Visiting Colorado

I was attending a workshop in Boulder, Colorado at the beginning of July and I took the opportunity to visit Fort Collins the weekend before the workshop. I got to stay with my friend who still lives there - thanks Rachel and Ben - and visit for the first time since I left in 2007!

Friday consisted of flying into Denver, driving up to FoCo, grocery store, cooking delicious lentil tacos and chocolate breakfast buns and eating yummy ice cream.

Saturday was a little more adventurous. I had to spend some time outside so we went for a little hike with the dog up to Horsetooth reservoir - the location of my one and only open water swim (until last week) of 2.4 miles in 2007. We walked past the CSU football stadium (which I never went to) to begin. It was hot that weekend (in the 90s) but there was a nice breeze so it was quite pleasant. The lack of humidity was also  great!

CSU's Hughes Stadium (if it's still called that)

 Past the stadium and up to the reservoir. There was a great view of Fort Collins and my former department from up here, but I didn't get any good pictures.

Horsetooth Reservoir

 After heading back down we went for lunch in old town where I had a great sandwich (brie, caramelized onions, arugula and blueberry jam), salad and lemonade at 415 (which is new since I lived there). This was followed by a couple of beers at Equinox brewery in old town (also new since I moved away). It was great to hang out, eat good food, drink good beer and watch people for the afternoon.

Can't be in Colorado without visiting a brewery

 The evening we cooked again - veggie bean burgers that were also delicious, and relaxed. It was off to drop me off in Boulder in the morning. We headed down early, met up with some friends and had brunch at the Chautauqua Dining Hall. More delicious food for me! A quick stroll around the park for some quick pictures before taking a drive up into the mountains a little more.

Me, Rachel and the Flatirons

 We took a loop up into the mountains, no idea where we went exactly but it was just nice for me to watch the scenery. You really miss it when you aren't living in it all the time. My pictures out of a moving car weren't the best, but you get the idea.

Colorado

After getting back to Boulder I got dropped off at the University of Colorado where my workshop was. It was a really beneficial workshop and I'm very glad I got to go - I learnt a lot, had fun and got to see some friends I hadn't seen for a while. I also had to stay in a shared dorm room. I'm so glad we had single rooms when I was a fresher at uni (in American that's a freshman in college ;-) )! It was fine, but it would have been much better if I had a) a step stool to get on and off the bed, and b) a fitted sheet for the plastic mattress!

Oh American dorm rooms...

I <3 NY, but I sure do miss Colorado!

Camping in Vermont and Lye Brook Falls

In June we went camping in Vermont for the first time. We chose Emerald Lake Campground which is between Manchester and Rutland in the beautiful Green Mountains. We headed up Friday night, set up camp and enjoyed some delicious tofu dogs on the campfire.

We started early on Saturday and drove down to Manchester for a hike to Lay Brook Falls. The trail head was just out of town and there was only one other car. It was a nice straightforward 2.3 mile hike to the falls, so 4.6 mile round trip. Matt enjoyed searching for mushrooms, of which there were plenty.

Reishi's... he makes tea out of them

The trail has been was interrupted by quite a large landslide, which looked fairly recent.

Glad we didn't get hit by this

Not long after the landslide we reached the falls. We spent a while there which was very enjoyable to be all alone with such a lovely waterfall to watch. Really quite impressive.

Matt...

... and Ellie

We headed back to the car and went into Manchester for lunch. We found a Thai place and had a very delicious and really cheap lunch. There was no shopping allowed though (Manchester has a large number of outlets with no sales tax)!

The afternoon was spent at Emerald Lake itself, just a short mile-ish hike down from the camp area. It was a nice sunny afternoon so there were a few people at the "beach" but it wasn't too bad, especially out in the water.

Emerald Lake from the beach

The view from in the Lake

We went for a swim out and around the island. On the back was a large rope swing which Matt had to try...

Action shot

It was fun to watch but I was happy in the water.

No action shot!

After a swim back to the beach, and some time drying off in the sun we hiked back up to camp and set about making dinner - pizzas on the grill! So so good. I may have dropped the first one in the fire, but luckily I divided the dough in half so we had a second pizza and more tofu dogs. We drove back to Albany on Sunday. A great weekend in the fresh Vermont air and water.

Happy Vermont Weekend!

Cruise: Sea Days and Home

I don't have a lot of pictures of the last couple of sea days and arrival into New York, so this will be a short one. We spent time relaxing on deck but for some reason we never went in any of the pools, I'm not sure why - probably because they were so busy. We did go on the water slide though :-)

We ate lots of good food, drank lots of good drink and took part in some activities. Mainly trivia and we had two victories! One on super trivia and I won turbo trivia where you are asked questions individually in a circle. I got lucky on my questions - geography and British royalty! I won because I knew where the Sea of Tranquility was!!

