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But is it as big as Gary's head?

If you have ever met my husband, aka Gary, aka Professor Marchant, aka GareBear, you probably know that he likes to live pretty large. If we have 10 people over for dinner, Gary cooks for 40. If other people collect 3-4 sources for an article they are writing, Gary collects stack of studies 4 feet high (literally).  He never passes on dessert.  And, on vacation, the man loves a big tropical drink.

Which is why the highlight of a trip that we took to Cancun a number of years ago turned out to be a drink. Our short vacation to Cancun coincided with Spring Break which was not ideal as the pool (and everywhere else) was full of loud, partying and often obnoxious Spring Breakers.  The upside was the drink specials.  Sitting poolside one afternoon, we were delighted to discover a ginormous fruity concoction that was served in a hollowed out watermelon. Gary, of course, had to have it.  Sadly, I don't have a photo of that magical beverage, but that watermelon was bigger than Gary's head and he drank the whole thing.

Thus began our favorite unit of measure for tropical drinks:  Gary's head. Since that time, we have scoured the earth looking for tropical drinks that meet the test.  And, once again, in Mexico, we found contenders.  Sitting poolside at another Mexican resort, we observed large fruity drinks being carried by.  Gary had to have them.

You can be the judge of whether they passed the "big as Gary's head" test.  He certainly wasn't complaining.

 

 

Más Mexico

We did eventually venture out of our secluded enclave at the Marriott, heading down to the Malecon -- the boardwalk -- in central Puerto Vallarta.  The Malecon, which runs right along the gorgeous shoreline, can still be pretty touristy but it's a fun place for a stroll.  There are lots of shops and restaurants and some cool statutes along the way.

 

 

 

 

The Malecon passes by the iconic church, the Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.  It's gorgeous.

 

Mass was underway when we visited so we just peeked in the open doors.

 

When we needed a break, we stopped for lunch at a randomly selected restaurant along the Malecon (after talking Gary out of Senor Frogs). Ok, so maybe the $1 margaritas had something to do with the place we selected, but it still turned out to be a good choice.  Here are 2 weary travelers longing for a cold drink.  

Our waiter recommended the we have Molcajete for lunch and I'm glad we took his recommendation because it was delish and one entree served the 4 of us for lunch.

 

Touristy or not, the Malecon is a great way to spend an afternoon.

Mexico On My Mind

For some reason, I was having a hard time getting excited leading up to our recent trip to Mexico.  Maybe it was because I loathe the process of packing -- trying to decide which shorts still fit and what tops will be cool but still provide some coverage for my alien white skin. Or maybe it was the fact that during the trip, we would be celebrating the 30th anniversary of my 20th birthday.  Yikes.

But our trip turned out to be a delight.  This was our first visit to Puerto Vallarta and we could not have been more impressed by the beauty of the city and the kindness of the people.  We stayed at the Marriott Casamagna.  It is a little bit outside of the "downtown" area but that made it feel like a quiet, relaxing oasis.  We were staying off-season, but this hotel was still a remarkably inexpensive bit of paradise.  Here are some of the views:

 

 

 

 

 

And my favorite view of all:

 

Gaudi: He's no Art Vandelay

I went through my "architect phase" in college.  That is the phase in every person's life when they think that they'd like to be an architect.  Architect is one of those careers that sounds really cool - it's creative but in a constructive, down-to-earth sort of way, and according to the movies, gives you lots and lots of free time to stroll around big cities carrying blue prints under your arm.  Which I guess is why in 75% of romantic comedies, one of the main characters is an architect.  Granted, this is usually the leading man, but I never let stuff like blatant gender stereotyping stand in the way of a good career fantasy. 

Further proof that everyone wants to be an architect (or at least pretend to be one)?  Art Vandelay.  If you don't know who that is, well, I feel a little sad that you missed out on the 90s.

Anyhow, in college, I pursued my dream of being an architect by signing up for Architecture 101. Things were going along perfectly as, channeling Art Vandelay, I bragged to all my friends about my budding career as an architect. But then, we got to the first assignment which was to create a model of the alumni building.  I went to Lehigh University and the alumni building looks like this (photo from the Lehigh website):

I looked at that lovely building and then at my supplies of sketch paper, oddly shaped rulers and lots of foam board and balsa wood.  Then I proceeded immediately to the registrar's office and dropped Architecture 101.

But the fact that I was very nearly a famous architect makes me appreciate even more the amazing architecture on display in Barcelona.  Everywhere you walk you see beautiful, one-of-a-kind buildings.  The most amazing one, in my opinion is another one by Antoni Gaudi:  the Casa Batllo.

It was built as a private home and then completely redesigned by Gaudi in 1906.  Inside and out, it is beautifully curvy and colorful.

Looking out the front windows:

 

A light fixture on a swirly ceiling:

There's a gorgeous blue-tiled central air shaft that provides light and ventilation:

Stairs with the spine of a dragon:

More dragon inspiration on the roof:

Even the doors and bannisters are works of art:

The man was a genius and has secured his spot as my favorite architect, handily defeating the only other architects I can name:  Frank Lloyd Wright (who gets points for living nearby my home) and, of course, the famous Art Vandelay.  OK so perhaps I should have stuck with Architecture 101.

Feel free to share you own fantasy profession. . . . Just keep it clean, people.

Barcelona Birthday

Do you remember what you did on your 15th birthday?  Since I was a clueless white girl from the suburbs who had never heard of a quinceanera AND since my parents took only 4 blurry pictures of me during my entire childhood (mostly in that ill-fated year that I signed up for Little League and none when I was 15), I have no recollection whatsoever.

So we just knew how THRILLED Julie would be when we announced that we were going to Barcelona for her 15th birthday!  She would be eternally grateful to her cool parents for making her birthday so glamorous and memorable.  

Yes, we were deluding ourselves once again.  Here is how it actually went.

1.  Breakfast at the hotel.  As I mentioned yesterday, the hotel had a small cafe.  It had the same literary theme, with books tucked into shelves here and there and quotes all over the place.  Adorable.

 They had a really good "American" breakfast and excellent coffee.  Of course, anyone who knows Julie, knows that she doesn't really like breakfast (or books for that matter), so this was not her favorite moment of the day. See?  She's "thrilled."

 

2.  The Barcelona Metro

After breakfast, we were off to explore the best of Barcelona for Julie's birthday, so we headed to the nearest Metro. We have one child who really loves subways and figuring out how to get from Point A to Point B.   

That child is not Julie.

 Needless to say, this was not Julie's favorite moment of the day either. 

3. The Sagrada Familia.  If you ever mention to anyone anywhere at any time that you are going to Barcelona, they will tell you that you must, MUST, go to the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral designed mostly by Antoni Gaudi.  You can see the gleam of zealotry in their eyes as they try to mentally will you to go there.  And you know what? I am a convert; not to Catholicism, but to Gaudi-ism.  La Sagrada Familia is astounding, outlandish, celestial, other-worldy, glorious.  I could go on but I will just show you:

Now I'm not going to say that Julie didn't like the Sagrada Familia.  It would be hard even for a teen, jaded by years of touring cathedrals during her life, to not be wowed by this amazing work of art. Nevertheless, this wasn't Julie's absolute favorite moment of the day.

So, you may be wondering what could outstrip this glorious building in the estimation of a 15 year old young lady?  Well, that's easy.  It's this:

 Obviously.

La Casa De Les Lletres

I know this will shock you but it turns out that our teen children no longer want to have all of us in one "cozy" room when we travel.  This is understandable because among us, we have a combination of people who do the following during the night:  snore, thwack others in the head, refuse to wear pajamas, knee others in the kidneys, hog the middle of the bed, steal the covers, yell loudly while dreaming, rattle Tums bottles, and one who wakes up immediately at the slightest snore, thwack, territory encroachment, knee, rattle or yell. 

