I just got back to Berlin from a one week trip to California (yes it’s a long way to go for one week, but I only have so many holidays!), and everyone keeps asking me “what did you do?!” and most of what springs to mind is hanging around the house with my Love. It sounds really boring but it was absolute perfection! I know on travel holidays you are supposed to go sightseeing and exploring, and there are a lot of things on my “to see” and “to do” lists in the bay area, but one week isn’t a very long time and I wanted to spend it living out the things I miss about living with my Love. These include but are not limited to: sleeping in the same bed, sharing a kitchen that is too small for two people to be in at the same time, watching T.V. series that we both love, introducing each other to new music or T.V. series, going to concerts, sitting around staring at each other, sitting with arms/legs strewn across/entangled in the others arms/legs and talking about the future/science/our days/people we know/everything, and just being able to hold hands/each other.
We did do a bunch of things though, we caught the tail-end of the Pride-parade festivities (which looked pretty messy by the time we got there - some people hadn’t paced their drinking very effectively!) as we headed to see Sharon Van Etten in concert, which was fantastic! She and her band are a stellar ensemble. I got introduced to a few of my Love’s friends so that now I can put some faces to the names I keep hearing about which is nice. I tried some American treats, a few of which just left me feeling nauseous, but I tried waffle and chicken flavoured crisps, which may now be up there with Netflix in my list of things that Germany should get right now thank you please! My Love took me to one of his favourite restaurants and I ate so much that we had to walk it off for a while afterward! We brewed a batch of beer together and I made us a pavlova using our brand new KitchenAid stand mixer! It is so much easier to make pavlovas when you can just leave the beating to a machine! I used all the tips and tricks for working with egg whites that we learned in our cooking class at Sur La Table. I think the combination of fancy ingredients and our new baking robot contributed to the quality of the pavlova, it was delicious - and most importantly it didn’t collapse!
We were going to go to a BBQ with some friends on the 4th of July, but it was our last evening together and we decided that we would rather just enjoy each others company, so we stayed home and shared the pavlova with my Love’s flatmate.
Last time I was in Palo Alto we watched the whole of season 1 of House of Cards, and season 2 was released the week after I left. We knew we wouldn’t be seeing each other for a while but we decided we would wait until we were together to watch it. For no reason other than it is fantastic and we wanted to share it. So we watched an episode or two each evening and crammed in some extras on the weekends. It is such a fantastic series and I am pretty stoked that we have just purchased tickets to spend a week in Washington D.C. in November, we will mostly be attending the Society for Neuroscience conference, but we have some time to go and check out Frank & Claire’s ‘hood.
Then it came time to leave and I showed my Love around my favourite haunts of the SFO airport. He decided that it would be more sensible not to drag out the goodbye and we so we said our goodbyes and he started walking away, only to return two minutes later saying that was not his best idea to date - which warmed my heart a lot (figuratively obviously) :). So then we got some Buffalo Wings and cola and talked about everything except’ the fact that I was leaving - I think that getting into a restaurant and out of the airport check-in area made it feel less like I was about to leave for 2 months. Then came the actual goodbyes and off I went! I bought a Runner’s world magazine in the airport and was a bit disappointed by the articles but they had an awesome recipe that I am currently living off of.
I am home in Berlin now, drinking a glass of Zinfandel wine and missing my Love. Not long between trips this time though :)
Flying into SF
Wandering the campus :)
New cookie cutters from Sur La Table!
Sharon Van Etten!!!
We went to Trader Joe’s and found the hidden soft toy!
And some cultural stereotypes selling products!
*drool*
They have a 4 foot burrito.
The angel of Grief on the Stanford campus.
We went to another Trader Joe’s - found another soft toy!
Our beer being created!
And the delicious pavlova! I put kiwi fruit on it on a whim of kiwi-ness and later decided it was a mistake.
