Christian & Marisa's Travel Blog 2009

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Monday night at the Laundromat

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Location:Hayes St,San Francisco,United States

What do you think of my new website?

2009-12-16T09:27:00.001-08:00

Video Art Piece - Sidewalk Piano Tuning

2009-12-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, while drinking a bloody mary at the Club Deluxe bar on Haight Street, SF, I was pleased yet disturbed by the situation I was in. The delicious chunky bloody mary's we were drinking was contrasted by a piano tuner just feet away from us. I decided to pull out my girlfriends phone camera and record the passersby capturing our experience in a more interesting way. Enjoy!

The West Coast sunset with crazy nice colors

2009-11-16T17:40:00.000-08:00

P.H.A.T. Foo!

2009-11-16T17:33:00.000-08:00

Foo the Cat!

Sunday Journey around the Presidio and Golden Gate

2009-11-16T17:29:00.000-08:00

Halloween 2009 as Cavemen and WOman.

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The Full House houses, SF

2009-11-16T17:25:00.000-08:00

Folsom Street Festival 2009 - San Francisco, CA

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Folsom Street Festival, San Francisco 2009

Our new home?! At last!

2009-07-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

The drive out of Eugene into Northern California was beautiful, it actually looked a lot like the impressive parts of Montana with huge mountains, a glacier (Shasta Glacier) and pretty streams and lakes. We drove in shifts of 2 hours each to give the other person some time to catch up on some shut-eye in the passenger’s seat. We were so anxious to finally get to San Francisco after 13 days on the road! Random, but we were stopped at some point along I-5 at a place that looked like an outdated toll booth and were asked if we had brought in any fruit. We drove down I-5 for about 90% of the trip from Eugene to San Francisco, going through some very dry and hot towns in California – the car’s temperature reading outside read 101 at one point. We knew Marisa’s sister, Kristin (who lives in San Francisco), was anxiously awaiting our arrival (for several days), so we played a trick on her and texted her letting her know we were camping along the PCH and we’d see her the next day. We tricked her good; she was upset until we told her it was a joke. We knew we were close when we drove through Berkley, over the East Bay Bridge. We are staying at someone’s apartment in the Mission, who returns back to San Francisco on July 20th from the Philippines. Feeling a bit disoriented, but so excited, we parked our car near the entrance of the apartment and called Kristin who was waiting at the apartment. After several hugs, screams and a huge sigh of relief that we made it in one piece (and without a single speeding ticket!!), we unpacked the car (or as we like to call it, ‘our apartment,’ and headed out for what else – local Mexican food and a pitcher of Margaritas. On the Eve of Christian’s 27th b-day, and our first official night in San Francisco, we talked about what we had seen and done since we left Baltimore on Tuesday, June 30th. From Baltimore to NYC to Niagara Falls to Chicago to Minnesota to South Dakota to Montana to Seattle to Oregon to California (and of course all of the MANY states in between) – what amazing memories that we will have for the rest of our lives. Thanks for following our cross-country journey!

