Twin Cities!

Edwin and I spent last week in Minneapolis, which was awesome. His best friend from college, David, flew up from Dallas for the week to hang out. We stayed with Dan and Nikki (my roommate from college) at their beautiful house. It was SO great to see some of our favorite people and catch up. One of the highlights of the week (a.k.a. one of the only days we took pictures) was going to a Twins game at the new Target Field. The stadium is awesome! True to form, my favorite part of the game was the food! Collectively we tried hot dogs, corn dogs, burgers, steak sandwiches, ice cream and beer. A pretty good showing if you ask me :)

We had nosebleed seats, but the views were great :)

I think this view is awesome!

David and Edwin

Other highlights of the week:

*Renting a paddleboat on Lake Calhoun. Unfortunately we kept going in a circle and traded up for a canoe. This was way more successful and brought me back to my days as "buffer" during family canoe trips.

*IKEA! We had a blast looking around. I also had a blast from the past when I found this! If you can't tell what I'm holding, they are little plastic beads. I used to make designs and then iron them to make... well, I'm not sure what the point of it was. A trivet? Trinket? Who knows, but I used to love it.

*Open-Mic night at the Comedy Club. David and Edwin were on the list to do stand up, but unfortunately too many people were before them and they didn't get to perform. ENCORE!!!

*Minnehaha Falls- This is a beautiful spot in Minneapolis!

*Great food and friends :) We had a wonderful time hanging out with David and my friends from college. Love you all!

Friday night at the fair!

Last night we decided to have some adventures at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair. My only experience with state fairs has been the Texas State Fair. The Texas State Fair has your traditional state fair food fare, a car show, and a performer. I had many a good time in college at the state fair, gorging myself with fried foods in hopes that I wouldn't need to be carried out in a stretcher. My hopes were high since I read earlier in the day that Phil Vassar was performing at 7:30 pm and they were featuring New Zealand Meat Pies (turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and gravy in a flaky pie). I had no idea who Phil Vassar was but what the heck!

So our adventure began at 8:45 pm. We had already eaten dinner at Tacos Juanita with Chelsea, Tim, Greg and myself, so only a handful in our party (Chelsea and Tim) were on a mission to find fried goodness. We first checked out the animals. I had never seen a cow that close before and was happy to scratch that one off the bucket list. When we walked into the goat pen, something got us thinking that maybe they'd just finished having a goat fashion show (see pictures below).

We think this was their Spring Collection.

After that I got on a ride called the "Firebolt". It spun me around and around and got increasingly faster as it did so. This was not good considering the fact that I had a pretty big mexican dinner (at Tacos Juanita) 15 minutes before getting on this ride. Alas, I did not puke but could not walk a straight line for about 10 minutes.

We then made our first fried food stop. Chelsea got a corn dog (AND FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF IT!) which was very good. Tim passed on the fried food, but instead got a chocolate dipped cheesecake on a stick. It was very delicious.

The rest of our time we spent walking around, perusing through the exhibition of student work from schools in Chippewa Valley. They had some very impressive work to present and gave us ideas for our classrooms next year. We did a "fair" amount of people watching and before we knew it, it was 10:30 pm! We decided to call it a night, figuring our time at the fair was a success. Here are some more cool pictures of our time.

Saturday in Bean Town

We are safely back in Altoona! Our flights were on-time and uneventful and Tim picked us up from the Airport Shuttle last night. Edwin is watching the Germany/Spain game, so instead of watching that I'll fill you in on the rest of our time in Boston. (I have seen a lot of soccer in the past 2 weeks.)

Where did we leave off? On Saturday we took the Metro to Harvard. We had lunch at this great little hole in the wall Edwin found on urbanspoon.com (our best friend) called Veggie Planet. We had really great pizza (If you haven't picked up on it, Edwin looooves pizza.) After lunch we walked around the Harvard campus, which is beautiful (but kind of small).

Saturday night we went to a taco place called La Verdad Taqueria that is said to be "the best Mexican food in the U.S." by Bon Apetit. It was really delicious, and right by Fenway Park. There was a Red Sox game going on, and we could hear the crowd from where we were eating. It was pretty cool to see the atmosphere at Fenway around game time.

