Caption This! contest ends tomorrow…

There is still one more day for you slackers out there to win the prize in my first ever HomeRoamers Caption This! contest. If you make me laugh the hardest, you will get a very cool prize all the way from Holland. Really. Click here for your last chance to enter!

Hoofd?

Last week we biked over to the adorable neighboring town of Veere to try to get a table at De Peperboom, the restaurant that our exchangers had recommended. It was full, and we weren’t really dressed for a more upscale place anyway, so we settled on one of the more touristy places in the central square that we’d been to before. We’d found out from the waiter the last time that Veere is a popular tourist destination for wealthy Americans on the smaller yachts – he said yachts, not me – as well as for day trippers from the Benelux region. There were a shitload of Americans walking around last time we were there, I’m not kidding, so we wanted to keep a lower profile and try to blend in. Until we saw the menu, that is. I hadn’t seen the dinner menu last time, and was vaguely horrified to scan down to the center of the page to see this: Hoofd. Oh, hell no. What are the animals with hooves, anyway? Do sheep have hooves? What about cows, and yes, definitely horses have hooves. Wait a minute, aren’t they called cloven?  I am already mostly vegetarian, never eating beef and occasionally some chicken or pork, so I was really not ready to be ordering from this section. Not possible. I settled on a warm goat cheese salad from the top of the page, and didn’t mention Hoofd to anyone. Can you imagine how relieved I was when I got home and looked up the word in the dictionary? It means mains, principals – you know, like Entrées. It was just the list of the main dishes, nothing to do with hooves or even animals. Go ahead, laugh at me…it is pretty funny.

Koninginnedag

Today is Koninginnedag, Queen’s Day. The Dutch celebrate the queen’s birthday with street parties and festivals, and wear the color orange to symbolize national and royal pride. We biked into Middelburg this morning to check out what was happening, and saw may people riding bikes decked out with orange streamers, and a few people were wearing crazy hats. It sort of reminded me of the way college kids dress on St. Patrick’s Day in the States, except orange. It was a fun day to have lunch outside and people watch…our local revelers (these cyclists) were not as festive as the Amsterdamers shown in the stock picture above.  But what really fascinated the kids – and I mean truly enthralled them – wasn’t a crazy costume or a dog wearing an orange crown. No, it was a urinal. Sure, it was a very odd looking portable urinal , one of many that had been set up in the central square for tonight’s festivities, but again, it’s just a urinal. Take my kids all over Europe and what do they point out to me over and over again? Yup, a big plastic urinal. Nice. Oh, and as it turns out, we’re relieved that we didn’t visit Amsterdam today as we’d originally debated. Queen Beatrix and her family were paying a customary visit to the neighboring city of Apeldoorn when and a car sped past her bus and crashed into a crowd of spectators.  Sadly,  2 people were killed and a dozen more injured. You can read more on CNN’s international page here. So sad.

 

Photo credits: #1 thehollandring.com, #2 my wonderful husband Jon, #3 onlyinholland.com

Check out lots of cool pictures from Holland here.

Could this be love?

I don’t remember any of the time I spent in Middelburg when I was in college. Granted that was a few years ago (ahem), but you’d think that once I spent some time in the city it would come back to me. Yet, not so much. I don’t know how I could forget such a charming place - it is one of my favorite cities in the world now. Yes, I know it’s a little early to be falling in love and I don’t want to jinx it by saying anything to soon, but I could definitely see myself in a long-term relationship with her. She’s friendly, attractive, and full of surprises…and interesting enough that I won’t get bored too quickly. You know how I do that.  I know that Jon likes her too, but he’s takes his time. He calls me a gun-jumper, and maybe I am, but I know what I like. So I’m going to take it slowly and keep an open mind, but this might be the real thing.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I’ll let you know if she calls.

PS: Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see for yourself how alluring she is. Am I right???

Who screams first?

While Sam had originally agreed to be the animal helper during our exchanges, Sara has quickly taken over and really loves the chicken. She is responsible for the chicken’s food, water, and now…cuddles! 

