saying good bye to friends, across the country in 4 days, first days in Northampton

I am, again way out of order with my blogging, so I'm trying to catch up to present time and finish posting about Europe. The best way to do this is two blog posts in one day on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

My last few day in Seattle were difficult. I really didn't want to leave and seeing friends for the last time was sad. We went to our last flyball practice, said goodbye, Polly and Rudy brought some treats to make it more festive. We also went over to Kate and Jacobs house to play games and eat dinner. Kate is a wonderful cook and introduced us to grilled pizza. She put all the toppings in little bowls and we all made our own pizzas, we also had a chopped salad with beans and a blueberry pie from PCC for dessert. I was introduced to The Settlers of Cattan, which I warmed up to and enjoyed....although Ben gets a bit too competitive with board games, which can be so ridiculous that its funny. Its nicer when you are on his team.



Then after stuffing my car with everything I expect to need for the next year, Ben, Indigo and I left on July 28. I was not happy to pull out of that driveway. I have moments of being excited, but mostly I'm frustrated that I have to leave my home.

Poor Indy only had a little space to sleep (at least I didn't try to bring a TV!)

Day 1 was Seattle to Bozeman. It was 9 pm when we got there and had just enough time to check into our hotel and go to Montana Ale works for dinner. I was surprised at how much I liked the downtown area of the cute little college town. Lots of fun shops, restaurants, people with dogs. We went to a dog park the next morning to tire out the Border Collie and then headed back on I-90 for 14 hours more of driving!

They have an impressive food co-op

Next day we made it to Sioux Falls, SD and then met up with Indigo's breeder, Ignited Border Collies the next day. We met her mom, sister, grandma. I think they had around 20 border collies in the house at that time because they happened to have two litters (one was a repeat of Indigos litter). We also met Dare, the mom that Ben wants to get a puppy from later this year.

Holding Joy's puppy Ezri (Prancer X Race)

Anyway, after spending the night outside of Chicago we headed straight for Albany and then made it to Northampton the next morning.

this explains most of our drive

I was feeling pretty anxious as we got closer to Northampton, knowing that the country roads we were driving on were going to be what I would see every day. I felt better when we drove through downtown and saw my cute little downtown. There was a crazy mix of college kids, tourists, and families. Everyone was out shopping and sitting at cafes. I signed my lease and entered my completely empty apartment.

We spent the next few days racing around to find furniture for my room. It was tiring, but fun to still sort of be on vacation and tour around Western Mass. It was nice to finally meet Danielle, my new roommate and her boy friend. I think we will be a good match as roommates!

The outside of my new apartment

Also, Ben went with me to Great Barrington, MA where I will be doing my community rotation. I've been there before and remembered that they have a super food co-op. It was just as good as I remembered. Its a cute town and Im excited to spend a few days a week there, not excited about the 1 hr drive each way though. The place is called " The Nutrition Center" http://www.nutrition94west.org/contact.html. They have lots of fun programs with kids, gardening and nutrition. They hold a farmers market, house the local WIC office, do nutrition counseling and are in the process of getting new grant funded community food programs. Two of the people there are also Bastyr grads, so Im excited to get to know them.

A bakery in Amherst that uses all local, organic ingredients.

Downtown Noho

My Hotwire (the coffee shop I frequent in Shoreline) replacement, Woodstar. They have free wifi, good coffee and vegan cupcakes. What else could I want?

Finding a place to take our crazy, high energy Border Collie off-leash has not been easy. This place is seemingly really dog friendly. But official off-leash areas are nowhere to be found. After asking around we found out the the old Northampton State Hospital, apparently previously an mental hospital. Aside from the creepiness of this place, most of the grounds are beautiful wooded walking trails along a river with off-leash dogs running free everywhere. Indigo was in heaven and so were we, except for our fear of her getting Lyme disease.

from Forbeslibrary.org

Area restaurants: so far we have been to:
Thai Garden (northampton) - not especially impressive, watery curry, bad peanut sauce
Paul and Elizabeths (northampton) - a natural foods restaurant that was almost good, a little too healthy
India House Restaurant (northampton) - very good, a bit overpriced.
Northampton Brewery (northampton) - pretty good fish sandwich, Ben like the beer, nice outdoor seating
Herrells Ice Cream (northampton) - holy shit, this is worth coming to visit me here for. they make their own sprinkles and the line is out the door every night.

We drove down to Brooklyn (Redhook) on Wednesday night to visit Carly and Fritz. I love their big open warehouse that has been modified to be a living space. We had lots of fun hanging out with them and their two dogs Gus (french bulldog) and Otto (German Shepherd). We stayed in Brooklyn the whole time cruising around with Carly to Fairway (the best grocery store ever), Prospect Park (the biggest dog park ever on Sat mornings). The highlight of our trip was Marlow and Sons, a restaurant in Williamsburg that makes the most simple food taste amazing. I tasted raw oysters for the first time and love them! I highly recommend this place if you are in the area! http://www.marlowandsons.com/menus.html Then we met up with Rus and went out the the local Beer garden for one too many beers. I was the designated driver and had the pleasure of driving Carly's massive Mercedes G500 SUV that is sort of like a Hummer back to her apartment.

