Today we’ve done something that we’ve been planning to do for some number of years now — we visited Bronx Zoo. For Alena it was a first time, while I was there once before, more than 10 years ago, and remembered nothing. We also invited Ignat, Vika and their daughter Alisa to go with us.

With current New York weather being more in line with that of London-Seattle, today was no different. Most of the time we were in the zoo it was raining. Luckily for us it wasn’t raining hard, so we got to see almost everything we wanted to see.

We saw a lot of animals, but tigers, lions, giraffes, gorillas and polar bear were my favorites. We also saw some crazy lemurs which seem like they wouldn’t be able to make a sound, but at one point they created such a ruckus that I thought I’ll go deaf.

We didn’t have enough time to catch a ride on a monorail and as a result we didn’t get to see elephants and rhinos. This is the only thing that I would’ve liked to add to our listed today, but alas — next time.

Alena and I booked our next-next vacation. We’re going to go back to Hawaii for our 3 year wedding anniversary. But if last time we went to Oahu and stayed in Honolulu, this time we’re going to to the Big Island.

We’re going to stay in luxurious Hilton Waikoloa Village resort. And the best part is that we don’t have to pay¹ anything for the hotel at all thanks to us being a part of Hilton Honors program.

What we do have to pay² for is the flight. But flights these days seem to be much cheaper than they were even when we went to Hawaii the first time in 2005. We’re going to rent a car and explore the whole island. I can’t wait to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for example.

This should be a great honeymoon vacation. I can’t wait.

В догонку к Даниному посту…

Мэйн встретил нас цветущей сиренью. Пожалуй, ни одно растение не порадовал бы меня так, как это сделали нежные, ароматные, горьковатые на вкус, фиолетовые, белые — вобщем такие родные кустики сирени!

Несколько дней до нашего отьезда погода в Нью-Йорке стояла жаркая — и это отразилось на содержимом нашей дорожной сумки. В Мэйне же было довольно прохладно и все юбочки-платьишки-маечки на брительках так и пролежали нетронутыми на дне сумки. Ну что ж, лишний вес с виде куртки совсем не отразился на моей способности дышать свежим воздухом, любоваться местными северными красотами и просто расслабляться.

Вообще лес мне напомнил детсво, частично проведённое в деревне у бабушки. Звуки, запахи, виды казались чем-то знакомыми, и, как уже написал Даня, не было такого удивления и восторга, как при посещении юго-западных штатов страны. Необычным для меня было соседство смешанного леса с океаном.

Кстати, надо заметить, что лес был очень чистым — нигде мы не видели бумажку, битую бутылку или ржавеющую железяку. Во многих местах стояли таблички, которые увещевали туристов ходить только по специально проложенным тропинкам в целях защиты хрупкой растительной жизни, что мы и делали.

Как уже писал Даня — кухня Мэйна знаменита морепродуктами. Ну что могу сказать об омарах — для разнообразия есть можно, но особого восторга они не вызвали. Возилась я с панцирем всего 2 раза (во всех ресторанах продают и уже очищенных омаров) — и второй раз получалось более ловко. Намного больше мне понравились мидии — какие же они вкусные с кисловатым масляным соусом. Мммм… Вот их я бы ела с удовольствием на еженедельной основе. Д. Боря сказал, что несмотря на то, что мидии продаются и в Нью-Йорке, есть он их дома брезгует ибо местная вода, откуда вылавливают мидиий, гораздо грязнее чем хотелось бы. К сожалению, я с ним совершенно согласна.

Вобщем, отдохнули мы хорошо и в отличной компании! Думаю, что когда-нибудь еще надо будет повторить поездку в Мэйн, и сделать это в осенний сезон.

As most of you have guessed by now, we’re back from our Maine vacation. And as always the trip has been great and I want to leave some notes for those who are interested, but mostly for my future self and my wife’s future self — before memories begin to fade that is.

To Maine

We were able to leave relatively early, since Friday was a short work day for most — around 5pm. We loaded up our car (nice to have a big trunk with no junk in it) and took off via Belt Parkway to Portland, Maine through Connecticut, Massachusetts and so on.

