Travel

Along the Ruta Panoramica

After spending four beautiful days on Vieques, it was time for us to start our adventure on the big island itself. Our plan was to drive the ruta panoramica from the east to the west side of the island over the course of two days, stopping one night in a mountain retreat, and the second night in the surfer town of Rincon (known as the “California of Puerto Rico”). Up bright and early Wednesday morning, we made our way to the airport on Vieques and took another 10-minute flight on a 10-seater plane back to the airport in Ceiba. Our rental car was supposed to pick us up at 9 am from the airport, but it didn’t wind up getting there until well after 10. Although the wait was less than ideal, it did allow us the opportunity to people watch (always fun), and resulted in us receiving some pretty substantial discounts on our car when we did finally make it to Enterprise. The guy manning the desk, Axel, was pretty fantastic and very charismatic, and was really excited to hear all about our planned tour of the island. Here’s a tip for you: if you go to Puerto Rico, visit more than the resorts of San Juan. Not only will you see the “real” Puerto Rico”, but the locals will love you for it. People were always really impressed and gratified to hear we were seeing more than just the Hilton resort in San Juan, and were always really interested in sharing tips on how we could best experience their Puerto Rico. Axel told us the name of his favorite lechonera (roast pork restaurant) on the pork highway, which we noted and promised to visit it (you have to know us well enough to know that the pork highway was one of the motivating forces that compelled us to visit Puerto Rico in the first place!).

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Playa Pata Prieta, Vieques, Puerto Rico

Part One: Getting There, Vieques, Beaches.

The photos have been edited, the receipts tallied and the bags unpacked, so now it’s time to set down in writing our experiences in the verdant paradise that is Puerto Rico. Thanks to the diversity of this tiny kaleidoscope of an island we’ll be breaking this review into several posts, those roughly corresponding to the stages of our trip and one final post giving a general overview of our impressions of Puerto Rico as a whole, some handy travel advice and a book review (or two) of sorts concerning some of the travel guides that we used on our trip. So, let’s get right to it.

We began our trip with a generally unremarkable drive to Atlanta (the bargain tickets were available from ATL, unfortunately bargain tickets to places of interest are not generally to be had out of Nashville), which was fine once we fought our way out of some unusually bad long-weekend Nashville traffic. We stayed at the airport Westin long enough to kick the clammy sheets into a ball and get up the next day for our 8 a.m. flight to San Juan.

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Yes, we’re FINALLY back from our grand tour of lovely Puerto Rico! But it will take us a few days to get all our pictures in order and get some posts prepped documenting our trip, so bear with us while we catch up on bookish things in the meantime. I promise pictures and a run-down of our wonderful trip are coming! But in the interim, I thought I’d kick things off with a little warm-up post to help me ease back into this blogging thing.

Whenever people start talking about how publishing is a dying industry and paper books are going the way of the dodo, I always wonder how often these people travel. Because as much as people have laptops and ipods and similar electronic devices on planes when they travel, I never see more people reading actual books (and magazines, and newspapers) than when I’m at an airport or on a plane.

No electronic devices...

Even the advent of e-readers seem less threatening to those who cling faithfully to books printed on paper. Why? Because unlike e-readers, you’re never going to get nagged to turn a paperback off until you reach an altitude 10,000 feet… That’s what happened to me yesterday on our flight into Atlanta. I won’t get into arguments as to why I think it’s an inane rule to make people turn things like ipods and ereaders off during take-off and landing (Tony & I already had a rather heated argument about this yesterday), but I will say that as an avid reader, I hate having to sit around for 10 minutes or so without being able to read. Tony thinks it’s no big deal, but let’s just say that getting between me and whatever I’m reading generally does not make for a happy Steph.

One of the greatest perks attributed to e-readers is their portability for things like traveling. Slim and compact yet with sizable library space, they eliminate the worry of never having reading material on hand as well as the inconvenience of clunky, heavy books that can take up much needed space in your carry-on bags. That said, for people who are avid readers, does having mandatory reading-free time on flights somewhat lessen the e-reader’s appeal when it comes to traveling? For me, it definitely did. I kept glancing around jealously at all those people with version 1.0 books who could happily read without worry that they might be forced to stop reading mid-sentence or at a critical juncture because the plane was preparing to land. I read to escape and to help pass the time, and I sitting around for 20 – 25 minutes during a flight twiddling my thumbs is pretty unsatisfactory.

So I ask all my fellow readers and travelers, where do you fall on this issue? Does your love for your e-reader outweigh a little downtime on flights? Or do you always have a paperback book with you for just such an instance? I’m also curious to know how many people have flown with e-readers and whether you have in fact been asked to turn your reader off at any point during the flight (whether it be a Kindle, a Nook, a Sony, or some other beast) or whether you’ve been able to read uninterrupted as soon as you’ve settled into your cramped little seat. Please weigh in and share your experiences!