Seattle to Alex’s in Eugene

2009-07-15T17:19:00.001-07:00

We arrived to Marisa’s brother’s house in Eugene, Oregon around 7pm. For those of you that don’t know – Alex is new to Eugene; he’s attending the University of Oregon for a Master’s in Architecture. First impression of Eugene – very quaint, charming and clean! Alex’s temporary summer house was very charming as well, small front porch and a garden with fresh veggies and fruit being grown. Alex strolled up on his bike, his only means of transportation, and gave us the grand tour of his house. We then walked a few streets away to Cornucopia, a delicious little restaurant with a great vegetarian menu and local micro brewed beers on tap. We sat outside and had a relaxing meal, but Alex needed to return to campus and head back to the studio to continue working on a major deadline he had for class on Monday. We took Alex’s suggestion and went ‘downtown’ to get a few drinks at Jameson, a college bar that attracts hippies, preppies, and girls with little dresses and heels. One drink turned into 4, but we had a good time chatting and people watching. We returned home around 1am and crashed. We woke up the next day to terrible rain, lightning and thunder in Eugene. Us three had wanted to go to the “Country Fair” that was taking place in Eugene for the weekend (live music, crafts, beer, etc), but the weather was too bad for the majority of the day. After a relaxing day at home, we ventured out and took a trip to Alex’s campus. The University of Oregon is a beautiful campus, with an impressive amount of landscaping and foliage everywhere. We took a trip up to Alex’s architecture studio (his home away from home) where we were very surprised to see so many other students frantically working at 6pm on a Sunday afternoon. After a quick tour and several introductions to classmates, we left campus so that Alex could grab his bike at home and return to complete his project, where he ended up staying until 5am! We ended up finding a fantastic affordable vegetarian restaurant called Laughing Planet, where we enjoyed a great meal. We then hopped right across the street and enjoyed dessert at Sweet Life, a local patisserie. We returned home at 8pm (still without Alex who was busy at the studio) and watched Kill Bill over a bottle of Oregon state wine. We woke up at 7am so that we could get an early start on the 8 and ½ hour drive to our last destination – SAN FRANCISCO!! We stopped at one of the nicest coffee houses we had ever seen (Vera) for a quick bagel and coffee and we were off!

Good-bye Montana, hello Seattle

2009-07-15T17:12:00.000-07:00

We knew the drive to Seattle was going to be a long one, and we weren’t looking forward to being confined in the car for so many hours again! Northwestern Montana truly is beautiful! Since we hadn’t had any phone service (and obviously internet connection) for several days, we stopped at an adorable coffee house in the town of Kalispell, Montana to try and figure out where we would be staying in Seattle. We both agree that Montana has extremely good looking people! We then got on the road again, driving through beautiful mountains all along the way. We stopped in the historic town of Wallace, Idaho for lunch, anxiously wanting to eat some sort of potato. We both ended up getting grilled salmon sandwiches – Christian getting POTATO chips on the side and Marisa choosing POTATO salad. We were really feeling exhausted from the drive and feeling a bit scared that we could not find a place to sleep in Seattle – after 2 hours calling hostels, hotels and motels throughout Seattle, we finally were given a recommendation to stay at Columbus Motor Inn, which we were told, was a 10-minute drive from downtown Seattle. By the time we reached our $75-per-night motor inn (what happened to $30 per night motels??), we were physically ill from driving so much. We checked into our room (and were asked by the owner if we wanted to ‘upgrade’ our room to the one with the round Jacuzzi/hot tub – which we declined), and were horrified, but too tired to even care, about what our $75 per-night room looked like. Our king size bed’s headboard was covered in 1970’s teal plush carpet (which matched the carpet on the floor) and there was shiny butterfly wallpaper and Asian screen dividers mounted on the walls. We took showers and motivated ourselves to check out downtown Seattle for dinner – besides, it was a Friday night! We drove to the touristy part of Seattle, where the piers are. We ended up eating an overpriced seafood dinner of mussels and fried fish. We had planned to check out a local dive bar, but were simply too tired to do anything. Back to our motor inn for a good night’s sleep! We woke up feeling somewhat refreshed and drove downtown for breakfast. Over breakfast (in Belltown) we researched cool neighborhoods to visit – and ended up driving to Capitol Hill, a small, funky, gay-friendly neighborhood. We ended up walking around for a bit, but ended up at a small neighborhood park, where we crashed on the ground, in the sun, for a bit. We made fun of the fact that we had just left 2 days of nature-everything in Glacier, only to be at a park in the city of Seattle! We ended our Seattle experience by going to Pike Place Market (where the fish market is where they sing and throw fish to each other). It was packed with tourists and locals – what an amazing selection of produce and flowers! We bought a bushel of fresh raspberries and sat on a bench (outside of the first Starbucks opened in 1971). It was somewhat amusing to see people waiting 30 minutes in line to buy a latte at the first-ever Starbucks. I guess they didn’t know that they new Starbucks one block away served the same latte and had no line. As we walked back to the car to head out of Seattle, 2 totally naked men on bicycles passed us. We were speechless. As we drove 5 minutes down the street, 2 naked individuals turned into about 20 or 25 naked men, women and even 1 little boy. We were laughing so hard (and snapping as many pictures as possible)! Oh the liberal West Coast! We hit the road and were happy to know that Eugene, Oregon was on a 4 hour drive away!