To foster a harmonious vacation, I therefore booked us a small apartment in Barcelona so we could have a little breathing (and sleeping) space.  We stayed at the delightful Casa de Las Lettres and couldn't have been happier. It's a boutique apartment hotel with a literary theme -- all the apartments are unique and are named after writers with a connection to Barcelona.  We stayed in the Josep Pla, a two story apartment named after a Catalonian writer who I am embarrassed to admit I had never heard of before.  If you are similarly uninformed, you might enjoy this article about him that contains some great excerpts of his writing.  http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/03/24/a-vitreous-vault/.  He has a knack for description that any blogger would envy.

The apartment was a chic oasis of calm after our long flight and forced morning tour of the Ramblas.  Note the girl who has already collapsed onto the couch.

 

 Also a boy who does not like to have his photo taken. 

 

Here is the view from the window.  Can you believe that spectacular building is the telephone company?

 

To adjust to Barcelona time, we tried to stay awake as much as we could during the day.  You may recall our questionable success with this strategy when we went to London. This time, after some naps, most of us got up to grab dinner and a quick walk around the neighborhood. Conveniently, our hotel had a small cafe on the ground level with a lovely outdoor section on the plaza outside.  The tapas were excellent.

See that glass of Sangria?  While I don't necessarily recommend a giant glass of wine when jet lagged and trying to pretend that you are not tired (per Gary's Theory of Fatigue Denial), it certainly worked wonders for me.

After dinner, a little stroll around the neighborhood.  We were quite near the barceloneta -- the waterfront/beach area.

This Roy Lichtenstein statute is one of the many pieces of evidence in the case that Barcelona is one of the hippest cities on earth.  

Finally ready to pack it in for our first day in Barcelona, we returned to our apartment to find that one of our party had already beaten us to it . . .

Barcelona Blues

What is it about vacations that makes me want to blog?  It's been 2 years and suddenly, browsing through our summer vacation photos, I thought "gee, maybe I should start blogging again."  I suspect it's that I harbor the secret desire to be a travel writer/photojournalist. Certainly, my family has enough travel peculiarities that every trip resembles a National Geographic story about the bizarre customs of a remote tribal people. There are crazy food requirements, we wander around hopelessly lost in a strange land and someone usually contracts a contagious disease.

Whatever the reason, here I am blogging about summer vacations again. This summer, we took one of those bucket-list vacations:  a Mediterranean cruise down the coast of Spain, France and Italy. But before we Julie looked pretty chipper at the beginning, on the flight to Barcelona.

After the interminable flight to Barcelona, we arrived before 9 am but we couldn't check into our hotel until 3 pm.  We made the best of this "opportunity" to visit the famed Ramblas - the main tourist drag in Barcelona. Because when you are so tired that you feel nauseous, there's nothing you want to do more than wander zombie-like through a foreign city getting jostled by 10,000 or so of your fellow tourists.

 Barcelona is undeniably beautiful and all the buildings are unique.

We did enjoy exploring the amazing market on the Ramblas, the Mercado de La Boqueria, where you could buy anything from spices to entire animals.  We played it safe and bought just some bread, Iberian ham, cheese  and fruit.  Here's the entrance to the market.

And inside:

 

The market has more ham than I have ever seen in one place.

I love nuts.  It took willpower for me not to just dive into one of these face-first:

 Daniel loves exotic fruit so was delighted by this stand that had star fruit and several kids of dragon fruit.

Some of the stands looked a little less appealing to our American eyes.

Leaving the market, we again stumbled around looking for lunch and getting lost in the Barri Gotic (the oldest neighborhood of Barcelona).  In true Spanish style, our first choice of restaurants didn't open for lunch until 2 pm.  The kids, who start asking about lunch around 10:30 am most days, were outraged. So instead we ended up at a nearby outdoor tapas cafe, La Alcoba Azul, where we tried to stay awake long enough for the food to arrive.