Caption This! contest ending Friday May 1

So just a quick reminder to those of you who haven’t entered the first ever HomeRoamers Caption This! contest, there is still time to enter. I am going to send an actual Dutch gift to the winner, so hurry up and get your entries in by clicking here.

In Bruges

On Sunday we decided to go to Bruges, even though we still haven’t seen the movie. It’s not yet available for rent or purchase from iTunes, Netflix, or Amazon, so we’re out of luck.  We decided to screw the movie and just go, although we weren’t sure what we were going to be doing. The city of Bruges is stunning; it’s a medieval city that some call Venice of the north, with architecture that is similar to that of Middelburg, the town we’re near. We had coffee at an outdoor table and watched the people, and I was surprised that the waiters were willing to speak French or English, too. I’d been told that the Dutch part of Belgium did not enjoy speaking French, but people seemed fine with it. We enjoyed a walk around the central square and finally stopped for dinner at a place noted in my guidebook. Sam has a bit of a cold, so he was wiped out and slept through the whole meal, and I have to say he didn’t miss too much.

The traditional Belgian beef stew that Jon ordered was nothing like the Carbonnade de boeuf flamande that my father used to make over and over again when I was a kid. This was more like beef in packaged gravy with a dash of dark ale thrown in for good measure. Not all was lost, however. I did discover a delicious blond ale called Brugse Zot, which apparently is the only beer actually brewed in Bruges. So this was my In Bruges – and it was better than any movie could be.

This is just to say…

that life is indeed good.

Thanks to my niece Allie for modeling the sentiment! Isn’t she perfect?

Caption this picture to win a prize!

I challenge you to caption this picture that Jon took on tonight’s walk. Put your captions in the comments, and the one that makes me laugh the hardest is the winner. I will send the winner an actual gift from Holland – for real. It won’t be anything expensive but it will be something cool (any it won’t be a windmill or a pair of clogs). Don’t forget to leave your email address so I can contact you when you win!  Oh, and there have to be at least 5 entrants, so tell your friends!

Limb training?

Many of the houses here have a funky landscaping feature that I’ve never seen before. People are making huge trellises in front of their houses by training the limbs of a certain kind of tree to grow straight across at a 90° angle from the trunk. They start out with anywhere from 3 to 8 trees, trellis trees I call them now, and plant them about about 4 feet apart. These trees stand at least as tall as the roof line, but without any branches. Then they use wire to make an actual trellis to serve as a guide for the branches when they begin to grow. The branches grow across from one trunk to another, and the final result is a sort of crosshatch pattern to decorate the front of your house. Do you get it yet? Look, let me show you.  Here is what you start out with – click the pictures to enlarge them so you can really see what’s going on:

 

See how the branches have just begun to extend across to the next trunks? They are still quite thin and without much growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The branches are thicker and have begun to bloom on this house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a more mature look – and this one even wraps around the house on the left. How cute!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this is such a different and interesting way to landscape, but I’m not sure that it always works. I love the house in the 3rd picture above, but I’m not so sure about the others. What do you think?

A couple of goofs in the garden

Jon loves it here. I can tell buy the constant delight on his face whenever we’re exploring…and he says cool a lot. So tonight when we were outside feeding the resident chicken, I snapped this cute picture of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then, after being chided by Mr. Delight (above) for not being able to get a good picture of the chicken, I got one. In fact, I think I might even like it better than the picture of Jon. Ha!