Carly surrounded by adorable dogs

The farmers market at Prospect Park on Saturday morning

Last night we went to see Pineapple Express, the newest stoner movie. It was funny and sad with lots of slapstick comedy and lots of blood for a movie about pot. Dazed and Confused was better. For Bens birthday we are going out for sushi at Osaka and then to Springfield to see Hellboy2. He also wants to play mini-golf ,which is right down the street. We'll see if we can fit that in before he leaves!

More of our trip to Europe

Now that it has been a few weeks and a lot of new things have happened, my memory of the details our our trip are getting a little bit fuzzy, but there are plenty more photos to share so here it goes....

After Arles we spent a day driving through Provence. The highlights were Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Baux-de-Provence, Cavaillon, Gordes and then to Grenoble to sleep.

Baux-de-Provence (hard to believe that this is a combination of houses and rock formations)

We saw the scenery that inspired Van Goghs paintings, but skipped the walk to see the asylum where he spent the end of his life. We stopped often to take photos and marvel at the endless purple fields of lavender.

Some photos of Gordes....

What we ate in Gordes (we didn't actually eat this ice cream...I saved myself for Italian gelato)

We did eat this sandwich, which was nothing too exciting (cheese, tomato, greens, balsamic vinegar and olive oil) but was nice and cheap and kept us going until dinner.

We finally got to Grenoble at around 6 pm, drove in circles for 1/2 hour, found our hotel (Hotel Del Europe) and enjoyed some delicious food. I would have liked to have spent more time here, riding the cable car, checking out the museums...but we had to make it to the small village of Sinio, Italy the next day.

My only photos of Grenoble include the view from our dinner cafe and

my dinner - smoked salmon with ravioli and probably 2000 calories worth of cream and butter, but totally worth it.

The process of getting to Sinio was quite stressful. We didn't think about the fact that neither of us knew any Italian at all. Not even the basics. When we pulled into the first toll booth in Italy and the attendant said " "Buongiorno!" we learned to at least say "hello" and then proceeded to pay an ungodly amount of money to drive on the autostrata.

Everything was fine until we made it to Alba during siesta and were way too hungry. All towns in Italy pretty much shut down between 1 and 4:30 (my usual lunch time). So we stopped in a grocery store to get some snacks and ask find a map or ask directions. Sinio was not on our map, but we knew it was close to Alba. We got a few confusing directions and then decided to head out in no particular direction and hope for some signs. It didn't work out so well. We learned how to say "left and "right" and started stopping everywhere to ask for directions. People in this part of Italy don't speak much English, so there was a lot of guessing involved. We finally made it and it only took 3 hours to find a place that turned out to be only 20 minutes from Alba! We couldn't complain about the scenery though and Ben was starting to have fun negotiating the narrow streets with our little car.

We could not have been more happy with the welcome we received when we arrived at our Agritourismo - a hazelnut farm and vineyard. We stood around and talked about the farm, the area, and possible ways to spend the next few days. They suggested that we try their favorite restaurant less than a mile away (not before giving us a local map). We were hoping to get a small bite to eat, but were not able to communicate this to the waitress.

Patio overlooking the vineyards

Our hosts

The patio outside of our room

Even cats take a siesta

Back to the food.....This restaurant had no menu, you just eat whatever she brings. First she started us out with a bottle of vine (it was this night that I became a wine drinker), some bread sticks and two kinds of locally produced salami. It was just the right amount of food, but then she brought out the next course...thin slices of veal (vitello) with some kind of sauce that may have involved tuna? She was so excited. We had to stop this craziness, so Ben managed to communicate to her that we weren't that hungry and would maybe just like to try a little bit of pasta. He felt bad and couldn't find how to say sorry in the terrible phrase book; he was only able to find out how to say "I'm ashamed" . This made the waitress laugh at least! She served us some ravioli with sage and butter and I ate it even though I didn't think I could fit any more food in my body.

We decided that if we were ever going to get an authentic Italian meal it was going to be here. So we went back the next day with a good appetite and went for it (my only requirement was no veal). We had breaded fried zucchini flowers (only available at this time of year), prosciutto with cantaloupe (surprisingly perfect together), green salad with oil and vinegar, some weird ham pimento, gelatinous loaf, vegetable tart with cheese and spinach, thick noodles (tagliatelle) with a beef ragout. After this I was done, but Ben kept going and had the meat course which was local wild boar cooked in red wine. We finished it off with a fruit torta and a chocolatey egg dessert. This meal was 50 Euros well spent!

The first bottle of wine that I drank and enjoying without making wincing faces

No meal is complete without a late night shot of espresso (I'm not sure how people sleep in Italy!)

So we spend the next few days exploring the Piedmont area - sampling food, walking around cute little villages, churches and castles. It was relaxing and felt like an authentic Italian experience without all of the tourists that flock to Tuscany. We will definitely go back here!

This was my favorite village in the area- not sure what it was called though

a typical small grocery store in Italy (gastronomia) which sells what we would consider gourmet food and they consider every day necessities - locally made olive oils, wines, chocolate, meats, cheeses, vinegar, bread, fresh made pasta.....

We went back to Alba in a more relaxed manner to use the internet.
Fruit and Vegetable market in Alba

Our first gelato and my first dairy ice cream in at least 6 years. Mine was vanilla with chocolate shavings, Ben's was some unknown fruit. He had buyers remorse (a common problem for him) and wished he got the same flavor as me. It was so creamy and not too heavy tasting.

I obviously enjoy taking photos of cats?

a castle

The next and final post on our trip will be Tuscany, Umbria and the French Riviera.