Let's get lost

[Note 3/7/2008: I discovered just now I never published this post, it was languishing in draft form!]

Today Jamie was on a shoot so I had the day to myself here. I decided to head out on a day hike from Valldemossa, a tourist town near the north coast, up to Puig d'es Teix which is a 1000m peak, the tallest in the area.

I hopped on a bus and picked up some supplies at the local market and headed out. I was happy to not speak a word of English all day (my Spanish has been quite functional), but there were so few other hikers on the trail that I didn't get to speak much Spanish either.

I had little more than a guide book's description of the trail, and the accompanying map which was light on details - it looked like an old treasure map I might have drawn when I was 8. Naturally, I got lost within 30 minutes.

It was a gorgeous day for a hike - 65 degrees and partly cloudy - and so I didn't really mind losing the trail and just climbing amidst the boulders, rocks, and twisted trees, finding some pretty amazing views, and stalking a herd of goats. The trails were devoid of signage, and basically deserted except for myself and the goats (in hiking 10 miles I could count my human encounters on one hand) so I felt like I was hiking around Middle Earth or something, which has it's own sort of appeal.

Still, after an hour I got pretty tired of being lost and made a concerted effort to get found again, thankfully succeeding by triangulating using visible mountain peaks and using the sun as a compass. Next time I'm going to be sure to have a better map, and GPS.

The best part of the hike was along the cliffs, about halfway to the peak, where there's a thousand foot drop on one side. But the rocks are scented by wild rosemary that grows in the cracks, and the views are spectacular.

We saw Sollér

Today we took a trip up to Soller (pronounced saw-YEHR), which is an old citrus town near the northern coast of Mallorca. We hopped on an old rail line - one of the narrowest-gauge rails still in operation - which takes about an hour to wind its way up through the hills. It's a total tourist trap, as natives would just take the highway and get there in half the time.

The scenery was picturesque, almost surreal. The terrain in the north is rocks and cliffs, betraying Mallorca's true nature is the tip of a submerged mountain range that originates in Spain. The hills are blanketed by citrus, olive, and almond trees, and on the train ride up you could literally reach out and grab a fresh lemon from a tree as the train passed by.

We tooled around town, bought some gifts, and then took a tram up to Port de Sollér, which is the coastal fishing village just north of town. It's a beautiful, half-moon-shaped harbor, with a colorful history involving pirates. Unfortunately because of the season and time of day a lot was closed. We headed up to a lunch at a place that sounded good in the guide book, but unfortunately this was their first day being closed for the season. The woman there, Maria, was very nice, and recommended to us another excellent place named Faro, up on the cliffs. She called to ensure they were open, and then even offered to drive us up there herself! So we got in the car, and halfway there we met the owner of Faro, who had come down to pick us up since he knew it was a long walk.

Lunch was very nice, overlooking the port and the sea from up high near the lighthouse. The food was excellent, but riddled with comedy. For one thing, they were putting a fresh coat of stain on the tables outside near us, so every now and then we'd get a nice big whiff of woodstain. And we hadn't chosen our wine to go with that flavor, so it threw the whole meal off.

Also, the waiter said they had a seasonal menu of mussells. That sounded delicious, but then it turned out he meant "mushrooms", and the dishes were mostly meat dishes that incorporated mushrooms somehow. Oops. Thankfully we had avoided ordering it.

Really, even if the food were bad, the view was so good it was worth it.

Song of the moment: Cappuccino Grand Cafe - Carta Ao Tom. This song was playing at breakfast in our hotel.

too pretty to dunk

A few observations about Mallorca:

1. The food here is amazing. Local cheese, citrus, seafood, olive oil, and wine are all excellent.

2. Most stuff is closed from 3-6pm - there's basically nothing to do.

3. The above is not necessarily a bad thing.

4. The local language is Catalan, not Castilian (Spanish), which is quite a bit different. However, everyone speaks and understands Spanish, and most get English as well.