de witte mosk

We’ve just arrived at our exchange house in Gapinge, Holland and it’s full of surprises. You already know from reading Jon’s blog that we saw gorgeous views of the tulip fields that I told you about from the airplane (click here if you need to catch up).  We were met at the airport by Piet and Lies, our exchangers, and they turned over their car to us and off we went. I had thought that we were going to be in the middle of nowhere, but it turns out that their house is in a little village, not out in the boondocks. It’s definitely rural compared to, say, Amsterdam, but just a quick drive into the much larger city of Middelburg. The most surprising thing about the house is the beautiful gardens that surround it everywhere – this is especially amazing to me since I have what my mother calls a black thumb. I can barely keep a house plant alive, there is no way I would ever be able to have gardens like these. There were a few surprises in the kitchen as well. Last night as I was cooking, I saw about 30 people go by on horseback, and maybe 50 people ride by on bikes. I’m not kidding! This is such a bike-friendly place that no wonder everyone rides, from the youngest babies on the front of their moms’ bikes to the littlest old ladies who surprise me with their agility. Take a look at the some more pictures of the house and the gardens…I’m going for a bike ride!

 

Martha on the road?

So my sister is convinced that I’m off my rocker, and I love to prove her right. My newest fascination is with people who move out of their homes and into RVs as fulltimers, roaming around the country on biodiesel. Actually, many people have converted their RVs to to accept SVO (straight vegetable oil) and I’ve heard stores of one family driving coast to coast on SVO for only 16 bucks. So despite the obvious flaws with my latest idea, I still think it’s interesting enough to keep on the back burner until the kids get older (read: move out). In the meantime, I can start planning my RV refurb, at least in my mind, you know, like when I’m shaving my legs. We’re going to have bamboo floors and a king sized bed (the key to a happy marriage is, in fact, the king sized bed…write that down.)  I can even incorporate one of my favorite Martha Stewart ideas, the Barbie Suitcase Office (minus the Pepto Pink). Check out this bad boy – I can totally picture it next to my little dinette in the RV, the one I buy to replace the hideous brown plaid one that will certainly come already installed. Sweet!

Top 10 things I will miss about Norway…

10. Gas station lunch                                

9.  Candy by the kilogram

8.  Roundabouts

7.  Nestle instant Latte

6.  Mountains

5.  Ålesund center

4.  Emblem Skule

3.  Kids’ freedom

2.  This neighborhood

1.  Norwegians

Into the tunnel of hate?

Now that we’re wrapping up our Ålesund exchange, I realize that I haven’t posted anything about the tunnel from hell. By now you know that there are tunnels all over the place - it makes sense to drive through the mountains rather than around them. So when Tourist Bureau Lady suggested we visit the islands of Giske and Valderøy, we were excited for a close up view of the land we’d been seeing each time we visited downtown.  The trip started off nicely, we ended up finding a beautiful church in the countryside, and then went up a winding road where we saw a great view of the water and mountains in the background. Let’s keep going!  We’d already gone through one tunnel that was quite long (even Jon was starting to get edgy), but what the hell, we are here to see the sights, right?

The next tunnel was a disaster.  It went on and on, until it was just ridiculously too long, and then just kept on going. Sam started to freak out because Sara kept asking if we are really under the ocean, and what would happen if the tunnel collapsed. Are we really driving on the bottom of the ocean?  It was dark in there, and every once in a while Jon would make a slightly pained expression and tighten his hands on the steering wheel.  I don’t like this tunnel, he would tell me, as a random car would come barreling past us from the other direction. It was endless. And it was underwater. Eventually we made it through unscathed, but it was bittersweet: we knew that we had to go back into the tunnel to get home. Swimming miles across a frigid fjord never looked so appealing.

 

Oh, and just so you don’t think I’m exaggerating (why I never!), here is a photo I took from the Ålesund observatory:

And here is a brochure image showing the tunnel so that you believe me!!

Representin!

Check us out in our Ålesund gear.

Just when it couldn’t get any better…

Our neighbor Per just came by and rang our bell.  Seems he has season tickets for himself and one of his kids to the Ålesund fotball stadium, and he’s busy tonight, so guess who gets the tickets? Yes! Jon and Sam are heading out in about an hour to watch our local soccer team kick some serious ass.  Jon is going to wear his Ålesund sweatshirt that we got him for his birthday, and Sara and I are going to have a girls’ night of watching movies. Go, Ålesund!

I love my family and…

Now that we’re getting ready to got to Holland to our next exchange, I’ve been thinking about what’s really been working for us over here. Remember, we are packing with relative economy (read all about that here) and getting by on the minimum. Here’s what is putting the smile on my face:

• downloading English-language books from Amazon Kindle to Jon’s iPod (no more bulky paperbacks in the backpacks!)
• www.yogatoday.com – the closest to a real yoga class I’ve found online, and it’s free!
• my 4 dollar ice trays
• $40 VPN client software on my laptop so I can stream music, TV shows, and movies from the USA (the best $40 ever spent!)
• Bridgedale socks- especially because I have 3 pairs
• packing cubes from eBags – we each have our own color
• Chapstick lip moisturizer with SPF 15 (I brought 4 of these)
• my Etymotic 6i headphones – because they’re noise isolating instead of noise cancelling, they don’t require a battery, sound great, and fit in tiny case

3 more days…

I just got a lovely note from our exchangers in the Netherlands. They are gracious enough to start our exchange a few days earlier that previously agreed upon so that we can go straight to their place after leaving our house in Norway. They sent us information about their home and after reading the specifics we are even more excited to get there and to see what it’s like in Gapinge. The cool part is that they are going to be blogging about their trip and will share their stories and photos with us – our Norwegian exchangers sent a few pictures but not many, and we’re curious! Anyway, we’re eager to learn what there is in Holland besides tulips and windmills. Stay tuned!

image: emmerspaperarts.com

Thing 1 and Thing 2..

Making it last on the road

One of the biggest challenges for me during this home exchange in Norway has been the grocery situation. I am used to a basically unlimited supply of fresh produce, lots of choices for fresh fish and meat, and lots of organic choices.  Here, not only is the selection very limited, it is also extremely expensive and not always of the best quality. Oh, and there is usually only one option - there is only one type of cottage cheese, no competing brand or prices, no big curds battling the little curds for top seller. It’s just cottage cheese, take it or leave it. Same goes for things like frozen spinach, butter, tortilla chips, tuna in a can, and black beans, if you can find them. It’s as though the whole country is one of those tiny gas station grocery stores where you buy stuff when you rent a beach house. So anyway, we’re on a super tight food budget, and I have gone from almost never cooking to cooking each and every meal, including dessert. Even if I wanted to buy something pre-made, it’s not available. To make it even harder, we don’t really eat the same food as the Norwegians, so we have to search even harder for the goods.  Oh, yeah, and Sara is vegetarian and I am mostly vegetarian. I basically turned into a 1950s housewife to make it all work, and came up with my own tricks to extend my budget:

• Save old bread for sweet (banana-chocolate) or savory (red pepper, basil, and parmesan) bread puddings.
• Root vegetables make delicious, inexpensive, versatile soups. Add milk for a smooth, creamy finish, or add beans and, you guessed it, old bread for a Norwegian ribbolita. Top with store-bought pesto (I found some!) for soupe au pistou, or hide some broccoli (Jon hates broccoli) and puree it entirely.  We have soup 3 times a week on average, and I haven’t made the same soup twice!
• Turn 2 portions of salmon into 4 by adding some sweated red onion and root veggies, wrapping it all in pastry, and you’ve got a quick Wellington.
• Lentils are your best friend. Make a hearty lentil soup with potatoes and carrots, and puree half to add thickness. Just add bread and a simple salad for a healthy meal. Or, cook a pot of lentils with garlic, onion, carrots, canned tomatoes, and lots of basil and oregano to make a thick Mediterranean lentil stew and serve over rice.
• Don’t throw out apples that have started to soften – they make great apple cobblers. If you don’t have muesli or breakfast cereal to make a topping, wrap in pastry for turnovers (I am not making pastry here – I found a really good frozen one!)
• Crepes are cheap and can be filled with cinnamon sugar or nutella and bananas for breakfast, or ham and cheese for lunch. Extras freeze really well and take up no room in tiny European freezers.
• Beans and rice are versatile: with a fried egg and green salad for lunch, with a ton of cumin and turned into enchiladas for dinner, as a side dish for salmon, leftovers can become soup.
• Make your own vinaigrette dressing, it also works as a marinade for fish.

