honeymoon re-cap!

Okay, get ready — this is a pretty long one.  Luckily I’ve organized it by days, so you can get a gist of it even if you just read the headings.  Skim away.

On the Monday night after the wedding, Dan, Jess, and I were getting ready to go to the movies, but I started feeling pretty badly.  I had a fever, dizziness, chills, a kickin’ cough, and a little bit of a sore throat.  “This CANNOT be happening,” I thought, because we were flying to Hawaii in the morning.  And I felt quite sick, like sick enough to where I wouldn’t have normally gone on a trip feeling that way.  If we had gotten trip insurance, I would have thought seriously about rescheduling.  But I’ve never had to cancel a trip before, and we didn’t have trip insurance.  I was like “I WILL go on this trip.”  So I opted out of going to the movies, medicated, and went to bed early.

Hawaii

Day 1: Lots of flying, a little eating

When I woke up (mega early so that my parents could give us a ride to the airport at 5:30am), I still felt sick but was excited.  So we flew from Richmond to Dallas / Ft. Worth, and that wasn’t so bad except for my cough and the occasional onset of dizziness.  The 8.5-hour flight from Dallas / Ft. Worth to Honolulu was not quite as fun, though.  I was coming down with the flu, I had to sit in the same place for 8.5 hours, and (this always happens to us) the screaming baby was right next to us.  Also, I had been given some advice from my friend Colleen about flying to Hawaii.  “Take some sleeping pills,” she said, “So that you’ll be rested and ready to go when you get there.”  She had gone to Hawaii, not taken sleeping pills, not slept on the plane, and spent her whole trip being tired all day and unable to sleep all night.  So I took her advice and took two sleeping pills right after the plane took off.  In the grand tradition of me and drugs, they didn’t seem to work.  Yes yes, everybody else gets to take drugs in this life, either for practical reasons or for fun, but my body just has some insane resistance to them.  So anyway, I never got sleepy.  I took a couple more pills.  Still not sleepy.  I was sick and lethargic, but I would close my eyes for the longest time and never go to sleep.  It’s not that big of a surprise, since I can’t sleep in moving vehicles of any kind, but I thought for sure that this time would be different.  FAIL.  When we got to Hawaii I felt just as groggy as I ever had.  Our driver from the airport to the hotel was a strange character who somehow managed to tell us that everyone in his family was dead while simultaneously welcoming us to the Aloha State!

blurry, hopped-up-on-cold-medicine plane ride

The hotel we stayed at, the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach, was fantastic.  I hate all things beige and wicker, but it seems that those items are unavoidable in beach towns.  Trust me, I researched it.  Anyway, besides those obvious interior design flaws, the place was great.  It’s right on Waikiki Beach, the picturesque bay from whence the practice of surfing spread during the last century, and it’s right in between the two most famous Waikiki hotels: the Ala Moana Surfrider (beautiful, old, Victorian hotel) and the Royal Hawaiian (1920s, giant, Pepto pink hotel).  The hotel bumped us up to a suite (because we were on our honeymoon, I believe, and people like to do nice things for you when they find out that tidbit) from the regular oceanfront room we had reserved, and it was way more space than we actually needed.  Our view was beautiful, with Diamond Head to the left and the Royal Hawaiian and the beach to the right.  From our lanai (that’s what they call balconies in Hawaii) you could see everyone swimming, surfing, and kayaking in the lovely blue water.

what's on the postcards is REAL

We cleaned up and went down to one of the hotel’s three restaurants, the Hula Grill.  At dinner I finally got tired, and was about to pass out onto my plate.  The fish was wonderful though, and I got a cocktail call the Backscratcher which actually came with a backscratcher shoved down in it.  There are no mosquitoes in Hawaii as far as I can tell, so all the beachside restaurants are wide open on the ocean-facing side to let in the breeze, the sunset, and of course, the pidgeons.

Begin rant: I love Hawaii, but WHY do they have to put pineapple in or on everything?  I like pineapple.  Don’t love it, but like it.  I understand that pineapple is a major crop of Hawaii, but it has an incredibly overpowering taste.  And I just think there are some dishes that really don’t need pineapple sloshed all over them.  Okay, end rant.

I think that first night we went to bed right after dinner.  Hooray for jet lag!

Day 2: Diamond Head and a luau

In the morning we got up super early (which was easy, I think I was awake at 4:30am) and walked to a 7-11 to buy 4-day bus passes.  $25 gets you carried wherever you want, all over the island.  Buses run every 15 minutes from 5:30am until very late.  We took a bus to Diamond Head, the volcanic crater at Waikiki’s eastern end.  The bus drops you off at the turn-off, but you still have to walk a ways uphill and through a mountain tunnel to get to the official park entrance.  I was already tired when we got to the entrance, but I’m not sure how much of that was the flu and how much of that was the jet-lag.

stairs stairs and more stairs

Diamond Head is an exquisite place.  I love beautiful views, and there was no shortage of them there.  But you had to work for it.  This place is bananas; it’s like a fun house built onto the side of a mountain.  It’s like the Yogi’s Cave that never ends.  Let me quote directly from some web sites to describe the climb:

“The hiking trail to the summit is very steep and uneven in some areas. The last 1/10 of a mile is all stairs and especially steep.” — hawaiistateparks.org

“The trail is paved the entire way but can be steep in spots. There are two set of stairs, one with 99 steps and the other, 76 steps. There is also a 225-foot unlit tunnel.” — hawaiiweb.org

I was like “Are we in Mordor yet?”  And the kicker was that some people we saw had sweat pouring down their faces, and then the other half of the climbers were cute little Asian girls who were dressed like they were going clubbing, wearing heels, and not sweating at all.  WHAT is their secret?  But the summit was gorgeous of course, and I think I was able to enjoy it almost as much as the non-sweaters.

