paris: postcards

  
Some of my favorite shots of Paris from our wonderful weekend trip at the end of June. More here.

paris: city of crêpes

Have you heard of crêpe street in Paris? Rue du Montparnasse and the next street over, rue d'Odesssa, are packed with upwards of twenty crêpe shops. Stephen discovered this area when visiting Paris with friends last year, and brought me back for what we dubbed Crêpe Weekend: two days and three evenings of eating all the crêpes (sweet) and galettes (savory) we could pack in. We managed to visit five different crêperies over the course of the weekend, listed in the order in which we visited them.

1. Crêperie Plougastel, rue du Montparnasse, Friday night dinner:
We ate a cheese and mushroom galette, a cheese/mushroom/spinach galette, and a caramel crêpe. The galettes were both delicious, the crêpe was a little too simple (perhaps because the caramel was a bit thin). We sat outdoors and drank white wine, which was excellent at the time and a little less excellent the next morning.

2. Crêperie du Quiberon, rue du Montparnasse, Saturday late breakfast:
It seems like a lot of the crêperies don't open until eleven a.m., which worked out fine for us since we were a little slow-moving on Saturday. Dominic, who served us, was stoked about us being "American citizens", and served us caramel beurre salé to taste in little shot glasses -- seems like he does this for everyone, but that didn't make it any less excellent. We ate a four-cheese galette, a tomato/onion/mushroom/cheese galette, and a crêpe with almond/vanilla ice cream/caramel beurre salé. Amazing. Overall our favorite crêperie of the trip.

3. Crêperie du Josselin, rue du Montparnasse, Saturday evening:
There was a line out the door for this place, which we figured could only be a good sign, but it might also have to do with the fact that it seems to be very well loved on Yelp. The restaurant interior was quite cool: nautical Breton theme, very atmospheric. The service was just okay, since the place was terribly busy (might also have to do with the fact that it was a Saturday night). We got a walnuts and Roquefort galette, a spinach/Emmentaler/cream galette, and a crêpe "Chaud-Froid": flambé with orange liqueur and vanilla ice cream. I'm always a sucker for excellent food presentation, and flaming food certainly fits the bill.

4. Crêperie du Manoir Breton, rue de l'Odessa, Sunday morning:
We sat outside and peered into the interior (also Breton-seafarer style). We got a three cheese galette (goat cheese, Roquefort, unidentified yellow cheese), a Roquefort/potatoes/cream/walnuts galette, and a chocolate and coconut crêpe. Not bad, but not our favorite.

5. Crêperie de Pont Aven, rue de l'Odessa, Sunday afternoon:
We got a little cocky in terms of our French food words knowledge, so what we thought was going to be a galette with cream, mushrooms, and walnuts turned out to be cream and scallops. Since Stephen's a vegetarian, I took one for the team and ate the scallops galette, though it wasn't particularly excellent -- too much cream. Our other galette, with Emmentaler, mushrooms, spinach, and cream, was very tasty, and our Nutella crêpe was right about what a Nutella crêpe should be. Service was quick, but Stephen thought the galette and crêpe batter were both a little more pancake-like than he preferred, and the scallops were certainly a surprise.

In summary: crêpe street! Go there!

2013 resolutions: check-in

  
[photos from that time I went to Positano with Ann last year]
I made some resolutions at the beginning of 2013, and just like last year, I figured it was about time to take a look at where I stand on my goals and how this year is going.

1. Run a marathon.
Happening! I signed up for the Frankfurt Marathon on Sunday, October 27th and I've been training for it since late June, using a barely modified version of the Hal Higdon Novice 1 training program. Training is time-consuming, unsurprisingly, but it is also inspiring to see how much progress I've made since I ran my first 10K last September. Yesterday's totally normal and un-intimidating seven-mile training run was longer than the longest I had ever run in my life just nine months ago. This is helpful to remember when I'm staring down that week in mid-October where I'll be running two file-milers, a ten-miler, and a twenty-mile monster within five days of each other. Takeaway: our idea of "normal" is not static; it changes and adapts with us. Which is really, really cool.

2. Learn calligraphy.
In February I bought myself the I Still Love Calligraphy online class by Melissa Esplin and the supplies for it and finally gave learning calligraphy a try after having wanted to learn for ages. Turns out there's a good reason they call it a calligraphy practice. I wouldn't say that I've already learned calligraphy at this point, but I am a heck of a lot better at it than I was before I started. We can go ahead and count that as a win.

3. Complete the first draft of a novel.
I like Nicole Antoinette's writing about the power of obsession and how there's just no way to be equally committed to a bunch of different projects at once. As the fact that I've had this goal on my resolutions list for the past two years and have made basically zero progress on it proves, clearly this isn't a priority for me at the moment. And that's okay! It doesn't mean I'll never be a novelist, but it's pretty relieving to be able to let go of the idea of being one right now, at the same time that I am already way committed to making my other big goals happen.

4. Move.
Happening! Stephen's starting a new job this fall and I'm on the hunt for a new one of my own, and hopefully by the end of the year we will both be in Nuremberg. Maybe even living in an apartment that isn't a single room? And in the not-so-far-off future getting a dog? High hopes around here!

As for the list of other things I wanted to do this year:

* go on another Weinwanderung -- done! * continue the hunt for the world's most magnificent beaches -- Sardinia trip in July = done! * be more conscious of my spending -- hahaha. this is a work in progress. * prioritize swimming for exercise -- if by "swimming" I meant "running", then sure! * add speedwork and strength training into my running routine -- I've gotten after this recently, with inconsistent results, but certainly more of each than I was doing in the past * go on a wine weekend in the Pfalz -- not yet, but the year ain't over * concentrate on people photography -- haven't exactly prioritized this*

For the rest of 2013 I'm concentrating on:

+ finding a new job & moving to Nuremberg (resolution #4)
+ running the Frankfurt Marathon (resolution #1)
+ taking slow, deliberate steps toward turning my excessive dorky love for all things calligraphy/stationery into a business (extension of resolution #2)

I'll let you know how all that works out for me!

paris: signs

As has been documented a few times before, I'm a gigantic dork when it comes to signs and storefronts. Paris proved itself to be particularly excellent in this department when Stephen and I visited at the end of June.

london & winchester

  
In the middle of June I visited Lucy in London, right around the same time as last year, and did a surprisingly restrained bit of shopping, ate excellent breakfast outside (!) in Clapham while it was briefly warm and sunny, had a mid-afternoon trip to the pub to beat the rain, saw Mose Kasher and Aziz Ansari perform standup (amazinggg), hopped on a train and had lovely brunch and went on a walk through brilliant green Winchester, and came back to London for fantastic Thai food at KaoSarn in Clapham. Definitely go to KaoSarn -- that bowl of all-brown soup was one of the tastier things I've eaten in recent memory.

stone harbor water

  
My dad and I go on a lot of bike rides when we're both in Stone Harbor. When I was there in June, the water on the basins (mostly enclosed areas connected to the Intracoastal Waterway) was incredibly calm and the reflections were stunning.

stone harbor sunrise

Ann came back to Stone Harbor with me toward the end of my 2 1/2 weeks in the U.S. and even though we stayed up late talking, I woke up a little after five a.m. the first morning we were there to a glorious orange sunrise. I debated for a little bit before taking myself down to the beach with my camera -- worth it, of course.