We were very happy to get out of NYC without getting stuck in traffic — who would’ve thought? But soon enough everything was balanced out — some major accident on I-95 in Connecticut had us crawling for hours.

We even stopped near my work in Norwalk for dinner in a local brewery to let the traffic pass, but it didn’t help. It took us a good number of hours to pass through what should’ve taken 30 minutes maximum. But that didn’t matter. We had good company and we all were having a good time and a new adventure was awaiting us.

After that the drive was uneventful and long. It doesn’t mean that it wasn’t fun though. We got to Portland at around 1am and were sleeping by 2. Meanwhile Vika gave birth to a little baby girl, who they named Audrey.

From Portland To Augusta To Bar Harbor

The next morning we checked out of the hotel, ate breakfast at local Friendly’s and drove to downtown Portland. We stumbled upon an open Post Office, where we got our Portland stamp. Post Office happened to be right across from the city hall building.

After that we drove down to the old docks. That area of the town turned out to be full of tourists, little shops and restaurants. They day was mostly cloudy, but not rainy. We walked around the town for a couple of hours and soon after left for Augusta.

Augusta is the capital of Maine. While Portland, being Maine’s biggest city has only 60,000 people living it, Augusta was even smaller. It was much quieter and as it always is the capitol area was virtually deserted on a Saturday.

We walked around, took some pictures, drove to the bank of Kennebec River that passes through Augusta, ending up in a tiny town of Hallowell in the process.

The rest of the day we spent on driving to Bar Harbor. Bar Harbor itself is a small town that is located on Mount Desert island right on the edge of Acadia National Park. There was nothing notable on the way, except for everything being covered in all shades of green — a spring forest that has just recently been awoken.

The closer we were getting to Bar Harbor (driving south from Bangor) the more Lobster restaurants and pounds of all kinds started to appear. I just happen to remember all kinds of lobster places having large pots outside with steam coming out of large pipes attached to those pots. Maine and lobsters are synonymous to most people either way, and it started to become the same for us.

Bar Harbor

We got to Bar Harbor around 5pm.

Easily found our hotel (no chains, only small private places) and checked in. We were staying in a place called Bar Harbor Manor. We had a big suite with 2 bedrooms. They had several houses and we had a full 2nd floor of one of them. It was very nice, clean and cozy. It also had a big kitchen with everything in it and a big table with 4 chairs — this is where we ate our breakfast most of the days.

The town itself is pretty small — I would say about 10 blocks by 10 blocks. The street that we were staying on was very quite, but it took us only 10 minutes of walking to get to the busiest part of the town. The center had multiple shops, restaurants and was full of tourists. Those streets are also located right on the coast and the views are magnificent.

A very cozy little town and great place to spend time at on a relaxing vacation.

Food

Bar Harbor is obviously a sea-food town. I personally have eaten barely any sea-food at all in my life time, but I decided I have to try some stuff since we’re in Maine.

For our first evening dinner the owner of our inn recommended we go to a simple place called West Street Cafe. The place has simple wooden benches and tables, but it felt nice. We ordered mussels for an appetizer and everyone ordered different lobsters. My mom and Alena ordered whole lobsters, I ordered Lobster Scampi (aka lazy man’s lobster) and my dad ordered stuffed lobster, but the waitress messed up and he ended up with stuffed fish.

First of all I have to say that I tried mussels. Everyone was very impressed with this dish in this place, and I was able to eat it. That’s saying a lot. Also I was eating lobster, but I still have to say that I prefer steak to it. I think that was the consensus.

The next day we ate our dinner inside Acadia itself — Jordan Pond House. The soup was rather weird, but for my main course I ordered a grilled chicken breast. It was extremely delicious.

On Monday evening we went to another place that was recommended to us by our inn owner — Galyn’s. It was more of an upscale place and I think everyone liked it the most. I for a change ordered a steak, as did everyone else, but Alena. She said that she’s going to be eating lobsters while she’s in Maine and that’s what she did. The way she put it was that she’s going to keep at it until she starts liking them. Not sure if that happened, but she did keep at it.

Last day we had our breakfast in a blueberry pancake place (other days we ate at home — we bought some stuff in a local supermarket) and in the evening we went to the place right on the water — Fish House Grill. It was similar to the first place and Alena ordered a whole lobster again. So did my mom, as it turned out by mistake. And she was really unhappy about the fact that she had to fight with the lobster again. It was actually quite funny to see her get mad at the lobster.

And on our way home we did what we always do when we drive from that direction. We stopped in Foxwoods to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. The Greek pizza was as delicious as before.

Acadia National Park

Sunday, our first full day there, was dedicated to exploring the main part of Acadia National Park. This is also the day when we collected most of our stamps around the park. We started from the visitor center and drove all around the Park Loop Road.

We visited the top of Cadillac Mountain. It is the highest point on the east coast, yet it is only 1,600 feet. It really has got nothing on Colorado or the southwest. But the views from the top are nevertheless spectacular. You can see all of the island, the town, the ocean and the multitude of other little islands.

We saw Sand Beach, Thunder Hole (water hits the walls of a cave and it does really sound like a loud thunder), we did a 3 mile hike around Jordan Pond and took a whole bunch of pictures, besides other things that I don’t recall. Sadly the first part of the day was cloudy, so some shots look gloomier than it really felt.

Since we’re more used to the northern nature there wasn’t really a wow factor involved here (unlike our southwest trips), but the peacefulness and the tranquility of the park was great. Amazing beauty of simple green forest, brown and gray rocks and blue ocean is just what one needs to relax and get away from the usual daily routine.

On the 2nd day we went to see the famous Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. From one side it is utterly unimpressive and is tiny compared to Fire Island Lighthouse. On the other hand the location where it is built is magnificent. And all in combination it produces a striking view.

After that we decided to drive to Schoodic Peninsula — a 60 mile drive. The views and forest there is different and there are visible paths where lava used to flow some long time ago. The sad part was that there should’ve been a stamp there as well, but nobody on the ranger station was able to find it. I guess somebody decided to collect the stamp itself, not its print.

And on our last day we took it rather easy. We did a hike along one of the multiple carriage roads in the park, while taking pictures of 2 stones bridges.

Stamps

Overall we ended up with 10 new stamps. 8 of them are from Acadia National Park. Should’ve been 9 if it weren’t for missing Schoodic stamp. One is from our stop at some Massachusetts historic site on our way back and one is USPS stamp from Portland.

Last Days

On our last full day in Acadia we started the day with a walk through the multiple shops in the city. Mama and Alena wanted to buy some souvenirs and do a little shopping.

Afterward we did some light park exploration that I mentioned above and then we remembered about a winery that we saw on our way to Bar Harbor. It is actually located on the same island and was only 7 miles away. What we did was go there and for me and Alena it was our first wine tasting.

We ended up buying 3 bottles of wine — 2 dry white wines were very good and 1 sweet red wine that is made from apples and black currant, but it tastes more like a juice. And the parents bought 5 bottles, one of which we destroyed in the evening with some cheese that we bought for this purpose.

The drive back took 12 hours overall. We left at 11am, made a couple of stops along the way and were back home at 11pm. Total round trip came out to about 1,200 miles.

Conclusion

I love visiting National Parks of this country. Nature, some exploration and our good company is my favorite kind of vacation, good company being on number 1 spot. I had a great time and I think so did everyone else.

It’s been almost 6 months since our southwest trip, but there is one place that we still haven’t said a word about — Sedona, Arizona. And I’d like to try to remember some things about it and write these memories down before they completely fade away.

Sedona is a town located in the heart of Arizona, surrounded by beautiful red mountains. It’s a very touristy town with a lot of shops, restaurants and swarms of visitors. At the same it seems very cozy with its small streets, uplifting colors and architecture.

For Alena and I this was not our first time here, so originally I didn’t even want to repeat the trip. We’ve been here on our Arizona trip in October 2005 and liked it a lot. But after driving through most of Utah, New Mexico and Arizona I thought it would be boring to revisit. On the other hand we had nothing to do and papa and mama haven’t been there, so off we went.

It turned out to be a good decision. Papa and mama liked it very much and I found it, as I said, much cozier than I remembered. It was nice to remember some of the places in this town. We even managed to find a cheap BBQ place where we all ordered pulled pork sandwiches, just like we did with Alena in 2005.

On our way to Sedona we drove by Tuzigoot National Monument and got our mandatory stamps there. The monument itself wasn’t all that interesting — just some old dwellings that mostly fell apart.

And after Sedona we managed to get our stamps at Montezuma Castle National Monument. It consists of 2 distinct parts — the well and the castle. We were on time at the well, but castle was 10 minutes away and it was almost 5pm on the clock — that’s when they close it down.

So we flew by the ranger right into the gate of the 2nd part, managed to get our stamps there as well and even had the time to run to the castle. On our way back I was worried that the ranger was going to be pissed at us for doing this, but when he saw us again he actually started smiling and waving. I guess he understood why we were seriously speeding.

And that’s pretty much all of the trip that I remember.

Wow, another trip booked! We wanted to take this one for quite a while and we’re finally doing it. The main destination is Acadia National Park in Maine.

The plan is very simple. On Friday, May 22nd, night we drive¹ out from NYC right after work and drive all the way to Portland, ME, where we’re going to spend the rest of the night². The next morning after checking out Portland we’ll drive to Bar Harbor which is right on the edge of Acadia NP, stopping on our way in Augusta, ME³. We’re going to spend the other 4 nights⁴ of our trip in Bar Harbor.

On Wednesday, May 27th, we’ll be driving back home. This falls right on the Memorial Day plus we’re taking 2 more days off which makes it total of 5 days. We were planning to visit Nova Scotia, Canada, but decided that it would be too hectic.

It’s this time of the year again — time to post the breakdown and the plan of our next road trip. This time our main objective is Yellowstone National Park. It is the oldest and probably one of the most richest and most famous parks.

The route on the map¹ above is the most likely way we will go, but it omits all the points of interest. I want to read up more about the stamp locations along the way and the actual plan of exploring² Yellowstone itself. Read more…

Данька написал очень хороший пост о своих впечатлениях от нашей поездки, но мне еще хочется добавить пару строчек к его рассказу.

Кормили нас и правда на убой. Однако, чем больше времени проходило, тем меньше мы ели в буфете. В первые дни всё хотелось попробовать, а потом уже наступило такое насыщение, что лично я на завтраки, например, могла есть только фрукты. Одним из моих любимых “блюд” были свежеприготовленные соки — арбузный, дынный, бананово-апельсиновый, ананасово-кактусово-петрушечный… Вкуснятина да и только!

Отель в целом произвёл очень и очень приятное впечатление, хотя в следующий раз мне бы хотелось остановится в более “диком” месте, где больше территория и меньше здание отеля (например, не одно огромное здание, а несколько небольших домиков).

Позабавил тот факт, что убирали в номере не один раз в день, а как получится: вернешься с обеда — кровать заправлена, вернёшься с ужина — снова заправленна (несмотря на то, что мы её после обеда старательно расстилали). После поездки на автобусе в город у нас осталась кое-какая мелочёвка в местной валюте, которую мы кинули на стол под мини-баром. Только через пару дней мы поняли, что мелочёвка эта была с благодарностью (именно так — нам не что-нибудь, а помыли чехлы от зубных щеток!) принята в роли чаевых. Ну нам не жалко. Мы еще немного мелочи положили на столик — и за пару часов, что нас не было в номере, деньги тоже быстренько испарились.

Еще позабавило то, что практически каждый местный житель посчитал своим долгом пошутить насчёт “Chicken Pizza” aka “Chichen Itza”. Признаюсь, мне и первый-то раз было не слишком смешно, а уж на 5-й раз приходилось выдавливать из себя улыбку, чтобы не расстраивать шутящих мексиканцев. Стоит заметить, что персонал гостиницы был ну очень доброжелательным. Я по ходу дела выучила несколько слов на испанском — синко, ком эс таз, амига, пикантэ, буэнос ночес.

Еще мне очень хотелось прикупить себе какую-нибудь безделушку на шею. Прикупили, и даже не одну! Данька рьяно торговался за мои украшения, а так же за разные сувениры (причём можно неплохо скинуть цену). Возле гостиницы в некоторые вечера устанавливали свои столы торговцы — у одного из них было очень много красивых ракушек, и в некоторые из них он дул, как в тромбон, и они издавали густой низкий звук, похожий на гудок парохода. У этого торговца мы купили висячую штуку из ракушек — и теперь она украшает нашу стену и я время от времени дёргаю её за ниточки, чтобы послушать постукивание ракушек друг о друга и вспомнить тёплый вечер у моря. Эх, хорошо было!

Как ни странно, вставать каждое утро до 7 часов оказалось совсем не сложно. Мне больше всего нравилось находиться на пляже, когда он еще был почти пустынным, а гомон отдыхающих еще не вплетался в шум волн. Вообще среди туристов большинство было англоговорящих, хотя изредка встречалась и другая речь (в основном русская). Думаю, как минимум 3/4 всех отдыхающих в Канкуне вне отдыха обитают в США.

Домой было ехать как всегда грустно. Но ничего — впереди еще много отпусков (надеюсь, не менее приятных)!

We’re home. Just yesterday in the morning some of us were swimming and Caribbean Sea and now we’re in cold, gray New York. But I must say no matter how good the vacation is it is always nice to come back home. Home, sweet home.

I want to take a moment and jot down some notes before the memories start to fade.

Flying

Flying out of JFK is sweet. The ride there is less than 20 minutes which keeps my departure fears in check and saves greatly on time and taxi fees.

We had a bit of a scare during check-in. First we were told that we were missing some papers that we should’ve gotten for Alena at Mexican consulate, so she can’t go. I kept insisting that I did call the consulate and the embassy and was told that we don’t need anything and kept making them recheck until they did figure out that everything is OK. That was scary 15 minutes.

After a relatively short flight¹ we stood in a passport check line for about hour and a half. The line was huge and was moving slowly.

And going back was even more fun. When we got to the airport the line to AA (our airline) was spanning through half the terminal. We stood in it for 1.5 hours and started feeling that we’re not going to make it. At that time they started letting people bound for New York go ahead of the line. Ironically it turned out that pretty much all flights were delayed, including ours, so we wouldn’t have been late anyhow.

The whole “check-in” in JFK took about 10 minutes, which was nice.

Hotel

During check-in I gave $20 to the clerk and asked for 2 rooms to be next to each other, be on the highest floor they can give us, and have ocean view. I’m not sure if $20 did it, or just asking would’ve worked, but that’s what we got.

The room had a full fridge of beer and other drinks and there was a full bar of hard liquors. I proceeded to take a shot of tequila before putting down my bag.

The territory of the resort was not too big, but it had 5 restaurants, a buffet, a couple of bars and a bunch of pools and jacuzzis.

And no matter where you were there were always somebody asking you if you wanted any kind of drink. So needless to say we drank our fair share or all things alcoholic.

Rooms didn’t have any internet, but there was a Wi-Fi connection in the lobby, which was half dead as well. But that’s probably should be added to the “pros” column.

Activities

This is the main part of the vacation. There was no plan, no place to rush to and it was great. Alena, mama and Lina were on the beach getting their tan starting from 7am. Initially I was out there pretty early too, but as the time went by I kept sleeping later and later.

The water in the sea was very clean and the color was beautiful. It was as warm as a sea can get and we did a lot of swimming. I took my Casio watch swimming with me every time and I it was cool not having to worry about it going bad and having the time right there with me.

The only bad part about the sea was the fact there was a lot sharp hidden stones under the water. Each one of us ended up hurting our feet pretty badly at one point or another.

Besides that we treated ourselves to the spa with a massage, dry sauna and hot and cold jacuzzi. This was the first time either one of us got a massage. We all ended up liking it.

And obviously we did a lot of eating.

Food

There is no question that there was a lot of choices. Buffets had different themes every night and there was a choice of 5 restaurants for dinner. For lunch there was buffet and Italian restaurant and for breakfast — just the buffet. There was also 24 hour free room service which a small selection of light meals.

A restaurant requires a reservation at least one night in advance, so our first 2 dinners were in buffet, but the rest were in the restaurants.

We tried out all the restaurants and I have to say that living in New York spoils you. Brazilian was a joke. A very sad parody of what a real Brazilian steak house really is. It got nothing on Plataforma and the service was horrible on top of that.

Japanese was a big disappointment for Lina and Alena. And even thought I’m not a big sushi eater, I can tell when a Japanese place is good. The problem with this one was not the fact that it was bad — it just wasn’t Japanese. Anything, but Japanese.

Our 3rd visit was to the Spanish restaurant. We were impressed. Really interesting selection of meals, great atmosphere and great service.

Steak house was OK. I for some reason had grown tired of steaks, so I kept ordering different dishes in different places, but in steak house I had to go for a steak. As I’ve said, the steak was OK. I’ve had better, but it wasn’t bad.

And for our last night we went to a place called Krystal — a fusion of different cuisines. Another great place. Delicious food. I ordered bass and I loved it — this never happens. The atmosphere was really nice, you get greeted with champagne and friendly, funny servers.

Out of 5 restaurants I’d love to go to Krystal and Tío Pepe (Spanish cuisine) again and would stay away from Brazilian Rodizio.

Chichen Itza

On Wednesday we a took a tour to Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza it an ancient city built by Mayans.

The price of a ticket for one person was about $99 and the private tour for 5 people was $348 + tickets². The choice was obvious. We had a van all to ourselves with a driver and guide. Our guide was really mediocre and boring, but he showed us the right spots.

It was interesting to see the Mayan pyramid with our own eyes and the rest of the ruins of their city. They were a bloodthirsty and brutal civilization and a lot of their art and architecture depicts it.

Later on we drove to a swimming well. It seems to be a round deep crater filled with water, and you can swim in it. The distance from the top to the water is 75 feet and from than there is another 150 to the bottom.

Sadly I managed to catch a cold a day before and by this time I had a fever of 38°, so papa ended up the only one going to swim. He said the water was not nearly as cold as he expected, it was very clean and there was a lot of fish swimming in there.

Overall

All in all it turned out to be a great vacation. It’s nice to sometimes have no agenda at all and just do a lot of nothing on a beautiful resort on the shore of a Caribbean Sea with family.

Сейчас 2 часа дня по местному времени, а мы сидим на одном из уютных диванчиков расставленных у стен гостиницы по её периметру и слух нам ласкает мерный плеск волн чарующе красивого Карибского моря. Еще небольшие коричневые птички издают пронзительные звуки, которые своей экзотичностью наводят на мысли о тропиках.

В 3 часа дня мы зарезервировали себе массаж тел в местном салоне красоты. Мне давно хотелось опробовать на собственной шкуре что же это такое, и так как отпуск у нас по определению довольно пассивный, то данная идея пришлась всем по душе.

В субботу, день прибытия, все жутко устали, и мы с Данькой завалились спать аж в 8 вечера. Зато в воскресенье уже в 6.30 утра я проснулась и бодренько отправилась на пляж. Мне очень понравилось стоять на пустынном пляже и смотреть за охотой пеликанов (по-моему, это пеликаны, но я могу и ошибаться). Они парили над волнами, и время от времени резко пикировали вниз за добычей. Вскоре (к моему удивлению) не пляж подтянулся и хорошо выспавшийся Данька, и мы немного прогулялись по песчаной косе вдоль берега и немного пофотографировали окружающий ландшафт.

Мы пару раз за утро искупались. Водичка очень приятная, хоть к ней и надо сперва привыкнуть. Немного омрачает купаниет тот факт, что в воде очень много острых камней, и можно легко поранить ногу, если вовремя не сгруппироваться под ударом волны. Я пока отделалась лёгким испугом, Данька поцарапался, а Линка и д. Боря серьёзно ушибли пальцы. Но в целом, мне всё равно нравится! Я часто думаю о Люде и о том, как бы ей тут понравилось.

Кормят тут много и вкусно. Пока мы ходили в буфет и итальянский ресторан, сегодня на ужин запланирован бразильский, а завтра — японский. Еще мне нравится, что можно в любое время и попросить у кого-нибудь из обслуживающего персонала практически любой алкогольный или безалкогольный напиток. Вообще персонал тут очень доброжелательный и все стараются создать очень приятную атмосферу. Но вчера мы решили выбраться в город, и мне, если честно, было немного тревожно. Местные жители на нас немного косились — наверное, в их глазах мы выглядим багачами. Конечно, уровень жизни тут совсем другой, но, наверное, они не осознают, что для нас цена отпуска тоже составляет весьма приличную сумму.

We are back from swimming in Caribbean Sea for the first time ever. The color of water is nothing short of amazing and reminds me of Hawaii.

The hotel is as good as hotels go. There are five restaurants and a buffet. So far we’ve been to buffet only, but we have reservations to Brazilian and Japanese for dinner tomorrow and on Tuesday.

Hotel has a bunch of pools and jacuzzis, but everyone is swimming in the warm waters of the sea.

Our 2nd day was the most memorable for me I think. The reason is XC skiing. I was very lazy and was somewhat refusing to even try, but Alena wanted to go, so I reluctantly agreed.

The whole deal was extremely cheap first of all. We paid $35 per person for a ticket to the trail, 1 hour lesson with instructor and all the equipment rental. I think we spent a little over 2 hours on the trails — training and then putting our “skill” to use.

It all started with us getting some help from people “in the know” for putting our skis on. Right after that I saw Alena slowly, but steadily leave me, sliding down the slope. I tried to go catch her, but couldn’t move and couldn’t get out of my skis either. I just kept yelling: “Brake, brake!” She managed to ask some nice people on her way though how to stop and they were nice enough to help her.

I actually managed not to fall a single time, which can’t be said of the rest of the trainees. Poor Alena was doing pretty well, but at one point while we were waiting for the rest of the group to catch up just lost balance while standing still and fell on her back. I felt so bad, but yet again was unable to free myself from the skis. She cried a little from the pain, but after a bit of consideration decided to continue.

The snow wasn’t great, but overall it was pretty fun. I think we might try it again some day on some fresh snow.

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Last day of our weekend consisted mostly of driving home. We made 2 small detours on our way thought.

First one was a stop at a town called Lowell in Massachusetts. It’s designated as a National Historic area, so we went to get our stamps (which we did). The city used to be the beginning of American industrialization at the end of 19th century. However everything fell apart in the beginning of 20th and that’s pretty much how it went through the rest of the century. They say it was reborn, but it really doesn’t seem to be the case.

After that we decided that Foxwoods Resort Casino wasn’t too far off our way and we decided to go there for dinner. Last time we really loved the food at California Pizza Kitchen (a chain restaurant of all things). We found another one at Scottsdale during our southwest trip.

Today was as great as before. We ordered one Greek Pizza and Chicken Piccata. Really really delicious stuff. And all that for $30. We enjoyed it.

Then we spent $5 on slot machines and went home.

We left for the trip at about 8pm on Friday and got home at about 8pm on Monday. It was a great weekend that I spent with my best friend — my awesome wife and I loved all of it.

It’s 4.30 p.m on St. Valentine’s Day. Danya and I just got to our hotel room, and we’re relaxing on that big soft bed and watching TV. Life is good!

We woke up relatively early today, ate complimentary breakfast at the hotel, and then drove to Concord, the capital of New Hampshire. The weather is not so bad today — it is chili, but sunny out there. We walked through the main street of Concord, visited the Museum of New Hampshire History and took a couple of pictures in front of the state Capitol.

Concord left an impression of a clean, quite town. The Capitol with its golden dome was shining under the sun. There is a Liberty Bell standing near the Capitol building, and we had to walk through some deep snow to get to it. There is also a statue of Daniel Webster — famous attorney, member of the Senate, and, apparently, a very good speaker. He ran for the president 3 times, but failed to get the desired post.

After the walk through Concord, we drove to the local planetarium. However, we did not watch the show since to do so would have required almost an hour of waiting, and we’ve decided to skip it.

After this we drove to the Gunstock park in order to gather the information on the cross-country skiing. We’ve been told that there are two group lessons every day — at 10 a.m. and at 1 p.m. — and that equipment renting, trail pass for the whole day and the lesson are $35. Not bad if you ask me.

We had our “holiday” lunch at “99″ chain restaurant near the hotel. The food was OK, and we even got Danya’s steak for free since they managed to serve him a piece of charcoal first time around…