Day 2 Thailand

While Nikki went off to work yesterday, I took a trip up a nearby mountain to do some mountain biking. It was one of the more intense things I've done in a while and a total blast! I jumped in the back of truck with bikes on the top and careened up to the top of the mountain on tiny roads at high speed along with a couple other tourists. A Norwegian kid named Thomas (who starts work on north sea oil rigs next year) and I headed off with a local Thai man named Jay (fresh off a downhill biking win last weekend) to tackle some of the more difficult single tracks from the top of the mountain. Of course the truck couldn't get to the very top, so Thomas, Jay and I had a bit of an uphill grind to get to the best sections. Keep in mind too that these are full suspension monster bikes (not that I'm complaining). Now, I'm a pretty competitive person, especially when it comes to endurance-related activities. While Jay cruised up the hill effortlessly, I tried to keep within striking range and Thomas took it easy. End result - I got my butt totally kicked and broke my chain just trying to maintain contact. Yup, I was that idiot that threw his chain in the middle of nowhere. No problem though, Jay was all over it and gave me an A for effort.

Ok, so we got to the top dripping sweat, dirt, and grease and totally exhausted, but were rewarded with a spectacular misty view of the rainforest and a local Hmong village from the mountaintop. That's where the real fun began. We charged off with velocity from the peak into, I'm not joking, an approximately 75 degree pitch. I think I was over the handlebars approximately 5 minutes into the ride. So, lesson learned again, I can't keep up with Jay. No problem though, we've got full armor on (shins, knees, arms, elbows, chest, etc) and the ground is soft and muddy. From then on it was steep, narrow trails with plenty of fun drops. It was everything I could do to keep balanced and I felt pretty good about only crashing 4-5 times (Thomas fared about as well, though he did fly off the trail and hit a tree after landing a nice jump). At times the trail would be washed out or have been wiped out by a tree, at which point we engaged in some creative trailblazing. Pushing a bike through the rainforest turns out to just as challenging as it sounds. In an effort to balance the environmental ledger, we did carry baby trees in out backpacks which we planted out in the middle of the jungle near a picturesque little stream. Seemed like a nice touch. Overall it was a pretty exciting way to see some beautiful countryside.

We met the truck at the bottom and headed to a nearby lake for lunch and a much needed swim. Something about floating on my back looking up at the green jungle-covered mountains that just kicked my butt really rounded out the day. Food was great and I got to learn about my fellow travelers. Feeling a little hungry after the meal, I bought a couple snacks - "crispy pear" which is sold in the markets and served with chili-sugar-salt stuff, and then something that appeared to by fried little grub/maggot things. The dutch couple with me insisted that the maggot things were delicious, so I dove right in. They were right - crispy, salty, perfect for after a day of sweating it up - I ate the whole package and was licking the bottom by the end. Point for interesting Thai cuisine.

Took a nice walk back from the bike store and met Nikki outside the consulate. Already feeling pretty comfortable in the town. Nikki went off for a run and I picked up my suits - they turned out great and I think I'm going to get a third one made! After Nikki finished her workout, we carried our banged up bodies across the street for - you guessed it - another Thai massage! Man these things are great. I must say that I was in pain for much of this one, which was a combo of deep tissue massage and stretching ("I'm not all that flexible" is probably understating things), but felt like a million bucks after. It was pouring rain when we finished, so we huddled under an umbrella and hoofed it to a cozy little Japanese restaurant in a beautiful teak house nearby. We stuffed ourselves with all kinds of random deliciousness before going home and collapsing in a heap. Not a dad second day here!

First Day in Thailand

So there are a million fun summer activities that I need to report on, but haven't had time. I'm going to get back to these later.

At the moment I'm in Chiang Mai, Thailand, visiting Nikki while she completes her 3 month foreign service internship here. Idea is that she does an internship (which is going really well so far) here at the consulate, then we move to DC in the fall, then she finds out where her first real posting will be, then we ship out 6 months to a year later (depending on how much language training she needs). The consulate hooked Nikki up with a great apartment here with a fantastic view of the city and surrounding mountains (first picture below). She's pretty well settled after over a month in Chiang Mai and seems to feel pretty comfortable. The city is pretty safe and she's got all of her little favorite stores/local gems. Nikki is getting to work on all kinds of interesting stuff for her internship and has made some good friends in the little community of people working at the consulate. Looks like she will have Thursday - Sunday off work, so we're figuring out what kinds of adventures to plan. Until then, I've got a couple of days to tool around by myself (at least until she gets done with work at 4:30 - gotta love the gov't job).

I got here Monday morning after 23 hours of sitting on airplanes (and another few hours in airports). Needless to say I was fresh as a daisy. The trip was actually not so painful and I got to watch all those bad movies I'm been missing out on (including hotel for dogs, yikes). China Airways is really good and I ordered all kinds of random stuff I didn't recognize on the flight and on my layover in Taipei. I jumped right to it after finding Nikki's apartment and we went out for the first of what I think will be many delicious meals. The steet food here is amazing, so we sampled fried coconut patties, blended fruit shakes, banana-chocolate roti, etc - I'm leaving the chicken heads and grasshoppers for later in the week when I'm better primed with some local EColi. When NIkki went back to work, I wandered the city, checking out the many wats/temples (second pic below) and crazy markets. Old Chiang Mai is built within a 2k square moat/wall (3rd pic below), so I cruised the perimeter and made friends with about 100 shop owners.