I imagine many bloggers will be offline this weekend, enjoying the long weekend that accompanies 4th of July celebrations. Tony and I certainly will be!  But, our break will be a little more prolonged, as we take off for Puerto Rico tomorrow morning and will be gone for nine whole glorious days, during which we’ll celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary (can you believe it’s already been a year?!? Also, we decided that as an update to the old-fashioned gift-giving guide in which paper is the appropriate gift to commemorate the first year of newlywed bliss that our e-readers will count as 21st century paper…)! We’ll be taking plenty of pictures to document our trip, but we won’t be blogging whilst we’re away. I could have pre-scheduled some review posts, I suppose, but I’m going full-out lazy on this one.

Just know there will be plenty of new content (and yes, that includes pictures!) when we get back, starting around July 13. We wish you all happy and safe long weekends (or regular ones to those not in the good ol’ USofA), and look forward to catching up sooner than y’all can imagine. If anyone needs us, we’ll be on the beach…

Me not in Puerto Rico (this is Miami), but the response will be pretty much the same...

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to have Tony’s parents in town. We decided that in order to celebrate, we would do a road trip to Memphis, a place both Tony & I had been separately, but never together (and Tony’s parents had never been!). Of course we managed to go when the weather was sweltering; if Nashvile is hot, Memphis is HOT.

We didn’t have a huge itinerary for our Memphis trip, save for the usual suspects: Graceland, Beale Street, and The Peabody Hotel. If you’d like to follow in the footsteps of our blue suede shoes, please click on the gallery below, which highlights some of our favorite photos from the day!

Last night Tony and I celebrated our three-year anniversary!  We’re both pretty on the ball when it comes to remembering dates (except when I maybe, accidentally told someone the wrong date when they asked us when we got married… but in my defense, I’d had maybe three too many drinks that night), but the anniversary of our first date is also Tax Day here in the U.S., and really, what says romance better than the IRS, am I right?

But really, after a few weeks of sending emails back and forth on Match.com, and one phone conversation, Tony and I first laid eyes on one another in real life on April 15, 2007, around 5 pm.  And the rest, as they say, is history.  Sparks flew, and they only burn brighter three years later.

To celebrate this year we decided to try out a new restaurant (well, new to us), and went to one of Nashville’s fancier restaurants, F. Scott’s (leave it to us to go to a literary-inspired eatery!). Hey, I’ll take any excuse to wear a pretty dress!   After much research on my part, I settled on this place because it had the adventurous kind of menu that I love.  When we eat out, I like to try out stuff that I’d never have the stones (or the skill) to cook in my own kitchen, and F. Scott’s definitely didn’t disappoint!

Click through the gallery below if you’d like detailed descriptions of what we ate:

This meal was SO good.  Definitely our new favourite splurge restaurant, I think.  Everything we ate was divine, and even things we had eaten before at other places were finessed in really interesting and updated ways.  One of the things I love best about Tony (of course there’s so much to love), is just how adventurous he is as a diner.  He never shirks away when I say things like “let’s order chicken livers” (in fact, he kept most of it to himself…) or “oooh, fried marrow”! I figure there are plenty of ways to measure compatibility, but a couple that can happily dine together and guess what the other person wants to order off of the menu are bound for greatness, right? It’s little wonder Match.com ranked us as 100% perfect matches!

Three years in, I still marvel at how lucky I was to find Tony and how fortunate I am to spend my life with my best friend, a man who cherishes and challenges me every day.

A poem by Neruda, and then one more tidbit:

‘Perhaps not to be is to be without your being.’

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be.

In three months’ time we celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary, which we promise to do in style!  After much discussion of possible getaways, the tickets have been bought, and from July 3 – July 12, 2010 Tony and I will find ourselves vacationing in…. PUERTO RICO! Soooo excited! Anyone who has ever been, recommendations/suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Best hat ever!

Apparently (according to Steph’s brother, who is, admittedly, unreliable) Toronto’s nickname is “Hog Town.” I have no Earthly idea why this is, but I’m going with it anyway.  So we did Hog Town Steph and Tony style, which is to say we went there and ate food. I mean, we saw her family and everything blah blah blah but we also got the chance to have Dim Sum, street meat and pork buns. We put the “más” in Merry Christmas. Amiright? This was my third trip to TO, so this was all kind of old hat for me, but there were still some quintessentially Canadian things I had yet to do, so they went on the list. Also, my brother got himself a passport and decided he wanted to see the Big Freezy for himself (that’s my own nickname, thank you), so halfway through our vacation he came to town.

