Snaefellsnes! (God bless you)

So, on Sunday, I took a tour of the Snaefellsnes peninsula. I signed up for the day tour, but was upgraded to the luxury tour with gourmet dinner and aurora borealis on the way home! I think because I was the only one who wanted to do the day tour, and it's a small company, so they were only going to do one or the other. On the one hand, this was great - I got the fancy tour for the price of the less-fancy tour! On the other hand, it was an incredibly long day, longer than I was prepared for. I was picked up at my hotel at 9AM and didn't get back until 11:30PM. 14-and-a-half hours in a minivan with a bunch of strangers! Woo-hoo! On the website, they say the tour is 10-12 hours, so it's not like I thought I was going to be back in time for dinner or anything, but still.



Oh, wait, was I bitching about something? Aside from the grueling 14-hourishness of it, this tour was amazing. At 9AM, it was still very dark, and the streets were deserted. It felt like the middle of the night. We picked up sandwiches ("We won't stop for lunch - we have so little light," our guide said) and piled into the minivan. By the end of the day I was VERY glad I got one of the bucket seats and didn't end up crammed into the back seat. If I were a nicer person I guess I would have volunteered to switch seats with someone else, but I'm not, so I didn't!

We drove north from Reykjavik, in the dark at first. After maybe an hour and a half, we stopped at a rest stop in Borgarnes, the last "city" we'd see for the next several hours (it was a tiny supply town for the surrounding farms - maybe a few thousand people). We stopped at a couple of places to take photos of a volcanic crater (above) and the Snaefellsjokull (a glacier, behind the mountain below).



We visited a natural hot tub, where we hung out in 100+F water while freezing wind blew across the field. I am still washing the peat out of my swimsuit. While we were in the pool I tried an Icelandic delicacy called hakarl, or fermented shark. According to the wikipedia entry Anthony Bourdain called hakarl "the single worst, most disgusting and terrible tasting thing" he had ever eaten. Tony speaks the truth! I chewed, and chewed, but I couldn't make myself swallow it, and after I'd gagged twice I spit it out and threw it away.

I attempted to wash the shark taste out of my mouth with brennivin, traditional Icelandic schnapps made with potatoes and flavored with cumin. Brennivin will never be my favorite taste (and for what it's worth it's apparently the favorite tipple of the Icelandic problem drinker) but it's a hell of a lot better than hakarl.

Snaefellsnes is gorgeous, and, in the winter at least, it feels completely deserted. We hardly saw any other cars; we passed occasional farms with Icelandic ponies or sheep roaming around outside, but didn't see any of the farmers.



It was bleak, but stunning. Our guide talked about how Icelanders traditionally have a kind of adversarial relationship with nature, and haven't always seen it as something to be preserved, but rather to be defended against. You can see where they were coming from.



Really otherworldly. Driving through a lava field while listening to Sigur Ros was pretty amazing. (Also, Icelanders talk about Sigur Ros a lot. And Bjork.) We had a great dinner (amazing fish soup, yummy lamb, and apple caramel cake) and then we saw the Aurora Borealis on the way home, huge and gorgeous. There was a new moon and the sky was completely clear. It was as many stars as I'd ever seen in my life. I was freezing cold and exhausted, but taken all in all it was a great night. I just wish I'd know how long it was going to be; I would have gotten some more sleep the night before!

It never hurts to ask

I went out to Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, and because it was significantly cheaper I flew through Chicago, rather than direct. Not ideal, but liveable on the way out (although I was really annoyed when they gate-checked my bag from Boston straight through to LA - if I was going to check a bag, I would have packed completely differently!).

I was really not looking forward to the trip home, though - I was scheduled on a red-eye flight to Chicago followed by an early morning flight to Boston. I was tired and ready to go home by about 5PM and my flight didn't leave until 11:30. So I decided to go to the airport a little early and see what my other options were. The little check-in computer was uninterested in letting me change my flights BUT it also asked me if I would be willing to give up my seat on the Chicago flight, which was overbooked (as near as I could tell, another Chicago flight had been cancelled).

"Hmm," I said to myself, "this seems like an opportunity - the airline doesn't want me to go to Chicago, and I don't want to go to Chicago either!" After a half-hour of wandering around the terminal and checking on the little check-in computers to see if there were any other flights available, I found the customer service line. Which I then waited in for 45 minutes.

Easily half the movement of the line was people getting frustrated and walking away (yikes!), but I persevered. I was wearing comfortable shoes and I had podcasts to listen to. But finally, I got up the front of the line, just as boarding was starting for the direct LAX-BOS flight!

I explained the situation to the woman at the desk, and she said, "If it'll make one of the Chicago people happy, no problem. But I have to type like the wind!" She gave me a boarding pass and said she didn't know if it was a good seat or anything but I figured I didn't have a particularly good seat on the Chicago flight, and this way I didn't have to go to Chicago. And when I boarded the plane, my seat was a perfectly nice window seat and, get this, the seat next to me was empty! I think it was the only empty seat on the plane!

I got home hours earlier than I expected, I didn't have to get off the plane in Chicago at 5AM (5AM Chicago time, so 3AM LA time), and I got to spread out and take as much sleeping room as I wanted for the whole flight. It was awesome. All it took was 45 minutes of waiting in line, and let's face it, I was already in the terminal and it's not like I had anything better to do with my time. I felt triumphant. Travel Win!

Dream vacations

It's HOT in Boston right now - we're having an honest to God heat wave. Any sensible person would be getting out of town, and fast, but my vacation savings account (yes, I have a savings account just for vacations) and my time off balance are both at record lows right now, so here's a list of places I'd like to be going, though I have no prospects of actually getting there.

Chile

My sister and her husband went skiing in Portillo, Chile on their honeymoon last year:

photo by nessfc on flickr

Oh, that looks lovely. And I haven't been skiing in seven or eight years!

Iceland

I'm not saying you shouldn't go to Iceland in March - I had a great time in Iceland in March. But I think that I would enjoy it even more right now. They're going to have highs in the 50s (F) all week. We're going to have highs in the 90s all week. And there are views like this:

photo by strawberrymaya on flickr

Back in March I was in the very spot where this photo was taken, but all I saw was fog and snow. Alas.

Maine

I love Maine. I have loads of family in Maine. If I had the vacation time I could go up to Maine right now and take a dip in the freezing cold ocean off a rocky Midcoast beach; I could lie in a hammock next to a lake; I could take a boat out to one of the islands in Casco Bay; and there might very well be an aunt or grandmother around who I could mooch a delicious meal or two off of; but it is too much to think of. Here are some photos of Maine.

photo by jkbashkin on flickr

photo by dana_moos on flickr

Bhutan

I bet it's cool up in the mountains right now. And relaxing. Bhutan is somewhere I'd like to go but I expect I never will go, because it is so expensive and so inconvenient. That's part of what makes me want to go - not exclusivity for exclusivity's sake, but the fact that it's an extraordinarily beautiful part of the world where tourism's impact is low. And I mean look at this:

photo by jmhullot on flickr

It makes me want to convert to Buddhism on the spot!

OK, enough fantasies for today. It's nearly time for me to head outside into the 90 degree heat and sweat my way home. Good times.

(Many thanks to the photographers whose photos I've used here and to all those who post to flickr using Creative Commons licenses!)

Athens, belatedly, and Madrid

Hi! I never got around to writing about Athens.

I had heard that Athens was really only worth spending a day or so in, and indeed I ended up only spending a day or so there (about a day and a half, really, and actually a lot of that was in my hotel room). This is probably overly dismissive, but you can definitely see some very cool things in one day in Athens.

I arrived in Athens via overnight ferry from Rhodes. This was actually quite nice. I shelled out a little extra money so that I had a bed in a shared cabin - it was somewhere between a floating hostel and going on a cruise with a couple of complete strangers! But it was fairly quiet and though I didn't fall asleep immediately, once I did I slept like a baby - right through my iPod alarm. Oops!

The ferry arrived around 6AM, then I got lost trying to find the metro station, and wandered around for what felt like hours but was probably about 20 minutes, and eventually I found a tram stop and a nice woman waiting for the tram told me to get on and ride it to the metro station. Though of course I did not have a ticket, since this tram stop did not sell tickets. But I didn't get caught, so there. I buy a bus and subway pass at home every month and usually don't get nearly my money's worth out of it, so I will absolve myself of that particular sin. If they had put up a sign that said where the metro station was, I wouldn't have had to fare-jump their tram, so there!

My hotel in Athens was in Omonia, which is apparently kind of a sketchy red-light district. I figured I would be tired and going to bed early anyhow, so who cared if there were drug deals and prostitution going on outside in the middle of the night - I intended to be in bed by about 10PM. In the morning, it was a little on the gritty side but nothing to send me screaming. And the hotel itself did not seem prostitute-infested (it was a Best Western, for what that's worth).

Once I was checked in to my hotel, I went to the Acropolis. This was pretty good! I considered hiring a guide for a tour, but they seemed to vary dramatically in quality, so I ended up just eavesdropping on other people's guides. I really only needed to spend an hour or so here, which was good - by 10:30AM or so it was crowded to the point of uncomfortableness. When they tell you to get to the Acropolis early, they mean it!

Here's the amphitheater at the Acropolis, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. This is where such exciting events as "Yanni: Live at the Acropolis" and the 1973 Miss Universe Pageant were held. Seriously, though, it's lovely. And the seats have cushions!



This is before it got crowded:



The Parthenon - seriously impressive:



Even with the scaffolding and hordes of tourists:



I also visited a few other ancient sites - with your 12 euro Acropolis ticket, you also get admission to six other ancient sites in Athens (I only made it to three). Here's a photo of a frieze in the Ancient Agora:



I also visited two museums, the Cycladic Art Museum, which was not a big museum but had some lovely art from the prehistoric Cyclades. The people of the Cyclades (islands which include modern-day Santorini and Naxos) made these ritual figurines that I found incredibly appealing.

This is a very large version of the classic figurine (maybe four or five feet tall, near life-size):



They carved these figures over and over. To me they look quite modern, but maybe I just misunderstand the prehistoric Cycladeans. I thought the figures were absolutely lovely, and considered buying one of the reproductions in the gift shop but they were pretty pricey.

And here's a less-typical figure they call "The Cup-Bearer" - I love this guy:



Later in the afternoon, I went to the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, which was delightful! I spent a couple of hours in the prehistorical section - featuring more Cycladic art, Neolithic art, and gorgeous Mycenean gold, before I realized that there must be a lot more to the museum that I hadn't seen yet. Between my feet being exhausted and the museum getting ready to close, I was only able to spend an hour or so in the rest of the museum, but I wasn't all that upset - for whatever reason, the prehistoric stuff is closer to my heart than the classical Greek and Roman stuff. Maybe I need to re-read my Odyssey.

One funny thing happened when I was in the Archaeological Museum - in a room of Neolithic pottery, an American tourist was asking the guard what was the oldest thing in the room, and the guard helpfully pointed out a jar dating to 6000 BCE. Then she kept asking the guard, "Why does this label say 14056 then?" and the guard didn't seem to understand and I was right there so I explained that the 14056 was an inventory number or something, and didn't actually mean anything.

Then we got in a discussion about human evolution in which I had to explain that Lucy the fossil was actually millions of years old, not thousands like this pottery, and that the people who made this pottery were genetically almost the same as us and if you gave them a bath and a haircut and taught them modern language and culture, you'd hardly be able to tell them apart from any other person, but Lucy was a creepy little ape-lady who wouldn't pass for human with any amount of shaving and instruction. And then she said she wasn't sure if she believed in all that, and I said I was on vacation from my work in a museum anyhow and we both moved on.

It was a lovely museum and I would love to visit it again someday. And on the way home, I saw a political demonstration (nonviolent), for the PASOK party. There was a lot of political advertising up all over Athens and Rhodes, as the European elections were being held that weekend I think. Video of political leaders speaking languages I don't understand always seems sinister to me - something about the motions and cadences of a crowd-pleasing oration deprived of their meaning turns me right off. Oliver Sacks wrote about a group of aphasics (people who do not understand speech) laughing uproariously at Ronald Reagan's speeches, but to me political speech devoid of content is more creepy than hilarious. (This is all terribly unfair of me, I know!)

I flew home through Madrid and stayed one night there, but I didn't take any photos. I visited the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia which I loved! Their showpiece is Picasso's famous Guernica, but they don't just show you Guernica - they also have loads of sketches and studies Picasso did in planning the painting, and actual photographs of the canvas at various points in the painting process. Excellent exhibit.

I also spent a good twenty minutes watching the Buster Keaton film "One Week" at the Reina Sofia. It was hilarious! I laughed out loud more than once. Honestly, I think I kind of missed the point of the exhibition it was part of, but whatever, it was a pleasure to sit in a dark room and watch that movie.

After the museum I had a fried calamari sandwich and a beer at a sandwich/tapas place near the museum. Delicious! And I got an olive and a mussel on a tiny plate to tide me over while they made my sandwich. The next morning before my flight I had churros and coffee for breakfast. I definitely want to get back to Madrid. Churros for breakfast!

All in all it was a great trip. It will be a while before I can get away for that long again, and I don't really have any vacation plans on the horizon, which is odd for me (I'd been planning on going to Turkey for about two years!), but we'll see what comes next. I've been doing a lot of staycationing - visiting tourist areas in and near my own city - and I've enjoyed it lots.

Solo travel to Turkey - one woman's experience

A brief diversion from an account of my trip to talk about a few things people have been asking me about (in real life, not on the internet, but hey, maybe someone out there will get some use out of this).

I know that before I came to Turkey I wondered a lot about what it would be like to travel there on my own, as a woman - whether it would be safe, whether I would be extraordinarily conspicuous, etc. I have friends and acquaintances, male and female, who had traveled to Turkey in pairs and small groups, but I didn't know anyone who'd gone to Turkey on their own, male or female. None of my friends who'd been to Turkey urged me to go on my own (one of the things about traveling solo is that your friends don't necessarily learn a lot about your travel style!), but none of them said, "God, no, don't do it!" So, I took to the internet to hear what other women trave ling alone had thought about Turkey. I found a lot of encouraging firsthand stories, a few people who had been miserable, and some news and guidebook accounts of actual crimes and other horror stories.

But you know, I think by the time I started looking at other women's stories, I'd already made up my mind to go. So if you're a woman (or a man) who's already decided to go to Turkey on your own, go ahead and read this post for lots of reassurance and a few caveats and cautionary tales.

Now, for starters, solo travel is not for everyone, period. Some people don't like traveling alone, and I think this is largely a personal temperment issue. Solo travel in general and its challenges and rewards is probably worth a whole blog entry of its own (which I may even write at some point!), so for now I'll just talk about Turkey specifically.

Lots of people have asked me if I felt safe in Turkey, and overall I would say yes. I acknowledge that the risk of being affected by a terrorist attack is probably higher than in the US or Western Europe, though still extremely unlikely. As far as crimes against my person (attack, robbery, rape, whatever), I can 100% say that I never once felt that I was at risk of bodily harm from another person. I did get lost more than once, and that was unsettling and a bit scary, but realistically I do not think I was in any actual danger (other than the danger of needing to take an expensive taxi ride to get where I needed to go!).

I was appropriately cautious; I did not stay out very late, I kept to well-populated areas, especially at night, I did not drink to excess or use any mind-altering substances, and I was vigilant about what was going on around me. I'm a reasonably street-smart person - I used to work in an inner-city hospital complex until midnight, then take the bus home, and I never came to any grief there - and I used my own good judgement.