5. Spanish Dunkin Donuts are waaaay cooler than ours. This pic shows the artisanal creations reserved solely for the medium of frosted donut. In the US we're lucky to have the choice between "white" or "brown". What gives?

sand in my shoes

So here it is, Palma de Mallorca. This island is much bigger than I imagined - it's probably a bit bigger than Kauai. About a million people live here, but in the high tourist season that number swells 10x. This is a pretty sweet time to be here, there are no crowds and the weather is nice, a lot like San Francisco or Barcelona, actually. The only drawback is it's not warm enough to swim.

This is such a neat place because it's like a n old European city, and yet it has beautiful beaches, nice weather, palm trees, amazing views, and really great produce.

What you're seeing here is the beach in the main city of Palma, we're walking toward the neighboring district of Portixol where supposedly there's a great seafood shack. It turned out that "the shack" was all reserved for lunch so we couldn't eat there, but we had a great meal at a nearby hotel restaurant, right off the beach, called Azul Playa.

Two tickets to paradise

So, Jamie has to do a video shoot in Mallorca, one of the Mediterranean islands off the coast of Spain. What a shame, she'll have to spend two whole weeks there shooting video for some new hair commercials. And, worse yet, I'm going to have to take a long weekend to come meet her in the middle of all that, and pass some time on that beautiful little island. I think we're going to have to spend our hours of leisure at this luxury hotel sipping wine and eating delicious fresh seafood, all on her company's dime. Alas.

I'll send a (virtual) postcard. :P

All boasting aside, the shoot is going to be a lot of work for her - several back-to-back 14-hour days of nonstop work. I'm there to provide a much needed distraction during the interim. And perhaps to go spelunking! Lots of caves there, apparently - the most famous being Dragon's Cave. I'll be in adventurer's heaven; I just better remember to pack my +2 lamp of eternal geekdom.

Song of the moment: Maserati - 12/16. Instrumental rock - put this album on while coding and you'll forget where time went. I love comparing bands to combinations of other bands. I'd have to say this one is Jimmy LaValle (of Tristeza, Album Leaf) meets Blue Man Group. See what you think.

Paving the road to hell

I've finally done it. I've joined the blogging community. The blogosphere. Blogorific.

Welcome. Those who know me well know that my memory is expansive but often plagued with recall failure. And they also know I have a wit so sharp it's like .. um .. some really cutty thing. Anyway, this is step one in helping to document random bits of information that I want to remember and care to share with others.

With friends and family on both coasts and little time for synchronous conversation with all of them, I hope this lets me stay better connected to the people in my life that I may not see on a daily or weekly basis. So if you'd like to keep somewhat current on the goings-on then please subscribe, put it in your Google Reader, or what have you. I'll try to keep it somewhat interesting and not add any narcissism beyond what's already required for the act of blogging.

Note: I originally started this blog to make a little journal for our trip to Hawaii this last spring and am reviving it for the new purpose. So if you want to see pictures and musings from our trip, check out the archives.

Song of the moment: The Narrator - Surfjew. Man, I bet these guys rock live.

context matters

This Washington Post article describes an ingenius experiment. Get a bona fide violin virtuoso (Joshua Bell) to masquerade as a street musician and perform for the rush hour crowd to study whether its reaction is different given the high quality of the music they are hearing.

It's a long and informative article and I don't want to spoil the results for you, so go read it. But the bottom line is, context matters. The surrounding environment and pre-existing conditions to sensing a stimulus are every bit if not more important than the stimulus itself in determining how it is received.

Note the interesting corollary mentioned in the article about the $5MM Ellsworth Kelly painting hung in a restaurant and given a price tag of $150. No takers.

It feels good to give. Do it.

I just came across the most amazing idea to induce people to give to more charitable causes. It's called DonorsChoose.

The idea is this: teachers make specific proposals to improve the education for their students. Examples range from fixing broken chairs in a high school science class, to sending a third-grade class on a field trip to D.C., to outfitting middle-schooler with random high-tech gizmos. You, the donor, get to pick exactly how much to donate and what project you want to fund.

The brilliance lies in tearing down the barrier many of us have to donating - it's so impersonal. Writing a fat check to a charity organization, while generous, doesn't really give you that warm fuzzy feeling. Did you even make a difference? You don't know, because most of the time any future correspondence from the donee will be impersonal, or a solicitation for more money.