Back at the bottom of the mountain, we enjoyed some Hawaiian shave ice.  I can’t for the life of me discern the difference between shave ice and a snow cone, but (1) Hawaiians are adamant about the fact that it’s “shave” ice, with no “d,” and (2) Hawaiians are adamant about the fact that there is a difference.  Since I like icy treats of almost any type, that’s okay with me.

The bus took us back to the Outrigger, where we took a quick dip in the ocean.  I loved swimming in Hawaii.  The water’s warm and shallow, and there’s none of this spending 20 minutes to get used to freezing cold water business.  And wearing full-on makeup in the water is fine, because the waves are minuscule and much like a swimming pool, you don’t have to go underwater if you don’t want to (this does NOT work in the Outer Banks).    Our swim was beautiful, and we talked about what a great time we were having and looked at our hotel and the view of the mountains.

After a quick lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise, where the weather forecast was painted on the wall because it pretty much never changes in Hawaii, we headed to the meetup place for our luau.  We were bussed to Paradise Cove Luau in Kapolei, just a short commute from Honolulu.  On the bus we had to play stupid icebreaker games, which was difficult because I really hate talking to strangers.  But we met an Australian couple vacationing from their usual life of owning the major manufacturer of certain car parts for Europe and Africa, and they were super nice.

At the luau they herded us into amusement-park-style lines, at the end of which were giant vats of mai tai.  After drinks were doled out, we each had an opportunity to pose for a picture with, as the luau guides themselves said, “our half-naked cousins who will be entertaining us.”

TEAM JACOB! Oh wait, wrong person.

I respect a man who wears a skirt and looks great in it.  Coconut bras are all the rage there, too, and were available for purchase in the gift shop.  They had various activities going on around this campus-type area, like sarong-tying demonstrations, hula lessons, archery, canoe rides, and drum lessons.  At some point a guy climbed up a coconut tree with his bare feet and dumped a bag of orchids out in what they call a “shower of flowers.”  We were then supposed to get the flowers and stick them behind our ears: behind the left ear means you’re taken, and behind the right ear means you’re single and ready to mingle.  Behind both ears means you’re taken but looking for an upgrade.  Important info in case any of y’all make it over to Hawaii sometime soon.

I tried poi, which tastes a lot like glue.  Not an unpleasant taste, but just a pasty, weird taste.  I think it might have been good when mixed up with other stuff, like dry starches which need something to hold them together.  For some reason I waited to taste it until almost everything else on my plate was gone, though.  The food was abysmal; my mom makes way better barbecue than the stupid fancy-schmancy pit they cooked that pig in.

I was told that luaus are super cheesy, and this one definitely was.  Dan was like “why are they dancing to 50s pop songs instead of traditional Hawaiian music?” and I was wondering the same thing myself.  I think they work so hard to make it appealing to mega white-bread tourists that they strip a lot of legitimacy from it.  I took a Hawaiian dance class at VCU, and the professor put a lot of emphasis on traditional hula (more tribal-ish) rather than modern hula (the stuff you think of when you think of “hula”), but the folks at Paradise Cove danced mostly modern hula.  So that was kind of disappointing.  But the ladies were really beautiful, and ornately clothed, and I was very entertained and very happy.

There was much napping on the bus ride back to Waikiki due to many people having had too many mai tais.

shaky shaky

Day 3: Surfing and the Magic of Polynesia

Waikiki Bay is perfectly shaped such that only the tiniest waves arise, but they last for ages before sputtering out.  Even the most uncoordinated tourists can learn how to surf easily on these waves.  So on the beach there are guys whose job it is to stand around on the beach most of the day, sometimes teaching people how to surf, sometimes rubbing zinc on their faces, and sometimes saying things like “Dude, what day is it?”  In an effort to give them something to do, we took surfing lessons.  An adorable 70-year-old with lots of grandkids showed us the mechanics of “getting up,” and then an adorable 20-year-old with sea-green eyes and washboard abs took us out on the water.  However unprepared I felt, surfing was actually a breeze.  Everything about it was really easy…except, of course, the part where I had the flu.  I could not stop coughing, got seasick after about 45 minutes and had to paddle in a little early.  Anyway, both Dan and I got up several times and rode waves all the way in.  Standing up on the board and keeping your balance are the easiest parts.  Here’s what’s hard:

1. Paddling out, over and over again, to the spot where you can catch the best waves.  Arms = not happy.
2. Not getting sunburned, since the sunblock washes off of you almost instantly.
3. Not wrecking into other people, since Waikiki Bay is crowded with 100 other people trying to learn how to surf.