After work, Nikki and I hit up a fabric center/tailor to get a couple suits made for me. Picking the first one up today, so I can be Nikki's arm candy at some consulate event tomorrow. We had an early dinner, where I tried "frog in chilli sauce" (4th pic below). Cruised over to the night market afterwards for some shopping/more street food (5th pic), and took a break for an hour-long thai massage (I think it cost 2 dollars each). Yeah, it's a tough life. On the way home, we stopped into a bar/restaurant on the Mae Ping river where we had drinks and listened to a couple of great musicians play guitar and sing (mostly covers of American songs. They were really talented! Didn't speak English, but could mimic the words pretty well and got it right about 90% of the time). It was a perfect scene, with paper lanterns and live music next to the river (last pic below, pretty blurry but you get the idea).

Pretty good first day. I'm off now to do some single-track downhill mountain biking (down the mountain in the first pic below). It's going to be an exciting week and I'll try to be good about updating the blog with stories/pictures.

Six Month Update

Hello all!
Well, you know that we are busy when it takes six months to update our blog!! So what have we been doing anyway? Here's a basic run down and a couple pictures that should give you an idea.

Let's start at Christmas. We didn't want to board Hina for a month while we visited family for the holidays, so the logical conclusion was to bring to bring her with us. We piled up old boxberry and headed west into a huge snowstorm enroute to San Diego. Hina got to meet my family, including the grandparents, and didn't destroy all the presents under the tree. Hooray! We left Hina in San Diego and gave Jesse some strict instructions to teach her to skateboard while Nikki and I went to see her folks on Maui for New Years. I had to work a lot of the week, but Nikki got to get a lot of beach time in. We got to do some paddleboarding and I took a couple days to learn how to kite surf. Our friends Jeff and Chad happened to be in town too, so we got to hang out with them and talk super esoteric subjects. We also nailed down our wedding location for August, which was key. Nikki had to go straight back to Boston to get back to classes after Maui, so it was up to me and my brother Jesse to get Hina and the car back to the east coast. We cranked out the drive in a couple days along the southern route and even made time to buy a ton of fireworks in Texas and set them off, to Hina's delight! We got a chance to have dinner with my buddy Mahoney in Atlanta, and had an awesome night of randomness that involved chicken and waffles, crackheads, chilli-cheese-coleslaw dogs, and the most shady "bar" you can imagine.

Since we were in the neighborhood, Jesse and I stopped in to see my sister Darcy in DC on the way home. It just so happens that some guy's inauguration was happening, so we headed down to the mall to see what was up with 2 million of our closest friends. Nikki drove down from Boston for the event (in another huge snowstorm). It was freeze-ass cold that morning, and Jesse and I used our collective keen intelligence to devise a newspaper-warmth-system since neither of us had suitable jackets or footwear (idiots!). It was totally worth it and one of the most incredible things I've ever been present for.

After dropping Jesse off in Baltimore for his last semester of college, Nikki and I headed back to Boston for the dreaded winter-spring transition period. We made the most of it and made a couple trips to Vermont for some snowboarding, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, etc. We found an awesome BnB near Mt. Snow called the "Paw House" that is set up for obsessive dog owners such as ourselves. They've got a kennel next door where you can keep your dog during the day and special dog beds in the rooms (Hina, or course, only wanted our bed and would prefer that I take the doggy one). We also made it up to the Adirondacks to meet my family at Lapland Lake for a little nordic cross-country ski fun. We had most of the Grubschmidt clan up there (my mom's family) and had a blast eating, drinking and being merry in the warm little "tupa" we rented (and did a little skiing too).

One of my favorite winter activities has been beer making. Jeff and I have become quite the brewmasters (we have made two 5 gallon batches). The first brew, "Hina's Hoppy Ale," was an india pale ale with plenty of kick. The second, more recent batch was "Hina's Snout Stout" (there's a theme here), which has a chocolate stout. The snout stout is probably the best beer that I have ever tasted; no bias here. I should also mention that the bottle artwork has gotten progressively better as time goes on (all props to Jeff). We are currently getting ready for our third batch and thinking about a red or heff - we will see!!

