good morning

More shots from a recent trip:

 

 

good morning, Boston

a view looking east from Charles St.

 

 

 

 

good morning, Emerson College

 

this is Emerson’s  “Little Building”, viewed from Tremont St.

 

 

 

boston common at night

another break from bike-related photos:

boston common at night.

 

I went to 75 Chestnut for dinner, had an excellent seafood stew, and then took a nice walk back along the Common.  I’m amazed at how uniformly green it is.

steering wheel bike in somerville

 

a photo of steering wheel bike from a walk in Somerville, MA.  Across the street from Razzy’s, which is apparently now closed according to yelp.  Pretty sweet.  complete with banana seat, front rack, and an apparently non-working headlight.

Around the neighborhood

A break from the biking for some photos from around rockridge:

 

 

Simon.  He said he was trying to see his family on Easter.  He talked about his sister in Emeryville and his dad who’s 82.

 

 

 

 

 

Outside of Cole coffee, dogs wait for their owners to finish their drinks

 

 

 

woodland creatures baby shower – goodie bags and decorations and cake

I recently participated in and took photos at a wonderful baby shower.  It was a woodland creature theme full of wonderful ideas and cute little woodland animals and hand-made decorations.  It was the first baby shower that I’ve ever attended and I fear that this will skew my expectations from future ones.  Every detail was exquisitely planned:california wildflower seeds or graham cookie party favors.  hand-sewn bags with twine and die cut tags with various wet-embossed owls.  pretty awesome.

terrariums – live plants, moss, little tiny animal figurines and stones in a base of perlite, charcoal and potting soil in various glass containers

a super-fancy yule log by Erin.  marzipan owls, skunks, mushrooms, pine cones and bunny.

various sweets – puffs and eclairs

a lovely view of oakland and lake merritt

kids tables with coloring and DIY masks


yummy sangria filled with apples, lemons, and oranges, peach juice, and baby shower labeling

meat plate

owl food markers and pine cones and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids

gnomes and more pine cones

hand sewn hedgehogs and another terrarium with a lil mushroom

thinking gnome

more fancy yule log and marzipan owls, and a skunk and a rabbit

 


Closeup of a terrarium and hedgehog.  The little deer figurine (and the other animal ones) are surprisingly expensive!

paperwhites and a little bluebird

 

the bunny lost its ears!



east coast

photos from an east coast trip in december:

an english mastiff named honey

a so-so espresso from pitango gelato on P st in the district

a wedding reception in rosslyn, va

cold and dark night in reston, va

I was hoping for a bit better of an espresso at caffe amouri in vienna, va but it was a nice visit

an LED project in baltimore, md

camping at big basin

I went camping at Big Basin in August:  Noisy campground neighbors, a fun long hike and good food and company.bagels on the toaster

I couldn’t help being amazed by this little toaster.  It looks like the “Stansport Folding Camp Stove Toaster”.  Though a little slow, it made toasting so much more fun.

flare

A photo from the hike.  I have tons of the trees, redwoods and so on, but I think I like this photo more than the others.  We took the Skyline to the Sea Trail and checked out the waterfalls.

figs and corn on the grill

Black figs on the grill

grilled figs and goat cheese

black figs off the grill with goat cheese

looking up at night

The sky was pretty.  Here’s a long exposure of redwoods lit by the campfire.

Amsterdam: Day 3

This is day 3 of a short trip to Amsterdam.  Check out Day 1 and Day 2 if you haven’t already.

Breakfast on day 3 was at Latei (Zeedijk 143)I think this is was uitsmijter.  fried egg on a hearty, seedy toast.  I don’t think there was ham.  the freshly-squeezed orange juice was great.

or was this the uitsmijter?  Tomato, cheese, possibly an egg on the same toast.  You can see a unremarkable croissant in the background.

The waitress was super nice but a bit slow.  we ordered a traditional dutch apple pie because we hadn’t yet:

dutch apple pie – appeltaart.

