Episode 53: July – December 2010
Highlights:
• Neal’s golf trip to Chicago;
• 4th of July celebrations;
• Summer adventures in Michigan;
• Summer vacation in Denmark with Carol;
• Shakespeare Film Festival and Labor Day weekend in Toronto;
• Art Prize in Grand Rapids;
• Thanksgiving with Neal’s parents in South Carolina and Georgia;
• Christmas and New Years in Australia.
Editor’s Note: For those of you who are loyal readers and have missed your fix of the Shorg blog, worry no more! We have been a little behind in our blog writing, so, to get caught up, we present this special six-month-in-one episode.
We start this blog edition with a catch up from the last one. In episode 52, we forgot to mention one important trip that Neal took in June. Neal caught up with a few of his business school friends for a golf weekend in Chicago. Besides being a great way to reconnect and have some fun with friends, the gang learned quite a lot: 1) when it rains in Chicago, it really does pour – and hails and brings 70 mile-per-hour winds as well; 2) bacon fat popcorn really is even better than it sounds; 3) Dave’s wife, Amy, made the right career change by going into cake design – seriously, go to her store – Amy Beck Cake Design – now; 4) if you like steak, there is no better place than Chicago to have one; 5) there’s nothing wrong with playing golf on a Superfund site (for our non U.S. readers, that’s a site that carried hazardous or toxic substances that the government decided to clean up) – in fact, it does wonders for your game. There are plenty of other learnings, I’m sure, but bottom line: Neal’s looking forward to the next reunion.
We started July with a long weekend for the Independence Day holiday. This year, we decided to enjoy the festivities at home and were glad we did. We watched some local fireworks over a nearby lake in Sanford, about 10 miles away from Midland, on the day before the holiday. On the holiday, Neal and I packed a picnic and took it to a park downtown for a prime view of the very impressive Midland fireworks. We made a night of it, playing cards and catching up with some friends until the spectacle began.
The fireworks were just one of many local adventures we enjoyed this summer. Neal got more interested in road cycling, so we went on a few group bike rides with friends, generally followed by a brunch or dinner somewhere. We found that biking is a great way to take in the natural beauty of Michigan. Neal and I both purchased road bikes late in the season – up to now we’ve been trying (not so successfully) to keep up on our mountain bikes – and we are looking forward to riding them this coming summer. After Neal bought his bike, he learned that another essential purchase, especially in Michigan, is a winter trainer which allows you to ride your bike indoors – an investment that Neal made and is putting to good use, so long as he has a movie to watch while he is cycling.
We headed to Flint a few times over the summer. We have heard plenty about Flint – usually not good things – and we were surprised to find some nice areas in the city. One of the more memorable trips was when we joined our friends, Stephanie and Luis, for dinner at a great tapas restaurant before heading to a local theater to see a traveling production of the Broadway musical, Spamalot, which is based on the comedy of Monty Python. The production was hilarious and we highly recommend it – that is, if you like Monty Python. Based on the demographics of the audience (mostly older people), we thought they might find some of the British humor offensive. While a few did, it seemed like the vast majority really enjoyed the production. The four of us definitely did.
For the rest of July, we pretty much stuck around in Michigan. Neal worked a lot on the company’s earnings. We had friends over for dinner. We went to a corn festival in the nearby town of Auburn. Stephanie and I went into northern Michigan for a weekend along the western coast of the state. As soon as Neal was done with earnings, though, we took our big summer vacation trip. For vacation this year, we flew to Denmark to visit my sister, Carol, who expatriated with her company, Vestas, earlier in the summer. She was only a few weeks into Denmark herself, and so we thought this was a great chance to learn about the country along with her. Carol was still living in a temporary apartment, and her things had not arrived yet from Australia, so we could not help her move in – which was our original plan – but instead we got to spend quality time with her as well as exploring Denmark.
We arrived in Copenhagen where Carol met us. We decided to spend the weekend in Copenhagen, since Carol lives in the town of Aarhus, which is a three-hour drive away. (Who would have thought Denmark was that big?!) Copenhagen is a great city, with a tremendous amount of history, and a population that is completely addicted to bike riding. There are bikes everywhere, and tourists are encouraged to rent bikes and explore the city that way. We were happy to rent some bikes and get around as the locals do. We got to see quite a few sights around the city’s neighborhoods…until the torrential rain arrived. Not long after we had started our weekend, the skies opened up to what ended up being the most rainfall Copenhagen has seen in over 70 years! We were absolutely drenched and quickly reverted to a wet weather program, which involved the purchase of umbrellas, followed by visiting the inside of quite a few bars, coffee shops, and stores. During one day in Copenhagen in between rains showers, we were having lunch outside along a large open square. Neal looked up from the table at the square and swore he saw a familiar face. To our utter surprise, we saw our good friends from Switzerland (and Finland now) – Jaana, Marike, Ulrike, and Dan Thanh – all of who were coincidentally having a girls weekend in Copenhagen! It was one of those it’s-a-small-world-after-all moments and was great to see them again.
