A real American experience...Baseball!

A few weeks (months?) ago we had a real American experience. I mean, it felt like walking into the middle of one of those films that you used to watch as a kid on Saturday afternoons in the 80s... Yup, we went to a minor league baseball game! It was the Missions (San Antonio of course) verses the Arkansas Naturals.


I'll mostly let the pics speak for themselves but it was a wonderful experience! We were one row back over the away team dugout, so not behind the protection of nets, which made it vital to keep your eye on the ball! Sadly that didn't stop me getting pooped on by a yellow-bellied bird! (either a western kingbird or a great kiskadee, not sure which but it was pretty) There were about 20 of these gorgeous birds hanging out near the lights and then diving in after insects, and I was full of admiration for them... until :splat:

We were greeted outside the gates by the Spam Mobile (I kid you not) giving out free spam samples...Didn't partake in that experience.


One of the things I absolutely loved about the baseball was the food. Not so much the giant cups of beer or the pizza and nachos...But here was a place where I could quite legitimately eat a box of popcorn and a GIANT pickle for dinner! And I did! (in fact I think I made it through two of those pickles, which is no mean feat)



We had a family in front of us and the kid was just desperado for a ball to come his way. If you catch the ball, it's yours. Lucky for us maybe we didn't get too many hurtling in our direction, but one of the guys tossed this little tacker a freeby at the end. Heartwarming eh? It was also lucky that these guys were in front of us because they had babywipes to help me out of my sticky bird situation...


During the game we were entertained by the mascots - Puffy Taco, Ball-o-peno (yep, a giant pepper) and the express news (local paper) dog. We scored the dog in our wing and he was an absolute classic, playing to kids and adults alike (he took quite a shine to the Norwegian lasses!)


If you click to enlarge the pic below you might be able to read the advertising for a fried chicken chain on the foul line... However they're run by "make Jac sad fundamentalists" so we won't be eating there any time soon.


We won the game easily, 7-1 I think with most of the action happening in the first 30 minutes. It was exciting and the crowd had all these little chants and drum beats and stuff that we didn't really understand but joined in where we could. It was a gorgeous night, shorts and t-shits the whole time, and it was such a clear sky. Was gorgeous to watch the colour dropping out of the sky but as the lights warmed up on the field the players and the diamond became almost surreal in their intensity.


The night finished with a huge fireworks display! We'd had such a good time that we were just grinning like idiots at that point! I highly recommend a trip to the baseball!

Another candle

Thanks to everyone who helped make my birthday so special! I really appreciate all the prezzies, cards, texts and happy thoughts. It was a wonderful day beginning with a half hour sleep in, prezzies and brek, work and more prezzies and cupcakes (made by Mel - see pic... I am a lucky girl!) then out to what is deemed the best restaurant in San Antonio. More about that later, once I scan the menu they gave me etc (and finish digesting).



We have a pool party tonight to continue the birthday celebrations but also say goodbye to our dear vikings. I'll try to remember to take some pics. Making some dips and nibbles now, and some batches of sangria later :D

Bad blogger

It's true, I've been a bad blogger, and I have so much to tell you! A 4th of July pool party, a real American baseball game, a trip to the Texas coast...it's all there and waiting.

We have our friends Chris and Briony visiting from Oz for the next few days and then I'll try my best to post some updates. I also have to work out what to do for my birthday and for some reason I'm way more stressed about turning 31 than I was about 30. Turning 30 was a Peter Pan moment, I felt like I didn't really have to grow up, but 31 is like sudden ejection into responsible adulthood - bleh.

For now I'll leave you with the cake that Josie decorated for the 4th of July party ^_^

Breakfast tacos for all!

Just a quick shout out to a few special people who we wish we were with, and if we were we'd be sharing some of the deliciousness that is fresh breakfast tacos! Notably Rennie for her birthday and Clare and Hamish for their wedding anniversary! Also Mum, I would love to be able to shout you a couple of these once you recovered from the surgery. The egg and bacon are my favorite but Jo loves the migas with crunchy tortillas in her egg. Thinking of you all<3

Egg and potato breakfast tacos from the Taco House! Our favorite place to be on a Saturday morning. The spicy green salsa that goes with it is hot and tangy and perfect, and the soft tacos are made fresh while you watch...mmm

More San Fran pics

China Town was one of the best I've ever been in. This street was mostly shops and restaurants while the next street over was like a massive vegetable market.


The Chinese restaurant we dove into when we first arrived, famished after 7 hours in transit and a 4am start (plus we lost two hours), but the chow fun was an excellent hunger buster! Pity we didn't score one of the curtained booths to the side.


There were lots of these (ivory? bone?) sculptures in the windows of the the more 'glamorous' shops in China Town. This one was huge, couch sized, and so intricate.


A random lamp in China Town.


We weren't the only conference geeks in town...Mac were running their developer's conference so the streets were filled with ipoded youths.


The San Francisco MOMA. Hansom building!


I love good street art and San Fran had quite a few notable pieces. This one was near our hotel.

If you're going to San Francisco...

...be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.


Well we skipped the flowers but we had such a brilliant time in San Francisco. The city was gorgeous - hilly and near the water and full of good shops, great food and variety! I was there for the American Diabetes Association meeting (huge conference!) and Jo managed to join me from Friday to Sunday.

The fountain outside our hotel which squirted into a pond full of rubber duckies!

Our hotel (Hotel Triton) was pretty nuts but great! It had a 'pop culture' theme so the walls were covered in murals, the furniture had touches of Dali and our bed was part zebra and part Alice in Wonderland. However, under the brightly coloured exterior it was a pretty good pick and located right at the gates of China Town and on the edge of the shopping district - perfect!

A wobbly shot of the lobby. They offered 'wine tastings' every evening which were fab since the 'tasting' consisted of a full glass or 3!

Our crazy room with the Ghibli-rabbit pillows

The hotel was also attached to a gorgeous French restaurant called Café de la Presse which I wish we had discovered on the first day, but made up for lost time in the end. They made a very good macchiato and an excellent chocolate croissant. I spend my last few hours in San Fran treating myself to lunch there (including a glass of wine - gasp!) The soupe de jour (asparagus) was a little insipid but the 'Assiette de Charcuterie' I had to follow more than made up for it (roughly assorted cold meats). Both the paté and the rillette were gorgeous and made me want to try everything else the menu had to offer. Next time gadget...

All I can say is yes, it really was that good.

While we were in town we did lots of walking, through China Town (which was a really good one!) and through the shopping districts (also a welcome relief after the same old shopping circuit in San Antone) and out around the edges of town, visiting the San Fran MOMA gift store (they were prepping for a big Frida Kahlo exhibit so we figured no point actually going in). Really pretty city to walk around. Lots of diversity, a surprising number of homeless people but in general it all felt very safe if even a little overly cuddly! There were rainbow flags everywhere (I had no idea they originated in San Fran until today) and a fair amount of enthusiasm for the same-sex marriage bill that was just about to come into effect (it became official on June 16).


While I was attending the conference Jo managed to see not only the dragon parade through China Town (why did I have the camera??) but also a bunch of naked people on bikes protesting oil dependency! (Google 'world naked bike ride' if you're interested - it is huge)

Random streetscape

A couple of other notable meals. Friends of ours were also attending the conference so one night we walked through China Town and stepped out into Little Italy in search of Capp's Corner, a family style Italian place. The walk was satisfying enough (so much to see) but the food was also very good! We had minestrone soup (cooked to perfection - no soggy pasta to be seen) and a beet and chickpea salad to share (ala family style), which was followed by wonderful home-cooking style Italian mains.

I had this wonderful dish of linguine with mussels and clams in a white wine and garlic sauce...mmm

Jo had lasagne that was well worthy of the effort required to pinch some off her plate!

I also had the pleasure of dining with a co-worker of mine at The Slanted Door - a much raved about Vietnamese restaurant in the ferry building (one part of the waterfront near the bay bridge). We didn't have a reservation so getting a seat was impossible, but we were able to eat at the bar (which restricted our menu choices to anything up to and including salads, still leaving a lot to pick from!) Having similar tastes we decided to split an order of mixed oysters (all sweet, salty and delish), a plate of the sardines (below) and some fried sweet potato cups filled with sweet coconut milk and sesame that I can't seem to find on the menu! All very good. I'd love to go back there someday and order off the full menu.

Citrus and olive oil cured local sardines with shaved fennel, pickled red onion and pink grapefruit - these were soo good and just so pretty too!

The Bay Bridge from the Slanted Door (no, not the Golden Gate but I did get to see it)

We also hooked up with my friend Kaos (one of my best World of Warcraft friends) who lives in San Fran. He gave us a driving tour and a bit of local perspective, and it was great to spend our first night in a new city kicking back at a friend's place an eating wonderful pizza (from Little Star Pizza by the way, and like everything else we ate it was gorgeous!) Kaos and I also had dinner at a restaurant called Foreign Cinema, a neat place where we sat outside watching old movies projected onto the courtyard wall, listening along using old drive-through speaker sets that you could place on the table and eating gourmet food! The film was Parallax View which confused the heck out of us (especially given that we were under the impression it was an entirely different film!) The food was great and again we decided to just split and share everything, which included baked cheese with crudites, steamed mussels (yes, I do love them that much), a caesar salad pepped up with slightly bitter tangerines and the most surprisingly good fried chicken I've ever eaten (it had a sweet paprika glaze inside the crispy fried skin!) The menu seems to change often (it has already changed since I was there) which is another good sign, and there were so many other dishes I'd like to take a stab at! No pics this time, I was too busy eating :D

As you can probably tell, we had a great time and hopefully we'll make it back again before we leave. Definitely worth a second (or third) visit and so much more to do and see.

House-sitting luxury

Howdy y'all.

We've been house-sitting for the past week and as you can see from the photos we sure haven't had any complaints about that situation! It's been close to 40 degrees all week, so we were grilling and swimming every chance we got!

Back in the itsy bitsy apartment now, but off to San Francisco at 5am tomorrow for another conference! Jo is joining me for most of it so we'll be sure to update you on our return.

Oh, and the corn in San Antonio at the moment, heaven :)

More of the pool...it's over 25 degrees in that water!

The pool, spa and grill, which got a good workout (such a lovely BBQ to use)

Jo's steak and my salmon, plus vegi extras (all grilled) and a mozzarella/cherry tomato salad

Hot paprika, lemon and butter on grilled corn is such a good combo

Another of our grilled dinners, this one all vego (I think we had 10 vegies?!)

More scribbles!

Bunnysuit

These guys came out of my attempt to pay attention to the speakers at the last conference (I honestly listen better when I'm drawing!)

I'm posting them for Lily and Charlotte, and for Prachet (for his birthday) and for Kath, who I miss as a conference buddy!

Dear deer

Drippy... (I was hungry!)

Hope is in the air!

"HOPE" by Shepard Fairey

I don't usually delve into the political realm, but it has been such an interesting time to be in America leading up to the election, and watching the way the primary system works in terms of deciding who will run etc.

Now I'm not mentioning any of this to be provocative and I don't really care what your political leanings are, but Josie and I are both huge Barack Obama supporters and the democratic party campaign has been fascinating to watch. It has been a pretty fierce battle between two great candidates... Hillary (go girl!) and Barack, but last night Obama made history by becoming the first black presidential nominee in the United States! He's young, he's gorgeous, and he makes a lot of sense. Not only that but his campaign has been filled with the most incredible posters! We're lucky enough to have scored one of the HOPE posters (thanks Cass!!) which will grace our walls for years to come in Oz and hopefully remind us of that feeling of a whole, hope filled country balancing on the threshold of something incredible. Here's hoping it actually spills over! I'm so excited!

"PROGRESS" by Scott Hansen

"CHANGE" by Shepard Fairey

Carefree

I returned from my 5 days in Carefree with a tan and a deeper understanding of the networks of gene interaction involved in cancer! The conference was held at a resort in Carefree, Arizona, about an hours drive out of Phoenix and into the desert. It was over 45 degrees C when I arrived but had dropped down to 10 degrees and drizzly by the end of the week! So it was a relief to return to San Antonio where the temperature was (is) a consistent 35 degrees (heat index pushing that well over body temperature) dropping to maybe 25 at night, if we're lucky.

Arizona was exactly what I originally expected Texas to be like. Rocky, scrubby desert with 4-5 meter tall cacti towering overhead and not much of a tree to be seen. We missed most of the birds by a few weeks but apparently it is a good birding spot in the earlier months of the year. I did see a few local quail, woodpeckers working on the cacti and I was very lucky to see a baby (HUGE) owl chilling out on one of the villas. He was all fluffy feathers and bright eyes (bit too far away for my little zoom lens though).

My friend the baby owl. Sorry about the resolution, had to go to full digital zoom, not so good in the shade!

The resort was interesting. We were pretty much stuck there (you could shuttle into town and wait for a return) but it wasn't too bad...there was the gorgeous salt swimming pool conveniently located next to the insanely hot hot-tub. We had the first morning off so I spent a good 2-3 hours just floating in the pool. Silly Jac Jac who no longer ventures outside because it is too jolly hot forgot about the whole sunscreen thing...d'oh! While I did get a considerable tan, I also suffered some nasty burns to the tops of my arms and legs that not only canceled future trips to the pool but also killed any plans I might have had for evening campfires and s'mores. Who goes to a cancer conference and gets sunburned! Exhibit A.

The conference was also a great chance to catch up with an old friend, Liesel, who has finished her PhD (we thesied together at UTAS) and is not postdoccing it up in Seattle. It was great to see a friendly place in such an odd location!

The gorgeous salt water pool :)

You can see the size of these cacti! Well over 2 meters tall. The holes in them are made by the woodpeckers but all sorts of birds seem to live in them. They were in flower which was cool, but the flowers smell like rotting meat to attract the fruitbats (fruit smells no good?) So that was less cool...

These are the adobe villas where we were staying. Four rooms to a villa. My room was about the size of our apartment! I loved the adobe style though...the houses looked like rocks and the rocks like houses.

One of the conference events (that didn't involve campfires) was a film by the poolside so we got to watch Cat Ballou, very cute! It was supposed to be Strictly ballroom the next night (!) but it was canceled due to the insane cold front and accompanying winds that came through.

All in all a good trip. No mention of the food because it really wasn't mentionable but it was good to get another sample of a different US state. And Jo and I are off to San Fransisco next week!!