Oh My Glacier, Montana - Part II

2009-07-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

The next morning we woke up early and took quick showers. Marisa returned to our tent only to find that Christian had made new, tiny chipmunk friends. In fact, they formed such a strong bond that the chipmunks were soon fed human treats that consisted of wheat thins and a small piece of banana. We made our usual oatmeal breakfast on the propane burner and then cleaned and packed everything up and were on our way. I know those chipmunks are still thinking of Christian today. We drove into the St. Mary (East Glacier) entrance of Glacier National Park, which costs $25 per vehicle for a seven day pass. We explained to the park ranger that our time was unfortunately limited in the park and asked for a few “must see” suggestions – hikes, look out points, drives, etc. We were told to turn back around and head to a different Glacier entrance about a 10 or 15 minute drive away, called Many Glacier. Many Glacier was very beautiful, the drive had free range cattle along the way, a beautiful and very large lake on one side and an overwhelming amount of hiking trails. We ended up stopping at Poia Lake to hike, which was a steep boulder that led us to a hidden gem – a beautiful waterfall. We came across unusual plants and flowers along the way, but unfortunately no animals or wildlife, which we were really hoping to see. After about 1 and ½ or 2 hours, we decided to leave this awesome hiking trail and head out of Many Glacier and get lunch. We ended up stopping at an eclectic restaurant called Two Sisters, where we enjoyed delicious nachos and an eggplant sandwich. We learned from our server that alcohol had been banned for a few days in town because the land is on an Indian Reservation and it was a sacred week. Funny enough, our server snuck us 1 margarita to share. After lunch, we returned back into the St. Mary entrance we originally had entered earlier that day, since each entrance offers a completely difference experience of Glacier National Park. We couldn’t believe that two park rangers had recommended Many Glacier over where we were now! The views and landscape were much more spectacular here! As we followed the path up Going-to-the-Sun Road (a 50 mile road that climbs up to the highest point of the mountains and down a narrow, twisty road with tight curves) we ended up seeing one small grizzly bear and 1 ram. Glaciers are located all along this road that hugs the mountainside. We couldn’t believe how much snow still covered these glaciers in July but signs informed visitors that there aren’t nearly as many glaciers in the park due to global warming! There simply was too much to see and do along Going-to-the-Sun Road so we decided to find a place to set up camp again at one of the first-come first-served sites in Glacier National Park. Marisa had done a little research about the various campsites in the park and knew that Rising Sun campsite was the one that filled up the fastest because of the spectacular location, views of the glaciers and luxury of providing toilets and 2 coin-operated showers. We found a great site that we pitched our tent at! Within one hour, all of the sites at Rising Sun were taken. The park ranger immediately came up to us to welcome us, collected our $20 camping fee, and reminded us of the importance of storing EVERYTHING in the bear proof containers or our car. Signs on each picnic table, along with signs at various locations around Glacier National Park, remind visitors that you’re in “Bear Country” and that bears do not like the human voice but sure do love human food and products. We left our campsite after pitching our tent to run to the local store to pick up dinner to cook on the propane burner, as well as 2 local micro brewed bottled beers. When we returned to our site, we were amazed to find a large deer hanging out at our tent. It turns out, this deer has become habituated to humans and just walks around Rising Sun campsite, hoping to get fed. The park ranger explained that there is also a male deer, who has huge beautiful red antlers, and is often seen hanging out by the tents in the morning. We couldn’t believe how close we were to this deer and how friendly it was! The park ranger also informed us that there would be a Native American performance at the group campfire at 8pm. It was chilly, but we decided to attend this performance – which was conducted by a Blackfoot Indian Tribesman. He spoke, strummed his guitar and sang about his Native American family and history, as well as the important relationship Glacier National Park has had with Native Americans. Unfortunately it started to rain which stopped the musical performance about 45 minutes later. We returned to our tent site, where Christian assembled a make shift tarp (made from the blue ponchos we received at Niagara Falls) to protect us and our propane stove from the rain. Surprisingly, the fire Christian built stayed pretty strong, despite the rain! We ate a small, but satisfying meal consisting of pan seared fish and canned peas. It was around 9:45pm and we were pretty exhausted – we quickly rinsed our dishes from dinner and went to the outhouse to brush our teeth and get ready for bed. Christian returned back to the tent a few minutes earlier than Marisa, and at this point, the campsite was pretty dark and quiet. He saw something about 15 feet away from him, which he assumed was a dog, since a handful of neighbor campers had brought along their fury friends. However, the moving object was too big to be a dog and humans don’t walk on all fours – so Christian quickly found his head lamp to see what this dark moving object was. It turns out a large black bear had joined the Rising Sun campsite, most likely looking for food that had been left out. Christian remembered what the park rangers had repeated over and over again – make noises, bears don’t like the human voice. Christian and the big black bear met eyes and then after a few loud vocal “la la la’s” from Christian – the bear started to crawl away into the dark. Marisa came out 30 seconds too late, the bear had disappeared, but Christian sure was scared! We quickly put EVERYTHING in the car and went into the tent to go to sleep. It was very cold that night, right around 35 degrees, so our 20 degree thermal mummy sleeping bags really were handy that night! We woke up at 6:30am the next morning since we knew we had a long drive to Seattle. We quickly packed up our tent, took hot coin-operated showers, and grabbed a hot coffee and a bag of nuts at the campsite’s general store. We decided to drive up and down Glacier National Park one last time, hitting all of the incredible look out points along the way (Goose Island, Jackson Glacier, Logan Pass, Weeping Wall, and the list goes on and on!). There’s nothing like seeing such incredible natural beauty at 8am. What an incredible way to start one’s day, as well as wrap up an amazing 2-day trip at Glacier National Park.

