Prompt 26: A Photo of Somewhere I've Been To

THE CLIFFS OF INSANITY!!!!!!!!!

please note the people on the top...to give you an idea of scale

A slice of life may or may not be as good as a slice of fresh peach pie...

This summer was meant to be the Summer of Sewing.  However, since I didn't actually have a sewing machine (a sad fact which has only just been remedied by my awesome mother) that didn't end up happening.  Instead it became the Summer of Adventure and Travel...and let's face it, that's totally as awesome, if not more so, than sewing.

so excited to use this sucker!  Thanks mom!

Things got started with my absolutely awesome trip to Europe in March (a trip which I have been really terrible about documenting...I think I only made it through the first two days of the German leg... :-/ ).  This trip, unfortunately, took rather a toll on the rest of my summer, though this wasn't instantly evident.  Alas, when you spend that much money at the beginning of your summer, the end of your summer can wind up quite poverty stricken--but we'll get to that.  Especially since I regret nothing.  Well, I regret one pair of shoes, but not very much.

you can see why I don't regret them very much....

After Europe I took a month or two break from Travelling (you know, out of the state) but I continued to go on adventures.  I went to...well, nearly to Spiral Jetty.  I went to the Hogle Zoo where I discovered that my childhood enjoyment of zoos has been somewhat tempered in my old age and that now I find them both fascinating and quite depressing (particularly the monkeys...shoot!).  I also learned that carousels will always be awesome, especially ones where you get to ride exotic animals.  

there is no part of riding a bald eagle that is not awesome

It was at this point in my life that I started being aware of those repercussions of that super expensive Europe trip.  Adventures that included lots of gas and/or entrance fees were abandoned.  On the other hand, I promised Anneke that I would attend her wedding reception in Montana.  I couldn't bail on that!  So instead I brought two of her roommates to help pay for gas (and cause they're great girls and stuff) and nearly killed my car and got me to Montana.  I can't find any pictures of that trip (seriously?) so instead I'll post these three pictures I have of Anneke being adorable and awesome

How cute is this girl?

...the answer is:

Pretty darn cute

This was, however, the last nail in the coffin of my finances.  For the rest of the summer I've been bouncing between utterly broke (I mean, utterly) and pretty broke (slightly less broke than utterly).  You might think that this put an end to my adventure times...but you would be wrong!

I was lucky enough to join my friend Collin at the Stadium of Fire to see one of my favorite bands since I was about 3--The Beach Boys.  In case any of you were wondering, they may be getting older, but they still put on a truly awesome show.  The fireworks weren't bad either :)

aww...look at us there gettin' ready to rock this show!

At some point my brother decided that he wanted to go home for a visit and he invited me to come with him.  Spontaneous trips are some of my favorite.  And it was great to have the manly bonding the good sibling bonding time with my brother.  Siblings.  They're kind of the best things ever.  And then it was great seeing my family.  I haven't seen my nieces in about a billion years.  They're getting so OLD!  I also drove down to Price to visit Seth and Rachel and Seth's family.  Such great people!  I will always love that place.  And somewhere in there Tori and I drove up to Salt Lake to attend the Obon festival.  We witnessed some really stellar traditional Japanese dancing, and some less stellar traditional Japanese dancing.  I also wandered over to the City Creek Center for the first time and was treated to an awesome fountain show.  

seriously obsessed with this fountain..

Then there was just the ambient awesomeness of my routine life.  I spent my free time watching various movies, several amazing MST3K episodes, and most importantly all three seasons of Avatar with Matt.  

Matt's farewell party paying homage to Avatar, MST3K, and
his orange juice obsession

this is basically the essence of my summer right here.  Beautiful!

I got to (and continue to be so blessed) drive down to Payson every day for work.  I decided to go on an adventure one day on my way home and discovered a backroads-ish route that I take now when I'm feeling scenic.  I am rewarded with sights like this

Turns out 7 o'clock at the end of August = magic time

How lucky am I?  Pretty dang lucky!

Which brings us to August and my last two trips of the summer (this post has turned out much longer than I meant it to).  Way back at the beginning of summer my mom and I made a brilliant plan.  The plan was put in to action in the middle of August and I drove home one more time with my good friend Mike

brilliant conversationalist is Mike...

Callie also hitched a ride for one more visit home as well.  There was dancing and shooting and movie watching and familial bonding and taking of many pictures.  Good times were had by all.  

