All posts tagged: weekend

Scenic, Sunny Saturday Drives

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Spring is in the air at Front Porch Farm in Healdsburg. Growing up in the South Bay, Marin and Sonoma County always just seemed a teensy bit too far. Driving all the way over the bridge? When I could go get a scoop of salted caramel ice cream at Bi-Rite and hang out in Dolores Park for the afternoon instead? Nah. Well, now that I’m calling Healdsburg my home sweet home, I am soaking up all the scenic, sunny Saturday drives with my windows rolled down and the music turned up that I can get. I’m checking out farms, vineyards, backroads, and sideroads. Pending disagreeable weather (such as this weekend), I am trying my darndest to go for a hike every weekend so that I can get out there and explore the land on foot. The night before Easter, I found myself talking and thinking a lot about the beach and the ocean. Despite being from California, I did not grow up right on the water, and I have only (unsuccessfully) tried surfing once. But for some …

Back in the Bay

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Twin Peaks? Been there, done that. Bernal Heights is a big deal.  A lot (a LOT) has happened in the last month, since my post about an Event-Full Weekend has been sitting out alone, in the cold of the internet world. I turned in a Master’s thesis. Part of the ceiling in the apartment where I was staying collapsed. I hit my knee so hard on a grate that popped up from nowhere in the street that I Googled, “How to know when you’ve fractured your patella.” There’s also been a lot of packing, and moving, and re-packing. I’ve learned in the last month that just 48 hours of a getaway with good friends perks me up the week before and the week after, and gives me good mojo to keep up with the sometimes crushing pace of life in NYC. On that note, a few weeks ago, I went westward. I went back to San Francisco. Given that I was staying with my best friend Siena, who is like no other (except, perhaps, myself) when it …

Taking a Breather from the Concrete Jungle

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Roaming through the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. At a rooftop party recently (how New York of me, I know), I found myself with the perfect (well, nothing’s perfect) analogy to describe how I occasionally feel after a month of living and working in New York City: it’s the same feeling I get when I have that second cup of coffee in the afternoon that I didn’t really need and I feel my pulse racing when I really don’t need it to be. It’s that shot of espresso plus that ingenious fight-or-flight response that has kept us humans alive for so long that keeps many a New Yorker on their toes (and dashing across enormous intersections for dear life), but that also is just utterly exhausting once the adrenaline wears off. Although my (temporary) home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn has been a welcome escape from the craziness of Manhattan, I’ve also looked a little further beyond the walls of the concrete jungle in the last few weeks to just catch my breath …

Too Little Time in Too Cool a City: A-Dam

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Sooo…when can I move in? Last weekend I fed the travel bug again and took advantage of the super cheap flights that can get you pretty much anywhere around Europe as long as you don’t mind feeling like a cow before slaughter and only packing in a carry on. Maybe I’ll make a ranking one day of all these airlines that I have experienced over here. Anyways, Transavia wasn’t that bad. They were all wearing shamrock green and it was amusing to listen to Dutch. After a solid couple hour delay on the runway because of a thunderstorm, we arrived late into Amsterdam and a little bit all over the place to our Airbnb in the Jordaan neighborhood. I will take a brief time out here and say that Lene, our host, was far and away the kindest and cutest of them all. She reminded me of a feather who happened to be wearing Nike shoes. A couple days before our trip, she took the time to send a list of 27 (27!) things to do, …

So Close but Yet So Far: Torino

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The scene of the crime from the power-people-watching seat: the dining room at the gorgeously renovated Del Cambio. A twenty-ninth birthday needed celebrating. What to do, what to do? Go to Turin for the weekend. An hour away on the train is totally reasonable, but the problem is that the last one back to Bra is at 8:30. So to avoid pulling a Cinderella in the pumpkin missing her shoe kind of move, we booked an Airbnb for a couple nights. And went to a Michelin star restaurant. In the days leading up to the meal, we pondered the tasting menus online, one of us gasped at the wine list (I don’t know enough “yet” to be at that stage) and we fretted over our outfit selection. On the big night, we savored an array of beautifully plated and delicate dishes (fish! gnocchi made from breadcrumbs! marscapone and sea urchin! steak tartare!), rosé, the most pleasantly non-oaky Chardonnay I have ever tasted, little trays of beet chips, homemade chocolates and so much more. I will say that this is one …

Lyon: The Food Capital of France

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I don’t speak French so I’m not quite sure what I purchased inside Les Halles. I went for the “judge a book by its cover” method and it turned out pretty ok. So, this trip was a while ago now (scusa), but I did indeed cross the border and go to France. By car. We went under a tunnel connecting the two countries. There was no passport check. I did not drive. The weather was a little bit less than desirable, but that didn’t stop the triumphant trio (I’m working on a name with the same zing as dynamic duo but applying to three individuals) from having a wonderful weekend together. First, I will let y’all in on my new go-to weekend travel consultant: the NYT 36 Hours column. If you are arriving somewhere on a Friday evening, want to have a nice dinner and a drink, get cultured the next day, walk around, again eat well and drink well, and then maybe have a market excursion on Sunday morning, this is a wonderful guide. Also, The …

Roaming the Non-Tourist Version of Rome

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A vegan chocolate store in Rome? You said what? Ok. I know I’ve dropped the ball big time here. It’s been almost a month since I posted anything. Yikes. Scusa. But the thing is, I have just been zooming around. Mostly meeting people from the triennale (undergraduate program) and then traveling with the dynamic duo of Urmila and Vibe. I haven’t really been in a place mentally to sit down in this particular chair in my apartment to put together my experiences, photos and ramblings in one spot. I hesitate to say, “I have been busy” because I know that would push the friends who already are sending me love/hate vibes from their skyscraper office jobs while I am in class learning what theobroma cacao is more towards the hate side. But really. I have been pushing myself almost every single day to just get out there and to go against my more introverted nature a bit. I’ve had a drink with the director of my Masters program, hosted dinner parties, eaten empanadas around an open fire at a street food night, …

Sunday Funday

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Activating my Vitamin D stores with my dear friend Urmila. Not pictured: Brazilian music and the chefs debating the optimal hammock hanging height. Today has been quite the day. First of all, the thermometer hit 10 degrees! (Celsius, obviously.) That meant the North Face jacket could stay in the closet as I walked down to the Gastronomic Society, a Middlebury-esque social house of sorts where currently only 2 individuals live, but are both very interested in hosting food-related events. Last week I went to a taco/cerveza night and today I went for brunch. We arrived quite early (still not sure where the Italian threshold for lateness is) and decided to move our table outside while we enjoyed our fruit salad and cappuccinos because, perche no? After a little bit/a lot a bit of sunshine and some conversation about our plans for the rest of the day, I set out for an adventure on foot. A little selfie never hurt anybody. I walked for about 3 hours along muddy roads and driveways, under bridges and along vineyards to a town …