Oh My Glacier, Montana

2009-07-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

We learned that the majority of campsites in Glacier National Park fill up quickly and are on a first-come first-served basis. The drive from Billings to Glacier, Montana was beautiful - the northwestern side of Montana has huge snow capped mountains (The Rocky Mountains), lined with thousands of pine trees. We ended up reserving a tent site at KOA in East Glacier, in the town of St Mary so that we would have a place to set up our tent when we arrived. About 20 miles away from Glacier, we encountered a 'small hurdle.' Apparently close to 25 horses were running wild on our road, with cowboys and cowgirls trying to round them up. This lasted a good 30 or so minutes before we were able to pass and proceed to Glacier. Everyone in the little town were out with their cameras trying to capture this horse hurdling mess. We stopped at a little market to pick up something to prepare on the propane burner for dinner. When we got our of the car we realized it was a lot chillier than our previous city, we were immediately forced to bundle up with multiple layers. After setting up our tent, which was in a pretty location near a stream and facing huge glaciers in the distance, Christian started the fire to keep us nice and warm, while spaghetti was prepared on the propane burner. It was a cold but relaxing night and we couldn't wait for the next day to visit Glacier National Park.

Billings to Glacier, Montana

2009-07-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Back on the road today! We had a great breakfast and coffee in Billings near our motel and have a 7 hour drive ahead of us. We can't believe we've been on the road for 8 days now! We were just commenting on a few things about the drive since we left Chicago 4 days ago - Grizzly Bear's awesome song "Two Weeks" is our official road trip song (thank you Satelitte Radio for being reliable the whole time), there are entirely way too many dead deer on the sides of the road, cell phones don't really work in South Dakota and Montana, and there is about 90% land and 10% towns in this area of the country. We are on the road from Billings to Glacier and we can see beautiful mountains (that are actually still snow-capped) in the distance. Local folks in Billings said that we are in for a real treat at Glacier and that the drive up there is quite impressive as well. We anticipate arriving to our campsite around 7pm and seeing all that Glacier National Park has to offer tomorrow!