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Ok, not really, but having spent the last two years here in Nashville, being whisked away to Toronto to spend the holiday season is comparable, right?  It’s been unseasonably chilly here the past few weeks (normally it doesn’t get really cold here until Feb), but I’m still mentally balking at the idea of having to wear boots lest my feet become little blocks of ice.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to be going home after an extremely prolonged period away, and yes, I do love the sight of a lawn blanketed in snow… it’s dealing with all that frozen water that gets me!  Still, there are plenty of things to look forward to, especially seeing friends and family after being far too long away.  And I’m also looking forward to blazing through the streets of Toronto, with Tony in tow, reveling in the fantastic shopping AND the great food.  This year we have a few particular treats in mind that Tony’s never experienced: street meat (read: hot dog from one of the myriad vendors.  We’ve eaten a lot of hot dogs together, but in my mind, Toronto hot dogs cannot be beat!), nanaimo bars, REAL Canadian bacon (i.e., “back” bacon/pemeal bacon… preferably purchased in sandwich form at the St Lawrence Market… one of my greatest annoyances in life is how American call limp pieces of ham “Canadian bacon” when they are nothing of the sort!), and poutine!  We’ll also be hitting up our old favourites, namely dim sum and the fantastic Chinese bakery in China town, and if I can score some Hakka food as well, I’ll be a happy camper who will uncomplainingly brave any weather Jack Frost chooses to throw our way.  It’s times like the holidays when I wish we had four stomachs, all the better to eat all the fabulous food there is to eat…

Anyway, we fly out bright and early tomorrow morning, and I desperately hope that we don’t hit any delays in Chicago, where we’ll connect for Toronto.  In the past I am always far too ambitious in terms of the scope of my plans, as I always underestimate how much traveling takes it out of me, and how much Tony and I need this annual break to just recharge our batteries.  Along with socializing and traipsing about town, we’ll also be squeezing in a trip to the DMV so I can renew my driver’s license and hitting up the dentist.  Aw yeah, what a wild and merry Christmas we’ll be having!   I don’t foresee that I’ll be getting tons of reading done as I never do around this time of year, and probably even less blogging, however I’ll be bringing home Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, which I’m smack dab in the middle of and am really loving (I’m hoping it will renew my reading spirits so I can start 2010 firing on all four cylinders).  I’ll also have Great Expectations by Charles Dickens in case I should finish the Austen… perhaps being snowbound in Toronto is the setting I need to finally conquer that sucker!   I don’t want to pack too much, as we’ll inevitably have gifts we’ll need to bring back with us and will do some shopping as well, so we need to keep room in our bags for anticipatory loot!

So, for now I’ll bid you all adieu and wish you all very happy holidays, whatever and wherever it is you may be celebrating.  I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to update prior to the New Year, BUT you can look forward to a 2009 roundup in which I talk a little bit about my reading this year and name a few of my favourite (and not-so-favourite!) titles.  Happy reading to all of you, and I hope that you all have a restful and safe rest of 2009 and a very happy new year!

The view from the castle in Central Park

This was my first time in the city and Steph’s second, though her first visit was for a conference and she didn’t get to see much of the city at all. Fortunately for us (and our pocketbook) my half of this trip was sponsored by my employer. My visit to NYC was for a conference on dynamic environments through a trade organization I am a member of called  SEGD (Society of Environmental Graphic Design). The first day and a half of our visit (for me) was occupied with various seminars at different locations near Times Square. The conference was good, but the city was better. (more…)

While we were in New York City, I received an email from my awesome friend Laura (not that I have a non-awesome friend named Laura and I am trying to distinguish between the two… just that my friend Laura is awesome, that’s all!) keying me in to the fact that there was a Jane Austen exhibit taking place at the Morgan Library while I was in town.  Normally I am a crazy trip planner when we go on vacation, obsessively researching every possible attraction and thing to do, but I admit, NYC overwhelmed me and I made the decision to go with the flow and just do whatever struck our fancy and figure out our options when we got into town… so I had not done my homework and the fact that there was something Austen-related going on in town that I didn’t know about me shook me to my core!  I mean, what if we had gone all the way to New York and returned home only for me to have then discovered the exhibit existed?  I shudder to even contemplate the possibility!

Anyway, once I realized there was an exhibit on, I told my friend that we were visiting in New York that we had to go.  The day was gray and drizzly, but that did not stop us in our pursuit for Austen (even if we did walk many blocks out of our way to first go and lunch at Prêt à Manger, which is WAY better than Panera, by the way, so why can’t we have one in Nashville already?  Oh right, because it’s Nashville… I’m always trying to forget that… The roast turkey sandwich with stuffing and orange-cranberry sauce was a game changer, is all I’m saying!).  At other museums, I balked at the expensive admission prices — don’t get me wrong, the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History and the Guggenheim are hella amazing, but $20 PER PERSON is just a tad pricey — at the Morgan library, I practically shoved my $8 into their hands before tearing off into the bowels of the building in search of Austen.

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