Elegant Night number 2

We also went to a couple of shows on the last days. A game show one that was amusing, a couples game show which was extremely hilarious and the Carnival Legends show which is like Stars in Your Eyes (for my Brit readers). The people they got to sing were generally excellent, it was entertaining and the theatre was packed.

At the back of the ship watching the wake and enjoying a drink

Do I have to get off?

We arrived back in NY early and I wish I had actually got up and watched the sunrise and see the skyline that morning. But alas, we didn't. We had some room service and went for the self assist debarkation. We thought that the time we were given for debarkation might have made us miss the train if it took a long time for a taxi so we were some of the first off the ship (carrying our own bags which was no big deal). As we got off I was directed to the non citizen immigration line and for once in my life, this was the quick line!! I was in and out pretty fast, despite the immigration official forgetting what to do with my type of visa. I had to wait for Matt to come out for about 10 minutes and it was really hot in the terminal.

We got in a taxi really quickly and were back at Penn Station with plenty of time to spare, we even switched our tickets to an earlier train. A quick 2.5 hour train trip home and back to reality. A great vacation was had and I enjoyed my first cruise. Would I cruise again? Yes, but I doubt it would be my first choice - so many other places to go and see!

Cheesy portrait and trivia champion goodies!!

Cruise: Nassau

There is going to be a lot of pictures in this post so I'll try to keep the ramblings to a minimum. Up early this morning to light rain and an early (8am) docking at Nassau. People were once again waiting to get off the ship until the sun came out but we headed off early with no rain but grey skies.

I had found a walking tour of Nassau so we followed that, starting in Rawson Square right outside the ship terminal with statues and pictures of all the Bahamian presidents. Across the street was Parliament square and the government buildings. It was nice to look around when it was almost tourist free!

Bahama's parliament with Queen Victoria

 Behind the government buildings was the library. We didn't go in early as it was shut but we went in later in the day. It was full of cool old books but it was a tight squeeze to move around and very very hot. I'm not sure how all the school kids in there could work!

The library

After the library we headed on a little walk up past the hospital to the Queen's staircase - a narrow little gorge with steps carved out of the stone. It was full of tropical plants and giant trees growing on the edge of vertical stone walls.

Queen's staircase at the end

Up the stairs and to the top of the hill to Fort Fincastle, built in 1793. We were able to pay a couple of dollars and go inside the fort to look at the inside and the cannons (which were never used). There was also a nice view back down to the ship.

Carnival Splendor

Fort Fincastle

At this point it had started to rain a little but we also saw some other people from the ship, so we weren't the only crazy people! We walked past the post office and some nice little churches before getting to the Governors residence. They like pink buildings here!

Governor's House 

At this point it really really started to rain and we ended up sheltering under a bridge for a while. I'm not sure why I remembered to bring an umbrella on the cruise but I'm glad I did. It was even the blue, black and gold colours of the Bahamas!

Just like home

Once the rain subsided a little we ended up at Graycliff, a large colonial mansion which is now a hotel with a cigar factory and a chocolate company. We strolled around the grounds a little, which were beautiful and got a tour of the cigar factory. It was a little strange standing and watching all the people making the cigars by hand but quite interesting none the less. We also stopped at the chocolate shop and got a box of beautiful chocolates that we saved till we got home (white chocolate passion fruit, nutella and sea salt caramel were the best).

Cigar anyone?

You want this one?

We then took a detour from the official walking tour as there was a new rum distillery in town. We got a tour (which didn't consist of much) and then of course had to try some of the product. Yum! We even got a trip behind the bar :-)

Rum, rum everywhere

Including here!

We then wandered back down to the main town, walked along a couple of beaches and through the shopping area. Apparently a lot of people do a lot of shopping here, which we weren't really interested in. It had been a busy morning so we stopped for lunch at a little cafe. I got the conch salad, which was more like a ceviche and it was amazing. Really delicious and a lot nicer than the conch fritters from Grand Turk!

So, so good and just a little spicy!

After some more wandering around the town and into a few shops (to buy rum cake and hot sauce) we headed back to the ship. It was rammed in the town as another Carnival ship (the Pride) had docked. The schedule showed that sometimes they have 6 ships there at a time and I can't imagine how crazy it would be then! We spent a couple of hours up on the top of the ship as the sun was almost out. There was also a great view of Atlantis from the ship. We could have gone there but it was very expensive. A lot of people had excursions there at the water park and were quite upset about the rain! Maybe we'll get there sometime!

Atlantis

As we headed out and back to sea it had started to get rainy and windy again but I still enjoyed the view. We also saw a turtle swimming by the boat (I had seen a dolphin the day before)!

Lighthouse and Atlantis at sail away

That evening was probably the most unsettled on the ship, in terms of motion. It wasn't bothering me much (although I could notice it) but a lot of people weren't feeling so good, including Matt so it was an early night. Not sure if anyone used the sick bags by the elevators! I did enjoy being greeted by this guy  in the cabin though.

Monkey towel

A nice day of culture to make a change from the beach! Two more sea days to get back to New York.

Happy times on the boat!