The final hurrah was last weekend.  The beautiful Laura McNeil and her equally lovely mother were so kind as to invite me to Fort Collins for Labor Day weekend to see none other than the legendary B.B. King in concert.  Which we did.  Among many many other things.  This post was originally destined to document this trip, but I ended up summing up my whole summer, so I think the details will wait for another post (there were some major life plannings that happened) and instead I'll just leave you with a few more pictures

yeah, those are vintage TMNT comics I used to read as a kid.
Plus the most delicious cream soda on the face of the earth.

my "fairy" costume for the Tour de Fat.  Kinda lame, I know...

everyone else's costumes...

one of my favorite costumes!

me and the awesome sunburn I got after the Tour de Fat.
Notice the really awesome raccoon lines where my makeup was...

100% legitimate Vaudville act which ended with a man juggling a real
chainsaw, a 14 pound bowling ball, and one fake egg

Princess Lollipo!  Another of my favorite costumes.
She gave me a butterscotch candy!

I...I wish I'd bought these...

The dessert of champions at the Chocolate Cafe.  Mmmmmmmm!

the journal I bought in Dublin and the journal I bought in Fort Collins.
I'm really digging the shorter journals--you fill them up faster and get to buy new ones sooner!

the list I made at the beginning of the summer.  Still plenty of things left on there!

And that is that.  My Summer of Adventure and Travel!  Indeed, this is the good life!

Dancing holes in the soles of my shoes...

Ages back my mom and I concocted a plan.  In this plan I was going to go home for a weekend sometime towards the end of summer and I was going to teach a dance workshop to the youth in my home stake.  Then I was going to DJ a dance for them and suddenly the kids would go to stake dances and they would dance and everything was going to be awesome.  It seemed like a good plan except for the part where we completely ignored that we're talking about a bunch of kids between the ages of 14 and 17 and who are we kidding? The day they dive into a dance workshop and learn to dance is the day Snooki buys herself some pearls and joins the DAR.

so much class happening here!
(photo courtesy of People.com)

That is what I thought about during the bulk of the two hour drive up to Pine Valley.  Lured with the promise of a good time (yes, sometimes I lie to people...I had no idea if it actually would be a good time), I had convinced my friend Mike to come with me to help teach.  As of our arrival in the parking lot that was to be our dance space we still hadn't agreed on what style of dance to teach.  I wanted to teach west coast so that the kids would be able to dance to the regular music that would be played.  Mike was doubtful that was going to happen.  I was forced to agree with him when I was finally confronted by over 150 kids huddled in front of me.  There was no way we were going to teach these kids west coast.  Blues it would be!

I then proceeded to give the most rushed, un-inclusive, non-helpful lesson of my life.  In my own defense, it was enough of a challenge just getting the kids to alternate boy/girl/boy/girl and touch each other.  But Mike and I, in about 25 minutes, went over very basic connection, pulse, and taught them how to do a basic, a right turn and a left turn.  With my mother gesturing me to hurry up every few seconds in the background, we wrapped up the pathetic excuse for a lesson and got the music started.  

The rest of the evening, however, was great fun.  Though I played almost every request I got, I also tried to gently broaden musical horizons.  Of course, this had mixed results as, towards the end of the night, a girl pleadingly asked for a "fast song".  Bemused, Mike and I questioned her what sort of fast song she wanted since we had played quite a few fast songs, including two lindy hops, several country swings, and even some line dances.  She looked at us like we were slow and said "I mean some normal music!"  

I really like that knife...
obtained here

For me, however, the entire experience of the Stake Dance was redeemed.  

When I was in mutual I would go to dances and awkwardly sit off to the side.  Rarely, some intrepid young man would tremblingly approach and ask me to dance.  We would rock back and forth, one sweaty hand slipping embarrassingly between shoulder and waist whilst the other encircled my own in a clammy whisper of a grip.   For three minutes, as our eyes circumnavigated the ceiling, the walls, the floor...anything but look at our partner, we would tamp down a tiny circle on the dance floor.  At last the music would end, releasing us, and we would mumble thanks over our shoulders as we hurried back to our respective places. 

Some intrepid boy just like this one...bless his heart
photo from here

But there I was, on a Saturday night, back at a stake dance.  Only I am now 26 years old.  I know how to dance now.  And best of all, I had a partner there with me who was both willing and able to dance with me.  And dance we did.  To the insufferable and eternal Cottoneye Joe we danced the Polka.  When Open Arms was requested we waltzed.  We even threw in some Cha Cha, though I don't remember which song that one was.  And of course, there was blues and west coast (and some very westified lindy).  It is amazing what a difference those small changes can make in the same event...

We danced the whole night and our post-dance energy buzz completely confounded mom.  I think just listening to us talk was making her and dad tired.  

The next day me, dad, and Mike drove up to go shooting.  Walking across the rock pit to set up targets I realized the full extent of my fun the night before.  

Yes.  That's right.  I danced a hole in my shoe.  

Cultural Education Times

Fun Fact: weddings are a big deal.  Always.

I'm currently in Germany for two reasons.  The first is because I've wanted to come back to Europe ever since I left it four years ago.  The second, and rather more important, is that my good friend Ralf is getting married.  Strike that...he now IS married.  At least, part way.

So, we got the news last fall that he was engaged and I decided right then and there that I was going to be at the wedding.  As it turned out, it wasn't quite that simple, since Ralf and Marlene decided that they were going to pick a date two weeks before the end of my semester.  However, I somehow worked it all out, and here I am.

Today was the first day of the wedding.  That's right, it's a two day affair.  Today was the civil service, which is a quite small affair, and then tomorrow is the big religious ceremony that will be attended by about 160 people.  Today was when they go to the equivalent of the city hall (the village...office of bureaucracy?) with only their very immediate family and get married legally.  Ralf's parents and his two sisters (with respective boyfriends) were there, as well as a cousin he used to be best friends with when they were young.  Marlene's two brothers, her sister and sister's fiance and their baby, her parents, and her grandparents were there.  And me and Kara.  I felt mildly out of place for a moment.  But then they asked me to take a lot of pictures for them and I didn't feel so out of place.  Alas, unlike an American city hall, which would be boring and beige and have recessed fluorescent lighting making everyone looked green, their city hall equivalent was...in a crypt?  It was in a stone-built basement space that really did seem incredibly crypt-like.  Either way, it was really wretched lighting and most of my pictures came out blurry so I won't really be able to help the family out after all.  Not to mention, I decided it would be cool to video the actual ceremony, so about three minutes after the dude started giving his speech, once I realized he was speechafying rather than just asking everyone to sit down and shut up, I started recording.  I handed the camera to Kara because she had a much better view, but we eventually decided that perhaps we should stop videoing until something interesting happened.  Which meant that Kara turned the video off.  And then they stood up to exchange vows.  Kara ran over to the aisle so she could get a really great shot of the the minister between their two backs and caught the whole thing perfectly.  Except she forgot to actually turn the video back on to record.  So really all she got was her own nice view of the vows.  And Ralf and Marlene have a nice long video of their minister talking forever.  I hope he was at least interesting.  Alas, I have no idea...

Because I don't speak German.  Turns out "lending a hand" is 100% easier and less frustrating when you can actually understand what is happening around you.  Kara and I spent a hefty part of this morning just standing around wishing we knew what was going on so that we could help.  Even just getting to the hall was hard because no one seemed to know what was going into what car, including us.  Also, it turns out that if you get a crowd of Germans in a room and you want them to accomplish something you should give them about 50 times longer than you think they'll really need.  We stood around doing absolutely nothing for a solid hour after the wedding service trying to figure out when and where to sit down.  Eventually we did sit down to tables that Kara and I had set up the day before for Sabine, Ralf's mother.  We ate possibly the most delicious soup on the face of the earth.  It looked like this:

It looked sort of completely terrifying, but turned out to be heavenly.  Those cubes are actually egg, prepared some mysterious way so that the yolk and white were completely homogeneous.

Here's a picture of the table settings and Marlene's flowers

Kara took that picture.  The dinner was lovely, except for the part where the guy handing Kara her plate knocked over her champagne flute full of orange juice and some of it got on my camera.  I was real worried, but turns out it was ok.  There was also a stinkin' cute baby girl there who, aside from a really unfortunate mullet decision by her parents, was skull-explodingly adorable.  This is another of Kara's pictures, showing her in all her cuteness wearing the fabulous little baby sweater I want to learn how to knit:

Ok, so that picture doesn't really show the sweater.  But it shows her insane cuteness in profile.


