Spring is springing

Hi there,

Well today has so far been a day of frantically trying to get back in touch with everyone in the UK who I've been meaning to email for ages. I feel very industrious and not a little square-eyed! I've also put photos of our recent visitors and outings etc on Flickr for everyone so feel free to browse through those.

As regards my previous post, I realised I hadn't filled everyone in on the saga of the parking fine. I have to say I am still utterly ashamed of myself. I don't even know when and where you can and cannot park on my own street!!!! Si and Sara hired a car to get them back to nyc and I went to collect it with them. First though, I took them on a walk through Ithaca on a circuitous route that took us past a) firemen practising their fire-putting-out skills at a burnt out shell of a building, b) past blokes with big machinery carrying trucks sawing huge branches of trees, which nearly blinded us with sawdust and deafened us with noise c) across a massive freeway with a lethal sort of pedestrian crossing that appeared to rely upon people noticing we wanted to cross 6 lanes of traffic and d) through what I can only describe as the closest thing to a " 'hood" Ithaca has got. It's kind of near Fall creek (I think), but maybe further toward route 13(?) which runs out of town. Anyway, we were asked by a "youf" whether we had a cigarette as we passed her sitting on her veranda. I said "no". Resisting the urge to add either "shouldn't you be in school young lady" or "please don't shoot me." Of course I'm exaggerating (always the drama queen). It's just that as the Eddy street snob (wot wot) I hadn't come across some of the other bits of Ithaca before that and it didn't feel as comfortable as other parts of town. (Though I should say that it's nowhere near as rough as some bits of our beloved Newcastle, and not a chav in sight. ) Anyhow, after this wonderful cultural perambulation around Ithaca''s most scenic elements we gradually dragged our aching limbs towards the car hire place. Honestly I swear I didn't know that it was going to be that much of a hike to get there. We were knackered. So anyway, we get the car. Si does much better at driving round Ithaca than me and (despite the a few cases of "Simon, they drive on the right here," "no, Simon the other right") we manage to fill the car up and get back to the house fine. Then we park on the street near the house (along with all the other cars which also line the street on both sides). As I get out I notice a fire-hydrant, don't think anything of it. We don't tend to get them in the UK so I barely register what they are over here. I also find I have to be careful that my car door doesn't hit the metal post outside the door.

As it turns out, had I bothered to look up, I would have seen a nice clear sign at the top of said post that said in big letters and with arrows for idiots "No Parking Any Time." None of us noticed however, and we all went inside. Later, when Si got from the chapterhouse pub, having had a post work beer with Einar, he found he had 2 parking fines totalling about $87! They'd done him twice over! Once for parking next to a fire hydrant and once for parking in a prohibited zone (prohibited, of course, because it was next to the fire hydrant....) Bless him, Si had bought me some flowers to say thanks for having us; but by the time he got to me I'm not sure whether he wouldn't rather have thwacked me over the head with them! (Believe me Si, in your shoes I'd have beaten me to a pulp with those carnations). So there you go. Future guests be warned I do not know where you can and cannot park in Ithaca. I can barely understand road signs. I am in fact a menace!

Still, despite all this we enjoyed the company of all our guests even if they can't say the same! :)

In other news, I have also discovered that it can be hard in Ithaca to get a rounded opinion of the place. Local publications which recommend eateries etc are relentlessly positive about EVERYTHING. While this is understandable, it can be quite hard for example to find which are the good places to eat and the not so good. It can also be hard to find a good hierarchy of which trails are good and which not so good. Einar and I ended up trying a hike somewhere called Connecticut hill recently, that was mentioned in a book I bought. But when we got there it felt so lonely and barren that we got so disheartened we came away and went somewhere we've already been to but know we like! I think we're going to start tapping Einar's colleagues for honest advice on restaurants and trails, so that we know which ones are best to go to. Same with local wineries and wine trails, We can't see them all, so it's be great to be able to make an educated choice; instead of having to choose between descriptions and reviews that say "it's all great, all the time, no exceptions."

What else do I feel like telling you all today....hmmm.....Let's see. Well much as I hate to say it Einar and I are very house preoccupied at the moment. There's going to be so much to do. It's all very exciting! As those of you who I have been emailing will already know, Einar has turned into a home depot addict. He just likes to go there and stroke the 2 by 4 and gaze longingly at drill bits. I end up looking at kitchen worktops and cabinets and we usually leave in some heated discussion about whether or not we should have ceramic tiles on the floor or laminate wood strips. Descisions decisions! Can't wait to get into the house and get started. Oh, and we both hope furture guests are ok subsisting largely on bbq food. We're definitely buying a new bbq and are hoping that if the kitchen is too terrible to manage in (though it looks workable) or if we get too excited and start ripping things out early...(don't look so shocked you can all help. It'll be "fun", Dad, I know how much you live DIY so we'll think of something especially challenging for you,)....then we can still cook using the bbq. Shouldn't think this will happen. But I have a suspicion that leaving a young enthusiastic bouncy Einar alone with tools in his new house may be risky. It's equivalent to leaving a small child alone with a bag of m&ms and asking them not no touch it until you get back. Or leaving your new puppy alone in your sitting room with a variety of feather-filled cushions and chewable valuables. I worry that if I leave the Norwegian in the house alone with any kind of implement, particularly a hammer shaped one, then I would only have myself to blame if I returned to find him standing gleeful and victorious over a pile of rubble that used to be a kitchen.