The pie was a bit doughy.  I don’t remember thinking it was all that great.  The place was pretty cool though – great people watching.  There seemed to be a lot of tourists out and we enjoyed watching the groups walk or ride by.

I still needed my coffee, so we walked towards a place that had also been mentioned on a chowhound thread, coffee connection (Nieuwezijds Kolk 33).

coffee connection: storefront

once again, a super nice girl behind the counter.  we chatted for a bit about where I was from and coffee and so on.

espresso at coffee connection

I was really hoping that the espresso would be good given how welcoming the barista was, but it was thin and tasted a little burnt.

I was a little surprised about the espresso selection in the center of town.  my only enjoyable espresso was from the stumptown pop-up shop.  There were other shops that we didn’t get to visit because they were farther off from our hotel or other destinations such as espressofabriek (Gosschalklaan 7) and brandmeester’s (Van Baerlestraat 13) .  Maybe next time.

We walked for a bit to find another place to rent bikes.

older guy with groceries

I think I took this last picture because of the guy’s bike, but I can’t really make it out anymore.  I think it reminded me of a strida.

bike parking at amsterdam centraal

The first place we checked out for a bike rental seemed a little too expensive, so we walked to amsteram centraal station to check out star bike rental (De Ruyterkade 127).  I was kind of blown away by the number of bikes in the bike parking lot.  We just aren’t used to seeing this many bikes in the states.

more bikes in the parking area

we got our rental bikes and rode to the Jordaan.  the bikes were crappy as the last ones we’d rented and slightly more expensive but still pretty cheap.

RIH sport through the window

I’d really wanted to check out the framebuilder at RIH Sport Amsterdam (Westerstraat 150) but unfortunately they were closed.  It was still fun peering in through the window.  The Jordaan was a neat neighborhood to walk and bike through.  It felt a lot more neighborhoody than other areas and seemed like a nice place to live.

A fun set of window decorations

We eventually made our way back towards the city center.  we stopped by the cracked kettle (Raamsteeg 3 to pick up some beer:

bike, with westy crate

we had joked about how it’d be cool if a bike had a westvleteren crate.   here one was..  Its tires were flat, so it was more for display than beer transport.

entry

I wandered around a bit and took more photos.  Our weekend was coming to an end and we had to head back to the southern tip of the country for the night.  We took the train but, not knowing any dutch, did not know that the last portion of our ride was not in operation due to maintenance or construction.  Luckily, the NS train had arranged for a set of shuttle buses.  I was kind of happy to take the shuttle bus because it’d mean that we’d be able to see more of the countryside.

the bus from maastricht

All in all, it was a fun weekend.  A bit exhausting with all of the wandering around, but well worth it.

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam earlier this year.

Photos from a weekend in Amsterdam:

I stayed at Hotel Arena.  Its most recent incarnation is a swanky-looking modern hotel.  Glass bathroom doors, a lofted bed.. The building was built as an orphanage with a chapel in 1890, and then was converted into a home for the elderly in 1950.  It became a youth hostel in 1982 and then somehow became privatized and then underwent a drastic transformation in the last couple of years.  The hotel is sort of on the outskirts of the Centrum but it’s only a 10-20 minute walk or so to most areas.. and of course even quicker by bike.

Here are a few of the other things we saw on our first evening.  It was near the solstice and daylight lingered to a ridiculous hour.  I think it was about 11:00pm when dusk started to settle in.

Kitty, on a dumpster covered with somehow color-coordinated tags and paint.

I don’t remember where this was taken, but I am guessing it was on Weesperstraat.

stickers on a red door.

Probably still along Weeperstraat.

And of course there were bikes.  This may have been along Sarphatistraat, but I just don’t remember anymore.  We heard a guy get hit by a car near this intersection the next night – scary, but he walked away and the car drove away and that was that.

More photos from the Netherlands and Belgium to come, eventually.