Before heading to Carol’s town, we took a short drive into Sweden to visit the border town, Malmö, and have some lunch. We were told that the city looks just like someone would imagine a Swedish city to look like (not that we had ever thought about it): old and interesting architecture clearly influenced by the Viking era, large paved city squares boxed in by buildings and very ornate cornices and furnishings, which looked simple but effective. After we looked around, we headed back for the drive to Carol’s new hometown of Aarhus. Aarhus is the second largest town in Denmark, after Copenhagen, with a population of approximately 200,000 and home to a major university. It is a nice small city, centered on a canal that runs through it. Because of its size, Aarhus has a tremendous amount of culture, shopping, and tourist attractions, which gave us plenty to explore while Carol went to work during the day. Unfortunately, the weather we had in Copenhagen followed us for the rest of the trip, so it pretty much rained for our entire stay. We had some grand plans to take a train to the town of Skagen, but we canceled that due to the weather. We did manage to visit the nearby towns of Aalborg and Horsens to have a look around. The public transport made it easy to get around, and the cities were very tourist friendly. We were notably shocked at the cost of living in Denmark on all things from food to transportation. The social policies in the country are noteworthy (there were windmills everywhere) but this also comes at a significant cost to locals on taxes for automobiles and fuel which we learned as we test drove multiple cars with Carol while she was choosing which one to purchase.
After a week in Denmark, we bid farewell to Carol and made our way back to Michigan. Once back, we did not stay in one place for long. At the beginning of September, we had a long weekend for Labor Day, and we used that opportunity to hit the road, this time to Canada. One of the things that we have wanted to do since we moved to Michigan is attend the famous annual Shakespeare Film Festival in Stratford, Ontario, which is only about a three-hour drive away from us. Neal made that a reality this year with a surprise long weekend plan that included a show at the festival, followed by a couple of days in Toronto. He first arranged dinner at a great restaurant in Stratford called The Church (you can imagine what the building used to be), followed by tickets to see the play “Kiss me Kate.” We know what you are thinking – Kiss Me Kate is not a Shakespeare play – and you are right. The interesting thing about the festival is that it features original Shakespeare plays as well as plays that have some kind of relation to Shakespeare. In the case of Kiss Me Kate, the story revolves around a man and woman who are both actors in a Shakespeare play. The production was in an intimate theater, with very impressive acting and sets. If anyone is travelling through Ontario, Canada in August-September, we highly recommend you add this festival to your list of things to do.
After the play we drove about 30 minutes to London, Ontario where we stayed the night so we could get up and explore the next morning. London is a quaint town with Victorian buildings that make the town look like its namesake in the United Kingdom. The highlight of the city is Coventry Market, which is a bustling center for food and flower vendors and is a great place to pick up some unique gifts for people (or yourself), sit down for a coffee and brunch, and people watch for hours – which was exactly how we spent our morning before driving on to Toronto. In Toronto, Neal outdid himself with the planning. The best pick of the weekend was dinner at a restaurant called Colbourne Lane, which dabbles in the art of molecular gastronomy. Being the foodies we are, it was a highlight of the trip for sure. We enjoyed a leisurely dinner that spanned a few hours and was both entertaining and delicious. For the remainder of our time in Toronto, we enjoyed the nice weather and walked through most of the city to take plenty of photos.
Later in September, we were lucky to have a visitor from sunny California. My friend, Nat, flew to Michigan from San Diego to spend a very short weekend with us. We had a great time catching up with her and showing her around our neck of the woods. Unfortunately, Nat only had a weekend to spend with us, so no sooner had she arrived than it seemed she had to leave. Despite the short trip, it was wonderful to have her here in person and be able to look at each other and catch up versus our regular talks on the phone. Hopefully, we will see her again soon and give her a proper tour of the area.
Throughout the second-half of 2010, I had several work trips. The best one was probably my trip to Switzerland in September. Not only did I get a chance to see my dad and Julie and reconnect with all my friends there – Maria, Jen, Daphne – but my sister, Carol, managed to find a flight that brought her from Denmark. It was a great reunion all around!
October brought a few more adventures, but we stayed closer to home this month, as Neal was busy again with earnings preparations. One particularly memorable moment in the month was when Neal and I decided to spend the weekend in Grand Rapids to see the Art Prize competition. Art Prize is a huge open art competition that awards the world’s largest art prize: $250,000. The best part about it is that the public gets to decide who wins. For about two weeks, the city of Grand Rapids is absolutely covered with art, both outdoors and indoors. And the contest attracts some incredibly creative and impressive art. The winner of the 2010 competition was a huge (I mean huge – it was 30-feet, or about 10 meters, wide) pencil-drawn picture of a group of American cavalry officers in the 1920s. We had a great time seeing the art, and it is definitely on our list to be an annual event.
