Skip to main content

New England Birthday

My 28th birthday couldn't have been better. We flew into Boston, rented a car and headed north for hiking in actual autumn. 

We stopped in Portland, Maine for the night and made the best choice to eat at Eventide. Guys, find the cheapest ticket to Portland and treat yourself to some dang seafood at this place. We indulged and got three kinds of the 10+ local oysters, lobster roll, clam chowder with a unique touch of seaweed, perfectly flavored ceviche, tuna tartar, and two desserts. Everything was so fresh and delish with their own little flare, the atmosphere was so lively and cozy at the same time... Ya gotta go. I liked the oysters and I don't even like oysters.

It was only a one night stand with Portland as we were stoked to get to Acadia, but I think I'd see her again. 

So we drove up the picturesque New England highway, enjoying the foliage for which we booked this trip. I wanted to pop into the first 3 antique shops I saw, but then we after about twenty-five more I was ready to yell at the stores to get another life.

In Acadia, we did 3 hikes in two days; the Beehive, Jordan Pond and Sergeant Mountain, and Precipice. Beehive was great with beautiful views, interesting ladder features and rocks to climb. Jordan Pond was just walking around a pond--- a beautiful pond nonetheless, but a bit too easy, so we trailed off to Sergeant Mountain which was much more challenging and rewarding.

I did not want to do the Precipice Trail, which was an unusually strong oppositional feeling I don't normally get from those types of activities, so I thought I'd trust my gut. But then after hours of hiking and maybe exhaustion from the first hard trek, I caved and agreed. The amount of hikers that accepted the challenge comforted me, as I didn't think that many people would be as experienced as I thought you needed to be for this hike. So clearly, it was that the hike was just easier than I was expecting. It was quite the experience and so glad we did it. NOT as scary as they make it out. Dylan wound up being the scaredy one after all of that. 

After two days of getting our hiking fill, we headed to Boston to visit Amy and Sal. We had a great visit with these two, as expected, wondering around the Asian market and eating Ramen, as mentioned in our honeymoon recap. Our last day there was spent walking walking walking. Walked through the brown stones on Beacon St--- one of my favs, along the Charles River, to the Old North Church, along the foggy wharf, to the Boston library to do some research on cemeteries, through China Town in search of pho, and back to the North End for dinner at Giacamos with our lovely hosts. We attempted to go out to a bar but... I'm old now and staying in for homemade cucumber gin and tonics, in a quiet place, with my constraining shoes off sounded all too appealing. Like I said... old. 

Needless to say, our seafood-loving bellies were happy, my feet were blistered, and my hiking heart was full. 
Happy birthday to me.





 It's fall!!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tivoli and Rugby

         Adding another great week to the list for my time in Denmark. Last Tuesday, I went to an international gathering for students at DTU (Denmark Technical Institute) at the Cellar Bar. I met a couple cool people there from Belgium (Ruben), Canada, France, and Denmark and met back up with a couple of them on Friday night. We went to see one of their Spanish friends play a Latin set at a bar in the city. On our way there, we were a bit worried at how this place would be considering it was on the street well known for its... Services. But we got to the Luna Bar and it wound up being really fun. The band was actually excellent , and had everyone dancing. Ruben and his friends were a lot of fun to hang out with.          On Saturday, I went to Tivoli, the second oldest theme park, with the family and met Claus' parents and sister there. It's no wonder Tivoli inspired Walt Disney to do his own thing. It's a beautiful  amusement par...

Oh, London

                           I a rrived in London Saturday and met up with Kelli.We went out to meet some of her friends at Urban Bar... But not before taking a slight (two hour) detour to a slightly ghetto area. But we made it to the bar and all was well. I got quite tired and was nearly ready to go home before some entertaining people reeled me in with their awesome dance moves. So the jacket was taken back off and my second wind arrived. I'm so glad it did too because it was one interesting night.         I got to witness the owner "lighting his crotch on fire," like I'd hear about, was handed an umbrella proceeded by "Raining Men" coming on the bar getting sprayed with water. Then T here was an old lady with some crazy dance moves (mostly on a table) that took me back to Janice days (the token old lady frequenting the Jax Beach bars).  'Twas  soon time to go home at around 2am ...

Hej fra Danmark!

        So I've finally arrived in Denmark and all settled in already. It's awesome in every way so far; the parents are so friendly and cool, the kids are adorable, the weather is amazing (I'm the only one walking around in shorts, a T-shirt and sandals, of course), the house is a beautiful, cozy home built around 1921, I just got done with a little explorative walk and the neighborhood/area is picturesque with flowers everywhere, adorable homes, and a lake nearby... It's just wonderful.           Yesterday, after a little confusion about where to meet up, using a stranger's phone (as always), and wandering around a bit, Lotte and one of the kids picked me up from the airport greeting me with the sign shown below. We made it back to the house after a little detour (I guess Lotte gets distracted driving too!), and we had coffee. We had breads and cake they got from the bakery for me to try, and they were all delicious.       ...