Mt. Rushmore

2009-07-10T10:22:00.001-07:00

Just a few minutes after leaving The Badlands, we could see The Black Hills (in Rapid City, South Dakota) off in the distance - they truly look black from a distance! It's the cluster of pine trees on the hills that make it look that color and give it the name. The drive up The Black Hills to the top, where Mt Rushmore lies, was beautiful! The little town of Keystone looked like something out of Frontierland at Disney World - log cabins, wood and cowboy/western looking buildings. We really didn't know what to expect at Mt Rushmore, besides the obvious mountain with the 4 president's faces carved in stone. It's definitely a tourist attraction! Entrance is $10 for the vehicle and it was packed. They created a really nice park leading up to the spot where you can view Mt Rushmore with little paved trails, lookout points, live music, gift shops and of course an over-priced cafe (which we did not eat at). After snapping a ton of pictures and commenting how Washington's mouth sort of looked like it was drooling (because of shiny rock coming out of the corner of his mouth) we took a short walking path with lots of stairs that looped around the park. The weather was perfect - blue sky, quite warm, but a very dry heat that is so unfamiliar from Miami or Baltimore's humid summers. After Mt Rushmore, Christian 'yelped' a good place to grab lunch in Rapid City (Firehouse Grill, which looked like an old firehouse from the outside), where we thoroughly enjoyed a grilled turkey sandwich, mexican salad and Arnold Palmers (iced tea with lemonade). Rapid City was surprisingly pretty happening and very cute! By the time we got on the road again, it was 2pm - we had intended to camp at Yellowstone National Park (in Gardiner, Montana), but it was too late at the point for an 8 hour drive. We decided to treat ourselves to a 5 hour drive instead and stay in Billings, Montana at a motel. We were exhausted by the time we reached Billings, all we wanted to do was grab dinner, have an insect-free hot shower, and crash in a bed. Billings - not a whole lot going on there! Dinner was good (at The Soup Place), but the sleep was even better (even though our motel room's AC unit made very strange noises).

Test 1

2009-07-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Better f-ing work

The Badlands

2009-07-08T10:54:00.000-07:00

We woke up early at Rice Lake to the sounds of hundreds of birds chirping and the sunlight creeping through the trees. We took quick showers, packed up the tent and hit the road and headed towards South Dakota. The drive was very empty, peaceful, and a mix of farmland and rolling hills. The terrain between Minnesota and South Dakota blended together until we arrived to The Badlands - which truly was spectacular! Picture The Grand Canyon, on a much smaller level of course. Colorful and steep dunes and canyons go on for miles. We found our campsite, which was about 4 miles from The Badlands, but on the White River. We ran into a little local Indian market (which by the way, the Native American influence is everywhere here) and picked up a few chicken breasts and a 6 pack of Fat Tire beer. When we got back to our campsite, we quickly set up and started cooking dinner, which took nearly 2 hours! It's amazing how good quinoa and chicken seasoned with only salt and pepper tastes after a long day of driving! We slept great that night and were woken up at 6:45am to other campers packing up and leaving. We took quick showers and made coffee and oatmeal on our propane stove and then were off again to our next destination - The Black Hills and Mt Rushmore!

Owattona, MIinnesota

2009-07-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

After a six and a half hour drive from Chicago, we arrived at Rice Lake State Park in Owattona, MN. We were greeted by a swarm of dime sized blood sucking mosquitoes. We quickly pitched our tent but were forced to run out and drive to a local Walgreens to buy bug repellent spray. We collected dry shrubbery and started a nice fire which helped with our bug problem. We drank a bottle of wine and roasted marshmellows over the fire as the skies got pitch black. We were warned about a racoon problem, which we quickly learned about. Marisa woke up at 3am to a few racoons sniffing for food around our tent. They didn't wake me up because I'm a heavy sleeper.

Chi Town

2009-07-04T19:54:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Chicago at 11:30pm last night after a long 9 hour drive from Niagara Falls. After driving through Ontario, Canada, all of northern Michigan, then the tip of Indiana, we were tired beyond belief when we checked into our hostel in Park West, just a few miles away from downtown in a beautiful neighborhood full of amazing architecture and cool coffee houses, restaurants and bars. We woke up in time to have free breakfast, which to our disappointment was only an option between wheat or white bread with margarine and jam. Lots of hungry foreign travelers taking advantage of free bread and bad coffee!