hanging loose, in the parlance of our times

I hate the concept of sitting in your hotel room watching movies when you have limited time in a strange city, but I was incredibly sick and running at about 10%.  So we rested for a while until I felt well enough to get ready for dinner.  We at at this amazing restaurant called Top of Waikiki, which features a revolving dining room that allows you to see the sun set over Honolulu in every direction.  It was beautiful.  We both enjoyed our meals immensely, and I will always remember the delicious ahi poke stack I had there.  It’s a popular appetizer in Hawaii that includes fresh ahi sashimi, and according to the menu, “crisy wonton sheets, avocado creme & a papaya vinaigrette slaw, kiwi-lime coulis & micro greens.”  It’s like somebody invented a food specifically for me.  I could take one a day, I tell you.  Like vitamins.  And the fact that it tasted good when everything else didn’t (because of being sick) says a lot.

ahem, "most original"

Next up was the Magic of Polynesia.  If you know Dan, you know he has loved magic since before Harry Potter and the rash of movies about turn-of-the-century magicians.  John Hirokawa is supposedly a mega famous magician, and his show, the Magic of Polynesia, is billed as the “Best Magic Show in Waikiki!”  I’m not sure if any other magic shows exist there.  He made some people disappear, and made a small helicopter appear, and he used lots of “volunteers” from the audience.  At the very end of the show he made it “snow,” which means that flakes of ice started coming out of the ceiling, and he sort of twirled around in it while music from Edward Scissorhands played.  AS IF I WOULDN’T NOTICE.  Although I admit that I was surprised, since that was the last place I expected to see blatant Tim Burton references.  It was cheesy but entertaining, as a lot of things in Hawaii were.  I can probably do without ever seeing another magic show.  But it was also worth the admission price just to hear the five-year-old behind us get REALLY worried when Mr. Hirokawa started sawing someone in half.  He went from genuine concern to panic in about three seconds.

Day 4: Pearl Harbor and the Palace

Friday morning we went to Pearl Harbor, which was under construction and very crowded.  I’m glad it’s under construction, because their museum definitely lacks zazz.  It’s time to move from the old faded type-written index cards to actual printed placards.  That being said, they have a lot of cool stuff there, and it makes for a very chilling morning.  Everybody knows about Pearl Harbor, but when you actually go there and see the wreckage and hear the stories from survivors, you’re like “Oh my gosh, the United States was bombed!  Thousands died!  While people stood there and watched helplessly.”  And Hawaii, of all places.  Our peaceful little American paradise. It must have been terrifying.  An ironic aspect is that a huge percentage of Hawaii’s population is Japanese, so the Japanese were bombing the heck out of themselves that day.  For example, there was a Japanese family who lived in Hawaii and had a farm there.  They had like three kids, then moved back to Japan.  The next kid they had (in Japan) grew up, became a fighter pilot, and bombed Pearl Harbor.  There’s a picture of him in his flight garb and it’s just mind-boggling.

to the memory...

Tourists are herded onto a boat and driven out to the middle of the harbor, where you can get out and walk around on the USS Arizona Memorial.  You read the names of those who died, and hang over the railings to see the sunken ship in its watery grave.  You’re supposed to be respectfully quiet while on the memorial.  For me it was the same kind of feeling I get when I go to Monumental Church, just a supreme melancholy at knowing I’m standing on a mass grave, and then a sense of curiosity about the lives of those beneath, and what they were really like.  So this is what I was pondering while throngs of Japanese tourists photographed every inch of the memorial around me.

so, so quiet.

After some confusion about bus routes we ended up in downtown Honolulu, where I was feeling quite horrible.  I needed food in my stomach ASAP, so we stopped at some Vietnamese place.  It was pretty good, but no Mekong.  I have to say though, that on a lot of menus you see “crispy vegetarian noodles” or something, and the noodles are never ACTUALLY crispy.  This time, they were.  And I appreciated that.  But it didn’t make me feel any better.  I was on the worst day of the flu, I think.  We almost hopped a bus right back to Waikiki, but I took deep breaths and decided to power through and see the palace!  I was already ticked that I had to miss like 40 things that were on my list, so there was no way I was leaving that island without seeing the palace.

home sweet castle

‘Iolani Palace is very imposing from the street; a big, sturdy building that looks important and immovable.  Coming across the lawn, we were lucky to stumble across the weekly concert of the King’s Royal Hawaiian Band.  They just never stopped setting up their stuff every Friday and playing for crowds, King or no King.  Good habits die hard, too.

just imagine the epic porch chillers you could have!

When you round the corner of the palace and come to its back portico, the whole atmosphere is different and somehow very comfortable-looking.  This gargantuan porch looks so cool, breezy, and inviting, and the view of the banyan trees in the backyard is even better.  We put these stretchy slippers around our shoes, grabbed head sets (audio tours — ALWAYS the best), and padded off into the house.  I thought, “I could live here.”  It’s one of those places where most of the furniture was auctioned off, and they’re just starting to get substantial amounts of it back.  I won’t go into the beautiful details of the house or its history, since you can read that in a more complete fashion online.  But I will say that it was an incredible place to be, and I think it’ll only get better as the years go by.  Hawaii is so lucky to still have this amazing building in tact and in such fantastic shape.  Also, all the crown jewels are on display in the basement.  You have no IDEA how much bling is there — and unique, cool-looking bling, the likes of which I’ve never seen elsewhere.  Having seen both in person, I can safely say that the Hawaiian crown jewels murder the boring old Hope Diamond.

ye olde koa wood staircase

We stopped at Kawaiaha’o Church across the street, and then rode a bus back to the hotel.  I needed a serious rest, so I think we watched movies or TV until I mustered up the energy for more fun.  There was an Italian restaurant I had wanted to check out in Waikiki, so we walked on the beach for part of our trek, and then switched to the street.  Dinner at Arancino di Mare was amazing, and I think Dan’s favorite meal while we were there — although we both admit it can’t touch Mamma Zu.  The service was impeccable, and the waiter even mixed Dan’s mushroom risotto in a hollowed-out block of parmesan cheese.  Fancy.  We ate on the patio, surrounded by palm trees and in view of the darkening beach, and with just enough of the smell of garlic to make me feel a little bit at home.

delicious.