I am always curious about what other people eat, so let me know what you’re eating and how you are stretching your food budget.

What’s wrong with Jon???

Jon looks absolutely miserable in this picture. WTF!

It’s a little known fact…

Originally the Hurtigruten cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes, at the Russian border, was the postal route. Not a postal route, but the postal route. During the 1800s, this was the only way to transport mail to the outlying towns along this coastal route. Hurtigruten ships still display the Norwegian postal flag by special permission, and today they transport vehicles, cargo, and the occasional piece of mail along with their rugged passengers.

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco…

So I remember when I was young, my grandparents would go on Scandinavia cruises aboard the so-called smaller ships. These are specialty ships, able to cruise into unique ports due to their size, and commanding hire fares due to their uniqueness. Generally they offer creative excursions and upscale learning experiences on board rather than the something-for-everyone concept of the traditional cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean. As a result, the itineraries are longer and the crowd tends to be older because, let’s face it, the old people are the only ones with the money and the time. Don’t worry, there aren’t any geriatric hairy leg contests, and grandpa isn’t getting jiggy with it anywhere that we can see. The passengers are under the careful governance of the cruise director, who dutifully points out sights not to be missed in 3 different languages, and, surprisingly, almost everyone is paying attention.

We joined a 7 day coastal cruise for just 8 hours, headed to Geirangerfjord and back, and had a chance to see the beautiful Norwegian landscape with about 300 international octogenarians. OK, they were probably septuagenarians, and let me tell you they were a rugged bunch. Sure, there were the select few that, when they awoke at 4:30 that morning, went up to the observation deck and installed themselves in the best indoor seats with a view. For the most part, though, the rest of the group was outside more than inside, despite the frigid wind whipping across the deck. These people could kick my ass for sure. I’d get so cold that I’d have to go inside for a bit, and sure enough, the same people were still outside when I got back. I’d see the tall, straight posture of their expensive parkas, the backs of their hooded heads held high to the wind, and I’d feel fine about having been inside for a coffee instead of watching the fjord roll by. I’d even get cocky for a minute, thinking about the rugged individualists that I am, until bam! One of the would turn around and, holy shit, it’s an apple doll! A shriveled up face, thin in the lips and tan but for the eyes, a living, breathing, apple head doll dressed in a 400 dollar parka. Scared the shit of out me.

To what is this pertaining?

So we are not on the cruise to Geirangerfjord today.  It seems that I had been given the wrong information when I had called the Hurtigruten call center yesterday, as the ship was not in the harbor when we arrived this morning. We stopped by to see our trusty tourist agent, and she made some calls and determined that yes, the spring Hurtigruten schedule does begin today, but it starts in Bergen! The ship doesn’t get to Ålesund until day 2, remember?  We had kept Sara home from school and she was disappointed that she’ll be missing tomorrow as well. That leaves only one more day for Sara at Emblem Skole. Sad. So anyway, our cruise is going to be tomorrow, not today as we’d been told by the call center. Maybe the person on the English line hadn’t really understood me, I speculated. Hurtigruten call center is not always good quality, the tourist agent explained, they are now located in Slovenia. Slovenia? Oh, yes, it seems that the Norwegians are not too pleased about the recent introduction of call center outsourcing to their culture. This made Jon and me laugh; we both have a background in call center management and outsourcing is a controversial issue in the US.  Norway seems so serene and peaceful to us, sort of a step back to simpler times, but in a good way. I wonder if outsourcing will take away from that – only time will tell.

Crashing a Norwegian cruise ship?

Tomorrow we are planning on taking a coastal cruise from Ålesund to Geiranger to see the famous Geirangerfjord, and the Brudesloret, Friaren, and Seven Sisters waterfalls.  The town of Geiranger, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is one of the most visited sights in all of Norway, and we’ll be sailing on Norway’s own Hurtigruten cruise line. 

Although the majority of the sightseeing excursions operate in the summer months only, we were lucky to learn about this round trip journey (starting tomorrow!!) from the tourist information office in downtown Ålesund. The ship leaves Ålesund at 9:30 and sails to Geiranger and back for a full day aboard the MS Polarlys. We’ve been lucky enough to go aboard two other Hurtigruten ships when they were docked in Ålesund harbor, and unlike the cruise ships we’ve been on in the Bahamas or the Caribbean, these ships allow guests to visit during their time at port. We’ll actually be joining a 7 day cruise already in progress, Bergen to Kirkenes.  On day 2 of this cruise the ship arrives in Ålesund and regular customers can go ashore or stay on board for the trip to Geirangerfjord. We’re not going to have a cabin or anything, but we chose a day with the best forecast and we hope to find a couple of comfy outdoor chairs.  Cross your fingers for a sunny day with not much wind – we’ll post pictures when we get back.

 photo 1: elegantvoyages.net, photo2: hurtigruten.com

6 months, 1 bag

So you probably know by now that we’re on a 6 month home exchange to 3 different countries. You probably don’t know, however, that we chose to bring only one backpack and one laptop bag each, even though we would need clothes for winter, spring, and summer. After doing tons of research on the best lightweight backpacks in our budget, we settled on pretty large packs and got packing cubes to organize our stuff inside.  We test drove the backpacks at Christmas on a trip to see Jon’s parents and I was the only one with packing cubes, and Jon really noticed a huge difference without them.  Sara and I have bulky, inexpensive laptops (again a matter of cost) so we each have a heavy carry-on bag along with a large backpack, and someone (well, I mean Jon) always gets stuck carrying Sam’s pack for him. So what sounds like a very small amount of luggage – hey, it’s just a backpack and laptop bag – turns into a nightmare quicker than you’d think. 3 large backpacks, 1 kid size backpack, 3 laptop bags, 1 kid carry-on bag, 1 pillow, and 4 stuffed animals.  You want to know what the kicker is? Jon and I both brought more than what we need, and we have clothes with us that we don’t even wear. In retrospect, I probably would have brought less clothing and more toiletries – it’s not that I can’t find toiletries here, but they are very, very expensive. I’m going to come up with a guideline for packing for home exchange, and will post it as soon as it’s ready.  In the meantime, I have some laundry to do.

Rocking the good weather…

Since we only have one week left here in Ålesund, we are maximizing our time outdoors by the water.

What we do when we’re bored…

Games people play…

One of the best parts about home exchanging is learning about the new culture. Today we found the neighbors outside playing their favorite lawn game, Kubb. Apparently it’s an old Viking game, and Sara learned how to play at Swedish camp past summer. There are 2 teams, and the basic idea is that teams take turns trying to knock down the other team’s blocks, and eventually knocking down the king.  It’s similar to Italian Bocce, French Pétanque, and Larry Carroll’s famous Washers game.  Larry is definitely on to something. There is already a Midwest Kubb club in Wisconsin – no telling how long it will be until the Midwest Washers Club incorporates and hits the game circuit. Anyway, the neighbors were gracious enough to let Jon and Sam play for the men. Check it out:

You can read how to play Kubb here, in case you want to buy it from Old Time Games or make your own set.  I know we’ll be playing this at home for a long time.

Always looking…

Just a quick list of places that intrigue me for future home exchanges, in no particular order.

1. Bali
2. St. Lucia
3. Buenos Aires
4. Roatan Bay, Honduras
5. Anywhere in Andorra (Jon has a weird obsession)
6. Reyjkjavik
7. Moscow
8. Anywhere in Panama
9. Torrox Costa, Spain
10. Punta del Este, Uruguay

Have you ever been to any of these places? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Really? Come on, really??

It’s come to my attention that some of my readers don’t…well…understand my post below about the license plate. If you’re one of those people, and I’m not judging, you can click here for a definition of Priapus. Oh, and one other thing. I lied. Of course I’m judging you.

I can mash potato, I can do the twist…

This morning there was a message from a home exchanger waiting for me in my email.  It was from a retired couple in Vancouver, BC looking to swap their 2 bedroom condo.  We noticed that you are interested in Vancouver, what time of year are you looking for?  It was a nice surprise to get their message, as we’ve always had Vancouver on our list and this is a condo right in downtown.  I wrote them back right away and hopefully it’s a serious inquiry instead of one of those home exchange phishing emails, as I call them.  People will send the same initial message to a bunch of people, and see who replies. Then they will write back to the one they like the best, and never bother with the rest of the replies. It has happened to us a bunch of times, and although you can usually tell when the message starts off with Dear Home Owner, sometimes you think someone is interested when in fact they just told 30 other people how much they love their beautiful house and would love to talk about an exchange with them. It’s like dating. So I try not to take anyone too seriously until we’ve exchanged a few messages back and forth, in case they really don’t want to go out with me…I mean exchange houses with me. So far, while in Norway, we’ve gotten messages from Toronto, Paris, Quebec, and now Vancouver. I don’t think Paris is that serious (Paris is so popular that they can be aloof and picky), but the Toronto family seems quite interested and we’re hoping to work out a short swap in the fall.  Toronto is more like Florida – we know we’re somewhat attractive but we’re not going to be supermodels like Paris, Rome, or – God forbid – the Amalfi Coast anytime soon.  We don’t have to accept the first offer that comes calling, yet we don’t have to settle for the remote apartment with its dusty bookshelves and mantra must love cats. No, we’re Florida, funny with the great personality, a high school beauty now with a few extra pounds. We’re someone’s sweetheart, we just have to be patient.

But I do love tofu…

I’ve updated the blogs I follow with a few more good ones, so be sure to check out my links (below, on left). I was just laughing at this picture from Vanity Plates: Creepiness in 8 characters or less that makes me laugh even more when I imagine the scenario behind applying for it:

DMV Lady: Um, is this supposed to say Prius? Like Toyota Prius?  Cuz you spelled it wrong.

Old, balding, short guy: No, it’s right.

DMVL: Sir, I am pretty sure it’s P-R-I-U-S, maybe we can just check on toyota.com?

OBSG: Look, it’s not a Toyota Prius, okay?  Can we just make it happen?

DMVL: Sure, sure. So what’s it mean?

OBSG: It’s just a private joke.

DMVL: Oh, it’s that animal, right? The one with the weird head, from Australia?

OBSG: No,

DMVL: I saw a show about it. They are the only mammals that lay eggs!

OBSG:  Platypus. It’s not platypus either. Is your supervisor here?

 

Right? Can you picture it? So then I laughed my ass off again when Jon told me the story of another license plate, but this one got declined. I Love Tofu. ILUVTOFU.

SylvanSport GO? It’s a homerun!

I’ve been thinking so much about camping recently that I decided to check out the options for a pop-up camper.  We love the idea of camping off the ground but don’t have a truck to haul a pop-up camper so I started looking around.  Coleman has come out with a cool idea, the Coleman Switchback: it’s a lightweight gear box/hauler that turns into a tent once it’s unloaded.  You haul your bikes, canoes and coolers on the Switchback and then it’s your tent for the night. It’s a cool idea but man, it’s ugly (sorry, Coleman R & D peeps!) and I’m not sure it adds that much value to a regular cargo hauler. Here are a few pictures so you can see what I mean – click on the images to enlarge:

Pretty cool idea, right? I’m really into the concept and started reading online to see what people are saying about this fugly camper, and then I found it. The most unbelievably cool camper with a similar concept and what I can only describe as a funky European aesthetic (think Ikea on wheels). This supreme being is known as the SylvanSport GO and is our latest obsession. Check it out:

And to see this baby in all of her glory, click on each of these pictures:

So okay, here’s the deal. All you need to do is to send me one dollar. Just one dollar! Then all I need is another 6,999 people to send me a buck and we’re in business.