Tubin', tubin', tubin' on the river

Riding an inner tube down a reasonably quiet river has long been a time honored pastime of summer. Normally, I would be more interested in canoeing or kayaking, but there is something of a draw about knowing you won't be expected to produce any sort of effort to contribute to getting yourself down a river and can instead lay back and bask in the sun while being lazily transported by a gentle current. I have been tubing twice in my life that I can recall (on rivers, that is--I have been tubing on the lazy river at the Spashtown Waterpark of Spring, Texas more times than I can remember). The first was in the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. I was around six; I had an ear infection, and at some point on the river my tube was swept out from under me and I had to ride on my dad's lap the rest of the way. The second time was a bit better. It was on the Comal River near New Braunsfels, Texas. After prom, some friends and I traveled up to New Braunsfels where my prom date's mom had a house. Texan readers and those up on their "famous waterparks of the Southwest geography" will know New Braunsfels to be the home of Shittlerbahn (frequently voted one of the top water attractions in America). My prom date insisted it was closed while we were there and suggested we tube instead. Luckily tubing was quite fun or we would have been more annoyed when the river took us right by the theme park which was very clearly open. So ended my illustrious history of tubing...until this weekend.

Back in early May, when summer was just a glint in New York City's eye, some friends and I stumbled on a groupon deal for tubing on the Delaware River. We excitedly purchased the deal and then started planning when we would go. A series of weddings, weekend obligations, vacations, and rainy days ensued keeping us from using them until this past Saturday. We were a little concerned that the otherwise delightful nip of fall in the air would be a deterrent from tubing. In the end, while it was a bit chilly when the sun went behind a cloud, it was a gorgeous day, full of sun, and an almost empty river to enjoy. 

The Delaware River. We didn't want to bring cameras, so I had to find an image online, but trust me: we were on this bad boy. And we were on inner tubes.

We hit the river about 11 in the morning after a leisurely drive out from the city. It turns out there are actually some very lovely parts of New Jersey once you get away from the turnpike. It took us a bit to get our bearings and develop a proper tube steering technique, but soon we were tubing like pros. Our main need for steering was because the tubing reservation came with a free lunch at the Hot Dog Man. In addition to being already paid for, it was also the only food option along the river, so missing the Hot Dog Man meant not eating. We were told numerous times we would need to get over to the right side of a certain island in order to cash in our lunch wristbands. Given the number of signs and people in speedboats shouting instructions at us, (not to mention the name) we were all very excited to see the Hot Dog Man. I'm actually not a huge fan of hot dogs, but hamburgers were reportedly also an option.

Turns out there is no actual hot dog man. 

When we did reach the much ballyhooed Hot Dog Man, we were dismayed to discover he was actually just a few college kids operating a couple of camping stoves out of a boat. (To be fair, I think the Hot Dog Man is a larger scale operation during the busy mid-summer days.) There were no hamburgers (which is good because there was also no grill or other heat source that would be safe to heat raw meat on) to speak of. The hot dogs were warmed in a pot of boiling water and the other option was nachos (the kind with the yellow cheese you get in movie theaters). After a few hours on the river though, it all tasted delicious and almost like food.

It was a lovely way to spend a day, and it will go down in my book of tubing memories from over the years. And now that this one holdover from summer is out of the way, I can fully celebrate the coming of fall without any reservations. It's apple picking time! Bring it on, fall.

For beetniks

I guess I was a bit premature in assuming I would have so much to write about in September that I would need to curtail the August posts because as it turns out, so far, September hasn't been too much to write home about. Of course that's mainly because I spent much of the past week and weekend catching up on some freelance work, which turned out not to be too much of a loss because it rained or tornadoed most of Saturday anyway. Also, up until this morning it hasn't really felt like fall. Just the hot, muggy end of summer. Fall is by far my favorite season, so after Labor Day I'm pretty eager for it to cool down to an acceptable temperature for baking/apple picking/sweaters/what have you. And this morning, the first glimmer of that could be felt! It's still pretty warm (not a bad thing) but there's a hint of crispness in the air. Now is the time I generally get over zealous and pack up all my sundresses and take out all my sweaters only to have it get to be 90 degrees by the end of the week. I will try to resist that urge this year. Learning from past mistakes is difficult.

At any rate, since I haven't done too much else of note (unless anyone wants to learn about becoming a sanitation worker or marketing a digital movie, in which case I am a fount of information), I thought I'd include a recipe. It's been a while, after all. I've been ignoring the weather patterns and getting into the swing of things with fall baking lately. Mostly I've been doing the type of baking that helps me get rid of farm share vegetables that I've grown tired of (the downside of eating seasonally) by hiding them in cakes. To that end I made a delicious chocolate zucchini bread the other day, but I'm not going to share the recipe because it's nothing special (Add cocoa powder and chocolate chips to a regular zucchini bread base. Done.) However, I did make a fairly delicious beet cake the other day by combining a couple of recipes in an attempt to use up a couple of beets that were just past their prime. The result was surprisingly tasty.

Clearly, this is not of a beet cake. I'm done taking uninspired food photos. Until I can figure out how basic lighting works, I will be stealing photos from the Internet. These are what beets that are not past their prime look like.

Directions:

Makes one 8 inch cake round.

2 medium beets
1 tsp vegetable oil
6 T butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup buttermilk
juice of one orange

Icing:
zest of one orange
1 cup sour cream
1/2 powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375. Wash and dry beets and cut them in half. Place them on a piece of aluminum foil and drizzle with oil. Seal the foil and roast in the oven until tender (45 minutes to 1 hour). Reduce oven to 350 degrees.

Allow beets to cool. They should peel very easily. Once you remove the peel, grate the beets and set the shredded beet aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat until pale and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla and beat to combine.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry incredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture alternating with the milk. When all combined, add the orange juice and stir to combine. Try not to overbeat.

Turn into an 8 inch cake pan and bake for 30 minutes (or until an inserted skewer comes out clean). Allow cake to cool.

While cake is cooling, beat the orange zest, sour cream, and powdered sugar. Taste, and add more sugar as needed. When cake is cool, frost!

This cake turned out delicious and for beet haters (I know I have at least one blog reader who fits this description), you don't taste the beets at all. All that comes through is a beautiful color, a slight earthy sweetness, and the oranges.

Cute towns, good eats, and tennis

So when I said I would be writing an indiscriminate number of posts about the August times, that number just became two. Mostly because I realized I don't have that many photos (and really, without photos it's just me blathering on about my life), but also because if I spend all of September reminiscing back on August then it'll surely throw off the rest of my year off. After all, when then will I find time to write of all the awesome things I hope to accomplish in September (my calendar is actually currently very open, but in New York in the fall you don't really have to go too far to find something awesome to fill your time with)? If all else fails, I can always plan this wedding or something.

But anyway, onto the last post of August (which is actually the second post in September)! Where last I left you, we had just attended an occasion of matrimonial bliss and were heading west across Massachusetts to the Berkshires. We ended up at the adorable town of Stockbridge, Massaschusetts. Apparently Norman Rockwell lived there for much of his life, and being there really made his view of America make a lot more sense. One of his paintings is actually of Stockbridge's Main Street which looks absolutely the same over fifty years later. Stockbridge is also home to a very fine chocolate shop. 

Just a little bit of the Stockbridge cuteness. Replace those cars with carriages (and maybe the smart car just with a horse) and it might as well be 1815. 

 Here is the Norman Rockwell museum which was actually incredibly interesting. I hadn't realized how many politically charged works he had in addition to the everything-is-hunky-dory ones for which he is most known. They also had his studio (not pictured) on the site which they had brought over on flat bed trucks shortly after his death.

 We stayed near Stockbridge in an inn outside of the town of Lenox. I got this picture (or, oh fine, my dad did) of fog rising over the mountains from the balcony of the hotel.

 My mom wanted to go back and check out this historic covered bridge that was on our route. I can appreciate the novelty of covered bridges and it's certainly a very New England thing, but I guess I can kind of see why they stopped making them. I mean...what's the point of covering a bridge? Clearly, there are many who don't feel as I do though as when I googled this bridge trying to get information on it, I encountered not one but three separate covered bridge preservation societies in Massachusetts alone. Keep fighting the good fight, covered bridge enthusiasts.

 Another jewel of my mom's pre-trip research was the Kent Falls State Park. Outside of (also cute) Kent, Connecticut, there are a number of picturesque waterfalls. Or actually just one which they, for some reason, describe as 17. That said, it is a lovely park and has a nice quarter mile trail up to the falls vistas. You can see my mom and I in the right side of this photo, mentally preparing for the ascent. It was the perfect respite after a few hours in the car and (minus a few bug bites) a beautiful place to spend an hour.

After checking out the town of Kent and trying out their chocolate shop (for comparison purposes) we returned to beautiful (if not always cute) Astoria. I had to work the next couple of days (a fortunately rare occurrence this August) but my parents continued the fun by galavanting around the city going to museums and attending the Dr. Oz show. I would meet them in the evenings for delicious meals and and, at one point, a show (Speaking of: go see Peter and the Starcatcher, it's great. You don't have to have had a weird childhood obsession with Dave Barry to appreciate the humor--although I'm sure that didn't hurt. Also, they do have a lottery.)

 A small glimpse of the food odyssey that was my last week or so. I'd heard about Prune, but never eaten there. Very much recommended.

On Friday, I was back to being a non-working lay about, so I was able to join my parents at the US Open. I am not an avid tennis watcher, but it was fun to see some people I'd actually heard of play. That Djokovic is such a card. After he won, he did a little dance to Carly Rae Jepsen's illustrious only song "Call Me Maybe."

There's me doing my best to avoid sun damage in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Also, weirdly it looks like I'm trying to touch the hand of that random teenager. For the record, I don't know that kid.

The rest of the weekend was a blur of gluttony and good times with family (nice to have that two weekends in a row) ending with a cocktail party which led to a rather lazy Labor Day. Now I'm back to the ole grindstone beginning a four day week which will sadly only lead to more five day weeks. I actually really do like my job, but I will miss the August times.

A bright day for a nice wedding.

It's been a weird month updating-wise. Three right at once, and then nothing for a couple of weeks. Basically, I spent the last month of August completely off my regular routine. I had off more days than I worked. I traveled to three countries and four states. I haven't been in the city or seen most of my close friends for the entire month. I turned in a book to my editor. And, needless to say, I haven't had much time for blogging. But now that September has arrived and I'm very nearly back to having to work full five day weeks for the foreseeable future, it's time to revisit a few of the events of the past few weeks). I was able to see a lot of family (and many readers of this very blog!), so it's been a fun time.  I'm going to indiscriminately divide up our adventures into a few posts.

The first in a long line of exciting things is that my aunt came to visit. I don't have any photos of her visit, but we explored the city and visited a few of my favorite eateries. It was a beautiful day, so we mostly just walked around--the better to see more. We did duck into the powerful A/C provided by the Met for a couple of hours though. I like their roof display this summer, "Cloud City." Definitely superior to the boring metal sculptures of last year. Well done, Metropolitan Museum.

After a whirlwind tour of the city, we headed north to Boston! My cousin got married at a beautiful estate outside of Boston. I was also able to stay with another cousin who lives outside of Cambridge along with a bunch of other family. Below are some photos of some good looking folks all gussied up:

 Don't we clean up nice? It was a beautiful day for an outdoor wedding.

Here's a cocktail hour action shot with my aunt and sister. I was probably searching for the watermelon gazpacho with marscapone at this point. Not that I would try to copy anyone else's wedding...but their caterer sourcing all the produce from the farm on the estate certainly made everything delicious. 

Another wedding action shot. The bride and groom played a number of songs with the band! 

 Here's my family a little less gussied up, but still looking lovely on my incredibly hospitable cousin Sally and her husband Terry's porch.

All right, can't get back into this whole blogging/working/not just sitting around eating all the time thing all at once. That's enough for now! Will definitely try to update with the next leg of the trip soon. A hint...it involves Norman Rockwell.

Wien and Wieners

Okay this will officially be the last travel post for a while. At least until I go somewhere else. The final leg of our trip was to Vienna, Austria. This destination was actually the original impetus for the trip as my cousin is currently living there giving Vienna the dual advantages of being able to visit him and also being able to stay there for free. His apartment was conveniently located right in the heart of the city. We could walk to almost any tourist destination. His building itself was very cool with a door beautiful enough that I photographed it and ceilings so high it was like two apartments stacked on top of each other. Apparently Freud once lived in his building back in the day. Possibly in his very apartment, but there is no documentation to support this. Anyway, onto the photos!

A block or so from his apartment is the Rathaus (City Hall of Vienna), seen here, and in front of that during the summer is a large outdoor film festival. We didn't watch any of the films (mostly operas and ballets it seemed) but we did partake in the delicious variety of food vendors that were part of the festival. We bought an assortment of tasty things from around the world and then made ourselves a little picnic in the surrounding park. Definitely not a bad thing to have just around the block.

Our first day was spent visiting a number of museums (there was a big deal Klimt thing happening in the city in celebration of the artist's 150th anniversary) and also going out to Schonbrunn Palace which is essentially the Versailles of Vienna. Located just outside the city, it was the summer home for the Hapsburgs. The grounds were intensely large with giant fountains and a hedge maze (which we failed to complete). The palace itself was extensive. We sprung for the 40 room tour with audio and learned a great deal about the many daughters of Marie Therese.

After the palace we met my cousin and went to partake in another beer garden. This one had delicious things like pork knuckle and was located just past a large amusement park. Apparently a World's Fair was held there in the last 1800s. The highlight of the amusement park is a large ferris wheel called the Prater Wheel which is apparently an emblem of Vienna. We didn't ride it because ferris wheels are kind of lame, but after a few beers we did end up trying out a number of the rides (including bumper cars which are far less safe than their American counterpart and from which I still have some ugly bruises on my knees). The one seen above is the largest starflyer (swing ride) in the world at 117 meters. Naturally we had to ride it.

The next day my cousin had off work, so he drove us out to a small town in the wine country. We went on a short hike up to these castle ruins where Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned for a number of years. 

The best part about the hike was the beautiful view of the towns below and the Danube. We wandered the town for a while afterward, enjoying some wine and snacks. Apparently they grow a lot of apricots in the area because they were featured in just about every product you could buy.

Now that our group numbers five it's harder to get a full group picture. Here's the majority of us though. 

The next day we visited the Spanish Riding School to watch the morning practice of the famed Lipizzaner horses. We weren't able to see a show while we were there, but I'd seen them before previously (in Little Rock, Arkansas of all places) so I knew the drill. This isn't a great photo, but we actually weren't supposed to be taking photos at all, so this stealthy, illicit image was the best I could do. 

On our last day in town we visited more museums and did a little souvenir shopping. We also visited St. Stephen's Cathedral, a truly magnificent cathedral for which Vienna is well known. We paid to take the elevator up the bell tower to get some great views from the top of the city below. Note how cool the roof is.

Me at the top of the bell tower. This seemed a fitting final image (not quite as good as the sunset in Zurich, but what I can say). My cousin was a wonderful host and not only ferried us around and let us stay with us but helped co-create pokeropoly (a poker Monopoly hybrid that really does improve both games). So to sum up, it was a lovely trip with wonderful travel companions, and I'm glad I was able to join up. Next year, Hawaii?

Salzburgers

Another day, another city, another blog post yakking on about my recent travel in Europe. Today's city of focus is Salzburg, known by tourists (as judged by the tours and souvenirs available) only for two things: Mozart and The Sound of Music. However, in addition to this, it is just a fun, little town with lovely scenery and some of the best pretzels I have yet eaten. Before we got to Salzburg however, we had to take a 5 hour train ride through Switzerland and western Austria. Needless to say the scenery was stunning.

This is somewhere in Switzerland. Or possibly Austria. I was more interested in studying the scenery than understanding the in-train electronic map.

This was definitely in Switzerland. The scenery just outside of Zurich is breathtaking. Believe it or not, I have many more of these train photos (it was the most interesting thing to do for 5 hours), but I'm sparing you some of the more blurry, obviously-shot-from-a-high-speed-vehicle shots. On to Salzburg!

The obligatory group shot. The issue with taking these is that now our faces are obscuring the beautiful thing we were trying to photograph ourselves in front of. Oh well, at least we all look good. You can see what was behind us in the shot below.

We declined to go on an official Sound of Music tour because members of our party were either apathetic toward the movie or not wholly convinced they had ever seen it. Instead we just wandered around on our own. We did visit this stop that would have been on the tour though. Apparently the Mirabell Gardens were where Maria and the kids sang "Do Re Mi." Didn't seem familiar to me, but they sure were lovely gardens.

After our jaunt through film history, we arrived at our real destination: Brau Mulln, the largest beer garden in Austria. Astorian readers will note that, other than obviously being larger and having more individual tables, it bares a resemblance to our own Bohemian Beer Hall and Garden. The difference is they only had one kind of beer which they served you out of giant casques. You got a mug and were supposed to rinse it in this well fountain before handing it to the beer guy. 

While at the beer garden, we also feasted. Salzburg had some excellent pretzels. We also got a sausage that oozed with cheese. I'm not sure what it's called because we were operating under the point-at-what-looks-good method or ordering, but it sure was tasty.

A large cathedral in Salzburg (it's actually called the Salzburg Cathedral or, in German, Salzburger Dom). It didn't seem like a proper trip to Europe post unless I had a least one cathedral interior shot.

This fountain is clearly a step up from my fountain of choice in Zurich. 

We took a funicular up to that fortress on the hill. It's called Hohensalzburg Fortress and it is apparently one of the largest medieval castles in Europe.

Naturally, from the fortress there were some excellent views of the city. Instead of showing one of my overdone "views of Salzburg" shots, I chose this one of the countryside because for some reason the tiny houses look fake to me. Is that a camera setting? How can I replicate that? 

The fortress interior. We walked around for a bit. Saw the museum. Some of us got ice cream. Others shot crossbows. It was a lovely day for all. 

You might think this is just a terrible picture of Mozart's birthplace, but I have my reasons. Mostly I just wanted to document the fact that his boyhood home now lies next to an H&M.

That's about it for Salzburg (we were really only there one night). Tomorrow, I will return with photos of the final leg of our trip: Vienna!

In the land of cheese and chocolate

I'm back from a weeklong trip through Switzerland and Austria and (now that jetlag has mostly subsided) ready to post some photos of my trip. I decided to divide the trip up into three posts (one for each of the cities I visited) so as not to overwhelm with length, number of photos, or sheer awesomeness. The first city I visited and thus this first post (Astorian Dream is nothing if not chronological) will cover Zurich, Switzerland: the city of $16 ice cream sundaes. Zurich is first and foremost a beautiful city: scenically located on a lovely lake and full of cobblestone streets and grand cathedrals. It is a city with a culture as rich as its copious dairy products. It is also an incredibly expensive place. I experienced sticker shock I haven't known since first moving to New York City four years ago and discovering $8 beer night. Needless to say, the group went through quite a number of Swiss Francs. But enough of the lamentable state of my finances, onto the pictures!

For some reason I kept taking pictures of this fountain right by the train station. Probably because it was the first thing I saw when I arrived and I felt the need to start capturing the experience immediately. It's an okay fountain. I saw better later. But since I found about five photographs of it in my pictures, all from different angles, I figure I might as well include it as representative of my time in Zurich.

This photo was taken on a street in the expensive shopping district (as if there is any other kind in Zurich). They did have an H&M though, which was patronized by some in our party as well as, inexplicably, a Claires. I chose this photo for the Swiss patriotism it lends to the post.

This is a view of the Grossmunster across the Limmant River (note: swans). This church, built in the 800s, had the coolest windows made of slices of agate. Alas pictures were not allowed inside, so you will just have to visit Zurich to see how neat they looked. Or google it, I guess.

We climbed the tower of the Grossmunster to get some incredible views of the city. Not too shabby, Zurich.

We walked through the old town of Zurich in search of a Mondrian designed museum. Most of us chose not to actually go inside because we were cheap, but we sent my sister as an emissary and then took naps on the grass in the surrounding park. 

The surrounding park eventually led to Lake Zurich. You can swim in the lake (and we saw many people doing just that), but those of us who had brought bathing suits had left them at the hotel, so we did not partake. We did wade and lounge for a bit though, which is similar but doesn't require as much effort.

Those of us park nappers who did not visit the museum wandered into a nearby free gallery. I wanted to include this picture simply because I like the composition. This is one of the few blog entries that I've actually taken all of the photos for, so there's that.

While not technically in Zurich, I'm not going to make a post for every place we visited, so this gets lumped in as part of the city's surrounding environs. On our second day in town, we took a short train ride out to the Rheinfall, which is the largest waterfall in Europe. Fun fact about the Rheinfall: the falls cannot be climbed by fish, but only by eels. 

I wanted to include a group photo even though this isn't an especially flattering one of me. In addition to the spray from the falls, it was also raining pretty substantially at this point. We were vigilant in our touristing nevertheless.

Although the prices kept us from eating out every meal, we did make what I considered to be an important splurge: a fondue dinner our last night in town.

This was taken on our last night in the city on the walk back to our hotel. However, even if it weren't chronologically one of the last photos I took (well, except for some desperate last minute shots of that one fountain by the train station), I would probably include it last because I think it provides a nice finality to the narrative of the trip (or rather this leg of the trip, which for all intents and purposes of this blog post is the same).

Tune in tomorrow for photos from the next stop on our trip: Salzburg. Plus some surprisingly decent (in my opinion) bonus footage of the train ride there through the Alps. Who says you can't take credible photography through the window of a high moving train? Also, if your interest is piqued and you want to see more photos, let me know, and I'll invite you to visit the web album.