Day 5:  Snorkeling and sushi-ing

gorgeous hanauma bay

Saturday morning we got up early and took the bus in the opposite direction of Pearl Harbor, toward Hanauma Bay.  This nature preserve is a lovely bay with crystal-clear water and all the brightly-colored fishies you could ever want to swim with.  I think the view of the bay from the paths above it was my favorite view in Hawaii.  While snorkeling you weren’t supposed to touch the coral reef, which was very difficult since there were only like two feet of water between the reef and the surface.  So, not much room to swim.  Whenever a wave would jostle me against the reef, I would let out a little underwater scream, because the instructional video said touching the reef was the same thing as hurting the reef, and also because the reef is SHARP and pointy.

O HAI

At first I hyperventilated a lot and coughed a lot because of something weird going on with my snorkeling gear, but after Dan watched me a bit and figured out what was wrong and we adjusted it, things were great.  By that time I had already swallowed a lot of water, though, and began to get seasick again from the constant rocking of the waves.  When we were in the water though, we were having a blast.  The view from my snorkel mask was just like those old Jacques Cousteau videos, with the fish swimming before me and alongside me, unafraid.  I wish we had more time snorkeling, and that I hadn’t felt so rotten that day.  It was a beautiful place and there was a lot of ground to cover.  But we retreated saltily back onto the bus and headed to the hotel to recover for a while.  I think that was the day we watched a lot of Mythbusters, the most amazing show in the world, which we just discovered because we don’t have TV.

Eventually we left the room in search of food.  Admittedly, at some point we almost ate at Señor Frog’s due to its hilarious references as “Señor Tadpole’s” in Arrested Development (“If you need me, I’ll be at Señor Tadpole’s having a margarita made in my mouth”), but retreated quickly without ordering after spending three minutes subjected to a menu consisting of mostly “sticks,” “shooters,” and “poppers,” 12 different football games on televisions all around us, and neon-colored everything.  Sometimes irony just isn’t worth it.

the famed doraku roll

So we ended up at Doraku, a trendy-looking but nice sushi restaurant.  It was packed,so we sat at the bar and I listened to an army guy tell the bartender how he had come there for the past five nights and ordered the same thing.  I think he was eating like four sushi rolls at one time.  When I got my food, I found out why.  It was probably the best sushi I’ve ever had.  I know that in Japan people turn their nose up at anything that’s not mega traditional sushi, but I’m not a sushi purist; I appreciate fusion and I love when interesting ingredients are added to the mix.  I had the Doraku Roll, which is lobster, crab, and cream cheese, tempura-fried and served with red and black tobiko and spicy garlic aioli.  WIN.  I wish I could have one of those made in my mouth every day.

After dinner, I think we went in search of souvenirs for the family, and like most touristy places, found lots of plasticky junk and ugly t-shirts.  But it was so much fun walking around the shops and checking out the street performers that we didn’t mind such sad shopping choices.  Waikiki is hilarious because it’s got all the same shops that major cities on the mainland have, so there’s no real reason to spend time shopping if you can get it back home.  And there was a Cheesecake Factory and a P.F. Chang’s right by our hotel that stayed packed all the time.  Dan tells himself that it’s only people from other countries eating there, who don’t have those restaurants at home.  But I have a feeling it’s mostly mainland normies who hate trying interesting foods and want the comfort of the known and the familiar when they’re in a strange place.

Day 6: Goodbye Hawaii, hello San Francisco

ready to leave Waikiki

The next day was a Sunday, and we somehow packed all of our stuff back up and flew out of Hawaii at 12:45pm Hawaii time.  We landed in San Francisco at about 8:45pm SF time, checked into our hotel (we went the budget route for the SF leg of our vacay and opted for Super 8), and just had time for a late dinner at Mel’s Drive-In before settling into our room and falling asleep.

San Francisco

Day 7: Chinatown, Oakland, and Black Heart Tattoo

In the morning we did a little shopping and I got two dresses and two pairs of shoes, my honeymoon treats.

makes me look like snow white

We then walked toward Chinatown, and from our hotel the hills were killer.  Dan was like “imagine if you lived here and had to do this all the time.”  I said that I thought people who live in SF find ways to avoid it, hence why there was nobody else on the sidewalk for blocks.  But it was fun, and of course that’s the way to find the best views…walking around on those ridiculous hills.  Soon we were in Chinatown and we just walked around for a while, enjoying the shops and picking through bins of tchotchkes.  We met up with our friend Jason from Spires for a while, who (much to his chagrin) was photographed wearing his own band t-shirt.  He’s a bike messenger, which seems like a profession I would avoid if I lived in such a hilly place, but he said that although sometimes you just have to drag yourself up a huge hill, most of the time you know other ways to get around doing it.

chinatown

Jason walked us to BART, and we headed out to Oakland for lunch at Golden Lotus.  Dan craves Golden Lotus the way band dudes coming through Richmond crave Panda Veg, and I don’t blame him: the food is incredible.  It’s the vegetarian oriental food we would have if the quality of the food at Panda Veg was akin to Mekong.  Just the “meat” they used was the tenderest, un-rubbery-est, most delicious “meat” ever.  If I ever go back I’ll have to get the sweet and sour chicken again, because it’s the perfect blend of soft and crunchy.  And none of this sawing through everything for 3 minutes with a knife before you can eat it.  It’s all bite-sized and made to be chewed, not sawed at.  ::sigh::

After lunch we hung around Oakland City Center, which is where Dan used to hang out when he was on Mission Year in the late 90s.  I think it was a little surreal for him because he hadn’t been back in years.  He pointed out the coffee shop he used to go to, and talked about people he met there, etc.

Soon we headed to Black Heart Tattoo, where I read a book and Dan got tattooed by Scott Sylvia, the same guy who did his Last Supper chest piece years ago.  It really is a nice shop; it has some architectural details and signage that I really liked.  Each artist’s booth is decorated with all manner of pictures, figurines, and other.  At some point I went on a little stroll around the Mission District, getting coffee and reading a bit at Four Barrel, looking in shop windows and reading restaurant menus as the restaurants filled up with people.  I made a note to come back there when we had more time, because I had found all the good shops and restaurants that weren’t chains, and I recognized some of the stuff in the shops from Etsy shops I had been to.

four barrel

When Dan was done with his tattoo, we walked back in the direction I had been walking because I had come across what smelled like a delicious tapas place.  On the way I shared my excitement about this neighborhood.  Dan said he felt silly for not knowing where the un-touristy stuff was, but that it was because he had not been allowed to explore the city during his long stay 1.5 hours away from it.  Tsk, tsk.  It makes no sense to me, being of the firm belief that a human being should always know where the very best and most unique shops were in the nearest major city.  That’s just common sense.

Anyway, we had dinner at Ramblas, which despite its ridiculous Papyrus-font sign, was delicious.  Their patatas bravas were the crispiest and the garlickiest I have ever tasted.  I would rank it right up there with Mas, just slightly above Si and Avalon.  We love tapas and I think there is an extra element of romance involved with sharing small portions of food together…and of course, large portions of an excellent red wine.  I was feeling better that evening than I had the whole trip, so this was the first time on the honeymoon I had drunk more than one drink.  Huzzah, quite an accomplishment!  I think all the money we didn’t spend on alcohol we probably spent on Day-Quil.  The night was crisp, windy, and beautiful as we BARTed and walked back to the hotel.

Day 8: Zachary’s Pizza, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Stinking Rose, and Hemlock

zachary's pizza, nom nom nom

On Day 8 we spent a little more time in the Mission District, window shopping and looking at overpriced mid-century furniture, before heading to Zachary’s Pizza in Oakland.  This is Dan’s favorite pizza in the whole world, and of course we’ve eaten there each time we’ve been to SF.  It’s delicious deep-dish, and I thoroughly enjoy it.  But it feels weird to eat pizza that’s all upside-down, with the cheese on the bottom and the sauce on the top.  I mean, what the HECK?!  How unorthodox!

man-date

Our friend Andre from Sacramento met us at Zachary’s and then took us to Fisherman’s Wharf.  It was so nice to see him, and we had an awesome day just knocking around the piers, talking, and hearing about his plans and what’s going on in his life.  We went to Pier 39 and watched some card tricks in Houdini’s Magic Shop, and then watched the sea lions for a bit in all of their big, fat, barking madness.

in 3-D!

My favorite part of SF was visiting the Musee Mecanique, the “Mechanical Museum.”  It’s a big warehouse on the bay, chock full of old mechanical carnival games and optical toys.  So yeah, basically heaven on earth for me.  And all the machines work!  Every one of them.  I put about $5 in the change machine and spent every quarter (and sometimes, dimes and nickels) watching little puppets dance, miniature theaters open and portray an execution scene (French or English-style, take your pick), a mock opium den with little wooden drug users inside, a zoetrope of a girl skipping rope, and dozens of other bizarre concoctions.  I had a few wizards tell my fortune via little cards that drop out of the machines.  I could have stayed there all day!  And I hope to go back someday.  But cash runs out quick when there are so many wizards to feed.

stimulates circulation.

As the sun was setting, we parted from Andre and hiked uphill toward Little Italy.  We had dinner reservations at the Stinking Rose, the best (only?) garlic restaurant ever.  I have a superhuman appetite for garlic, and so does Dan, and I think this is the only place I’ve ever eaten that can actually satisfy that appetite.  Garlic-roasted, garlic-smothered, garlic-topped everything.  Good to the last drop.

garlic town

We walked leisurely back to the hotel from there window-shopping all the way, de-garlicked, and headed out to Hemlock, a rad bar just a few blocks from our hotel.  Low lighting, no smoking, a friendly bartender.  I enjoyed drinking in SF.  After a little bit Chip and Brenda met up with us.  They introduced us to some of their friends, and we heard about their wedding and their honeymoon in Paris.  Turns out both couples were sick on our honeymoons, which I think is a pretty natural bodily reaction to finally being released from the stress of planning a wedding.

