France to go

A photo of my mom’s parents on my last trip to Florida in 2006

Tomorrow night we’re heading off to Florida for a little 5-day vacation to visit my grandparents — both sets. I haven’t seen them in a while and Evan hasn’t even met them yet since they live so far away and he’s never been around when they’ve come to California. We’re excited to get some slightly warmer weather, some new scenery — Evan’s never been to Florida — and to relax with my family.

We’re also planning on spending a night in Miami, but we need to do a bit of research to figure out where to stay and what exactly to do. I’ve spent a total of one afternoon in South Beach so far, and mostly just spent my time walking down the beach. If you have any suggestions for Miami, or for Palm Beach/Boynton Beach (where we’re staying), we’d love to hear them!

After our excursion to the Chocolate Bar, Evan and I walked over to the science museum, but found the exhibits didn’t really hold our interest, so we went on to Hyde park. We entered the park right near the Albert Memorial, an extravagant statue involving exotic animals, hordes of people and lots of gold surrounded by a very pointy-topped fence and lots of security cameras.

From there, we walked to the Serpentine since it was getting cold and dark quickly. Once we were near the end of the lake, though, we noticed how pretty the view was and stopped to take a photo before power-walking the rest of the way home.

Evan and I started our sightseeing on Saturday with a walk through Green Park, stopping at Buckingham Palace before heading through St. James Park to the Horse Guards Parade.

Green Park

Buckingham Palace

St. James Park Lake

Horse Guards Parade

To make up for my terribly inaccurate drawing of Horse Guards Parade from St. James Lake, I went back on Tuesday and drew it for real. From my spot, I couldn’t see the whole thing, and it was partially obscured by trees. And I also had a lot of people walking in front of me and stopping to take pictures of various attractions and feed the birds (though none so dramatically as on my last trip to the park), which was a bit frustrating. I also think I need to buy a new pencil sharpener. Mine seems to have stopped working.

In any case, enough with the excuses. Here is the much more accurate drawing, though it could still use some work. And definitely the touch of a better-sharpened pencil. Oh, and it was cold when I was drawing, too.

I got to London Saturday afternoon, and had an interesting journey into the city, lugging my 70 pound suitcase through the Underground and down the streets to the dorm room I rented for the night at the London School of Economics. I was exhausted by the time I got there — I didn’t really sleep on the flight — and I took a little nap before heading out to get some basic necessities like a London cell phone, a plug adapter and, of course, dinner.

The next day, I dragged my bag through more of the city and down to Evan’s office — he was arriving that afternoon, but my checkout time was 10 a.m. Why tube stations don’t have adequate escalators or elevators is beyond me. Thankfully once people saw me struggling up flights of stairs, dragging my big suitcase up one step at a time while also carrying a backpack, laptop bag and purse and wearing a winter coat, they took pity on me and helped out a bit. Still, I was sore by the end of the day!

After dropping off my luggage, I started exploring the city. I walked down Oxford Street and Regent Street, though Picadilly Circus, by Hyde Park, through Trafalgar square and to Big Ben and Parliament. I saw Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the Thames and even made it to Buckingham Palace during the changing of the guards. I couldn’t see all that much since it was very crowded, though. I also didn’t have my camera with me, so no pictures yet.

After that, I explored my new neighborhood a bit, had a cup of coffee and then went to meet Evan since he’d arrived.

So far, so good — it’s been very easy to get around, our place is nice and surprisingly big, and we had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant named Prezzo down the street.

We’re still not totally unpacked and settled, but I’m sure we will be soon. I can’t wait to get out and explore some more.

Check out my latest Hitched article about new year’s resolutions. Hope this is a great one for all! I ended up having a near repeat of last new year’s–Evan and I had dinner with his grandparents, which included an absolutely amazing chocolate souffle, we went out with some friends to a bar in Downtown LA called Blue Velvet, which was fun, and we stopped by a party at a friend’s place to see a few more people. Then we spent New Year’s Day at the Rose Bowl — go Trojans! — and finished the day by meeting up with Maryn and Brian, then having dinner with my parents. Man, it’s been a busy trip home! I’ll try to post some pictures soon — we have nice ones from Tara and Dave’s wedding and the Rose Bowl.

Resolution for Two

Want to make this a great year for your marriage? Try making one of these 10 resolutions that can help bring you closer.

You hop into the new year by sharing a bottle of bubbly and a smooch from your partner, but your resolutions will probably focus on you, you and you. You want to lose weight, get a promotion and make more money. But what about that other entity in your life—your marriage? We challenge you to make 2008 the best year yet for your union by taking your partner into consideration and making a resolution that’ll benefit both of you.

