Weekend in Burlington and Corned Beef

We're having Saint Patty's Day supper with our long lost friends with whom we seem to lose contact with even though we live so close together. It's an odd situation, actually, and I'm not always sure what to make of it. We have lost touch with them because our circle of friends has shifted. When we lived closer we seemed to get together a lot more, but now that we are a whopping five miles further away, we never see these guys. I go out for a beer with P, but as a family we seem to operate in other places. It makes sense, they have their own community, they are very social people, and we have our own place in the universe.

Around this time of year, a certain birthday (P's) is celebrated at our house, but again, it's a little odd because not only do we not see them for the rest of the year, but throwing a birthday for someone else at our house is not something we would initiate. In the past it has been suggested by the other party, and in essence, an invitation is made on their own behalf. I.e., they are inviting themselves over to celebrate one of their birthdays. It's become a tradition, and not an awkward thing because not only do we know each other well, but we really enjoy their company and miss seeing them more often, but that's another story.

One thing that has crossed my mind is that our friends are very social and have a strong circle of acquaintances, and yet I know they don't include us in their social calendar. So now it brings in the whole high school mentality of being included and if not, then quid pro quo. I hate to admit it, but the thought has crossed my mind-if you're not going to invite us to your birthday parties, then I'm not going to invite you to ours.

In the end, that's the not the approach we took. We really like P&J, and out of the people we know, probably enjoy hanging with them as much as anybody. They're just good people, interesting and eclectic, and though over the course of time we have lost touch, it's nice to reconnect with them, and it's always a good time. So with this in mind, we're looking forward to a nice corned beef supper and good conversation while the kids have fun and destroy the house. Awkwardness be damned!

On the subject of Burlington, we had an awesome weekend, and would love to make quick jaunts up to the city a regular thing. It's very doable, not to mention affordable. After a nice long swim in their pool, which I may have mentioned has the largest jacuzzi that I'd ever seen, we ate supper at the Skinny Pancake. That place has really taken off, I don't know if it's the location or what, but man were they packing it in. Good for them.

We had the Garlique Chic and the Ham and Egg, and the Veggie Delight. Not vegan, mind you, because it had egg and cheese. We finished it off with a Banana/Strawberry/Nutella crepe, and we were ready to hit the sack. There's something about swimming that really drains you. We went to sleep around 8:30, our standard hour when we travel, looking foward to our buffet breakfast in the hotel.

I got up, as usual, before everyone else, and hid out in the bathroom and read my new favorite book, The Shock Doctrine. Great reading for a conspiracy theorist in all of us, but so well written and intelligently, not to mention convincingly argued. There's nothing like having a great book that you look forward to reading.

Our first stop was the Echo Museum, which I've come to think is inferior to the Montshire, but again, like the Montshire, the kids go crazy for the place. I had two free passes from a survey I'd done, and it helps, because that place is expensive. And it hadn't changed much, except for the one room that has the new exhibits, the place is always the same. I guess because they are big display the can't move them around, but the Montshire has much greater variety, not to mention diversity. The Echo really focuses on biology, which is a great thing, it's just that the Montshire also includes physics and chemistry. And the Montshire seems to be more hands on, which the kids love.

After the museum, we had a quick lunch of soup and sandwiches, where everyone was jockeying for a place on the deck because the weather was beautiful. We headed into downtown and wanted to use our Macy's cards that my mom gave us years ago, hoping they were still valid. Church Street is always a lot of fun, and we all enjoy it, though it can get a little squirrelly at times with the urban experiences that you just don't get in small towns. There were the usual street performers, one guy was singing one of our favorite songs, Wagon Wheel, and the street was packed.

Our first stop was Ben and Jerry's, and man was that place packed. You'd think in a big city they'd have more than one ice cream parlor, but that seemed to be the only game in town. The line was practically out the door. You can see how much B&J has evolved into a big corporate mess, with all the marketing and horizontal integration, it's not what it used to be, but we needed ice cream. For the record, I didn't have any.