The time I was most scared, and probably in the most actual danger, was when I got lost in the scrub forest in Kas. This was my own fault for wandering off the trail, and I would have been in just as much danger if not more if I'd been in the mountains of my native New England (in Kas, I at least had a great mobile phone signal, which you can't count on in the White Mountains!). Even then, though, because I'd taken appropriate precautions, the risk I ran was pretty small - I had a mobile phone that I could use to call for help if necessary, I had a whistle, a flashlight, a small first-aid kit, food (dried fruit) and water, and I had good long-sleeve, long-trouser, synthetic hiking clothes. I might have really annoyed my hotel and the local police if I'd had to call for help, but there was never really any risk that I wouldn't be able to get out!

I would say that as far as physical danger goes, you can greatly reduce the amount of risk you run by observing a healthy level of caution, being prepared, and thinking things through. Also, if you know you're prepared, you'll feel a lot more comfortable! (Just don't get too comfortable and stop observing your healthy level of caution...)

A couple of people have asked me about food safety - I didn't drink tap water, but I wasn't particularly careful otherwise, and I felt 100% fine. I ate raw fruit and vegetables without worrying about whether they'd been peeled or how they'd been washed, and a lot of the food was served lukewarm, which I know are all the red flags you're supposed to avoid, but I never had any problem. I do have a stomach of steel, though; I've never had food poisoning that I can remember, and I seem to be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, with basically no ill effects (besides weight gain). I think the cure for IBS is lurking somewhere in my digestive tract (OK, gross image; we'll move on now). Obviously if you have a more sensitive stomach you might want to ease into things and be more cautious.

Enough about danger - let's move on to "hassle". In the touristy parts of Turkey that I visited, people (and by people I mean men, actually) are constantly asking you, "Where are you from?" and "What is your name?" and "Are you lost?" I found it a little bit exhausting, just because there are so many of them; individually they're no more annoying than many Save the Children and Greenpeace canvassers I've encountered at home. Mostly I was able to ignore them or develop a sense of humor about it - when I ignored one guy who asked me where I was from he said, "Are you Japanese?" and I said, "Yes, konnichiwa!" which he thought was pretty funny. And I just had to bust out laughing when one guy asked me "Are you lost?" while I was standing directly in front of the Aya Sofya! I don't think it would be possible to be less lost anywhere in Turkey - it's surely the most famous and recognizable landmark in the country.

Constant questioning aside, I did feel very observed on occasion. More than once when I was wandering around in Istanbul I would suddenly find myself in a bustling street (just beyond a touristy area) that was full of men, with no women at all besides myself. It was disconcerting! I don't recall ever finding myself in that situation in North America or Western Europe. It certainly made me feel like I stuck out. In Ankara, also, I felt like people were paying me more attention than I would have liked. But what can you do? I did try to maintain a low profile in terms of my appearance, but I was clearly not Turkish, and clearly a tourist.

I did run into one scam (um, one scam that I noticed, anyway), at the Nevsehir bus station - as described in many other travelers' reports and in all the guidebooks, people at Nevsehir bus station will try to scam you into taking their taxis and private transfers to Goreme and Urgup, rather than the bus company transfer included with your bus ticket. Be prepared and don't fall for it. Make sure you buy a through bus ticket to your final destination, and if you do have to transfer make sure you find the real transfer bus (it will be the one without a bunch of guys trying to talk you in to taking it!).

Another question people have asked me is "What did you wear?" and "What do women wear in Turkey?" I wore long sleeves with highish necklines most of the time, but this was actually as much for sun protection as it was for modesty (I am of the Pink race). I was traveling light, so I brought one pair of (quick-drying, nylon) trousers and one skirt (likewise a wringable, comfy breathable polyester knit) and some long-sleeve shirts. I also brought a couple of t-shirts (and I didn't feel conspicuous in these, either) and a couple of sweaters (almost completely unnecessary - should have left them home!).