Don’t know where to start? We’ve got 10 experts who can help you get the gears turning.

… Read the rest of the article at Hitched

On our last day in Budapest, Evan and I tried to accomplish items #2 and #3 on our list, so we went down to Saint Stephen’s Cathedral (photo taken in July when I visited the first time), and we tried to get a ticket to climb the towers, but it turns out that that’s a warm weather activity — it’s closed until April. We went into the church briefly, but we couldn’t go into the room with St. Stephen’s desiccated hand, either.

Later that night, we had a reservation at Taj Mahal, which was great as usual. I know, not terribly Hungarian to spend our last night at an Indian restaurant, but it’s really delicious.

And we got one more kurtos kalacs in the afternoon. Couldn’t leave without having our favorite winter treat one more time!

I’m not usually too cold here (except when I go outside), but today, after I opened the curtains in the living room and got to work, I noticed it was getting colder and colder and colder. I finally got off the couch and went to the window to see if something was up and, well, it was — the window/door wasn’t closed properly, letting in quite a draft. I’ve been trying to warm up since then, by wrapping myself in a blanket and putting on a hood. It’s finally getting a bit better, but my nose is still cold.

Man, it’ll be nice to be somewhere without freezing temperatures for a while.

Though Sunday was gloomy, it didn’t stop us from spending almost the whole day outside. After Statue Park, we went to City Park to go ice skating. We did pretty well–no injuries, or even falls–and I even spun around a few times. And it was great to be skating outside by the park’s castle. I wish I could still ice skate like I did when I was a kid, though.

Check out the rest of our ice skating photos on Evan’s site.

After ice skating, we went to the small Christmas market in the park for more kurtos kalacs. It wasn’t quite as delicious as it was in Szentendre, but it was still good. And while we were getting our sugar fix, we realized that they were playing possibly less-than-appropriate Christmas songs for all the kids at the market–they were playing South Park’s “Christmas Time in Hell.” We guessed that they didn’t understand the lyrics. Check them out (from MetroLyrics):

On the way home from Szentendre, Evan and I ran in to a good deal of traffic getting back to our hotel, but I used it as an opportunity to take some photos of the lights in the city. Here’s one taken on Andrassy Ut, which seems to often be billed as “Budapest’s classiest boulevard.”

Saturday, Evan and I took a short day trip to Szentendre, a town about 20 minutes outside of Budapest that’s known for being a cute, touristy artist colony on the bank of the Danube. After parking, we just started wandering into the small town, and we heard music and some pretty awful singing coming from the town square. We decided to skip the first part of the show and go to the Margit Kovacs Ceramics Museum, which had a nice collection of the artist’s work.

Once we were done with the museum, we went back out to the main square and found a group of schoolkids performing a cute little song and dance. We lost interest by the time a group of older students started dancing, and decided to check out the music box museum, which ended up being really interesting.

The small museum, tucked away in the back of a souvenir shop, was quite delightful. They had a host of old music-playing gadgets, including orchestrations, a clockwork bird, old gramophones and other sound machines. We even got to hear a number of them and got to turn the cranks ourselves on a few. Some dated back 200 years yet sounded remarkably good. Others didn’t sound as great because the humidity was low.

Next we went on to the Christmas market, which wasn’t crowded and had some interesting foods and crafts. We tried out kurtos kolacs, which is essentially fire-roasted coil of dough cooked on a wooden dowel and rolled in sugar, and found our new favorite Hungarian treat. Look at me just drooling over it. It was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, and it stayed hot the whole time we were eating it (which really wasn’t very long).

Also, in the Christmas market, there were many people walking around with their children and handing out homemade baked goods on trays. We got some cheese bread, which was good, and the whole thing just seemed like a really nice tradition. I believe it was the festival of St. Nicholas.

We tried to take a look at some more museums and churches in Szentendre, but they weren’t open very late, but I did manage to take a great photo of a boat on the Danube before I left.

Check out the rest of our Szentendre photos on Evan’s site.

My latest Hitched article seems absolutely apropos this week–it’s really starting to feel like winter in Hungary. It snowed yesterday (I meant to take photos, sorry), and it’s definitely getting colder–and my article is all about the things you can do to get ready for winter that might not be top-of-mind.

Get Ready for Winter
Are you ready for the cold season? Take a look at these quick tips to expertly weather the winter.

Even if you don’t get snow, you still have to deal with some winter issues. From flu and colds to increased heating costs to just wanting to cozy up by a fire; are you ready for the months ahead? We gathered some tips you may not have thought of to save energy and money and keep your family and pets safe this winter. …go to Hitched to read more