We hung out on the drag and ate our dessert, and even were told by a cop that we had to move because we were blocking traffic. He was very nice about it, it's just that we were holding up the flow of people, and he even said he felt bad but also thought he couldn't tell the riff-raff (not his words) to move and not tell everyone else. We also learned that one of our favorite eating places, Boloco, is actually a franchise, but that doesn't change anything.

Macy's was a trip, as well. I've always had this impression that Macy's was more on the upscale side, but that place really seemed like a dump. Something about Macy's outside of Manhattan just doesn't seem to work. They are somewhat depressing, and all the clothes are trashy or too commercial. It's hard to find things that aren't completely overwhelmed with kids cartoon images, unless you want to pay more. And the girls clothes struck me as too provocative, if not downright trashy. It was appalling.

After a lengthy search, we found some stuff, the service was very average, and you can tell that you were clearly bothering them by asking questions, but I'm guessing it was a long day. We got some stuff, chipping away at our Macy's cards (for the record, we spent about $30), and then began the long drive home.

It takes about an hour and a half to drive, and we got home in time for mom to get her call from her mom. Off to bed to cap a nice weekend, hopefully one of many.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.

Linkin Blogs and Weekend Getaway Day 1

I had this realization that I should be adding links to my blog. Whenever I mention a business or a site, a link would probably be in order. So easy to do, I'll try to keep it in mind.

We had a great weekend, we did the spontaneous, last minute trip that was literally planned on the fly. We had toyed with the idea of going to New York for our kid's birthday, but it proved to be too much of an ordeal, and we once again bailed on my cousins, who now probably don't believe a word we say. We felt a little bad because the kids were really looking forward to it, they love a good road trip, being such worldly travelers and all.

On Friday night, we thought a trip to Burlington would be nice, but hadn't made any arrangements and left it at that, but on Saturday we decided to go for it, and as I went to the market and took in the recycling, my wife went online and found us hotel. By the time I got back, we got the kids ready, packed the car (lightly), and hit the road. How exciting.

We were staying at the Hilton, and the plan was to get a hotel, hang out and have dinner at our favorite spot, the Skinny Pancake, (note the link!), and then get some sleep and have a fun day in the big city. In the past we'd done day trips to Burlington, which are very doable but fall a little short on being what I consider to be a complete visit. You really need to spend at least one night.

Of course, the Echo Museum was on the agenda, even though I'm a bit over that place. Maybe it's a parental thing, but a lot of our friends find museums for kids exhausting, if not tiresome. We go on a regular basis and frequently because our kids love them, so we deal with it. If it's fun for them, I'm more inclined to put up with it, especially when it's enriching. Just a quick note-I personally think the Montshire blows doughnuts over the Echo, it's got way more diversity and it's much more hands on. Echo has some cools stuff, but for the most part, it doesn't change except for that one room. Montshire does a much better job and it's more interesting, in my opinion. AND, there's the water park and nature trails, which Echo doesn't have.

We arrived in Burlington around 3:00, and it's always exciting to see the whale tails that greet you as you enter the city limits. Not sure what they are, but I believe they are affiliated with some marine biology organization, perhaps with UVM. The kids get a huge kick out of seeing them, as do we. As I mentioned, we were staying at the Hilton on the water's edge, and my wife had requested a room with a view of Lake Champlain. You can choose either a city view or a lake view, so we opted for a look at the lake. You pay little extra, but it ended up being worth it.

The Hilton is a higher end hotel in the city, but not too high end. Nicer than a motel, but not a four star deal, either. The location is the key, right smack in the middle of Burlington proper. If you don't know the city, you can be deceived in finding a hotel unless you know that there is a difference between Burlington proper and South Burlington. S. Burlington is like W. Lebanon up here, very commercial with lots of chain stores and plenty of lodging. It's also uglier with more noise, traffic, and people. In Burlington proper, it's more quaint and charming, but there really aren't too many hotels to choose from. Maybe three? We've stayed in two of them, and they both get high marks for service and quality.