Anyway. Enough pictures for now because it is taking forever to load them and I need to go to bed 18 minutes ago.  So, after the luncheon Kara and I were put in charge of clearing off and putting away all the tables and chairs, which we completed with admirable swiftness.  All of us then trouped home (siblings, parents, significant others, and us Americans) and changed out of our nice clothes so we could go to the other hall where we'll be having the other service tomorrow.

This was where the insanity really began.  Remember how I said weddings are a big deal?  Remember how I said a bunch of Germans in a room are completely incapable of just getting to work?  Yeah, both of these facts were forcibly demonstrated to me today.  Along with the conviction that when it comes to setting up tables and chairs and covering those tables with table cloths...just trust the Mormons.  Seriously.  We have years of experience with these things.  We really do know the best way to fit the tables in and still leave room for the caterers.  Alas, they did not trust the Mormons, and they were a bunch of Germans (and one of them is a physicist!  I should have already known we were screwed!).  So we literally spent 40 minutes just trying to figure out exactly where the tables should go.  Part of this involved the most perniciously fastidious measuring of distances I've ever seen.  Heaven preserve us from a table one or two millimeters out of line!  Also, I think there really is some truth to the idea that Americans are obsessed with work.  In the time it took Kara and I to fold all 160 napkins (into chicken's feet, if you listen to her, though I thought they looked nice enough) They managed to...put two strips of ribbon on all the tables?  I think they also managed to put out a few glasses.  Most of the people there were actually eating some of Marlene's lovely chocolate cherry cake, or sitting and chatting.  After Kara and I finished the napkins we took over putting out the glasses (water and wine) and trying to make sure that all the wine glasses matched.  We kept having to work around the two or three guys who spent pretty much the entirety of the 5 hours we were preparing the hall going around making infinitesimal adjustments to the silverware, chair, and table placements to make sure that they were all lined up absolutely perfectly!  I've never seen such obsession over alignment in my life.  And so completely unnecessary....

After five hours of this Kara and I were ready to go home.  The fact is, there really was only enough work there for about three hours had everyone chipped in and worked hard.  Instead we drug it out by an extra two and that knowledge was wearing on the two of us.  Except that we realized that probably much of our frustration would have been eased had we known what anyone was saying at any point during the entire process.  For one thing we could only ever wait for Ralf or his sister Andrea or Joe (the American exchange student of years gone by) to tell us what to do.  No one else felt comfortable talking to the Americans.  For another, no one but those three could understand when we made suggestions, so we were pretty much completely ignored every time.  But despite all that, when we came back from a trip to the grocery store with Ralf we were forced to admit that the hall did look quite lovely.  I will admit that I was worried.  There are no less than four different reds on those tables, and not a one of them matching.  But from a distance they sort of all blend together and you don't notice so much.

Tangent about the floor:  instead of the traditional boards, cut in long strips along the grain of the wood, this floor was made of the perpendicular ends of the boards.  That is, if you took the ends of all those long boards and stuck them all in together, you'd have this floor.  It was a fascinating pattern of half-arches and I'm going to take a picture of it as soon as we get back tomorrow.  Bryan will love it!

Anyway, we finally made it home--all of us wiped out.  Tomorrow Kara and I have to get up early so that we can move our things to a neighbor's house, where we'll be spending Saturday night.  Some 20 or so cousins are descending upon this house tomorrow, or so we've been told.  I can only assume they'll be packed over the floor much like the Africans were on those old Spanish slave galleys back in the 15th century.  Kara and I (as well as Kami and Joseph when they return from Berlin) will get a full apartment to ourselves in said neighbor's basement and I'm perfectly willing to relocate for that kind of space and privacy.  I believe we'll be back Sunday night, though, since someone in the family is supposed to be driving us to the airport Monday morning.

I'm both excited and nervous for tomorrow.  On the one hand, it will be nice to see all our work from yesterday put to use.  The ceremony tomorrow is much grander and I think it will be much more comparable to an American wedding.  I'm quite looking forward to the experience (though not so much to the open bar, especially combined with the dancing we've been told to expect in the evening).  However, the temperature here has been dropping every day and tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day so far.  Of course, the day I'll be wearing a thin little dress!  I may die, and I'm sure Kara definitely will.  But we'll power through as best we can and hopefully I'll get some great pictures to show you all tomorrow!

Lastly here's a picture of the happy couple just after they were married.  I'm excited to see her fer rlz wedding dress tomorrow!