In downtown Chicago we visited the famous Cloud Gate attraction where everyone is fascinated by their reflection in this large, round silver structure (including us!) There was a huge food festival called The Taste of Chicago where we paid $14 dollars to park the car. Tickets were sold in strips of 12 for $8. More than 50 Chicago restaurants had 200 different food items available with no food item costing more than 12 tickets “Taste of” portions. We ate a variety of foods like fried chicken wings, turkey meatballs, tamales, sticky rice with mango, all washed down with 2 beers.
We then walked around downtown Chicago for a few more hours and decided to visit a new area. We ended up driving to a cool neighborhood called "Wicker Park" where we sat and had 2 flights of red wine (small tastes of 4 amazing wines) and a few slices of manchego cheese at a wine bar called Bin34.

One can't leave Chicago without trying the stuffed deep dish pizza (or so we've heard!) After dinner at Giordano's - we too were officially stuffed and happily came home with leftovers that hopefully hungry and broke hostel travelers won't eat late night. We have approximately 1 week left on the road so we snuck in cleaning some of our dirty laundry over a few glasses of sweet tea infused vodka. Off to bed soon after we officially planned our route to Calgary - Chicago to Minnesota to The Badlands and Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park to Glacier National Park to Calgary, Canada! Stay tuned as we arrive in Minnesota!

Our First Night Camping

2009-07-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

I was woken up this morning at Shalamar Lake to the sound of a woody wood pecker around 7 am but was able to crash for a couple more hours. I then took a shower at the cost of one Loonie for 5 minutes in the camp site's washrooms. We quickly packed up and hit the road to find breakfast shortly after.

Driving around looking for breakfast we came across a cute little pancake house where I snapped this picture of Marisa in the foreground and the Penhouse Club billboard in the background. I had a delicious veggie omelette and Marisa had the 2.99 special, one egg and toast with a side of potatoes.
We head to the falls next.

Niagara Falls is goegeuos. The pictures I've seen don't do it justice. We took the Maid of re Mist boat tour which takes you to the bottom of the water fall and everyone gets soaked. The mist is overwhelmimg in a refreshing way. More pictures to come.

Journey to Niagara Falls

2009-07-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

We left Park slope at noon and hit terrible traffic crossing through Manhattan's Chinatown.The drive through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and finally NYw was beautiful with green rolling hills and occasional patches of blue skies. Hitting terrible weather and traffic along the way, we finally reached Shalamar Lake in Ontario, Canada, to our camping site. It's now 11:40 we've set up our tent, cooked rice and beans on our proane burner, which totally rocked cause Marisa cooked. This along side a magnificent can of tuna. Did we mention we had dessert before dinner?

We are sitting here in the silence with a glass of wine, a citronella candle and a lantern winding down for the night.

More to come tomorrow as we tour Niagara Falls and drive to Chicago.

Road Trip 2009 - Niagara Falls

Brooklyn Concert

2009-07-01T15:42:00.001-07:00

After a fun night eating Schnitzel and listening to live Slovac music, we woke up in Park Slope and had a great homemade breakfast with Roy & Lauren. We ventured to Chelsea to see the newly-opened High Line, NYC's former above-ground subway line now transformed into "green space." We then went to The Guggenheim Museum where we saw Frank Loyd Wright's work from the early to mid 1990's. Now - at Prospect Park with a great group of folks drinking white wine and waiting for MGMT to perform! Off to Niagara Falls tomorrow for our first intro to camping and Canada! More to come!

Road Trip 2009 - Brooklyn

Test

2009-06-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

I just purchased a 2.99 app for my phone so that I can blog while on the road. Hurray!
Check...123...

This is us at Young Kak a fab Korean Bbq place in Bmore. Cut out the chef by cooking your own food! So much fun and very tasty!

-- Post From My iPhone

My First Blog

2009-06-28T20:05:00.000-07:00

This will be my first posting to my first blog. I am no longer a blog virgin and I hope I can keep this going. I am not particularly into writing my thoughts so that the world could read them, but I will try my best to make it interesting. Who knows, I might even get better at writing! and that's a very good thing, because god knows, I'm not the most intricate person when it comes to these things.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy!