Summer Plans Confirmed!

So this is just a quick blog post in which I'm REALLY excited for my summer plans, which just came together over the weekend, in chronologically reversed order. So I wanted to gush about that for a little bit!

Benson is going to two conferences this summer, in July: one in Warsaw, Poland, and the other near Barcelona, Spain. I had originally been planning on flying out to California for his graduation in mid-June, but when he invited me to go around Europe with him for a couple weeks, I decided that Europa took priority over Cali. This weekend, we spent a large chunk of Saturday discussing our plans and booking flights. Since travel within Europe itself is relatively inexpensive, and we knew we wanted to take 2 weeks to travel, the whole continent was pretty much our oyster. Which turned out to be a little problematic, since we both love to travel and want to go EVERYWHERE, eventually.

Our planning went in reverse: We knew we wanted to end in Warsaw, of course, since that is where the first conference is and therefore where I must end my trip. I'm going to actually be there for the first few days of the conference, probably looking around Warsaw on my own while Benson does conference-y things. I've never been to Poland before, and Warsaw should be really interesting. Just prior to the conference, we'll be in Italy: a friend of Benson has family near Rome, and invited us to stay for the week before the conference. I've been to Rome before - when I was in undergrad, my family took a summer and spent 5 weeks in Europe, two of which were traveling around Italy and the other three in France. Rome was one of the stops we went to, so I don't feel the need to do ALL THE THINGS in Rome or nearby... it will be nice to explore smaller towns and take a more relaxed trip, and with people who know the area - not to mentioned home cooked Italian meals!

Prague was the last place we settled on - as I said, since travel is cheap within Europa, we could have gone pretty much anywhere before heading to Italy and then Poland. [An amusing side note: when Benson was describing this trip to his parents, they were apparently under the misapprehension that the conference was in PORTLAND instead of POLAND. A slight difference there...] Anyway, Prague was actually one of the places we had been thinking about before we got the Italy invitation, since it was within reasonable distance to Warsaw by train. So after about an hour discussion of all the awesome places to go in Europe, we kind of defaulted back to Prague on the basis that while there were many we want to go, most of them we'd want to spend more time than available (Istanbul, Greece, and Norway were dismissed for these reasons, for example, since although those are all trips we've been wanting to do for a while, none of them could be done justice in only 5-6 days). My parents have been to Prague, and they highly recommended it: they thought it was fantastic, like a fairy tale city with great music and culture.

So once Europe was worked out, we just had to figure out if we were doing anything prior. In order to see friends, not to mention so that we can take the same trans-continental flight, Benson is going to be in NYC for a few days prior to this vacation. Now, Benson very recently defended his dissertation and received his PhD in Physics at UC Santa Barbara. He'll be going to Cambridge, England, for a three year post doc starting next October. This, of course, is cause for great celebration.

Now, I did get Benson a present for graduating when I was out there over spring break: whiskey! Benson is a big fan of whiskey in general - he has been since undergrad. In fact, he was given a list of quality scotches by one of the professors at Brandeis, which he's been studiously(?) working through, trying all varieties. This is known as "Craig's List", after said professor. Education is a wonderful thing. [Indeed, once during a lab class with said professor, Benson was talking to him about scotch, and I had to interrupt, said I, "with a non-whiskey related question."   "You have to get your priorities straight" responded my professor.] We both like whiskey a lot, is the point, though Benson is more into it than I am - I appreciate it, but don't think I'm a connoisseur or anything. Before my 25th birthday we made a point to go out and drink scotch older than we were (25 year old Bowmore) at Angel's Share in NYC (a most excellent speak-easy, with great cocktails and liquor selection). Since then, we've actually managed to replicate this feat with two additional whiskeys, despite our own aging: my dad has a friend who collects whiskeys, and I've received a couple of very small (as in several ounces) bottles of whiskey since, as presents; so we've also tried 27 year old and 29 year old scotches as well, now. Since I wanted a nice, interesting gift for Benson's PhD, something he'd not gotten before, my dad's friend recommended several bottles of scotch that he thought would be good for such an occasion, from which I chose Aberlour A'Bunadh. Which is very nice indeed.

Now, after that somehow lengthy aside on whiskey (not a waste): Although I gave Benson a present for receiving the PhD, we wanted to go to a nice restaurant to celebrate his graduation, as well. I've mentioned before that we're both foodies to a certain extent, and I'm living in New York City. This means we have access to some of the finest restaurants world wide. This is not an exaggeration. Therefore this morning, exactly one month to the day prior to when we wanted our meal (and the first day possible for booking), at 10am sharp (when the booking line opens) I called Per Se. Per Se is a three-Michelin star restaurant. Last year it was number 6 on the worlds Best 100 Restaurants (which was top spot in the USA). You may recall that in February I was able go go to the restaurant on the number 61 spot, in Cape Town. This year Per Se was number 11 (second best in USA, the top being Eleven Madison Park, also in New York, which is the place I plan on going for MY graduation!). It is run by Thomas Keller, who happens to own TWO three-Michelin star restaurants, the other one being The French Laundry, in California. And as regular readers may recall, my most prized cookbooks is The French Laundry, which I have several different recipes chronologued in this blog. Yes, this is Thomas Keller's OTHER three-Michelin star restaurant. Repeat: I called right when the line opened, at 10am sharp, the earliest possible time. I then proceeded to wait on hold for 25 minutes, and, when I got through, there were only three time slots left. So Benson and I are now proudly possess a reservation at what will be the most expensive, exclusive, and hopefully amazing restaurant that we have ever eaten at to date. Benson is literally booking his flight around this restaurant reservation. To say this place is popular is an understatement. To say I'm excited is an understatement. And of course, finally, to say my summer is going to be awesome is hopefully also an understatement!