With DonorsChoose, you can browse through the proposals (I think their browsing and search interface needs some work, but that's another discussion) and when you find one that speaks to you, you click on it to donate. They provide some interesting information about each proposal, such as what % of the students affected are from low-income households, and how much funding the project has already received. You can donate with your credit card, so of course it's easy.

Once you've donated, supposedly the recipients will send you a written thank you letter and photographs of the students you helped.

It seems like savvy teachers will choose small projects that a single generous donor could fund all on their own. Imagine, you have the opportunity to be the one who replaced the leaking schoolhouse roof for sixteen poor kindergarteners. That's concrete.

I got into this because I received a gift mailer from Crate and Barrel. They were offering to fund $25 if I just went to this website and chose where the money went. The website made it very easy to add to the gift amount, so I matched their donation with $25 of my own.

Of course, I'd like to see how well it works from start to finish before I make it a greater part of my charitable contributions, but so far it's a pretty exciting idea. To be fair, some of the projects sound like total lemons. But no system is perfect, and if it sends more money to deserving causes then it's progress. I mean, if our government isn't efficient at distributing money where we think it needs to go (disaster victims, education, etc.), maybe services like this can help balance things out a little better.

Customer service

It rained more again here in Lahaina today, so it looks like a pretty Maui beach is not in our future.

We decided to do laundry today and discovered we had been misled about there being laundry machines available to use. After we complained, they upgraded us to a 2-bedroom unit for our last night. This unit is sweeeeet and furnished so nicely we could live here, to say nothing of the surrounds. Definitely a place to return with a larger group! I thought three televisions was overkill, but I guess you need something to do on the rainy days.

It cleared up a bit in the evening so we drove up the coast to check out the Westin hotel in Ka'anapali, and the Ritz in Kapalua, both supposedly nice places to stay. The Westin looked great, with lots of nice pools and places to eat or grab a drink. We had a cocktail and a snack there, and watched humpback whales frolicking close to shore.

The Ritz was very classy, but just didn't seem as fun a place to stay. We watched the sunset from the lounge. They make an incredible Lava Flow, a must-have if you visit. Most other places seem to do it with ice cream - so unnecessary, this one was perfect. We ate dinner at the nearby Pineapple Grill, stuffing ourselves on yet more delicious food. So far, Maui wins the award for most gourmet island.

Picture of the day: Me and a Blue Hawaiian at the Westin.

End of the road

Oheo Gulch. Waterfalls. Rocks. Swimming. Need I say more? No, but I will. This was worth the trip.

I didn't go climbing and jumping off the rocks, mostly because the climb looked arduous, and it's not like I've never been on the high dive before. Jamie opted not to get wet so as not to be miserable on the ride back. Needless to say, this was a pretty cool way to pass the time.

We got back super late - the guide books recommend doing this drive over the course of 2 or more days, and we did it all in one. The driving back at night part pretty much sucked - it's difficult to drive 15 mph knowing you have 40 miles more of that to go. Thankfully there wasn't much traffic, except for the bonehead in front of us who drove 5 mph and wouldn't let us or any of the five cars caravaned behind us pass him. Snipers, where were you?

When we passed through the town of Paia on the way back, all that was open was a little crepe place named Cafe des Amis. Well worth the stop - the crepes were ambrosia after such a long journey.

Black sand, anyone?

Yet another of the amazing things to be found on the Hana Highway - Waianapanapa State Park, with its black sands beach.

We didn't hang around here too long, but dipping your toes in black sand is pretty fun.

Cleaning them off in the water fountain and getting seventeen mosquito bites in seventeen minutes is less fun.

Picture of the moment: Jamie at the black sands beach.

The Hana Highway

It was drizzling rain today (all day) so we decided to drive the Hana Highway instead of hitting the beach. It's a long, long, long drive, because it is chock full of one-lane bridges, and I counted an average of about 20 switchback turns per mile.

That said, it's a very pretty drive, and has lots of sights to see on the way. We bought a CD guide at a gas station on the way, and it's narrated by this guy Craig who tells you about all kinds of stops and hidden detours on the way. The CD was pretty informative but Craig's nasal voice his tendency to be a complete tool was somewhat off-putting, and we looked forward to when he had no more to say. If you're thinking of driving the highway, we'll be happy to lend you the CD.

Picture of the moment: We stopped for this guy along the side of the road because who can resist fresh young coconut, cut before your eyes by a hippie with a machete? A total rip-off, and yet so worth it.

Here today, gone to Maui

One of the airport gate agents made this lame joke on our way out of Kaua'i. What's the term for when you want to pistol-whip someone but all social norms allow you to do is chuckle politely? Oh yeah. Awkward.

We checked in to our hotel in Maui. We are at the Outrigger Aina Nalu in Lahaina, which is in West Maui. This turned out to be a pretty cool place - it's like a motel, but super nice, and all the units have kitchenettes.

After checking in we decided to take a look around town and get some dinner. Lahaina is neat because it's a walking town. A bit touristy and kitschy, but cute. It's also home to what must be the world's biggest Banyan tree. This thing is awesome, it has like 12 different new trunks it has dropped over the space of a small city block, apparently about 2/3 of an acre. It's the only tree in the park, and the park is very shady.

We had dinner at Pacific'O, which is right on the beach. They served up some amazing veggie food for Jamie: crispy tofu spring roll wraps with chili yogurt dip and poha berry gastrique, roasted maui onion and herbed goat cheese salad with smoked tomato dressing. I didn't miss out either and got prawn and basil wontons with spicy sweet and sour sauce and hawaiian salsa, and crispy coconut rice roll with seared diver scallps, arugula pesto, and yuzu lime sauce. The meal was topped off with a glass of wine a beautiful sunset over the beach. Doesn't get much better than that.

Maui is definitely more built up than Kauai. It feels like it could be California (and it's even more familiar than some parts of California). That's just fine - we miss California anyway.

Picture of the day: Jamie, clearly elated, strolling around Courthouse Square in Lahaina.

Movin' on

It's our last day on Kaua'i. The other night we met up with Fabian, Jason, and Alison at a great place called Caffe Coco in Wailua. I think we were all kinda tired, but the food was delish. Good seafood but also some really tasty veggie stuff (Tofu Pacific Rim platter? yum!)

Yesterday we were going to take a surf lesson from some woman whose name sounds like Marg Helgenberger. She's a 60-year-old champion surfer and she guaranteed we'd be riding waves by the end of the lesson, but her people blew us off without even calling to cancel. Classy. Good thing we didn't have to travel far to not get the lesson.

It's sad to leave the island, because we know that there's plenty more to do here. More time at the beaches with sunny weather, Waimea Canyon, hiking Na Pali. I would someday like to do the 11-mile Kalalau trail, but I think I would need to get a bit more hard-core to handle that one comfortably.

Picture of the day: Me with our book of 75 NYT crossword puzzles by Will Shortz. Best. Travelling. Companion. Ever. (the book, not me)

Hell-i-copter

If you have never been in a helicopter in your life, you should go up in one once, and you should do it in Kaua'i. And you should do it with Blue Hawaiian. This has got to be the best way to see the island. Easily one of the most thrilling and impressive experiences I've ever had. We decided that in spite of the recent crash, helicopters were still safe and it was just bad timing. There was nothing about the crash to indicate especially high risk, since we were going with a different company and on a different aircraft.

In spite of having a fear of heights, it didn't affect me at all. Surprisingly, it was Jamie that wasn't feeling so well during the ride - she's usually the calm one in these kinds of situations. Maybe it didn't help that we had to stand around for 10 minutes inhaling jet fuel right before the trip. But the ride was super-smooth, and I was too distracted by the scenery to think about the millions of ways you can die when you're suspended thousands of feet in the air by what's basically a souped-up ceiling fan.

Seriously, though, there were vistas in which I counted at least seven waterfalls. I would love to post pictures but all I have is video. Once I get a good clip up on YouTube I'll post a link here.

Note: This evening we met up with Fabian, Cynthia, Jason, and Alison, and they informed us that another helicopter had crashed on the island, only an hour after ours had taken off. Wow.

Matrimony

This evening Jamie and I witnessed the marriage of Fabian Falconett to Cynthia Fowler, at the Hanalei Bay Resort in Princeville.

It was definitely nice to reunite with friends in an exotic setting. Also, yummy food.

