Bermuda

My baby brother graduated from Dartmouth and in celebration (both for actually getting him packed up and out of the dorm on time and for graduating in four years) we took a quick family vacation to Bermuda. I had no idea how close Bermuda was to Boston. Just a quick, two-hour flight later and you're on a tropical island with turquoise ocean and pink sand beaches. Yes, they are really pink, but more on that later.

Lovely, right? Our last night there was a couple sharing a bottle of champagne in one of these love seat chair things watching the sunset. Pretty perfect. My favorite part about Bermuda, besides the obvious sun and warm water, was how formal it was. I've been to the Caribbean before, as well as Hawaii and various other tropical places, but this was a different feel. The hotel we stayed in hosted a happy hour every Friday evening and describing it will better explain what I mean by "formal." I love happy hour since it signals affordable food and drinks, and usually, a younger crowd. In Portland and really everywhere else in the US, it means a variety of people--business types in suits just out of the office, college kids in jeans and tshirts meeting friends over a PBR, etc. You could wear a studded leather jacket or a suit jacket and be just fine. Not here. Almost all of the guys/men were wearing Bermuda shorts (basically suit shorts), button down shirts or well-ironed polos, suit jackets, knee socks, and dress shoes, and the many of the girls were in cocktail dresses! at 5 in the afternoon on a Friday! A slight difference, to say the least.


This was our hotel. It was pink to match the sand. The sand (sadly) wasn't hot pink or anything, but it definitely had a distinct salmon-colored tinge. Our hotel wasn't on the beach and you had to ferry to another hotel across the bay to get to the beach so I failed to get pictures. Yeah, fail.


More hotel views. I could have stayed longer, certainly. The other best part was the High Tea we had upon arrival. You could chose between the seasonal food selection and the rum one and then pick your choice of tea. It was phenomenal. More on the that later once I snag photos from my mom's camera! For now, a few more Bermuda photos:

And only two months later...

Yes, I know, I know, I've been dreadfully behind on this thing. I can explain! I'm not in Portland anymore!

So here's what happened: I just haven't been finding anything in Portland. At all. So when my roommate suddenly got a job in San Francisco, I figured that instead of trying to find a new place, it made more sense to move home for a bit and reevaluate things. After moving out June 1 I drove up to Seattle for a long weekend to do some job hunting and networking there, drove back to PDX and flew out a few days later for baby brother's graduation. Graduation was the expected combination of hectic and great, and from there my family flew off to Bermuda! After a few days there, I flew back to Portland, picked up my car and zoomed on home (but don't worry, Mom, I didn't speed!).

Having been back in California for about 2 weeks now, I'm finally settled and organized. As you may imagine, I've been a bit scatterbrained with all the travel.

California has been pretty fabulous so far. I've missed the sun more than I realized. I'm lucky to have a great house, a big kitchen (complete with dishwasher and disposal!!), and a gorgeous garden! I'm getting really spoiled by all the fresh fruit and herbs right outside. In my opinion, that's the best kind of spoiled to be.

So for at least the next little bit, expect recipes with lots of limes, plums, and lemons (since we have an abundance on hand), as well as grilled things since I have a gas grill here.

Napa

The only other thing to note since the Apple/Caramel/Awesome/Spice Cake before I tell you a little about my trip to Napa is our Easter brunch. I really like Easter as far as holidays go because I get to wear something girly and pastel, and because it often involves yummy food and chocolate. We had fourteen people this year in my little 2-bedroom apartment and it was a smashing success! There was totally enough food! We had: biscuits and (actually good) vegetarian gravy, blueberry buttermilk cake, fruit salad, quiche, deviled eggs, mimosas, bacon, mini croissants, and some excellent egg mess with homemade chips. So yum!

Anyway, back to the point of this post: I went to Napa with my mom and another mother/daughter pair for a short weekend getaway. It was my first time to the Napa Valley and hopefully not my last! The highlight for me was sabering open a bottle of champagne (and not hurting anyone or myself, dropping the bottle, or spilling too much), although the entire trip was fabulous. I loved being able to sit down with a sommelier and have them walk me through exactly how they figured out which wine was from where, what the year was, what it smelled like, etc. We saw how and where the wine making was done and got to try quite a bit too. The only downside was realizing that most of them are out of my price range! Oh well, I can dream.

The 5 'S's of Wine Tasting:
1. See. Is the wine red or white? Is there anything in it? Bubbles? What color red or white--dark or light (apparently red wine gets lighter with age and white wines get darker)?
2. Swirl. This apparently increases the surface area so the molecules of smell come out. This is also where you get to see the wine's "legs" (a term I find amusing). When you swirl a glass rather vigorously, you watch where the top edge of the wine has hit the glass and the lines that fall down from that are the legs. The faster and the slower they fall depend on alcohol and sugar content--the faster they fall, the less sugar or alcohol there is, and vice versa.
3. Smell. F.E.W: stands for fruit, earth, and wood: when you smell the wine does it smell really sweet? Then it probably has a lot of fruit in it...a chardonnay often has a more mineral-y smell which can be described as earth.
4. Sip. This is when you confirm or deny your guess of what the wine is like based on the first 3 'S's and you use the F.E.W. words again.
5. Spit or Swallow. Pretty obvious--if you like it, swallow it, if not, spit.

Pictures following!

More

Because I'm on photo mode...

Photo Project and others

I'm currently in a photo class where we're working with some digital, some fiber paper, mostly color, etc, and I'm adding a few photos from my latest project. The assignment was to take photos that could capture various words associated with color: cosmetic, light, intoxicating, civilization, structure, threat, humor. Some worked better than others, but here goes: