Viva Las Vegas!

Cheesy as it sounds, that might be my favorite Elvis song. Not on its merits as a song (which are admittedly few), but more for the celebratory sense of a trip to Vegas.

We're back. We left Wednesday night and got back yesterday afternoon. It was a great trip. In no particular order, nine highlights:

1. The room was great. We had a spa room at the Excalibur, which in addition to the joy of soaking in our own hot tub whenever we darned well pleased, is a perfect location for other attractions.

2. We saw a baby dolphin at the Mirage. He was.... just ridiculously cute. They named him Sergeant Pepper, which... eh. I guess you would have to be a Beatles fan (which I am not). We nicknamed him Boing Boing which definitely fit his bouncy, playful demeanor.

3. We got to pet stingrays at Mandalay Bay's Shark Reef. They were sooooooooooooooo cute! Not that into being petted, quite honestly, but most of them were okay with a little stroke on their backs. I think the handlers trim their barbs so they can't sting people. The Shark Reef is actually a very cool aquarium, with lots of interesting creatures. The eponymous sharks are plentiful and scary, but there are also sea turtles (huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge!) and a lot of pretty little fish.

4. Finally went on the Manhattan Express, the roller coaster at New York New York, which I hadn't gotten to on any previous trips to Vegas. It is scarier than it looks. Not the scariest coaster I have ever been on, by any means (I famously repeated Hail Marys on one at Six Flags), but pretty freaking scary for a 30-something who hasn't been on a roller coaster in about a decade. I was totally game up until we sat in the car, and it occurred to me that this might not have been such a hot idea after all. The same thought occurred to me as we approached the foot of the first hill. I stated, very matter-of-fact as if discussing the weather, "oh shit!" and off we went. After two big drops, a corkscrew thingy, and two sets of several little hills, we wobbled off the ride, with jimmy legs and a powerful thirst after screaming ourselves dry.

5. Had quite possibly the best dinner of my life at StripSteak in Mandalay Bay. This is a Michael Mina restaurant that very successfully marries haute cuisine with classic American dishes. DH's prime rib was a perfect example: accompanying the meat were a demi-glace "au jus," and horseradish creme fraiche. DH asked me what the au jus was, being thicker, richer and glossier than the usual au jus you get with prime rib. I tasted it and geeked out on how you make demi-glace, why it tastes like that, and why it is so shiny.

Me, I got a big filet mignon with a veritable slab of foie gras on top. Not just a wee little slice, but a piece the size of a toddler's fist, grilled just until the inside was gooey and plopped atop my steak.

They started us off with a complimentary appetizer of french fries deep-fried in duck fat, which I must sadly report were absolutely fabulous. There were three versions, each with a different seasoning and paired with a coordinating dip -- the truffled one was my favorite, of course.

6. Agent Provocateur makes the best bras ever (Forum Shops at Caesar's). So beautiful, such a perfect fit, and so expensive that I was nearly moved to tears.

7. There are wine bars on the strip, believe it or not. The best one is 55 Degrees at Mandalay Bay. Details will follow on our wine blog later in the week.

8. We aren't big gamblers, actually. Other than a couple of sports bets, we didn't do much gambling. We finally resorted to it in earnest to kill time before dinner at Stripsteak on Saturday night. I played video poker for about an hour on the same 20 bucks. We didn't win anything, but it was a good run.

9. We saw Jubilee at Bally's, which was very good. The production was high quality, and it struck me as a very classic Vegas show. And, really, when all the showgirls line up and do that kicking thing in perfect unison, it is quite impressive.

And now, for the obligatory knitting content. I haven't been knitting much lately. I have had some wrist and hand pain, and am trying not to stress them more than is strictly necessary. Accordingly, I didn't bring any knitting for the plane, and I am probably going to be knitting less over the coming weeks until I get some strength back.

I am also officially on a yarn fast, due to the aforementioned shopping at Agent Provocateur and the decrease in knitting. I will not be purchasing any yarn for myself for the rest of the year. Two exceptions: 1. running out of yarn on a WIP; 2. the Knit and Crochet Show in September , for which I already registered, and then only for a (as in one) planned project. No impulse buys. I will keep you posted!

For Whom the Frog Croaks

It croaks for DH's socks. Or, to be precise, sock.

This, perhaps, might have been foretold much earlier in the tale. To start, I did 2x2 ribbing around the cuff and from the beginning, realized that I'd messed it up. There was a spot of 4 stitches in stockinette. I left them and went blithely on.

I am less appalled at my utter disregard for fucked up knitting/rookie mistakes than I am at thinking I was apparently willing to give substandard socks to my wonderful DH. I am also a bit perplexed at my willingness to do this from a marketing standpoint. You see, I have a wee suspicion that he might need some convincing that knitting is actually a worthwhile endeavor, and further, that once he gets a knitted gift from me, he will want lots of knitted gifts from me. Shitty socks will hardly advance my cause.

But this isn't the worst of it. I did a round while waiting for the train to the airport, and a curious thing happened. I am knitting with two circulars, and rather than switch needles, I just kept on knitting with the same one, putting all the stitches on that one needle (non-knitters be advised that this is not what's supposed to happen).

I fixed this immediately, and in fiddling all the stitches around, I noticed two conspicuous and inexplicable holes in the knitting. Not dropped stitches. Not moths (cotton socks only for DH). Just. Random. Perfectly round. Holes. From nowhere. In plain stockinette.

So, they must be frogged. I'd rather do DH's golf club covers anyway (in Wool of the Andes).

Next on the frog list is the sideways scarf I started and promptly crammed back into the stash. This is the one that was supposed to use up the luscious: Colinette mohair, cashmere remnant, and recycled silk. I am not sure what will become of these. Suffice it to say, DH's Socks Take Two, will probably be done before any of these become a project.

The Burning Question

(I was tempted to say The Purling Question. Is that too much? Too stupid? Too "huh?"?)

So. Did you get any knitting in?

I am happy to report that I did. In Praiano, I swatched the wool I got at Beatrice Galli. We were in our room, waiting for dinnertime, or, more precisely, aperitif time - when we could head down to the cafe with enough time to have a glass of wine, but not so much time that we were tempted to have two. Or three (restaurants in Italy open for dinner at 7:00 if you're lucky). DH was watching Polish TV, so it seemed like an opportune time for knitting. I'd had the foresight to pack my Denise kit, which, by the way, I adore. We're making a totally adorable hat with the wool. It's variegated pinks and grays, and knitted up it looks almost like girly camouflage.

I suppose the Polish TV requires some further detail. DH isn't Polish, and does not speak Polish, but happily, Polish TV speaks English. They had on some hilariously bad American cop show (which I don't recall ever seeing aired here), and left all the English voices in. A Polish guy talks over them, but you can still hear the English. It's the same guy for all of the dialogue, which I would think would be confusing, but maybe not.

We flew home from Naples, the nearest airport to Praiano. To get there, we'd taken a ferry from Positano - opting for a too early one because it was direct, rather than a later one that made lots of stops. This added up to a good few hours of knitting time in the airport, which I devoted to my garter lace shawl. I couldn't find my toolkit, but I knitted anyway and mercifully didn't drop a stitch (which would have required the crochet hook in the toolkit). After I'd put the knitting away for the duration, I went rummaging for my lip balm, and then found the tool kit.

I was, by the way, required to pack all of my knitting things in the checked baggage, so my 20+ hours in the air was spent reading, apart from a short nap on the flight out from SFO. Read some good books, though. I finished a Steven Saylor mystery I had been reading before we left, read all of The Devil Wears Prada (LOVED it), and bought a third book in London (Left Bank, by Kate Muir, which was brilliant) for the flight home.

Travelogue

We're baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

We got in Sunday afternoon, and crashed pretty much immediately. We both went back to work Monday, and it's been a bit of an adjustment. ;)

We had a fantastic trip, and great weather, apart from a couple of days of rain in Rome - no big deal, since we could easily make those "museum days."

The highlights....

Florence:

Most relevant to the blog, I made my one yarn purchase here, at the Beatrice Galli Yarn shop. She's on a little street just off the Ponte Vecchio (Oltrarno). She was SUPER nice, and although I hadn't really planned to buy yarn, I did, after all, wander into her shop, which I had looked up in advance. I did good - only two balls of a pink and gray wool/cashmere blend. It is wonderfully thick and thin, and squashy. It wants to be a hat.

We made it to all of the artistically/architecturally significant churches. My favorites were: San Miniato, dating to the 9th century and located on a hill high above the city. It was very quiet and peaceful inside, so when I dropped a Euro coin into the offering box, it sounded almost like a door slamming. It was one of those places you walk into and are immediately impressed with a feeling of how spiritual it is. Santa Croce, also very spiritual, and lots less crowded than the Duomo, had beautiful frescoes by Giotto, and wonderful stained glass. San Marco was notable for its old monastery, which you could visit. Each cell had a fresco by Fra Angelico, all of which were remarkably well preserved - they could have been painted yesterday.

We also saw some fantastic art, including Michelangelo's David, and some of his unfinished (and therefore all the more haunting) sculptures at the Accademia. For art, though, the best museum in Florence is the Uffizi, which was originally built as offices for one of the Medicis. Two of Botticelli's most famous paintings are there - the Venus, and Primavera, both of which are absolute knockouts in person.

We had some good meals in Florence, too - lots of pizza, each different and delicious in its own way, as well as a trip to the Mercato Centrale, where some of the city's best bakers, butchers, greengrocers, and other food artisans are gathered under one roof. We put a lovely picnic lunch together there, including wild boar salame (a local specialty), and the best focaccia I had ever tasted. It was wonderfully olive-oily and had red pepper flakes mingled in with the herbs.

We had a day trip to Fiesole as well, a small town outside the city. There is an old Roman amphitheatre there, as well as a museum. It is still an active archeological dig, but you could still walk around most of it! From there, we walked down tiny, twisty streets to another town, San Domenico, where we had a glass of Pinot Grigio in a cafe before catching the bus back to town.

Florence was a wonderful city to just walk around in. It is beautiful and feels like a smaller town. I loved the way art and a sense of aesthetic harmony were woven into daily life. We went nearly everywhere on foot, and after a week, felt like we had lived there, we knew it so well. It was very romantic, exactly as I dreamed Italy would be.

Rome:

Rome was a bit of a shock at first. Its main train station, the Termini, seems as big as an airport, and contains everything you might conceivably need, from last minute postcards, to newspapers, even a grocery store. This is definitely a big city. I had dubbed it "Los Angeles on the Tiber," but this isn't quite fair. The top sights here are breathtaking, to say the least. I was stunned that they actually let you wander around ruins (we saw the Colosseum, the Forum, the Palatine Hill, as well as took a day trip to Ostia Antica). Ostia was amazing - the buildings are remarkably intact, and you can easily imagine it as the bustling port city it was before the Tiber changed course. In the market, there are mosaics outside each shop, indicating what was sold there.

Some of the most significant, and spectacular, artifacts of ancient Rome are housed in the Musei Nazionale, which takes hours to go through. We had a great half a day there, checking out statues, mosaics that are amazingly intact, and even a whole room that was re-assembled inside the museum, with walls painted to look like a garden.

We took a bit of a break from the ancient sights to see the Galleria Doria Pamphilj - this is a private art collection, in a beautiful palazzo. The family still live there, but the rooms containing the collection are open to the public. The collection is impressive for its diversity, including religious subjects by Italian painters, portraits, and my favorites, landscapes by Claude Lorrain. The rooms, of course, are beautiful too, with fabric-covered walls, ornate furniture, and parquet floors that creak quietly under your feet.

