As if to assert itself as really being winter, today it is snowing in Chicago: (the view through our mailbox slot) Clearly I am no longer in Hawaii. Sigh.
I had a lovely birthday dinner at Las Palmas (after suffering through horrible traffic coming down the Edens). I'll be home to celebrate NYE this year, which I'm excited about - I got a dress as part of my birthday/Chanukah gift from JCrew especially for the occasion! It's made really well, I'm very impressed (it's part of the JCrew Collection, actually, so I would hope that they exceed their regular quality production standards).
Speaking of birthdays, a few years back I received an overwhelming number of rubber ducks from my friends, because watching ducks swim in the lake is a favorite activity of mine. I now have so many absurd ones that I have no real desire to ever receive another one. However, I found this mirror (via Urban Outfitters) which is pretty cute (not to mention surrealist): Silver Duck Mirror by David Dear
It's hard to believe that tomorrow night is New Year's Eve! I hope that everyone has fun plans to ring in 2010!
We're at the airport in Honolulu, waiting to fly back to Chicago! While not ideal for birthday revelry, this week has been pretty great so it's hard to complain.
One of the greatest parts of any trip (especially family vacations) is an excess of tasty food -- mm. This one was filled with lots of Hawaiian local specials (i.e. macademia nuts in everything, pineapples, and Kona coffee), and other great stuff:
mini mocha souffles!
organic chicken and fingerling potatoes (Christmas Eve dinner)
Pineapple-rum cake with lavender-vanilla bean ice cream and sauteed pineapple
warm chocolate cake with vanilla coulis (and a santa!)
...and finally, my last meal of being 23: fried chicken and waffles
I've gotta say, being in Hawaii makes it really hard to remember that this is the holiday season. Palm trees just don't have that same festive feeling as 10 inches of snow, you know? Clearly I don't mind being somewhere warm, etc. but I do miss the festiveness of NY/Chicago from before I left:
trees being sold on 6th Ave
SoHo Park
elbow-deep in Latkes
Festivus party
Back home at the Celtic Knot in Evanston
Mind you, they've decorated loads of little christmas trees (with pineapple ornaments) and wrapped up the palm trees with white lights, but it's just not the same...
My dad and I took a drive over to Lahaina today and went on a whale watching tour given through the Pacific Whale Foundation. We saw at least 7 humpback whales, who were very active around the surface, and seemed to like us! The tour overall was great - I highly recommend it if you're ever in Maui. We even saw some cute little dolphins at the end of our trip as we were pulling back into the harbor! (I was going to open with a joke about these being full-time whales, rather than freelance whales, but I'm restraining myself.)
While in Lahaina, we also saw this crazy crazy Banyan Tree. Check it out:
While this decade turnover might not be as monumental as The New Millennium, per se, I'd say that it has been choc-full of personal milestones. I graduated from middle school, high school, and college in these past 10 years; this contains my first concert, funeral, wedding, fashion show, relationship, breakup, car, apartment, trip abroad (minus, well, when I was born), etc and so forth. A lot of my friends are ready for the 00's to be over, but I would like to take this moment to note that they weren't all that bad.
The chronological, musical roadmap to my 00's:
formatted: Artist - Album (Release)
2001
Blink-182 - Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001)
Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American (2001)
The Strokes - Is This It? (2001)
Lucky Boys Confusion - Throwing the Game (2001)
2002
mix CDs + camp = very few full album listens 2003
Something Corporate - North (2003)
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
2004
Death Cab for Cutie - Photo Album (2001)
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand (2004)
Modest Mouse - Good New For People Who Love Bad News (2004)
Ben Folds - Rockin' The Suburbs (2001) The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows (2004)
Guster - Keep it Together (2003)
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak (2003)
The Postal Service - Give Up (2003) 2005
Spoon - Kill The Moonlight (2002)
Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood (2003)
The Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)
Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever (2005)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)
The Decemberists - Picaresque (2005)
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins (2005)
Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
2006
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema (2005)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
Justin Timberlake - FutureSex/LoveSounds (2006)
Peter Bjorn and John - Writer's Block (2006)
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers (2006)
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (2006)
2007
Band of Horses - Cease to Begin (2007)
Girl Talk - Night Ripper (2006)
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (2006)
I made a friend while having my coffee this morning!
The view from our room
Poolside, day 1
In our first full day in Maui (Kapalua to be more specific), we have enjoyed the warm weather and sunshine, but have not actually done a whole lot. I went running and to the pool; my mom went for a walk and to the pool; my dad took a walk down to the beach and attempted to do some snorkeling (he was only somewhat successful as the current kept knocking him over). We just returned from dinner at Merriman's, a mostly local/sustainable/farm-to-table type restaurant, which was excellent.
Tomorrow we are going whale watching(!) and then... who knows. Stay tuned!
