Happy inauguration day/MLK Day/Monday

Last week, I promised something of substance this week, after setting the bar pretty low for what that would actually entail. As regular readers, it's safe to say you weren't expecting political discourse, Petrarchan sonnets, or elegantly photographed tutorials of anything. If you were, manage your expectations now. What I can promise is a look at my weekend, during which I did things infinitely more interesting than comparing the relative firmness of IKEA mattresses and writing about auditing (arguably more boring than actually doing an audit). There was South African food; there were steel drum bands; there was a red velvet cake worthy of a Petrarchan sonnet (although again: expect none); at one point, there were penguins.

On Saturday, we went to the New York Times Travel Expo at the Javits Center. I have previously only been to the Javits Center on my yearly trip to Book Expo America, and was sorry to see that the travel show was much smaller and gave out a fraction of the number of tote bags (BEA basically fills my tote bag quota for the year). We'd planned to go to do a little research into travel companies to figure out if it make sense to go with a package deal for our honeymoon trip, and also to see if there were any cool destinations we hadn't considered that would sway us from Thailand. What we learned is that we'd rather plan something on our own than go on a planned out group trip, and also that while my dream of going to Antarctica is still out of reach, going to the Greenland is surprisingly affordable (plus: polar bears, which is the one thing really missing from Antarctica). Either way, it was still fun, and since we still plan to honeymoon in Thailand, we got travel literature on basically every Thai island in existence. We haven't booked it yet, but we're thinking June, so if this is the last post you read for a while, definitely check back in July for pictures of Buddhist temples and whatnot.

There were also some live penguins as part of this exhibit. They were apparently Argentine penguins, but looked very similar, if slightly bigger, to the penguins of South Africa. Interestingly, this was not an exhibit on going to Argentina, but rather to see the Antarctica exhibit at Sea World--easily the lamest travel destination at which you can see penguins ever. 

This woman at the Tourism of Thailand booth did some incredible things with fruits and vegetables. If Thailand hadn't already been our first choice, learning about their culture of artistic garnishing surely would have added it to the list. 

 After we tired of the travel show and collected enough literature to wallpaper a travel agency, we headed to Brooklyn to visit a florist and go to a friend's birthday party at a delicious South African restaurant. We got there a few hours early, but just enjoyed meandering through Williamsburg and visiting fancy grocery stores. This is an equally enjoyed pastime for me and Sam because I love looking at food, and he loves taking pictures of the labels.

The sunset over the bridge. One of the many perks of having an iPhone is that no event need go un-captured.

The rest of the weekend was spent in New Jersey, which is always a lovely time. Well, the rest of the weekend not counting today, which, unlike a typical Monday involved counteracting my morning workout with ricotta pancakes. I hope you are all having equally productive and enjoyable MLK Day's!