I recently got back from Portugal, where I went for spring break. We spent a couple of days in Lisbon then rented a car and visited some smaller towns (Sintra, Cascais, Setúbal, Tomar, Coimbra), and were in Porto the rest of the time.
Palácio da Pena in Sintra
As for the food, Portuguese cuisine is known for bacalhau = salted cod. I was salted cod-ed out by the second day. I also learned the hard way to not order the açorda = mushy bread.
On a brighter note, we went on a hike in Peneda-Gerês National Park which was beautiful. The person at the tourism office recommended that we go on this "moderate" 10km (6mi) trail, the Trilho dos Currais. It turned out to also have a 3000ft elevation gain on rugged terrain. Got to the top and rewarded myself with a pack of Haribo gummy bears, canceling out whatever number of calories I might have burned.
Before Portugal, I unexpectedly had to go to Hong Kong for a week. I had to fly back from Hong Kong to Vancouver to New York to Boston then to Madrid to Lisbon all in 40 hours. The tally of airports that I have flown/will fly to/from/through in 2010, up until September:
HKG-JFK-BOS-JFK-HKG-YVR-JFK-BOS-MAD-LIS-LHR-BOS-JFK-YVR-JFK-BOS-JFK-YVR-JFK-BOS-JFK-YYZ-GLA-OSL-BER-HKGA lot for me, considering what I do doesn't involve much (or any) traveling. The lesson from this list clearly is to live in a major city with direct flights going to it.
On the knitting front, I'm currently working on a pair of socks (pattern: Rockyview Socks) for my grandma. She wanted something green so I got BMFA sock yarn in a colorway called County Clare (which I would love to visit one day). The yarn is self-striping, and this particular skein curiously is giving me radioactive green stripes.
Also finally blocked a shawl (pattern: Dane Shaw) that I had finished weeks ago. I knitted this in Malabrigo Sock in the Archangel colorway, the yarn is soft and the colors are gorgeous.
For now I'm back at school in Boston, with only a month to go before my final set of exams (ever! not counting the bar exam) so must buckle down. I'll be going on a hike in Mount Monadnock State Park in New Hampshire next week, maybe after that I'll be able to post some Quatchi-in-the-woods pics :)
In my quest to identify plausible and interesting sounding hobbies to put on my resume (interview season is coming up soon), I've re-stumbled upon knitting. In freshman year in college, my friends would sit in the lounge knitting while watching tv and all I could do was latch hook . . . in my defense I managed to make a pretty cute Mei Mei rug which looked exactly like this one I found on some dude's flickr. In sophomore year I figured I should learn for real, and got my friend to teach me. Sporadically over the following year I made scarves for each of my family members, which to the best of my knowledge they never used. The whole thing got kind of pointless, so I stopped.
One day this summer in Barnes and Noble I came across a table full of arts and crafts books. Some were on really cool crafts such as book making or stuffed animal making, but I wouldn't even know where to get the materials for those, so I decided to just pick up knitting again. This time I was going to make something for myself, and settled on hobo gloves (all the better for taking notes in class in the winter!) I taught myself how to knit in the round, found this pattern online, and made my first trial mitten. Needless to say there are dropped stitches all over the place and the proportions are kind of funny. I won't be embroidering it but here's the idea:
Maybe I won't be dying my own yarn any time soon, but being able to knit more than just unembellished scarves would give me more to talk about in the interviews should it come up =P I've also been learning how to knit different patterns. It's amazing how much you can do with just a couple of different stitches. Also, I've been searching for knitting blogs, and I've noticed that most of these bloggers not only knit but also bake cupcakes and have at least one cat. I have tried to cultivate both of those hobbies (I make a decent apple pie) plus I like Mei Mei so maybe one day I can be a bona fide blogger too!