Over lunch, Gary expounded upon his theory that admitting that you are tired makes you feel worse. You can imagine how receptive his tired, cranky teens (and wife) were to this theory.

In any event, La Alcoba Azul was not the best tapas we had in Barcelona but pretty good and you can see we didn't leave too many left-overs.

 

Someone doesn't want to wander around Barcelona anymore.

 

Sorry, Julie, but there is one more bit of trekking we have to do: find the hotel to check in. Stay tuned.

This Floors Me

Travel back in time with me, if you will, to the year 1988.  I was living in a law school dorm somewhere in Boston. I had finally grown out the perm I'd had through the end of highschool and was rocking those '80s couture items: the boxy sweater, high-waisted jeans and power shoulder pads. Livin' the dream.

Little did I know at the time that across the country in the desert southwest, my house was being built. It too was rocking the house version of couture in the desert southwest:  pink and aqua.  (Oh and bonus points for having a cow skull on the wall).

Our house was on theme with aqua and pink wallpaper, pinkish (whitewashed) saltillo tile and "seafoam blue" carpet. When Gary and I bought the house and moved in 10 years later, this color scheme still prevailed it still looked quite nice, if a bit dated.  So began the long, arduous process of eradicating the pink and aqua.

It would be a preposterous understatement to say that we underestimated how long and arduous the process would actually turn out to be.  One year, we had the saltillo jack-hammered out and replaced with ceramic tile.  In various other years, we spent weeks of our lives removing pink and aqua wallpaper that was superglued on the walls.  And we have changed the pink (whitewashed) oak cabinets in two bathrooms.

And today in the year of our Lord 2013, we are finally, FINALLY getting rid of the last of the blue carpet. I'm sure blue carpet seemed like a good idea once upon a time, but it is now (a) out of style and (b) clashing with every single other item, wall and floor in the house.  Take a look-see:

Not to mention that I make it a firm policy to change the carpet in my house at least once every 25 years.  I'm crazy obsessive that way.

Anyhow, here was our house this morning after removing things from the bedrooms and Gary's office.

And here it is after the floor installation team got here. Things are really looking up!

Here's what they've been up to.  This is Martin, the leader of the crew.

They are still working on installing the new floors.  I'll report back with the results soon!

 

 

Back to school

It was back to school this week and the kids were ready to go! 

Here's Julie:

And Daniel:

At least that's what I could swear they looked like last last time I looked.

Actually, this week they looked like this heading off for the first day of school.

How about you -- are your kids back at school yet? 

Clayton's Coffee Shop

One of the benefits of having a blog is having a soapbox on which to rail against the injustices of society.  And I think we can all agree that one of the tragic inequities in modern suburbia is the appalling lack of quaint local coffee shops at which to have breakfast on the weekend. 

Ok, not really.  I acknowledge that this is a "first world problem", but is it too much to ask to get just one freakin' quaint local coffee shop within a 10 mile radius that can put together a decent breakfast and cup 'o joe?

Which is why, I guess, I am ridiculously in love with a little coffee shop in Coronado called Clayton's. 

Claytons has fine coffee but more importantly, it's has great food and it's got character.  A triple threat.

Don't get me wrong, I like Starbucks as much as your next girl.  In truth, MORE than your next girl.  But if you've ever tried going there for a leisurely weekend breakfast, you know that it is just missing that certain . . . something that a neighborhood breakfast joint should have.

Maybe it's the lack of a jukebox?

Or homemade donuts?

Or homemade donuts in cakestands? I now zealously believe that all donuts should be displayed in cakestands.  Take note, Dunkn Donuts.

Counter seating?

Perfect breakfast sandwiches (and million other breakfasts to choose from)?

Cute signs?  Waitresses with flowers in their hair and cute print aprons? Tin ceilings?

 I guess that's why they call it je ne sais quoi because I don't know exactly what it is, but I know Clayton's has got it.  And I want it. 

IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

Please?!