And they both had pools! Very key with kids.

The funny thing is when we first arrived, we'd made a mistake and reserved a room in the wrong hotel. Wrong in the sense that we thought we were staying in a hotel that we'd stayed in before, the Marriot, which is right next door. As we pulled into the Hilton, which is actually a little more fancy, we were bummed because we weren't sure if they had a pool, and a pool was a must. In retrospect, we should have known they'd have one, but couldn't say for sure. Before checking in, I went on reconnaisance and checked to see if they had one-they did, and it was nice.

Not that it would have made any difference, we had a reservation (made an hour earlier) and there was not turning back, but it was just nice to know for sure. We checked in and they gave us a room on the third floor, and right away the red flags went up for my wife. She has a theory about hotels, and you could describe it as the Tiffany's approach to customer service. For those of you who have never been inside of Tiffany's, it's an interesting experience, to say the least. Because it's such a high end store, and I mean amazingly high end, the sales people are somehow allowed to act any way they choose unless you're an important person. They size you up immediately, and unless you're a Rockefeller or Kennedy, are complete jerks. I mean complete jerks. They'll begrudgingly take your money, but if it's less than a thousand dollars, it's almost not worth their time. And a thousand dollars won't buy you much there.

We've found, or should I say my wife has found that hotels sort of act this way when it comes to families with small children. The theory goes like this-when you show up in a nice place with young kids in tow, they don't give you the best choices. We experienced this in Rome, where we were given a second rate room near the Pantheon, for whatever reason, but we were the only guests with small children. The thing that angered my wife the most was that she hadn't stood up for herself, and was determined that it wouldn't happen again. Even if it meant sending her husband down to deal with it.

At the Hilton, we got a room on the third floor facing the lake. I had to make sure the room faced the lake, or I was in big trouble on the domestic front. We checked out the room, not thrilled that it was only on the third floor when we'd requested a room higher up. The room was nice, but again, she'd wanted something higher up, so down the elevator I went to argue our case. Chris, who was behind the desk, was extremely helpful, and attending to the situation was no problem. He did a quick search and put us on the top floor, the seventh. The room was towards the edge, and I began to sweat over the possibility that we were no longer facing the lake, even though I asked Chris at least three times if we were.

Well, the room turned out to be beautiful, with a fantastic view of the lake, and so high up. We were all excited. We thought of going to the Echo and getting that over with, but the kids had another thing in mind-swimming. We put on our suits and headed over to the pool, which was really nice. In fact, I thought it was nicer than the pool we swam in at the Marriot, and it had the biggest jacuzzi I'd ever seen, which BTW was packed with people. It seems like people don't want to swim, they want to lounge in the bath and socialize. I understand, actually, because the water was cool. For us, there was no question, we were going to get crazy in the pool.

We swam for about an hour, until our lips started turning blue, and then spent some time in the jacuzzi after the crowd thinned out, then back to our room for a shower. We then hit the town and walked over to the Skinny Pancake and chowed. The previous few times we'd been to Burlington we'd eaten at the Skinny and it was always pretty mellow and manageable, but on this night, it was packed, and the crowds kept coming. They literally had to turn people away, and they now had live music. It was quite the happening scene. We're glad for them because we like the place.

After dinner, we had out dessert crepe, then off to our room for a good night's sleep. When we travel, we tend to go to be early since we all sleep in the same room. We had two queen beds but one room, so there isn't much room to deviate from the group. What one person is doing, we all tend to do. So we slept. Another interesting thing about travel is, if you can believe this, I tend to catch up on my sleep, and this time was no different.

A fun first day on our weekend getaway. Stay tuned for more about day 2. Until then, thanks for reading.