Day 9: Flying home

The last morning of our honeymoon was doubly pleasant for me because while I had had the BEST TIME EVER, I knew we were going home.  I read and gazed out the BART windows on the way to the airport.  It was a sunny morning, and we would be in Richmond by the end of the night.  I adore traveling, but I get homesick if I leave the house for several hours.  I don’t think I’ve actually ever been away from home for eight days at a time.  I think the only way I could ever travel for extended amounts of time would be if I could somehow take my house with me and be able to be surrounded by calm and familiarity every evening.  Motor home, anyone?

later, SF

Our flights were smooth and Jess picked us up and took us home to our house, our cats, and our life!  The only thing happier than our amazing honeymoon was walking through our own door again.  THE END.

these are days.

I keep having days where I’m like “this is the best day of my life!”  Festivities designed to make me say that have succeeded admirably.  And also, ones not designed specifically for my pleasure have done the same.

Last weekend the amazing guys from Spires stayed with us.  They’re the kind of band which could be an unstoppable supergroup if only they played catchier music…but then perhaps I wouldn’t love the music as much.  They’re almost too perfect — each attractive in a different way, all good conversationalists, enthusiastic board game players, healthy and grateful eaters, and terrors on the dance floor.  I think there were some pleas of “Aw Mom, can we keep ‘em?” but we already have too many cats and too much long hair clogging up the vacuum cleaner.

Everybody knows I weep openly as soon as the opening credits come on for any period film, but I never thought I would be the kind of person who weeps openly at bridal showers.  I think some brides dread their pre-wedding events as a seemingly endless parade of painful and awkward exchanges designed to torment them, but mine have been heavenly.  My friends shower was last Saturday in the dimly-lit comfort of my own home, filled with delicious foods and fresh flowers.  As if just having all the food, flowers, and females together wasn’t enough, I was showered with the most beautiful gifts this world has produced.  The best part wasn’t getting stuff, it was seeing the thoughtfulness and love that was put into getting stuff specifically fitting for me.  I wish I could mention every single gift here, but it would take forever and be a bit excessive…just let the record show that I was impressed with how well my friends actually know me.  I was ecstatic to receive some things which were exactly what I had registered for, which reflected consideration for my specific wishes.  And I was ecstatic to receive some surprises that were perfect gifts for me, which reflected wishes I didn’t even know I had.  And I was ecstatic to receive gift cards, because gift cards are free money and everybody loves free money.

The best part was when everybody wrote down advice for me on little cards, and we read them.  I was going to read them out loud but had to pass the stack around because my sentimental eyes weren’t up to it.  I’ve transcribed these pieces of advice and well wishes into a Google doc and I’m going to blog some excerpts maybe in a separate post once things calm down.  I think that’ll be a good way to start post-marital blogging life.

Today we took some of my favorite things, rolled them up into one thing, and called it a bachelorette party.  Those things included: day trips, picnics, driving past farmhouses, fancy cheeses, the ruins of formerly grandiose buildings, historic sites that nobody knows about with no waiting and no lines and no other humans for miles, small Virginia towns, antique store owners with raspy voices, costume jewelry, handkerchiefs, champagne, pieced-together artifacts from archaeological digs, period garb, GPS, photo ops, and parasols.  Not included on the list of favorites is the cloud (and I do mean cloud, like in cartoons when someone is being chased by bees) of mosquitoes which feasted on us like it was their first meal in months.  But Rosewell is so beautiful…it really is like a dream being there.  A crumbly, historically relevant, slightly goth dream (huzzah!).  Everything was perfect except for the bugs and we have all sworn many solemn oaths to bring the vengeance of Deep Woods OFF! next time.  But seriously the only thing that could have made it better would be if Thomas Jefferson himself stepped out of the ruins and refilled my glass of champagne.

I feel like things have been all about ME lately, and I know that’s kind of the point.  But it’s been interesting to try to accept gracefully so many gifts and so much praise and love lavished, when I’ve spent the past couple of years trying to find ways to make my focus not be so much about ME ME ME.  I think a lot is lost when we get swept up in the All About Me Party, so I’ve just tried to take a deep breath and love every minute of it without forgetting how lucky, blessed, and forgiven I am.  I think part of the blessing here is seeing how small compliments and considerate gestures from my friends and family can weave themselves into a blanket of encouragement and good feelings for me.  Now I hope I can employ these methods on others, to equally great success.

suntan? more like un-tan.

We’re back from the Outer Banks, and we had a lovely time.  Because there’s not much of anything going on in Duck, NC, it’s the perfect place to do what is so hard for the modern American to do: force yourself to relax.  It rained about half the time we were there, so for much of the time we couldn’t even sit on the beach.  But it really was the perfect vacation.  There was plenty of space in the huge house my parents rented, and my room was comfortable and breezy.  The usual beach house furnishings were tasteless but amusing, and included a taxidermied dunes elk and wild marlin.  When we weren’t on the beach we were either eating, reading, playing Canasta or The Game of 99, or watching a movie.

The ocean was rougher than I had ever seen it on our many trips to the Outer Banks, and swimming was a treacherous thing to try.  The waves were huge and the surf churned relentlessly, leaving a frothy layer on the sand.  Yesterday the lifeguards went down the beach putting up red “No Swimming” flags, so even on the sunniest day there was no chance of taking a dip.  One of the nights, the house (on stilts) pitched and swayed so much that the dishwasher made a horrible banging noise, and the liquor on the counter sloshed violently in its bottles.  NOT a comfortable feeling, even for someone who loves both the beach and rollercoasters.