Nikki had a week of for spring break and wasn't about to spend it in rainy, cold Boston. Luckily, I had gotten suckered into a time-share pitch in Orlando, so we hopped on a plane to Florida. We did the touristy thing at Epcot (I'd never been) and cruised around the Disney stuff, but one of the best things we did was go out to Canaveral to watch a space shuttle launch (I had always wanted to be astronaut, but then I took Math 51 in college....). We had a nice little picnic at the event and saw what they called one of the most beautiful recent launches. We also went to the gulf coast and snorkeled with Manatees. Though I'm pretty sure it has to be some violation of the marine mammal protection act, it was really fun and we got to see a mother and her calf. For the second half of the week we went south to hang out with our friends Amy and Anthony, who live in Ft. Lauderdale. I know what you're thinking - spring break in Ft. Lauderdale - but it wasn't like that! We were way classier and drove to Key West. Did some diving on the way down and spent Saturday on an all-inclusive on the water fun boat thing. There was water skiing, kayaking, a windsurfer, a water mountain climbing thing...you get the picture. We almost died on on of those banana-boat things towed by a certifiably crazy boat captain. My organs still hurt. The only thing that wasn't "inclusive" was the booze, except for 30 min at the end when there was an open bar. You can imagine how that turned out! We hit the town afterwards and hit all the seedy spots, including the garden of eden. Go there sometime and tell me what you think! We got to continue our spring break fun a few weeks later when Darcy got a week off. She came up to see us in Boston and we had a blast! Aside from visiting all of our favorite eateries, we did some hiking with the dog and visited the Harpoon Brewery - definitely one of the highlights!

Amidst all this fun stuff, I've been working my butt off and going to California for meetings every couple weeks. On a few occasions, Nikki came out with me to make the most of it. She came out to Dana Point one week and Oxnard another. We had fun exploring Laguna/OC a bit and took some time to head up to the Santa Barbara wine country. Nikki was really excited to go to Solvang and we stuffed ourselves with various Danish delicacies. We visited a few wineries and came back with plenty of wine for the next couple months.

Back in Boston, it is finally warming up, so we've been outside more often. We've been taking Hina on walks in a bunch of different regional parks in the area. She is a trooper!!! She will definitely walk for 4 hours no problem. She's even been running along while I mountain bike. The only thing is that we worry about her overheating, so we bring plenty of water. Also, she's not a very good breather, so we don't push her too much. We took her down to the Charles a few weeks ago to go canoeing, which she totally loved. It was a warm, beautiful afternoon. Perfect time for enjoying the water! Hoping to take her to the beach a couple times in the next few months.

So, bringing you up to date...Nikki graduated from Fletcher two weeks ago - woo!! This is her second masters and I think she learned a lot. Chuck and Jacqui came out for the ceremony and we had a great time going to various events - a clam bake, BBQs with friends, etc. We had great food (of course) and made time to go to the Boston art museum. This was their first time meeting Hina too (got to bring the dog back into it). After the festivities, I jumped on a plane to California and then DC, and Nikki took off for Thailand. She will be working at the consulate in Chiang Mai for the next 10 weeks and is focusing on statelessness and refugee issues (I think!). It sounds really great so far and I hope to make a visit in a few weeks. Next big event is our wedding in August. Nikki is flying straight to Maui and I'm coming from Boston. Should be fun!

That's it for now. Enjoy the pictures below!

Snowing Again!

The snow has started again and we've bought the ugliest little pink coat for Hina to wear. After looking out the window for a while listening to Bing Crosby sing x-mas songs, we went out to the yard to see what Hina thought of the snowflakes. Mostly she seemed confused, but she did look pretty awesome in her coat. Pretty soon it was back to the warmth of the house. On another note, we've taught Hina to "shake" - see the video below! Tonight we're continuing the x-mas theme by going out to see the Nutcracker downtown. Should be fun!

Making Beer

This winter Jeff and I decided we should do something productive with all the time that we have to spend indoors, so we've decided to make beer. We've decided on a recipe with lots of hops in a pale ale style. Of course, we accidentally bought the wrong kind of malt and were too lazy to sanitize every piece of equipment, so it might not turn out EXACTLY how we hope. In any case, it's fun and the bucket of beer is currently fermenting away in our basement. Hoping to bottle it before everyone leaves for the holidays.

Thanksgiving

This was the first turkeyday where Nikki and I (but mostly Nikki) attempted to cook for other people. All in all, it was a great success with something like 14 different dishes (including desserts) and Nikki adding at least 7 of her own creations (sweet potatoes topped with carmelized walnuts and 'mellows, potatoes au gratin with gouda and manchego cheese, mexican stuffing with chorizo...). We had the actual meal at Jeff Glenn's house with his parents as well as my cousin Christian and his girlfriend Meredith. Jeff cooked the turkey and his mom made some great pie and cranberry sauce. We even made our own gravy after a quick call to my parents and Aunt Johanna to figure out how to do it (minus the giblets this time, but maybe in the future...). During our digestion period before dessert, we busted out the board games for a bit of trivial pursuit and scategories. Christian challenged everyone else to a game of trivial pursuit and almost won! Also, it happened to be Jeff's birthday, so we got to surprise him with a super chocolate cake!

Chris and Meredith were around for the weekend, so we saw what Boston has to offer - candlepin bowling, the USS Constitution, Bunker Hill, the Cheers bar, and of course, the Harpoon Brewery tour! We also fit in time to see crazy fans outside the Bruins hockey game and a car lighting on fire outside the museum of modern art! Check out the jumping skills below! I've posted more pics from the weekend at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/31445205@N02/sets/