Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

Mark and I are more settled now. We finally have a couch, we have a decent handle on groceries, and I've figured out the routine of getting to and from work. But we're still new enough to realize that living here is weird. Example: DC roads are strange--intersections at tight angles, streets that drop off the map then pick back up later, and cars that use any available section of street as a makeshift parking lot just by turning on their hazard lights and jumping out of the car. Also, the cars that park in the right hand lane, making it necessary to merge left about every 4th block. And then this sign. I don't know what it's saying Because parking at the hospital isn't an option (price- and availability-wise), and because Georgetown declined to have a metro rail line extend their direction, I take the metro for 20 minutes, then get on a 20 minute shuttle bus provided by Georgetown University, then walk 10 minutes from the university campus to the hospital. The...

On our Baltic trip, we saw loads of museums, but the ones that were most memorable were the ones we couldn't go in. Museum of the Occupation --We passed this building when we first arrived in Vilnius on our way to our hotel. We walked back to it that evening, because Mark loves military history stuff, but it was The outside of the Occupation Museum closed because it was Father's Day in Lithuania. So we tried going to it the next day, but apparently many museums in the area stay closed on Monday. Each time we tried, we walked a significant length to reach it, which made it all the more frustrating. Kiek in de Kök --Located in Tallinn, Estonia. From what our guide told us, this means "Peek in the kitchen," but it is not, in fact, a kitchen, but an artillery tower from the 15th century that is now a museum of the town's fortifications. We tried going there after first arriving in Tallinn, but since it was only an hour before it closed, the museum ...

One of the first things I cared about on our trip was a bed. Thanks to jet lag, and flying overnight, when we got into Vilnius, I was ready for a nap. [Actually, I slept fairly well on the flight over, thanks to Mark's conveniently close shoulder. Thanks, babe.] Mark convinced me to go exploring instead, but every day naturally ended with a bed. Having spent half of my trip in one, this is what I can tell you about European hotel rooms: Most of the rooms had 2 twin beds that were separated by 2 inches. It's almost like sleeping in the same bed, but not. Mark liked that I couldn't steal his covers. Space is tight. Sometimes, space is super tight. Like that time we stayed in an inn where the toilet was literally in the shower [you had to close the toilet lid and remove the toilet paper before showering], and the bunk-beds took up 7/8 of the room [okay, I didn't actually measure, but you get the idea]. A couple of the hotels had a moving shower door, so that ...

~ In which Sadie and Mark discover a local barber shop~ During our trip in eastern Europe, Mark had been hinting that I needed a hair cut. My hair had now reached my butt, but I didn't have much motivation to chop it off until I tried to do yoga binds and got more tangled than I had intended. I looked up nearby hair salons, but none of them were ones I recognized; and, afraid of getting scalped [monetary-wise, not hair-wise] , I chose the one that had a review that it was decently priced. So I go to the establishment and take a seat, and then I start noticing that every single person is African-American and male. I start to worry that I've made the wrong choice, but then I see a white guy come in, so that's one of my worries resolved. The other one (my gender) seemed to be disappear when one of the barber dudes asks what I need and doesn't tell me to go elsewhere. Now, this is an old-looking establishment. The 3-4 barber chairs all seem to be from the 50s; ther...

Mark and I both have ancestors from Sweden, so even though we wouldn't be going to specific ancestral places, I was excited. Oh, the fatherland! or motherland! I don't know! Funny story: when we went to check into our hotel in Stockholm, the receptionist saw the names on our reservation and started speaking Swedish to us. We had to inform her that while we look Swedish and are named Swedish, we don't speak Swedish. It felt like such a personal failing. black (?!) flowers Not-funny story: I think I'm allergic to Sweden. I had some allergic symptoms when we were in Riga [capital of Latvia], but they went away once I took a benadryl. Sweden was definitely different. The first two days we were in Sweden, the weather was cloudy and drizzly. And a little bit chill. [Or at least this Texas ex-pat thought so]. Which meant that when, on the 3rd day, the sun came out, I decided I loved Sweden even more. Everything was beautiful: flowers were blooming, trees were flowerin...

Theme-wise, this post is about transportation, but I wasn't sure many people would find that interesting enough to click on a post labeled "transportation." Unless they really like logistics. Week 1 of our Baltic trip was with a tour group (mainly because we don't speak Lithuanian/Latvian/Estonian/Swedish/Russian), but we still had some time to wander off by ourselves. Personal wanderings, plus wanderings with the group, ended up logging an average of 5.5 miles every day, for a grand total of over 70 miles. And that's not counting the stairs or hills we hiked. I ended up needing new shoes, because the sole of my shoe started separating from the rest of it. [This is how we managed to eat ice cream nearly every day without gaining weight.] Vilnius [Lithuania's capital] had bike rental kiosks around town, so Mark and I also used those to try to see all of the museums on the "must-see" list. It took a while to figure out the bike rental, though, beca...

One of the first things I noticed about the Baltic states is that there seemed to be a disproportionately-high representation of accordions among street musicians. Just walking around the city made it likely that I'd trip on a couple accordion players [not literally tripping, but close...]. If we went out in the country to look at some out-of-the-way historic sites, there would be another accordion to serenade us. Every Single Day in the Baltics I'd run into accordions. an old accordion in a museum Another common instrument: organs. Come to think of it, the mechanism for playing an organ versus an accordion is fairly similar: air-powered, keyboard-played, random buttons. [okay, I'm not actually that educated on organs or accordions.] fancy-shmancy, right? Despite being impressed at the ability to play such instruments, I never gave them money. I prefer to support musicians that are hands-down absolutely positively talented. Like the guy in Tallinn playing [...