On the way home, Dan was kind enough to endure a seafood buffet, which is of course one of my chief pleasures in life.  The bad thing is that I think I’m developing an allergy to shellfish: my favorite food.  Right now it’s just a little itchiness in my throat and my fingertips, which is certainly worth the deliciousness.  But why can’t I just be allergic to peanut butter or something else I hate?

Anyway, I was so glad to arrive home and see that Richmond was right where I left it.  <3

Cornerstone 2009!

Oh, Cornerstone.  So different this year from other years in so many ways.  And yet, still your old self.

This year, like several times before, I went to Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, IL to help my friends sell merch.  I think my experience this year can be summed up by recalling a few specific points of importance:

• The drive. The drive was beautiful.  I had to drive by myself, which I was really nervous about.  If I get tired in the car, I am very likely to run right off the road.  I’ve been saved by the rumble strip many times.  But I caravanned with Sean and Daniel, and the drive was really not so bad.  I sang loud to lots of music, and enjoyed the scenery.  The real payoff came when I got on I-74 West just past Indianapolis.  That’s where the drive got beautiful, and I happened to be passing through the corn fields just as the sun set.  The colors of the sky, the beautiful smell of the air, the lone farmhouses, and just being able to see the horizon in all directions moved me.  I felt like crying, but in a good way.

• The romance. Dan and I met at Cornerstone in 2006, and felt a connection of some yet-undetermined significance there in 2007, so going back this year was like revisiting not quite our beginning, but our prologue.  It was fun to have a do-over of some of our activities from 2007: slinging merch, sharing a strawberry-lemon shake-up on a bale of hay, and watching Rosie Thomas perform.

• The barn tour. I looked online to see what kinds of historical sites were located near the little town of Macomb, IL where we were staying.  One day Dan and I took the morning off and went on a historic barn tour.  This basically means that we went to the tourism office, got a map, and drove to some of the barns.  That’s right, folks!  The midwest: it has barns.  Some of them are historic.  Some of them are even beautiful.  Here’s the lovely Kleinkopf barn, which is (barely) still standing after almost 100 years.  There was a dead possum on the floor of the barn.

• The music. My 15-year-old self is aghast at the notion of being pretty bored at a music fest, but such is life.  I’ve been growing tired of the music business for the past several years, but usually it doesn’t matter since I’m not in it…I’m just adjacent to it.  But this week I was sitting at a merch table for the better part of five days, and the pomp and circumstance of it all just ground my nerves to a powder.  First of all, the sheer number of bands in existence these days is staggering.  Any teen with the ability to whine for extended periods can eke a guitar out of his or her parents, and the end result is that there are about a bajillion bands and they all sound the same, and they’re all shoving a cardboard poster in your face wanting you to SEE THEM ON SUCH-AND-SUCH GENERATOR STAGE AT 3PM!  It is overwhelming on a huge scale.Of course this is annoying, but can also be cute and entertaining.  The truly disheartening part about the Cornerstone music scene is that all I hear day in and day out are self-aggrandizing conversations about what a band should do in order to “get BIG.”  Oh we need to have more parts like such-and-such popular band.  Oh we need to dress like this.  Oh we need to get this particular type of mesh basketball shirt printed.  Oh we need to say something about straightedge in our album art so we sell more records.  And blah blah blah blah blahhh, the list goes on.  Why in the holy name of fun on a summer vacation is rock music suddenly about FAME and only FAME?  Is this really why you got into music?  To be famous, or die trying?  Guys, I’m only going to say this once.  Financial success is possible in the music business.  Possible, but highly unlikely.  When the heavens choose someone to become a wildly rich and famous musician, it’s never because they worked harder than everyone else.  It’s because of a mixture of knowing the right people, being in the right place at the right time, sheer dumb luck, and maybe a tiny bit because of working hard.  You have a better chance of being struck by lightning than becoming a profitable musician.  Accept this now, and stop valuing your life on a scale of how popular your band is.  If you enjoy doing music and you just  happen to become famous somewhere down the line as a side effect to doing what you love, that’s great.  But if your happiness depends upon notoriety rather than tranquility and occupation, you are in for a long life of suffering and disappointment.  As Max Fischer would say, “I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life.”

  I once knew a very talented musician whose former bandmates got pretty famous in a new band that they started.  As Morrissey says, “We hate it when our friends become successful.”  This musician frittered his life away by constantly watching their progress like a hawk and wincing every time they had good review or got asked to play some huge tour.  It got to the point where almost all he talked about was this band, and how unfair it was that they became famous and he was stuck working a real job and raising a family.  [Stuck!  Some people would trade everything to have a simple life and a loving family.]  The truth became apparent to all around him: that he never enjoyed music just for music’s sake, and that his interest in music depended on whether he was paid the proper respect by the masses.  And his life could probably have been great if he spent more time enjoying the amazing things he was given and less time having nightmares about his successful friends.  It sucks that some of the younger people I know are doomed to repeat the mistakes of some of the older people I know.

  All of that being said, I did see some great bands including the lovely singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas, the old-school Christian metal reunion of The Crucified after like 15 years, and new goth sensations Leper.  And the excitement on the faces of some of The Blue Letter’s new fans as they thronged to the merch table made me smile as well.

