above and below is the neptune pool. easily my favoritest part of the entire tour...
In addition to the main castle itself, there are three other separate houses just off the main plaza, adjacent to the castle. Above is a view from Casa del Sol. the horizon is actually the pacific ocean, and the darker silhouette is the shoreline in the distance. camera shots were strictly to be taken without flash. so all of my indoor pictures don't do justice to the place. But here's an example: Mr Hearst's sitting room, part of his private quarters. (I actually think my favorite room may have been the kitchen. baker's paradise.)
I might be an old woman. I like to think I'm pretty adventurous (see boda boda picture from Uganda above ⇑), but in Solvang, CA all I cared to do was meander the sidewalks, sample fudge, and look at the kitschy Norse bric-a-brac-- mostly of tiny viking figurines with giant beards or tiles with clever sayings such as "You can tell a Dane, but you can't tell him much" (harty-harr-harr). Old-women activities, right? With the exception of an elementary school fieldtrip group, Ali and I may have been the youngest tourists in this Danish settlement 130 miles north of Los Angeles. My Los Angeles roommate warned me ahead of time that Solvang was "boring". I think it might be accurate to assume that she was unimpressed with my roadtrip agenda. I don't think she understands that I bring the party. Solvang was not boring. Nowhere I go is boring.
Didn't care to try the Medisterpolse, but really wished we coulda tried the Aebleskiver
oh yeah, and they named a church after me.
8.29.09
Zanzibar Cafe in downtown San Diego. Chicken panini. Aviators from Nordstrom's. Seaport Village. $1 seashell to validate parking. Balboa Park. Steam Powered Giraffes, robotic-miming-musical-trio. Giant Dr. Peppers. La Jolla Beach. Seal-watching. Ali (she was definitely the best part).
Good news, peeps. The $6 USB cable I ordered off of ebay from China just arrived in the mail the other day, which means I can *finally* post some photos! I'm terribly behind, so bear with me while I indulge in some reminiscing of recent events over the last month...
So I'm in LA! Moved out here roughly a month ago, and two days ago was the one-year anniversary of my interview at USCSD. Little did I know that that day would be the beginning of my life in southern California. August 28th was the USCSD White Coat Ceremony, officially kicking off my dental education. I'm going to be a dentist for reals, yo!
I must give credit for the above image to wordle. I first discovered this website a while ago-- check it out if you've got 15 minutes (or 3 hours) to kill! Now for the explanation of the text: All of the above are nicknames that I've been called at my job over the past year... ha. Not included are B, B-Money, B-Lowe, Blow, Bethanybo, Bo, or Hobo, all of which I've been called at some point in my life. Any favorites? Any suggestions to add to the list?
Yeah, yeah, I've been outside of the blogosphere for the past... um... year. One of my goals this past year was to update my blog with tales from travels in recent years that never graced my tiny eensy weensy itty bitty little corner of the world-wide-web. But alas, I am a Master Procrastinator. Someday I will whip out my photos and stories from Ecuador, the Amazon, and Honduras.
In the meantime, I'm back in my favorite place in the world. This is a bold statement, I know. And I'm definitely open to suggestions of places that might challenge that title-- in fact, I'd be thrilled to scour every nook and cranny of the globe to find a place I'm more in love with than here. But for now, McCall, Idaho is the champion. Our family has come to consider McCall as our second home. It is truly a paradise on earth, and I think heaven must be just like McCall. (It would be if it were up to me, anyway.)
We can usually manage to get the entire family together for at least one week in the summer, and this may be the last time we're all in one place for a while, so we snapped some family shots.
