I recently returned home after an 11-day whirlwind tour of friends and family. Here are some of my impressions from that trip…hmmm, many of them involve food. When I travel, I tend to write down what I eat if I don’t have time to journal, and that triggers memories of who I was with, how I was feeling, and the general ambience of the place.
Stop 1: Madison, WI, July 31-Aug 1. My friends J. & B. welcomed their first baby this summer. This stop on the tour was chance to see some of my best friends and meet beautiful T., my newest “niece” (J. and I are “sisters” – personification of the adage “friends are the family you choose for yourself”). I’ve been to Madison before, and love the beauty of the city – the capitol, the farmer’s markets and interesting shops, the college town – but this visit was all about meeting T. and spending time with her parents. We stayed in and had great pizza and local beer, talked, and took turns holding and kissing T. I was sad to leave after only one day, and look forward to spending a longer weekend with them in Madison again soon.
Interesting note: When I stopped at a chain coffee shop on my way into Madison, I noticed that there were no reduced-fat pastries or healthy food options, which was kind of surprising for our era, even though WI has not exactly been high on the “fit” population list. This was also true in the Milwaukee airport, as well as in Baltimore. After living in CA, I’ve gotten spoiled by not having to search very far for healthy food.
Stop 2: Baltimore/Towson, MD, Aug 1-4. For the last three summers, I’ve spent two weeks at Goucher College for an intensive course for my Master’s degree in Arts Administration. The fourth summer is usually major paper defense and graduation – and all members of my class graduated except me. I took a leave of absence and chose to work on my paper this year instead, but couldn’t imagine not being there as my classmates, whom I’ve become bonded to, finish their degrees.
As the only person who lives locally, my classmate N. has hosted a crab feed for our class the past three years, and this year was the biggest yet because everyone’s family was along. N. and her fiancé went over the top and were hosts extraordinaire. They cooked all the food, ordered two bushels of crabs, rented a tent for the back yard and made everyone, from nieces to parents to children to significant others, feel welcome. Any party where you can dump your food on the table and have at it with a mallet and your bare hands is a good party. And this was the first year that we were instructed to drink Natty Boh (National Bohemian) beer with our crabs – a Baltimore staple.
It was strange to part ways with my classmates knowing that it is not likely that we will all be together again in one place (the ten of us are from California, Washington, Florida, Texas, Ohio, New York, Maryland, and Barbados). But many of us hope to meet at the Americans for the Arts national conference in Seattle next year, which would be a happy reunion.
Continued in next post, whirlwind tour, stops 3 & 4. And read here for minor adventures in rental cars during stops 1 & 2.