• The talks. I was talking to a guy I met and he said “It’s funny, but as the years move on I seem to be more and more interested in the talks rather than the music.”  My thoughts exactly.  The best part about Cornerstone is cstoneXchange, which is the amazing corner of the fest that features speakers and discussions about all kinds of topics.  This year I was truly challenged by all that I heard.
  • Chris Heuertz from Word Made Flesh gave a talk called “Re-Thinking Evangelism Through the Lens of Friendship,” and he put into words the same things I’ve been thinking about in regards to the trendiness of causes.  Talking about some of history’s missionaries who devoted themselves fully and for a whole lifetime to a group of people, Heuertz pointed out that our culture has moved from the career missionary to just causes.  It’s all about whatever cause is the sexiest and can hold our attention for a few seconds.  So we join the Facebook group and sign the petition and buy the t-shirt, but we’re not actually helping the root of the problem.  It’s our luxury to stand at a distance and brand ourselves with these causes, and in reality do nothing to support them.  On the other hand, all of these causes are legitimate and even just increasing awareness about them is a good thing.  Heuertz also talked about “evangelicals,” and what that term even means.  In biblical times the word root “evangel” meant announcing a change of regime.  This was something subversive, something that went against Roman laws of the time and actually announced that people were choosing to follow someone other than Caesar.  And now the term “evangelical” means a set of rules and requirements that say “in order to be a real Christian, you have to look like this and vote like this, etc. etc.”  And of course that isn’t biblical, and subverts us from what we’ve really been asked to do: get out there and just love people and do whatever it takes to meet their needs.  Heuertz really blew my mind and I came back from his talk feeling totally inspired to look into joining up with Word Made Flesh, because their simple purpose and straightforward actions make sense to me and make them stand out in a sea of other organziations.  So that’s one idea for the future…as soon as someone gives me a giant bag of money to pay off my school loan bills with.  Har har!  Aaaaaaand college remains the biggest mistake of my life.
  • Neil Taylor’s topic, “Christian Community (Intentional or Otherwise)” had sort of a vague description in the fest program, so I went there expecting it to be completely different.  But it was about communal living, which although it isn’t immediately interesting to me, has some good lessons attached to it anyway.  Mr. Taylor talked about how the worst thing you can do is go into communal living thinking about how much use the community will get out of your skills an energy.  Being so excited to give up your resources for the group is great, but really the focus should be on how much you as an individual needs the community.  Living in community should be like holding up a mirror at all times, so that you can more easily see your own weaknesses.  About weaknesses he says “We are to take hold of them, accept and own them, and they become like cement to us.  We don’t relate to someone who always does things perfectly, but we do feel close with someone whose weaknesses we acknowledge.”  An interesting thought, that it’s our weaknesses and not our strengths which bind us together as people.  He also had some good advice for dealing with difficult people.  “With difficult people, say ‘Just for today, I’m going to love and be kind to this person.’  And even if that person never changes, over time you learn to be more kind, more gracious, and a more patient person.  You change.  And that’s the benefit.”
  • Chad Mager delivered a talk called “Storytelling,” which was about how we can relate to others better and impact others’ lives more effectively by learning the craft of storytelling.  This is something I’ve always been interested in since the advent of the Midnight Society, and Mr. Mager was fun and passionate in discussing storytelling as a purposeful art.  Most of what he said was just the basics, but entertaining and informative to us nonetheless.

Photo by Azuree Wiitala

• The goth tent. There’s nothing like the goth tent for bringing it all back to simplicity.  This might seem contrary to what goth is all about, but it’s not.  All around the fest, people are trying really hard to look like they’re not trying hard.  Every group of kids is making fun of every other group of kids for being “too obvious.”  In the goth tent, everybody’s trying hard to be true to their own sense of style, and everyone else knows it.  So that level of pretense is gone and you never have to deal with figuring out who’s trying the least hard.  It’s the place where the most real conversations and meaningful interactions take place.  It’s full of candles and hanging bats and coffee and a piercing station, and I love it.  During my visit to the goth tent this year, I heard a gentleman read tons of poetry from his formative years, documenting his spiritual journey through the lens of the time period’s horror films.  Amazing!

• The drive home.  My friend Tess, a nomad who travels around with nothing but a camping pack full of wonderful things, accompanied me on the drive home.  Two Tesses, one car.  I had to drop her off at her mother’s house in NoVa, so the GPS routed us a completely different way.  Instead of going through Charlottesville, Charleston, and Point Pleasant, we went through Wheeling, Morgantown, and Cumberland.  I had never passed through those towns before, and I was delighted.  They look like they’re frozen in time, an effect that the protective mountains have probably helped to create.  I gasped as we drove through them.  And I gasped some more at the amazing mountain sunset that lasted for hours while we talked and drove.  It was beautiful, and the perfect end to my trip.

So as fun as the trip was, I got back and have been completely tired and out-of-it for the past couple of days.  I am now ready to dive back into Richmond, my favorite place in the world.

where the banshees live.

Yesterday I went to Foamhenge with some friends.  It was an appropriately cloudy day, and so nice to spend a few hours catching up in the car with those ladies.  I had this song running through my head the whole time.  Thank goodness it will take me the rest of my life to run out of cheesy Virginia roadside attractions to visit, because I do love them so.