More Pad Thai and Dog Hair...

...but not together.

Not that it is particularly helpful, but in my ongoing quest for the best Thai food in Provo, I decided to try a Thai restaurant down here in Phoenix.  I'm down visiting my dad, and my step-mom is out of town, so it's been dinner out every night.  I figured, why waste a great opportunity for Thai food, right?  So I looked up the best Thai restaurants in Chandler (the suburb where my dad actually lives) and found The Mint Thai Cafe (be warned, the site plays a little blurb of music when you click on it).  It was not the number one rated Thai restaurant, that one was too far away.  But it was a pretty well rated one.  Plus, my dad said he'd been there before and thought it was good.  So away we went.

It was...fine.  I mean, the food was good.  I got my traditional Pad Thai and dad got something called "Siamese Twins" (I find the hyper Asian stereotyped names these places come up with to be vaguely insulting...to pretty much everyone involved) that involved bamboo shoots and coconut and green beans.  I advised him to get this dish  based on the existence of green beans which, as everyone knows, are the world's greatest vegetable.  I couldn't try much of his because it was spicy and I'm a complete pansy when it comes to hot food.  But what I tasted in my one bite before my tongue started writhing was very good.  Mark up another win for green beans.

My Pad Thai was also pretty good.  The flavor of the sauce was quite nice, though I find I prefer my Pad Thai a little juicier than most people make it.  These guys went quite dry, even more than usual.  But there was plenty of chicken and even egg, which I do appreciate since it adds a bit of variety to a dish that can get a little monotonous.  When I asked for my side of lime the woman brought me a dish of lemon slices.  Apparently the only lime they had wasn't looking too fresh and she didn't want to give it to me.  I appreciate that I guess.  The waitress herself was a little eccentric, but pretty good I think.  All in all, I found The Mint Thai Cafe to be satisfactory.  Decent food, decent service, decent prices.  Probably, if I ever get Thai food down here again I'll try a different place.  But if you ever need a place to have dinner and you're craving Thai, you could do much worse than eat there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

this is what I found when I did an image search for dog hair...
not really want I wanted, but too dang cute to pass up

Visiting my dad is quite an endeavor.  You see, my dad and my step-mom own five dogs (plus my cat, which he's now trying to tell me belongs to my step-brother...pshaw...).  Cristy has a thing for Corgis, so they have four of them, plus an older, giant German Shepherd.  All of the dogs are pretty good tempered and since they're corgis it's not as if they can really jump up on your nice clean shirt.  However, all five of them are indoor dogs, all with permission to exist on the furniture.  This all means that at any given moment, pretty much every surface in the house has dog hair on it.  I find the ubiquity of dog hair in this place to be...somewhat trying.  I don't want to go to church and spend the first 20 minutes trying to pick all the hair off my skirt.  

I have found my intense dislike of doghair generally translates into a dislike of the dogs which produce it.  Any time my dad's dogs try to insinuate themselves into my affections I push them callously away.  See, that's one thing I don't like about dogs.  They try too hard to get you to love them.  Everyone knows you shouldn't be desperate for friends...  Cats, on the other hand, do a very good job of exuding the "Yes, I know you're responsible for my daily food and water, but don't let that fool you into thinking I wouldn't eat you if you died..." (this is a fact.  house cats will eat the body of their deceased owner if they run out of food...).  The point is that dogs, unlike cats, are just desperate for you to love them.  Hence, the moment I sit down on the couch at least one of the dogs will jump up next to me and lay his head in my lap and look up at me appealingly as if to ask me "Now really...how can you say no to real, legitimate puppy eyes???"  

I have managed to rebuff these efforts now for several years, but this year I find myself faltering a little.  One of the dogs is quite old and goes by the name of Jax.  He doesn't force himself on me, he just comes and quietly sits nearby just in case I should decided to pat his head.  He has taken, on this visit, to sleeping in my bedroom, not on the bed, just in a corner.  To be honest, I feel like I'm being courted by someone who is keenly aware of the sort of courtship I would not be able to resist.  I feel weak that I'm succumbing to his charms.  But at the same time...it's just a dog.  Everyone loves dogs (or at least cats or birds...whatever you have as a pet).  It does not reflect poorly on me because I happen to also like dogs.  After all, I love my kitty unabashedly.  So I guess I'll grudgingly accept Jax as my friend...