Right, that's it. I'm getting that blogged out sensation once again so I think it's time to say bye-bye for now. Stand by as I'm sure that there will be more Ithaca news and views on the way in the near future.

Bye!
L x

P.S Tried Hershey's chocolate yesterday. Don't bother. Nowhere NEAR as good as the wonder food that is Dairy Milk, or even, dare I say it, Galaxy.....mmmmm Dairy Milk......... Peanut butter wrapped in a chocolate shell or slathered underneath a chocolate layer on top of a biscuit however, now that's a keeper.

Unemployed but full of bagels

Hey folks!
Time for another news bulletin from across the pond. Well, as you can guess from the title I didn't get the job I was hoping for. Ah well, at least it gave me some useful interview experience. Still SUCKS that I am unemployed though. I also think I have ruined my chances at getting a career in the hospitality industry given that our first set of guests have just left, having been mocked, marched huge distances and encouraged to park in a location that got them $87 worth of parking fine! Sorry Simon, sorry Sara! Really hope you had an ok trip back to Newcastle. Hope that driving through NJ and Manhattan wasn't too traumatic!

It was really great to see some uk friends. Can't wait for the next batch! Unfortunately, the viking chose the day we drove to a hotel in nyc (for him to go to a workshop in Princeton, then pick our guests and me up and take us all back to Ithaca the next day) to get sick. God knows how he managed it, but he still drove all the way to nyc and then to princeton and back to Ithaca the next day. It must be that Norwegian stamina which is normally used for fending off polar bears in his natural habitat, but which in this case allowed Einar to fight off illness and new york traffic at the same time. (And before I hear any heckling from my various Norwegian in-laws, I continue to believe that polar bears roam the streets of Norway with impunity at night in packs like oversized vermin. We all know it's true, there's no point trying to deny it, it is a "well known fact" about Norway.)

Anyway, we all made it back to Ithaca (Me, Einar, Gio-who stayed for 2 nights before bussing it back to NYC, Si and Sara). Einar went all pink and sweaty and was running a fever so the poor boy had to turn in early. He recovered fairly quickly, but was under the weather for a good 3 days. I did my usual "caring" routine, which I think I have inherited from my mother. Mum always says she was a bad nurse when I was little because she would worry about me when I was sick and get tense and sharp with me as a result. -I don't remember this at all, but I do it when Einar's ill all the time. I fret about him, potter about with damp flannels mopping him with them ineffectually and in general appear both flustered and mildly annoyed. I am sure Florence Nightingale was just the same....Anyway, he pulled through despite my ministrations with the cold flannel, which would have soon brought on pnemonia in a lesser mortal and was soon feeling well enough to take some light sustenance in the form of beer, pizza and muffins, all of which aided his recovery immensely.

Gio, Si and Sara proved to be wonderful guests. They cooked, tidied, even bought us some groceries (future guests please take note). I was slightly put out that they didn't see fit to do some light dusting or perhaps clean the windows while they were here, but then you can't have everything.

Anyway Einar and I loved having them. Gio couldn't stay long sadly, but we did go out (minus einar) on her 2nd night here to our local sushi place and ate like kings. Sara had a bento box (very restrained) while the other 3 of us shared "the big red boat" which was a huge collection of sushi and sashimi served up on a wooden model of a boat about 2.5ft long. It's a beautiful thing, isn't it? We did have the leftovers boxed up to take back to Einar, but to be honest we ended up with a pitiful offering, because all of us kept saying "phew, I'm stuffed.....what's that one?......really?....well maybe just one more." I did however feel a tad old in that restaurant. It's a great place to observe some of the Cornell undergrads, most of whom feel obliged when at a sushi place to order sake-bombs. These things look lethal to me but big groups of students were lapping them up while we were tacking the big red boat. A sake bomb consists of a pint of beer with two chopsticks balanced across the top. In between the chopsticks is a small paper cup which is full of sake. The idea is to slam your fist down on the table so hard that the cup falls straight downwards (and still upright) from between the chopsticks into the pint glass. The hapless drinker then consumes this beer/sake mix before filling up the beer glass and the sake cup and doing the whole thing again. The result of this lovely beverage is no doubt happy drunkeness followed by a terrible hangover for the drinker. For any fellow non-bombing diners however, eating becomes a matter of bracing yourself for the next batch of sake-bombs; when all of the 15 people at the next table hit the table so hard and so loudly that you jump and poke yourself in the eye with your own chopstick. In any event it was a great night out people watching and sushi-eating.

Well more anon, but have done enough blogging for one night....back soon folks!