My favorite sights (besides our room's luxurious bathtub - a rarity in affordable European hotels) were easily the Vatican Museums (includes the Sistine Chapel) and St. Peter's Basilica. There are no words to describe the incredible collection of art, the exquisite painting of the Sistine Chapel, nor the sheer awesomeness of St. Peter's. So many of the churches we saw still served their nearby communities, and in my favorite ones, you could still feel how the spirit of these communities filled them, and welcomed you in too. St. Peter's, however, is meant to be a church for the world, and you feel that as soon as you walk in the doors. The largeness of it is overwhelming, but in a good way.

Michelangelo's Pieta is there, and we got as close as possible to it (it is behind bulletproof glass now because some maniac broke off part of it with a hammer; they were able to repair it with a piece of marble from an unseen part of the statue, but it obviously has to be protected). There is an unfinished one in the Accademia in Florence, too. The finished Pieta is, obviously, spectacular, but in a way, I preferred the unfinished one. You could get closer to it, and the fact that the figures aren't entirely revealed drew me in and gave the piece a certain emotional resonance.

In a sad, yet beautiful experience, we were also able to tour the tombs of the Popes, and saw John Paul the IIs, where a number of people were gathered, praying, crying (self included), or simply gazing in silence. Also there is the tomb of St. Peter, which us under the Papal Altar in the church itself. You can kind of see it from the church, but in the tombs, you can see right into it. Again, something totally indescribable - and amazing to think that the altar was built right above his grave, so many years later.

Our best meal of the trip was in Rome. A neighborhood called the Trastevere is home to many of Rome's most authentic restaurants. It has a lively, bohemian spirit, and it was a fun place to wander and people-watch. We had our quintessential Roman meal there, featuring one of the city's signature dishes: roast chicken and potatoes. This simple sounding dish was actually exquisite: the light and crispy skin of the chicken, the incredibly tender, moist meat, all infused with the flavors of rosemary and fennel. The potatoes were roasted as well, and so soft they were like butter. Fabulous. We paired this with a Barolo that was a perfect complement to the food. We followed it up with a cheese plate and a rich, decadent dessert wine from the wine bar next door. When I dreamed of going to Italy, this was what it tasted like.

Praiano:

The last days of our trip were on the Amalfi coast, which is dotted with cliffside towns along the Mediterranean Sea. We stayed in Praiano, which is one of the smaller and higher towns. It is beautiful and very quiet. Tourists do stay here, but many venture out to other towns, so it felt almost like we had Praiano to ourselves. The locals were the friendliest, kindest people we had met so far.

Relieved from itineraries, we found ourselves in a comfortable routine of breakfast, morning hikes or swims, late lunch with the house white (always light, crisp and citrusy), usually followed by a nap. Since dinner was on the later side, we hung out on our balcony before heading down to the cafe for an aperitif, and then to dinner. Being a seaside town, local seafood was plentiful, and the local wines were both delicious and a stunningly good value. After two days of this, I said to DH that we could easily retire here. :)

So now we are back, with our best memories of Italy, and our full endorsement for you to go there too, whether it is your first time, or your sixth.

Ciao!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

But before I go, I updated the gallery with some RFOs and my shawl-in-progress. I am taking that and DH's sock on the trip. I decided against the floral gathering sac, much as I love it, because I didn't want to deal with charts and have to take lots of yarn with me (I might be bringing some back, after all).

Will be back 9/25.

Arrivederci!

Shopping List for Italy

Our honeymoon is in two weeks. In addition to great meals, breathtaking museums, awe-inspiring churches, constant romance, and the enjoyment of Italy's natural beauty, I am planning some knitting-related shopping.

1. Better prices than in US on any Italian-made yarns?

2. Yarns that never make it to the US.

3. Subset of item 2 - if we happen upon a farm with fiber-bearing animals in residence, and yarn is for sale.... hoo boy.

4. Holtz and Stein needles. These hardly ever make it to the US. I am hoping they are more prevalent in Italy.