OK- I thought the recap of Saturday was done- but Edwin just reminded me of the best story ever. After eating at the taco place we walked back downtown and ended up at a bar/restaurant called Vapiano. "Walked" is generous. By the time we got there, I was practically crawling because my feet were so tired (I was, of course, wearing crappy sandals). I was a little crabby, so thankfully Edwin found Vapiano. We got 2 beers at the bar and sat on what looked like a U-shaped giant sectional couch. We were sitting in one corner of the couch. After a few minutes of being there, a large group of Asian men (plus one woman) came in. They got their drinks and decided to set up camp on the same sectional couch as us. Now, if we had been thoughtful, polite Americans we would've moved, since clearly they could've used our little corner to complete their circle of love. We chose not to move. So, we were kind of absorbed into this group of Asians who were not speaking English. After a while, more joined the party (again, clearly needing more space). It was pretty hilarious. They were having a great time, and so were we. When they toasted, we toasted. When they laughed, we laughed. We thought it was funny; they probably thought we were rude Americans. When we finally got up an hour or so later, they quickly moved into our territory- probably wondering what had taken us so long. Maybe you had to be there, but it was funny.

Hasta luego!

salsa cruise

On Friday night Edwin and I went on a Salsa cruise around the Boston Harbor. Edwin had seen it advertised somewhere, and it was a great idea. 25 bucks each bought us dinner, a 3 hour harbor cruise and some great music! Before we got on the boat, though, we had to brush up on our salsa moves. Turns out the salsa lesson was on the pier in front of a crowded outdoor restaurant. Awesome. Our teacher was a tall woman in a short dress who loooved the attention of passerby's. We had a good time, drew some amused looks, and learned the basics. When we got on the boat we had a great meal- including rice & beans, plantains and different kinds of meat. After eating, we put on our dancin' shoes and got to it.

The boat had 3 levels- the top level was low-key and meant for people who wanted a break from the dancing. The middle level was the salsa/Latin music level, and the lower level was like a club. We stayed in the middle. In between dances we took in the beautiful views of the Boston Harbor. I hadn't realized that the skyline was situated on the waterfront- it's gorgeous!

Our East Coast adventure is coming to a close (we're in the airport now)... but we still haven't finished documenting our stories from Boston! Stay tuned!

Boston!

We got to Boston on Thursday night after an uneventful (thank goodness) bus ride from NYC. Our first Boston dinner was at Durgin Park! This restaurant is becoming somewhat of a family tradition. Grandma and Grandpa Goessling ate there back in the day, Adam & Andrea ate there, and now we ate there too! It was delicious, although a bit pricey. (We would be later told by an older gentleman at a pub that the Yankee cut of Prime Rib- which I ate- used to be $ .99! It's gone up a bit since then, but it was delicious. Edwin had the salmon and says it was equally sublime.

Yes, that Prime Rib is the size of a small child. I did not finish it.

That's me on the left! Does it look the same Grandma?

On Friday, we did something I (Edwin) have been wanting to do since I turned 21: visit the Sam Adams brewery. I'm a huge fan of beer and being in the city that is home to Sam Adams, I couldn't resist. So, my trustworthy companion and I hopped on the metro and in 30 minutes we were in beer country. We were hungry and a little doubtful we would find good food, but alas, Sam Adams provided! Actually, it was more like ULA (pronounced oo-la) Cafe that provided. It's an indie restaurant (owned and operated by locals) with great coffee and awesome sandwiches. My sandwich had turkey, guacamole, and provelone cheese. Chel had this great hummus sandwich with a spinach soup and topped it off with an Italian soda. ON TO THE BREWERY. I suddenly felt like Charlie when he first set foot on the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. The tour was awesome, we learned about hops, yeast and the good stuff that goes into Sam Adams beer and we ended the tour with FREE BEER!! We tasted 3 types of beer: the original Sam Adams lager, the Summer Ale (Chel's favorite next to Honey Weiss), and an IPA (a stronger beer but still delicious). We left the brewery thirsty for more Sam Adams beer... at least I left a little more thirsty. There was a trolley that took people to Doyle's, a famous pub featured in the movie "Mystic River". At Doyle's I had a Sam Adams that is only made for Boston and only consumed in Boston. We also got free Sam Adams beer glasses and best of all we made friends. I met this older gentleman who used to teach high school English. I forgot his name but we had a great time chatting about his life, Boston, great places to eat, and Sam Adams beer. Turns out (his wife told Chelsea) he's a small shareholder in the Sam Adams company, has a chair at Doyle's with his name on it, and was at the bar when the CEO of Sam Adams tried to pitch his beer for the first time (he succeeded).

Friday was a great day. I hope this isn't the last brewery I visit, especially since the Leinenkugel's brewery is in Wisconsin where we will spend the rest of our summer (I'm a big fan of Sunset Wheat). We had a good time at the brewery and later on had an amazing evening on the water... stay tuned for those details.

Circle Line Tour

On our last day in New York, we took a Circle Line tour around Manhattan. Lilian had the day off and came with! It was really cool and we highly recommend it! We got to see all the boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx) and parts of Manhattan that you don't see on the typical tourist trip! Here are the highlights: