Surprisingly enough my husband, who normally tries to avoid seafood (unless it is canned tuna, which he kind of likes) asked me to cook some fish for dinner a couple of days ago.

When we were vacationing in Mexico back in April, he got really impressed by the sea bass served in one of the restaurants, and he also ordered sea bass with tofu two weeks ago at David’s place (and liked it!). I think that trick here is that this fish is very mild-flavored.

So knowing this, the choice of fish was easy. Chilean sea bass, mind you, was the most expensive kind of fish in the little Chinese store where I made my purchase ($11.99/lb). There are plenty of recipes of sea bass online, but I did not have much time to look through them, and just picked one of the first ones I stumbled upon (recipe). The dinner came out really nice, and to my joy Danya was happy with it!

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.

Shublya really likes carrying our t-shirts around the apartment in his mouth and playing with them.

Just yesterday after work I wasn’t able to find my pink VS tank which I was wearing in the morning. Shublik stole it from the chair where it was left hanging, and hid it someplace (I still have no idea where).

Later that evening the shirt reappeared in the middle of the living room and happy Shublik was playing with it for a while.

He also like to hide under the old puffy jacket of mine. Danya says that he can put Shublya under it with a toy — and the little creature can entertain himself for almost an hour. Funny!

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.

Today we stopped by a local Petco to buy Shublya some food and have gotten some toys for him.

His favorite is still the feather on a string. We got this thing for him on his first day and by now there was barely anything left of it. So we got a new feather and he’s been running all over the apartment today with the feather in his mouth.

And then we also got him a new toy. There are 2 balls inside and a mouse on a spring.

So far he seems to like it. He keeps sticking his paws in the holes and spinning the balls inside. Both must be moving at all times. Such a funny creature.

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.

For those of you who were not convinced by Part 1 of our testing for Shublik & iPhone compatibility we present you conclusive evidence from Part 2 testing. Need more? I hope not!

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.