Other activities in October included going apple picking with Stephanie and Luis, taking pictures of Michigan’s amazing fall colors, and dressing up for Halloween – we went as Winnie the Pooh (me) and Tigger (Neal), complete with full head-to-toe costumes.
Because Neal spent much of October and early November at work, we decided to try extra hard to fit in some fun things in the rest of the month. In early November, we took another trip to Toronto. Once again, Neal had arranged a surprise for me. The opening of the musical, “Priscilla Queen of the Desert”, was in Toronto and Neal landed us tickets to the show. While Neal probably still does not understand my love affair with this movie, he was no doubt amused by how excited I was to see the show and sing all the songs. Before the show started, the curtain had a huge map of Australia on it – made me very proud to be Australian, and gave me fond memories of home. The musical was well worth the road trip and the cold weather – if you get the opportunity to see it, I highly recommend it!
For the long Thanksgiving weekend, we decided with Neal’s parents to take a vacation together. We first flew to Oklahoma to see Neal’s parents and grandparents for a couple of days. From there, we flew to Savannah, Georgia and then drove first to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Hilton Head Island is located just across the Georgia-South Carolina border and is famous as a summer getaway and a great place to play a round of golf. I had wanted to visit Hilton Head for a long time, and the island did not disappoint. In addition to white sand beaches, there is some great seafood there, which we made sure to enjoy. After a couple of days on the island, we did the quick drive (about an hour) to Savannah to spend a few more days there. Savannah is a great city, located on the Atlantic coast. It is well known for its architecture and historic buildings – and also for being the backdrop for the movie “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”, an excellent film that we rented and watched on the plane on the way over. The town has a very special place in US history and the city is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the US. Savannah has a lot of really pretty squares and parks, and we saw most of them by taking the hop on hop off bus tour of the historic old town. It was well worth the trip there, and we were glad to see it all with Neal’s parents.
With the arrival of December, the dreaded snow arrived, too. I guess it was bound to happen. The arrival of cold weather provided us with the perfect excuse to leave town. Having not visited Australia together in two years, this was our time to visit my home country. In mid-December, we made the long trip to Melbourne. We were greeted at the airport by quite the posse – my mom, dad, Julie, and my sister, Candace (Candy). After the welcome hugs and kisses, we headed to Williamstown for some lunch and to catch up with dad, Julie, and Candy. After lunch, we headed back to Candy’s house where we were joined by two wonderful visitors: Andrea, and her new, gorgeous baby girl, Olivia. We got in some good cuddle time with Olivia that afternoon and spent the rest of the day catching up. The following day, Candy hosted a birthday dinner at her house that was catered by a company specializing in vegan food. The food was delicious and a wonderful opportunity to catch up with my aunts, uncles, and some cousins that we likely would not have had a chance to see for the rest of the trip if it were not for that evening.
During our time in Melbourne, we caught up with friends, visited the South Melbourne Market (an old favorite hangout of mine), and spent as much time as possible with family and Andrea and her husband, Chris, and baby Olivia. We headed into Melbourne city with Mum and Candy to see the Myer Christmas windows and the Christmas decorations and choir at the Crown Casino – two institutions for this time of the year in Melbourne. Christmas itself was wonderful – Mum and her partner, Tony, hosted our regular Christmas Eve party at their place. It was nice to be home at such a festive time of year.
Straight after Christmas, we boarded a flight with Candy to the Gold Coast to spend a few more days with Dad and Julie. (One of the great Christmas presents we got from Candy was a “vacation within a vacation” to the area.) The Gold Coast is in the northeast part of Australia – just south of Brisbane – and is a beautiful part of Australia…typically. Unfortunately, this part of the world was hit with some terrible weather patterns at the time we were there. Although this was not the part of Australia subject to all the flooding (that was further north) they were suffering similar, although milder, weather patterns, and the rain did not let up during our stay. Rather than spend time at the beach (which was all torn up and brown from the mud being dug up with the rain) we enjoyed time with Candy, Dad, and Julie on the wet weather program – bowling, Time Zone (video games), movies, and all things indoor. Julie’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law (who live in the Gold Coast) were very gracious and hospitable during our time there – opening their homes to us and allowing us to be entertained with their pool table, Nintendo Wii, and cane toad explorations. Despite the weather, we really enjoyed ourselves.
Following the Gold Coast, we went back to Melbourne for another week where we spent most of our time relaxing with friends. We took the opportunity to take a day trip to Queenscliff, including a ferry trip from there to Sorrento, which gave a great perspective of Melbourne’s bay and the chance to explore two very beautiful coastal towns. On our last evening there, Candace hosted a New Years Eve party at her house which was a nice, relaxing way to celebrate the start of the New Year. And from there, we headed back to the U.S. the next day.
And that brings us to the end of 2010. Phew! With the New Year, we have made a resolution to not get so far behind in our blogs. Let us see if we can do it! Until the next posting, take care.
