but this was one of my absolute favorites: Chuck Close created the piece below completely with his fingerprints...and it's over 8 feet tall!

The underground walkway between buildings:

National Mall

MELANIE! This little munchkin is one of my very best friends from Pomona, the first university I went to, and I hadn't seen her in over a year until I went to D.C. How adorable is she!? 

We found a frozen yogurt place near Dupont Circle after she and her boyfriend Alan finished work, I was so glad to see them both before they go to ATHENS for the semester, exciting!

That's all from D.C....soon I am putting up photos from my trip with Kelsey to BOSTON!!

hope everyone is having a lovely week!

-a

last days in san francisco

Here are the last photos from our trip to San Francisco!

Our last few days were the best part of the trip - we found some new neighborhoods and I saw my friend HILARY from my old university who I hadn't seen in ages and of course THE FOOD...

My cousin and I went to some greasy little sports bar (obesity & enchiladas) to watch the Spain-Germany game one morning, then that night we all went out to a Spanish restaurant called B44 to celebrate. I love love love Spanish food but you don't see too many real Spanish restaurants around. This one was in the French Quarter of SF (gorgeous neighborhood), we sat outside in the patio (from the photo above) and had the best time. If you're ever in SF you must go there! and order paella and watch Spanish TV and eavesdrop on all the beautiful Spanish waiters!

Cultural stuff aside...what I really loved about SF was the hotel. Here's the view from the lounge and the third floor lobby:

One day we drove out to Berkeley for the day to look around and go to our favorite (& only) raw vegan restaurant in town. The lasting image I have of Berkeley is an overweight homeless guy holding a sign that said "Too ugly for porn- NEED MONEY FOR ACTING LESSONS!" This is the kind of town we're talking about. That being said we found some great places walking around and of course there was CAFE GRATITUDE for lunch...

My cousins first discovered this place when one of them, Michael, was deciding whether or not to go to college at Berkeley (Fun fact: they found a bunch of freshly rolled joints in their rental car on that trip). I think it's a pretty fascinating place. First of all your meal starts off with a question like "What are you really learning?" or "Who is your hero or SHEro?" You know, deep thoughts. Then everything on the menu has a name like "I am blessed," "I am gorgeous," etc. Of course I had to order the "I AM FABULOUS" which is actually just raw zucchini covered in cashew cream...be careful what you order in a raw vegan restaurant, friends. That being said I still LOVE this hippie freak restaurant and if you go there get a vanilla-bean smoothie and an ice cream sundae for dessert, it's made of cashews yet somehow tastes good. Or just go to people watch, Berkeley's finest are all there!

Then we drove to Telegraph Ave. and walked around for awhile, I love this street. Here's Shakespeare & Co., one of my favorite used bookstores EVER:

I'm forgetting the name of this café (Café Med maybe?) but APPARENTLY, the latte was invented here. I'm still unconvinced that lattes were invented in a hole-in-the-wall cafe in Berkeley but I'd go back anyway, their coffee rocks.

Back in San Francisco we found another favorite place: the 4-story Levi's store in Union Square, where one floor is completely for customized clothes and there's a jean jacket designed for every single state in the U.S.!

The next day I met up with Hilary, who lives in San Francisco & knows everything about everything. We had lunch at Cha Cha Cha, a fabulous Caribbean place on Haight Street (mmm fried plantain), then scoured all the thrift stores in Haight-Ashbury. Check out the crazy vintage shoes with Tahitian villages carved into the heel! A few days later she left for CHILE where she's spending this semester abroad, and she started a blog too! Check it out:

Chile a la Gringa

Later that afternoon my mom and I walked down Fillmore Street checking out all the little boutiques there. My favorites were Elizabeth Charles, which stocks a lot of designers from Australia and New Zealand (even if all I could afford was a t-shirt from the clearance rack) and they even have a Jigsaw which is even more expensive in the U.S. than it is in London!

We had a lovely vegetarian dinner at The Grove, a cozy little restaurant down the street, and then a frozen yogurt at this amazing new place called Fraiche. How good does this chocolate raspberry one look?

On our last day in SF we saw two of its fine art museums (they came free with our Citypass so we figured we might as well) - they're beautiful! We had lunch at the Legion of Honor museum and walked around, then drove over to the DeYoung before we left for San Jose. By the way the DeYoung has a huge collection of New Guinean art which is great, I've never seen anything like it, worth going just for that collection!

Our last view of San Francisco - the city hall on our way out of town:

The next day I was off to DC...photos of that trip coming soon!

LOVE

-a