Friday, April 23, 2010

I am enlisting my good friend Doug tonight to attend a Wine and Dessert event at Harvard. Anytime, I need a male companion to come along to formal events I invite him. He's funny and not afraid to speak what's on his mind, plus he doesn't mind if I tell him to wear something that looks good with my outfit. Here's pictures from the last event we went to together back in December.


Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A week from today, I'm going to be in Peru

I'm heading to Peru with my best friend Katie. Here's a clip of Anthony Bourdain in Peru.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Wine Riot

I took these photos of a lecture on sparkling red wines from a French sommelier.




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Friday, April 16, 2010

Washington D.C.


Having been to D.C. at least a couple of times, I knew that there was no better welcome mat to that glorious mix of museums, cultures, and politics than touring around with my friend Mehrun. I wanted to arrive by Saturday, so I found the cheapest tickets to Baltimore and took the train up.

The sundresses and rental camera were packed, along with a Malcolm Gladwell book, some copy editing homework, and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It wasn’t until I arrived at Union Station to start my D.C experience that I realized I had forgotten one necessary element of being in a new city: directions.

After a short delay to call to get directions, I made my way to the metro, to the National Mall, and up the marble steps of the Library of Congress. Thirty minutes later and I was looking up at the rococo gold designs with Mehrun. This library houses everything from a map of overwhelming size from 1602 to archived tweets. We also viewed an exhibit on Afghan children's letters to U.S politicians and wondered the second floor looking up at the neoclassical paintings.

On to the metro again, to the Cherry Blossom Festival held near Dupont Circle. We mostly stayed at the middle, in the sake garden, taking in the crowd of manga-dressed teenagers to white women wearing kimonos under a cloudless sky. Surrounded on two sides by stages, we watched Japanese pop bands parade around singing in super high-pitched voices. Then we dug into our well-earned snack food of wasabi peas and ate ice cream filled mochi, which always seems to taste better outdoors.

From Dupont circle, our journey continued south along the National Mall to the shady side of the Washington monument, where we found a grassy patch to have some wine and meet up with friends. Hal, is a professor of history and went to school with Meh and Heather works at the Brookings Institute with him. Everyone seemed to savor this leisurely spring activity of drinking and eating at the park. That is, until the wind picked up and forced us to relocate.

We ended the day on Heather's rooftop where we ordered pizza and met some of her neighbors smoking hookahs and enjoying the view. It was a good day in D.C. with perfect weather to match.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Restaurant Week

Boston's restaurant week gave me a chance to try upscale dining in Boston and take photographs of my food without feeling like a dork.






Lottery League in Cleveland

I was in Cleveland a week too early. Damn.

My friend Ed who plays in a well-known Cleveland band came up with the idea that it would be fun to switch his bandmates for a few other local musicians. His idea grew into what is now known as the lottery league.

This could only happen in a city full of talented musicians who are open to playing along with strangers. The way it works is that all the musicians gathered and randomly chose names out of a hat in order to start a band and perform a ten minute set. Everyone who labels themselves as a musician gets a chance to play. The range of musical talent is as wide as a kid who plays the clarinet in his high school class to the guy whose been playing guitar for twenty years.

The event is coming around again for their second showcase happening this weekend. Although there wasn't much press about it when the first lottery league event debuted two years ago now it's making a stir. Here's a link to an article.