Sometimes you just miss your dog.

 

 Hopefully I can get one of these in New York. 

New Schnork!

As many of you will know Ryan and I are moving to New York. Well, correction, Ryan has already moved to New York and has started working, and I am in still in Chicago for the next few months. I have been travelling out there every 3 weeks or so to initially find an apartment and then once we found one, to unpack and organise everything. Here are a few photos from our NY tours pre and post apartment hunting! 

Central Park

 

 

 Exploring the Streets!

 

 Pepperdews - yippee!

  South African choccies at Fairway - my life is complete!

After A LOT of hunting and two trips to New York we eventually found an apartment that we liked, could afford and actually wanted us! Because we are foreign we really struggled to find a leasing agent that would allow us to rent because we don't have an established credit history yet. After a lot of blood sweat and tears we found... Red Blinds! Ta Da!

 

So called for the lovely red blinds that the previous tenant left us.. But more on this later. The next thing was organising a bed. As you'll see in the following photo, our bed does not have a bed frame and is thus very low on the ground.

Thus our next mission was to find a frame, and frame we did find!

 

 In pieces..

 

We had already spent a pretty penny on our new bed so we didn't really want to spend hundreds of dollars on a frame. Luckily for us the sales guy at Sleepy's offered us the showroom frame that had recently been retired and was in pieces in their back room. Well you know, beggars can't be choosers.

 So we carried each piece home bit by bit and assembled it with a borrowed screwdriver from the concierge in our lobby! Our tool kit was still in the boxes that has yet to be delivered so we had to improvise!

 

Ta da!! 

 

 It looks a little more grown-up, less frat style with nice sheets and pillows.

Here is the video of the apartment pre-furniture. I am off to New York next weekend if Hurricane Irene allows so I'll do an updated apartment tour then. For the moment here is the space. Plus I must tell you that I am very excited that I am learning how to edit movies so I can cut out the bloopers. It's still very rough around the edges but please appreciate the transitions! Enjoy! 

Something a little different! La Gelatina Encapsulada

So every now and again I receive gifts from patients. It's usually food in the form of chocolate or lunch or sweets. I have learned about tamales, burritos, Puerto Rican rice and even unique American easter eggs or chocolates that they eat around then, but this week I definitely received my most fascinating food yet! La Gelatina Encapsulada directly translates as encapsulated gelatine or jelly or jello, and is basically decorative, edible, amazing-looking flowers set into a jelly mold or cake. 

 

Here is the first cake made for a colleague of mine and our therapy department:

 Here is the second cake that I took home.

Here Fleur and I are experimenting and deciding what this thing actually tastes like! 

Cross-section!

So fascinated where we by this cake-jelly that I researched how it's made. I originally thought that the flowers were in a mold submersed into jelly but in hindsight I realise that would have been too complicated with such a fragile material. Here is how it is actually made: 

I also realised how clever they are to apply the white "milk" jelly on the bottom - it covers up the holes made by the needle and syringe when the cake is turned over. Very smart!

Part 2.2 Wine Country

And, finally we saved the best for last. Napa. Sonoma. Calistoga. Reviewing the photos I would be hard pressed to believe that we are actually in Napa Valley, but for the road signs - looks suspiciously like the Cape to me.

 

 De Zalze, anyone?

 

I don't know how it happened but I am on a bike again! Supposedly the best way to explore the region is by bike. Not when it's 35C! But I thought I would hang with the boys and earn my meals by conquering the beastly hills. 

The region is famous for it's natural springs. Every 45 mins or so the 'Ol Faithful geyser spurts a scalding hot fountain heated by the earth's core. Scientists have been watching this natural seisomograph for early signs of earthquakes. Unfortunately a change in activity usually occurs after the earthquake but never the less the frequency of eruptions is affected by fault line activity.

 

 I particularly love this photograph. Caitlin is perfectly positioned.. And.. whoosh!!

Alongside the geyser (pronounced "guy-ser") there are some particularly interesting characters. The first lot are a herd of goats that faint when frightened! How crazy is that?! There are notice boards showing goats randomly lying on the ground, feet in the air, after getting a fright. Fortunately for us we had a group of guys who decided to take on the goats and would hide away from the fence and in a coordinated effort similar to an American football tackle, rush up to the goats roaring like lions. It was too funny! It only worked after a few attempts - a goat actually fainting - but for a while I thought the joke was on us to try and get people to do anything to make idiots of themselves.

 Look how cute?!

If any of you have seen the movie, Napolean Dynamite, you will know about the llama named Tina (who wouldn't eat her ham). As C remarked, she resembled a very overgrown carpet, and although the picture doesn't do her justice as the fence is in the way, for me the best were her bug's bunny yellow teeth!

Alright, so all throughout our trip we stayed at really nice places. We had a hodge-podge of the country inn, bed and breakfast, self-catering and rural cottage. In the next set of shots you'll see we found yet another hot tub (oh no!) and Caitlin and I got the royal mud treatment from some volcanic ash. 

A set of trees in Calistoga with signs posted below asking the public to write down certain things on the orange tags and hang them on the tree. The subject matter included "dreams for your kids", "what I wish someone had told me 20 years ago", and "what it means to love" etc. Sweet.

 When you put too many Grobbelaars in one place, this is generally what happens.

 Ah that's better.

 So C and I had to try out the famous mud bath. This is us prior to bath where you have the option to get mud in your bikini or just go full throttle and be one with the ash. We don't have a picture in the mud tubs because we thought the camera would probably have been ruined.

 This is what it would have looked like... give or take. 

There was so much more of Napa and Sonoma that we didn't get a chance to see. We can't wait to go back. July was a little hot and steamy so I think May or September would be ideal. October is harvest time so I am sure absolutely beautiful with the changing autumn colours and the grape picking but also very pricey as the world and his wife want to squish grapes with their toes. Hopefully you have been able to follow this little series easily enough. I apologise for it being all over the place at times but that is what spontaneity is all about. Fingers crossed that the Grobbelaars make the transatlantic trip again, maybe for some fun in the snow this time? Keep watching.