As for what how other women dressed, I saw people wearing just about any old thing you've ever seen on anyone - Western and East Asian tourists in tank tops, shorts, beach caftan coverups, jeans, t-shirts, sundresses, a kameez top from a salwar kameez with no trousers underneath (my personal favorite), and other tourists, pilgrims, and local women in various kinds of Muslim traditional dress from long sleeves and ankle-length skirts right on up to women in niqab/black face veils. All over Turkey I saw lots of women in headscarves and lots of women with bare heads. In Cappadocia I saw lots of women in traditional salvar trousers (I can't find any good pictures but basically they have as much fabric as a skirt and a very low crotch, well below the knee; I wish I'd taken photos but I hate asking people if I can take their photos). I saw lots of women wearing variations on these drop-crotch trousers in Greece and Madrid, and I remember seeing those kinds of trousers on The Sartorialist (a fashion blog). I guess I should have bought some - I'd be tres chic! But I'm not sure tres chic is really the way to go in Boston. We're simple people; frumpy and content to stay that way.

The last thing I should mention is the Turkish language. People didn't speak as much English as I expected; not that I have any right to complain about this, as I am pretty monolingual myself. But I didn't do much to prepare myself at all. I wish I'd at least brought a proper phrasebook, rather than relying on the abbreviated one in the back of the Lonely Planet guide. Turkish mostly just washed right over me. I think by the end of two weeks I knew maybe 15 words of Turkish, five of which I've now forgotten two weeks later (I definitely knew the word for "ten" at one point, but that's gone). My favorite Turkish word was "feribot" which, disappointingly, is just pronounced the like "ferryboat", not like some kind of exotic robotic ferry system.

One consequence of the language barrier was that it could be a bit lonely (constant "Where you from?" and "Are you lost?" queries aside). I only spoke with one or two Turkish women the whole trip; almost all of the women I spoke to were either expats living in Turkey or other tourists/travelers. This was a language thing and a cultural thing - my impression was that at least in the tourist industry the men were more likely to hold the public-facing jobs, and the women were more often working behind the scenes; women don't need to speak English to do these jobs, so they don't know English, and so even when I did interact with the Turkish women working at the hotels and restaurants I visited, we couldn't really talk (though some of them were incredibly friendly).

Anyway, to sum up: There are some dangers and annoyances in Turkey, as in anyplace worth going, but I found them completely manageable and worth it. If you can ignore a charity canvasser or a panhandler, you can ignore a Turkish carpet salesman (and the carpet salesman will be a lot more polite than either the canvasser or the panhandler). Read Turkey Travel Planner and a guidebook or two or three before you go to give you an idea of what to expect. Think through a couple of worst-case scenarios (worst-case scenarios aren't as scary to think about if you're prepared for them). Even if you're uncomfortable in one part of Turkey there's probably someplace else that will be a perfect fit for you (it's a big country, and it offers a diversity of tourism experiences). Solo travel in Turkey can be loads of fun; it's probably not for everyone but it was great for me, and if you think it sounds good, go for it!

More Rhodes

I did eventually venture out of the Old Town in Rhodes, and went to what you might call the Actually Much Older town, i.e. the Acropolis of Rhodes.



This is the ancient city of Rhodes. There were three other ancient acropolises on the island of Rhodes, but I did not make it out of Rhodes Town, I'm sorry to say. There's also a stadium there:



Wikipedia says that "acropolis" literally means "city on the edge" (edge in the sense of extremity). I like the idea of a "city on the edge" even if the translation maybe has some layers of meaning that the original version might not. Unsurprisingly, ancient people liked to build their cities up high, where it was easy to defend them. Then the actually living city of Rhodes built up around the acropolis, and the part of the city near the harbor ended up being the more important part.

I also went to several more museums in Rhodes, and I think my favorite was the decorative arts museum. It was all everyday objects like pottery, bedsheets, cabinets, and that sort of thing. It was small, but I really liked the stuff in it. Here's one of my favorite pieces, a jug with a beautiful young lady with a unibrow on it:



So much of the stuff here was just simple and charming and lovely; I took loads of pictures mostly with the idea of eventually stealing the motifs for as-yet-unconceived-of art and craft projects.

I also took the Wall Walk, which, as you might guess, is a walk around the city walls. This was cool, even though it was raining a little bit (it did not rain much while I was in Turkey and Greece. It was lovely).

Rhodes rooftops:





When I was up there I noticed loads of solar hot water heaters and satellite dishes, but they're not so obvious in the photos.

I took a Blue Star ferry overnight from Rhodes to Athens. I got a berth in a four-berth cabin - it's cheaper than getting a private cabin, but more comfortable than sitting up all night on the brightly-lit areas above decks! It was a little noisy, but I got a several good hours of sleep and didn't wake up until they played the "coming in to Athens, time to get off the boat" announcement (at six AM, ay-yi-yi).

I then proceeded to leave my iPod on the boat and spend a good hour wandering around Pireas, lost, but the iPod was old and had something wrong with the screen, and eventually some locals took pity on me and dragged me onto a tram that took me to the metro, so all was well. Next entry: Athens!

Pic pic pics

So, since I last posted, I have been on vacation!

(Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains, taken in Burlington, VT, which was not my final vacation destination but which was nonetheless a lovely place to stop for dinner.)

We all know what vacation means, right? Time for knitting! (And reading, and, you know, vacation fun.) I brought along all my current knitting projects -- this is actually just the Hanami stole and the Bayerische sock, and they're both very compact (the stole should be 19" by 70" complete and blocked, but the yarn is fine enough that it doesn't actually take up all that much room in the purse).

Unfortunately, I drove to my vacation destinations (Montreal and Mont Tremblant), which meant no plane/train/bus knitting, but I got in lots of hotel and pool knitting, which is also good stuff. I also did some car knitting, even though I was ostensibly driving -- there were serious delays at the border on the way home and I spent close to two hours going the last 1/2 mile to the customs plaza. Since I was in Park most of the time, I had no qualms about whipping out the knitting. A woman in a minivan I kept passing asked what I was making, and I held it up to show and said it was a shawl, and her husband/whatever said, "By the time you get to the states you'll be able to wear it!"

It wasn't quite stole weather by the time I got to Vermont, nor had I finished the shawl before my exciting interview with the customs guy (I nearly forgot to declare my Wheat Thins), but I got a pattern repeat or two done, and here's what it looks like now:


Not too bad-looking for unblocked lace! I'm on the fifth of seven repeats of the basketweave pattern; after that it turns to an every-row faux-random pattern of swirling petals. I love this baby alpaca yarn; it is super-soft and silky and I just want to rub my face on it. But I don't.

I also got some good vacation knitting done on the second sock (I'm determined to cure myself of second sock syndrome, and I've instituted a rule for myself where every time I finish a pattern repeat on the shawl, I have to work on the sock for a bit). Here's what that's looking like now:
Note that these photos were taken in natural light! It's an exciting breakthrough. This still doesn't look quite like the color looks to me -- it should be a bit darker maybe. More importantly, you can see the twiny stitches much better in natural light than with the flash or the assy camerphone.

Also, I should mention that I never turned comment notification on the Seven Year Sock, so I wasn't noticing when people were commenting. But now it's on! So I will notice and may even respond.

You know, I am still working on that same damn sock. The first sock, even! Last weekend, I went to the Big Apple to audition for Jeopardy (as you do), and it kept me company on the bus and the train (bus out, train back; I am more tolerant of annoying bus travel at the beginning of a trip than I am at the end of one). Except I lost my copy of the pattern and my train ticket! Now, I don't know about you, but when I have just lost a train ticket, I need something to calm me down. Something like knitting, or a good stiff drink. Having just spent an unexpected $100 on a train ticket, I did not care to shell out money for an overpriced Amtrak drink, so knitting it was.

I had turned the heel and picked up the gussets on the bus, so I didn't have anything too complicated to do, but I still managed to screw up pretty royally, and I ended up having to rip all that out last night. But it was easily resumed (I probably only knit for the first hour or so of the train, so there wasn't too much to redo) and I am well into the decreases now. I still love the pattern, and I still haven't memorized it, sadly (now that I'm into the foot one of the patterns is sort of split up and altered, so it's a new chart to learn, not that I ever quite got the full pattern memorized).

Oh, and also I got my train ticket back, and it's still good! So that's nice. Who says New Yorkers don't care.