News!

I know I have been M.I.A., and it's not because of a lack of things to blog about. I've just been sooooo busy these past few weeks.

I went to Berlin...



And I went to Copenhagen...



Oh and Chris and I also bought a house!



So yeah, lots of things happened :) I'll write more about all of this when I'm not so freaking tired. I have a bit of knitting to share too (no FOs though).

I ♥ NY

I am back from New York! I've actually been back since Tuesday night, I just haven't had the time to blog. I'll also mention that I haven't knit a stitch in more than a week! OMG! Crazy. I should be getting back into it tonight since we're planning on renting a movie so I'll pick my sock back up. No worries! I had brought yarn in New York, but I didn't touch it the whole time I was there.

Ok, so I'm sure you're all dying to know about the trip, right? It was A LOT of fun! I love New York! It's a great city and I definitely plan on going back. We left early Friday morning and we were at Newark Airport quite early (I think around 9). We also got very lucky because our room was ready when we got to the hotel.

Speaking of which, if any of you plan on going to NYC, I could not recommend our hotel more. Its name is pretty straight forward: The Hotel at Times Square. It's part of the Apple Core Hotels mini-chain. The price is right (we paid 150$ a night), the rooms are nice (though not luxurious, but we didn't care). The free breakfast was good. There was free internet as well as a gym (that I did not use). And it was a 5 minutes walk to Times Square! The location was excellent. I'd definitely stay there again!

The first thing I noticed when we got out of Penn station? The yellow cabs of course! They were everywhere and I really felt like I was indeed in New York!



After we found our hotel and took a shower, we went to Central Park. I loved it, it's so huge and beautiful!





I really wanted to find Strawberry field to see the John Lennon memorial.





We had lunch in a diner and I ordered a shrimp roll. It was huge! But very good.



I think we stayed in Central Park for most of the afternoon. In the evening, we went for a walk and we saw the famous Flat iron building.



Then we went to the Empire State Building and went up. It was great to see all the lights from up there (I don't have any good pics though).

On Saturday, we took the subway. We did ok, but their subway is more confusing than ours, that's for sure. We wanted to go to Canal Street but we somehow ended up in Brooklyn. Oops!



We got back and found the right station. We walked for a while and saw city hall. Then we sat near a fountain and Chris had fun taking pictures of a bird (he likes taking bird pics, go figure).





And I had fun taking weird fountain pics.



Then we walked on the Brooklyn Bridge, which was very cool. We only walked half of it though, and then we decided to get back.



After that, we saw a church where there was a memorial for the victims of 9/11, and then we went to Ground Zero.

We walked by the river and saw the Statue of Liberty. That's the closest we got though. We didn't really feel like going so we just looked at it from afar.



Then, Chris really wanted to go to Coney Island, so we took the metro and went. It was a loooong ride, but we had so much fun there it was totally worth it!





We saw a freaky sideshow with flame eaters, contorsionists and all that jazz. It was fun.



Then we went on the scariest rollercoaster ever. It was old and just scary. I sort of enjoyed it but I screamed a lot.


(It doesn't look scary? Trust me, it was.)

We were so exhausted that night we actually got back to our room pretty early, though we did see Times Square at night and it was something!



We spent a good part of Sunday at the American Museum of Natural History where we saw DINOSAURS! Or dinosaur skeletons anyways. Very impressive. We also saw a meteorite and lots of gems and precious stones.




Ooooh shiny!

That evening we went to a comedy club called Ha! where I drank champagne (hey, why not?) and laughed a lot.

Monday was the best day ever. In the morning, we went to see the UN, and then we walked on 5th avenue and saw the Mac Store as well as FAO Schwarz! I got to make my childhood dream come true by playing on the big piano!



Then I went to the Harry Potter section where I couldn't resist trying on the Sorting Hat.



In the afternoon, we went to wait in line because we had tickets to see THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART! I was so excited! I love Jon Stewart.





We waited for a long time. Think three hours. I had brought things to read and music, but Chris and I just spent most of the time chatting. Even though we were one of the first in line, we didn't get in first because they also had a VIP line (that was apparently for people who hadn't managed to get in the day before).

When we finally got in, I was pretty happy with our seats. We were on the side, but very close to Jon's desk and could see very well because there were no cameras in front of us (except during the interview with the guest). I was hoping John Oliver would be the correspondant that day, but he wasn't there. Wyatt Cenac was though and he was very funny.

I was very impressed with Jon Stewart. He was super nice and answered people's questions before the show. He was very professional during the taping, they did the whole thing in one take! The guest was Sarah Fisher, a race car driver. I didn't know her.

Stewart also did a toss with Stephen Colbert at the end of the show, which was great! He chatted with him a bit during commercial and then they did their thing and it was very funny. We just loved that whole day!



Tuesday was our last day and the weather was gorgeous so we went to Central Park again and spent the day in the sun.

Then we went on 5th avenue and we saw the Rockefeller Center.



After that we had about 2 hours to spare before we had to leave for the airport and we noticed TGI Friday had 3$ margaritas so we went in there. And we got carded! Woohoo!

I was very sad to come back. It all went by so quickly. We will go back for sure!

Food and planes

Last week, the weather was very blah. Rainy and cold and all. So it made me want to eat soup.

I had seen a yummy looking lentil soup recipe on a blog, and I decided to try it. OMG. Delicious. I loved it so much I ate it for lunch and brought the leftovers at work that same night. I definitely recommend it and it's so easy to make too. You can find it here.

Also, I have news:



I'm going to New York, baby! I've actually never been before, can you believe it? I've almost been a couple of times, but something always came up. This year, it looks like it's going to happen.

We're going in May and we'll only be there for five days. We found a place to stay that looks nice (and it's close to Times Square). I seriously can't wait.

Oh and we have tickets to a taping of the Daily Show!!! Seeing as I'd like to have Jon Stewart's babies, you can guess I'm excited! Of course, having tickets doesn't mean you'll actually get in, but we'll get there early and hope for the best.

Since we won't have that much time, I'm not planning on going yarn shopping, but if there happens to be a yarn store close to where we're at, I'll make sure to go in. So if any of you can recommend good LYS in NYC, let me know!

Guess who's back!

Honey, I'm hooome!

After three weeks of pure bliss in Europe, I got home on Sunday and it looks like I brought back quite a souvenir: a huge cold! I haven't felt that sick in a while, though it's a little better today (which is a good thing since I'm going back to work).

Fortunately, I felt fantastic during the whole trip. I had a great time, drank good wine and met nice people. We first went to Rome.



I loved seeing the city and I'm glad I did, but it's definitely not a city where I could live permanently. I found it a little bit too chaotic. I loved the Vatican too (the Sistine Chapelle is definitely breathtaking).

We really wanted to see Pompei, so we took a long daytrip that was totally worth it.



I couldn't believe how HUGE Pompei was, even though I had read about it a lot. Very impressive.

Then we went to Florence, but we took advantage of our rail pass and stopped in Pisa first.



No matter how many time you've seen the leaning tower in pictures, you will still be impressed when you see the real thing. I loved it.

I also LOVED Florence. Much calmer than Rome. Our hostel was great and served fantastic free breakfast, had free walking tours with a great guide and also sold good wine for only 5 euros a bottle. The city itself is beautiful.



And it has the BEST gelato!



After Florence, we went to Venice, but we could only stay for a day, due to an error in planning on our part. The city was beautiful, as expected.



We also took a boat to Burano, a little island that is actually part of Venice but you have to take a 40 minutes vaporetto (boat public transportation) ride to get there. It was so cute! All the houses are very brightly coloured and it's just a very peaceful place.





We came back to Venice at sunset.



We left Venice and Italy to go to Nice, in France.



Our goal was to just rest and spend our days on the beaches there, which we did in part, but I really disliked the pebble beaches. I need sand! We also spent a day in Monaco (30 min. bus ride) and it really is a place filled with tourists and rich people. You wouldn't believe how many fabulous cars and designer clothes we've seen there! But my favourite part of the day was the visit to the Oceanic museum, where we found Nemo.



Nice was our only stop in France, and we left for Barcelona, Spain, after a few days. I totally fell in love with Barcelona (I wish I could live there!). We had a lot of fun. We were very impressed with the Segrada Familia church.





We went to the beach again (yay, sand!).



We went to Park Guell.



And, finally, we took a Spanish cooking class where we learnt how to make sangria, tapas and paella! Yummy!



As you can see, I loved my trip! And as for knitting, well... I actually forgot my scarf at home!!! I couldn't believe it when I realized it. I didn't have much time to miss knitting though, except during the long train rides. But I was happy to pick up my scarf when I got home. I had never spent three whole weeks without knitting a stitch before since I first started knitting!

I'm on a diet!

I got the last skein of sock yarn from the Lotus Knits punk rock sock club!



It's inspired by the Green Day album Dookie. I LOVE IT! It even comes with a little Dookie stitch marker. Cute. The picture doesn't do it justice, let me tell you.

Now that I'm not waiting for any more sock yarn, I guess I can officially begin my little sock yarn diet. When I signed up for the sock club, I told myself I wouldn't buy any more sock yarn until I've knit at least five pairs. Well I've knit one so far, so I have four more to go. I guess it's not really a diet since I only have 4 skeins to lose! ;) But I'm such a slow knitter that it could take a while until I'm done with them.

I'm still working on the SOS08 socks. I've been playing with the pattern a bit so I could knit it cuff down, with my 2.25 mm needles (my needles of choice for socks). I think I finally found a way to make it work and I'm now at the heel. I forgot to take a WIP pic though.

As you can probably guess, I haven't been knitting much. All I think about right now is my trip. I even have a little countdown widget on my desktop. As I'm writing this, I still have 35 days, 5 hours, 4 minutes and 41 seconds until my plane takes off ;)

I have seen the IK Fall preview and I gotta say I'm a little disappointed. There aren't that many projects that I like, and I miss all the Montreal designers! But I like the Knotty or Knice socks, the Fresco Fair isle mittens and I LOVE the Zigzag beanie.

Is anyone entering the Ravelry knitolympics? I'm thinking about it, I'm just not sure which event I want to try!

I dream of Europe...

I know I've been m.i.a. lately. I'm just not knitting much. Not because I don't enjoy it anymore, I just don't feel the need to knit every day. Summer will do that to you (at least it does to me). I want to cast on for a new pair of socks but I want to wait for Summer of Socks so in the meantime, I've been working on the Cardigan for Merry, but I haven't made enough progress to warrant a pic.

Work as been keeping me very very busy. Many coworkers are on vacation, which means a lot more hours for me. I'm not complaining, I like the money and I like my job.



What's been on my mind the most, though, is the trip that Chris and I are planning. We bought our plane tickets last week! I am very excited. We are leaving in September for 3 weeks and we're going to Italy, France (and Monaco) and Spain. We plan on visiting Rome, Florence, Venice, Nice, Monaco and Barcelona. We also want to add another city in the south of France, we just haven't decided which one yet.

Expect some yarn goodness in my next post, I will probably receive the June shipment of the Lotus Knits sock club soon!