They had hired a guitarist to play romantic Hawaiian tunes at the wedding, which was a nice touch. The spot they picked had a great view of the sunset over Hanalei bay. And thankfully, the weather cooperated so they were blessed with a beautiful evening!

Pictures of the evening: Fabian before the ceremony. And an amusing photo of the guitarist, behind whom reside some accidental witnesses who clearly lacked any semblance of decency. Click on the picture to zoom in. I positioned that lamp on purpose to keep the picture PG-13.

P.S. The guitarist wears the lei only begrudgingly. We made him put it on.

Refresh, rejuvenate, relax

We took a 4-mile walk this morning with a guide from our hotel. We walked mostly along the golf course, which was gorgeous. Something about the juxtaposition of manicured nature versus the natural beauty of the unspoiled environs .. it's unbeatable.

Also, the air here has this pleasant humidity that just relaxes you - it lubricates you from the inside out.

After breakfast we took in a free martial arts stretching course at the spa in our hotel. We did some good stretches, many of which were familiar - it was almost a cross between yoga and capoeira. The course was led by this laid-back, strapping young Hawaii martial arts dude, and the other three attendees were middle-aged women who were mostly out of shape despite clearly spending lots of time at the spa. They were so familiar and even flirty with him, it seemed as though he could have been offering them additional "services" on the side. Crap, I wish I hadn't remembered that.

Picture of the day: the golf course at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Poipu. Almost makes you want to take up golf, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Almost.

Rain rain

Ok, here's a little word association to describe our first experiences here:

rain : excessive
hotel : amazing
luau : big disappointment
helicopters : dangerous

We were looking forward to the luau, and it was only semi-entertaining. Because it had threatened to rain they moved it indoors. So it was in the hotel banquet hall, which just made it seem like a Hawaiian Bar Mitzvah.

The front page of the local paper delivered to our room featured a massive image of .. a helicopter crash! 4 people dead on a helicopter tour in Princeville. I can't think of many things that would have been worse to read on our first day (contenders would have to involve a tsunami, earthquake, nuclear holocaust, or a Bush re-election) since we're booked for one on Sunday. Um, at least it's with a different company?

Also, we had planned to hike the Na Pali coast this morning, so we drove up halfway around the island - 1-1/2 hours from where we're staying in Poipu - but we had to turn back because it was raining too much and clearly wasn't going to be enjoyable. Bummed, we ate some pretty good burritos at a very local-friendly place called Tropical Taco, and headed back.

At least the day afforded us time to relax after our long day of travel, so it wasn't so bad. Still, we really hope this isn't a theme for the rest of the trip.

Aloha

(Note: I've backdated all of these Hawaii posts to some appropriate time, since I was unwilling to involve myself with computers during this trip, and needed to post these when I got back.)

We've just landed in Hawaii, and damn is the weather nice. It's humid but not hot. I love how the airports here are essentially covered outdoor facilities, built in the 50s or 60s. I imagine many people my parents' age must feel nostalgic when they step off the plane, since the environment seems to evoke this spirit of California in the 1960s.

Jamie and I are here for 12 days, hopping from Kaua'i to Maui to Hawaii, hoping to take in some amazing sights and relax. We (well, I should say Jamie since she's the planner, but I swear I did some work) have planned some pretty cool stuff to do. It's supposed to be the rainy season, though, so we know we're going to have to be adaptable. I'm looking forward to hiking around and seeing lava on the Big Island.

We ordinarily might not have gone at this time of year, but the catalyst for the trip is the wedding of Jamie's friend Fabian to his fiance Cynthia. They're making it a small, low-key affair on Kaua'i. I had my doubts about whether we should take the trip, but those melted away the instant I stepped into the balmy Kaua'i air.

We wanted to inaugurate our arrival with a luau, but the one at our hotel started early. So we had to carefully plan to minimize our travel time. For one thing, we carried on all of our luggage so that we would could make a tighter connection in Honolulu, and go right from the plane to the rental care place. It's been a bit of a pain carrying our luggage from flight to flight, but otherwise no biggie.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Kaua'i.

Inauguration

Woohoo, I've got a blog. Welcome to the world, baby.