Saturday, 28 July 2012

moose, meese, mooses?

went to a moose seminar at the mt. holly library the other night. it was completely spontaneous after swimming in the lake (if i hadn't mentioned before, lisa is obessed w/ all things moose). we were thinking we (lisa, betsy and i) would be the only ones at the seminar but the whole room was packed and people were even standing up to listen.

the guy was great (i think he worked for the fishing and hunting governmental something or other...we got in a little late and missed the intro). the presentation was a bit too long (1.5 hrs before a nice lady gave him a gentle nudge to speed it up) but moose are pretty freaking awesome. some highlight facts:
- can dive up to 18 ft
- 6 to 6.5 ft in height
- their belly is 36" off the floor (better adapted than deer to high snow fall)
- 1 moose eats what 3.5 deer would eat
- typically healthy moose will have twins every other year
- new offspring weigh between 25-35 lbs
- can track age of moose by teeth (like rings of a tree)

the things i learn here, too bad there's no moose in md! a little over a month until i'm back.

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

cape cod!

it's my 2nd to last week here! crazy how fast everything is going. got to teach a lower impact cardioboxing class yesterday as the boss was out sick and that went pretty well. i'm getting better at gauging people and thinking on my feet so now i'm excited to get back to teaching at speed back at school. but anyway, the weekend was wonderful, wish it were longer but then it wouldn't be quite the same.

friday afternoon started off the relaxing weekend- we took the women to plymouth state park and while they kayaked betsy, kate and i got to lounge on the beach and get tan (kate was of course nice enough to point out that she was getting paid to sun...). we left for MA around 5 and got to linda's brother's house around 10 to have a nice mojito and call it a night b/c we had some serious biking to do.
cape cod has a long freaking trail (44 miles round trip) and we took the bikes out saturday morning after breakfast. we started around 10:30 and finished around 2. there were some gorgeous parts of the bike (around the ponds and the cranberry fields would be awesome during harvesting time) but a lot of it was trees on the side so it got a bit repetitive, but it was a wonderful way to spend a perfect day out in the sun.
after the bike ride we were pooped and managed to have dinner at linda's brother's house and then we called it a night (nothing like biking 44 miles to get your appetite going- we killed chips and salsa, guac, brie and crackers all before the actual dinner- grilled swordfish is amazing!). sunday was breakfast again at jack's outback II (their popovers are pretty freaking unbelievable) and spent the first half of the day on corporation beach. the water was pretty seaweedy but i got to play with a hermit crab. as much as i like the idea of the beach, i can't handle an entire day just laying on a towel. we left MA around 2 and headed to RI to have dinner w/ betsy's grandmother and her husband and a couple cousins. her family is so cute and her grandmother and stepgrandfather were adorable together. 


oh, and it was a week of being asian so the new joke at work is for me to respond with "is it b/c i'm asian?" 
one of the participants last week was sort of eyeing me all day but not approaching me, but then she finally did and started talking to me about her achy shoulder and whether or not it would be okay to get a massage and i'm looking at her like she's crazy and i said "maybe you should ask one of the fitness staff about your muscle before asking the intern." and she was like "aren't you the masseuse? they said her name was tamaki." when i told her the masseuse was another asian lady she was like "oh, i knew the lady was asian so i figured that was you. you must get this all the time from dumb americans."  oy vey...


oh, and i want to live in a lighthouse:)

Thursday, 19 July 2012

week wrap up!

i can't believe it's been so long since i posted! the fam was here this past weekend and since the majority of those reading this are fam, i'll just say it was lots of fun and lots of food.


some randomness that is ludlow (or vermont maybe)
- happy hour is illegal is vermont
- sales tax is 9% (chicago is higher at 10%)

 - hasselhoff is very popular at cumberland farms (the major gas station chain in vermont)
mr darcy's just recently opened in ludlow by sam's steakhouse so lisa and i went to try it out. i wasn't super impressed with the food but it wasn't bad. the drinks are cheaper than downtown grocery (but i think lower shelf liquor) and the bartendar, mark, was very friendly. i can't believe tmrw is already thursday. 2 more weeks after this and cape cod is this weekend!

Monday, 9 July 2012

pies and canoes

sundays are the best:D helped lisa move her stuff this morning to the condo above our building as more participants are coming with the summer months. after that she, and old friend from americorps and i went to the vermont apple pie company (website under construction) to grab brunch and pie to go. the place is super cute and i want to try to get a picture of it soon. it's run entirely by a family (so service can be very slow...) but the food is good (next time i would go for over easy instead of sunny side up eggs. the home fries are bomb and the fresh whipped cream is delish!). 
and of course there's the pie. we got ours all to go. lisa and i shared our pies (she got peach i got blueberry) with the kitchen staff (sharing is caring and all the jazz, it also saves you a lot of calories w/o feeling ripped off). the pie was packed to the brim w/ blueberries. i wish it was baked fresh but that would probably be impossible and i wish there was less crust, but it was super good. i kind of want to try their chocolate chip pie. 


lisa and i went out to bridgewater lake where the sous chef's family runs a large camp and where we borrowed one of their canoes and took it out to get some sun. canoeing is a lot more difficult than i remember, but it was a lot of fun. okay, i'm just so tired and this will be the first time this week i will fall asleep on one day and wake up on another. i need to calm these crazy nights out. haha, vermont is doing crazy things to me (but i almost don't want to leave). g'nite!

Thursday, 5 July 2012

may the fourth be w/ you

one of the breakfast cooks always puts up funny sayings w/ the chalk board food board and "may the fourth be with you" was for the 4th of july. 
some of the participants w/ sparklers before the main event
yesterday was a fun day at work- we had fun games for the women- 3 legged race, water balloon toss and staff vs. participant beach ball volleyball (staff 21: participants 20, oh yeahhhh. hahaha). our baked dessert got moved to wed night so they could make this black bean brownie, whipped cream with strawberries and blueberries topping thing that was amazing (i snuck into the kitchen during dinner time and had leftovers!).

ludlow has their own firework show, so we drove the women to the parking lot and got shuttled to the viewing area. for such a small town their fireworks are pretty awesome, especially when there were only maybe 300 people watching them. it started drizzling again which always seems to happen on the 4th no matter where i am. 

is it friday yet though???

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

cloudy with a chance of meatballs

and i mean a lot of meatballs. enough to feed over 35 women. mike, the sous chef was feeling wiped out from the bbq at the chef's house so i offered to dig my hands into the mix and make up the meatballs (i had gloves on! although they are so large that it looked like my fingers all got amputated in the process of making them). i used a scale to get the weight right for the first couple (each women got three 1.5ish ounce meatballs) and then was able to eyeball it for the rest.
this morning, kate, the fitness specialist, and intern coordinator, took us out to the long trail to test out a hike for the women on friday. it started out w/ a mini suspension bridge (too short in my opinion) but w/ a nice view down.
the water looked really low but we did have some rain last week. 
the long trail is part of the appalachian trail and we hiked up part of it and got this awesome overlook of rutland and beyond. unfortunately we kept hiking and could never figure out if it connected back around so we ended up hiking back down and around and then hiking another section which made the morning a long 3 hr hike, but it was pretty. i just hope my feet heal soon so i can actually walk and workout properly on them (esp as i teach kickboxing on thurs).


oh, and PA and i made a mini trip to sunoco to get contraband. bwhaha. it closes at 12 so now we know our hook-up. biggy iggy's ice cream cookie sandwiches are pretty excellent.


tmrw is 4th of july so we're doing fun games and different food. woot woot! i'm excited:D i'll update you guys on that soon. have a wonderful 4th!

Monday, 2 July 2012

bonjour!

spent the weekend in montreal w/ my roommie. we left at 5 on saturday morning and got to our hostel around 9 am and then didn't sleep again until we last night after a bbq and fireworks night (where i got to play bartendar and perfected the margarita)
we dropped our bags off at the hostel and then asked the front desk person where we should walk and he pointed straight south and told us to head to Old Town and the port (towards the st. lawrence river).
old town was really quaint- cobblestone ground, small little shops and pretty churches (notre dame church for instance) and fountains. very european feel. b/c montreal is a small island everything was a lot closer together than we thought so we walked everywhere.
from old town we went to the port and saw a cookie truck opened early in the morning so of course our first purchases (and she took american $!). i got the dark chocolate cookie and they are fabuloussssss. not very big but totally worth it. which is why, later that night we went back and got more. :) we grabbed a quick lunch and gelato in old town and then headed back up to our area for a smaller drink and window shopping (tequila taco on sherbrooke and st laurent has that dive bar look but the food is pretty good).
old town was pretty dead during the day but we headed back down after checking out the jazz festival downtown and that's when we saw the crowds. they were doing fireworks for canada day and there were crazy numbers of people everywhere and all the stores and restaurants were still open (i'm still living in ludlow time...). after the fireworks we headed back up to st laurent street where all the younger people go to drink and club and had a couple drinks at an irish pub. these two guys, one french canadian and one french started talking to us and got us drinks and then took us to a tequila lounge that was crazy packed (bars in montreal close at 3. and also, no right turns in the city!). 


after the bars closed we went back to their place and sat around and talked and by the time PA and i figured we should get some sleep the guys said we had to watch the sunrise at the park overlooking downtown.
this is plateau mont royal park and it has two overlooks where you can see the whole spread of the city. so after leaving ludlow at 5 in the morning we stayed up 24 hours later to see the sunrise in montreal. gorgeoussss. apparently a lot of kids will go up to watch the sunrise after prom. we didn't even need our hostel b/c we ended up checking out afterward so we could make the trek back into the US before we really did just hit the sack in montreal and never make it back home.
got lots of recommendations to try bagels in montreal at this specific place (freemont bagels) but we weren't impressed b/c we were munchy from the alcohol and wanted fluffy big bagels but these were more like 2 day old bagels. so really, i'll have my big american bagel next time:)

we got back to ludlow really early (we felt a bit silly coming back so early but we actually spent 2 days in montreal, just condensed in one 24 hour period). but we finally took showers and then headed out to the gm's chef's house and had a bbq and shooting off fireworks. i love fireworks and it's pretty sweet that you can buy/set off big fireworks in vt. i mastered the blended margarita (2:1 ratio of tequila to mix). but since i can never handle more than one night of alcohol i was the driver (which was good since 5 people finished off 4 bottles of tequila!). 

looking foward to 4th of july on wednesday, the fireworks on the mountain are apparently supposed to be awesome.