Bookworm: October 2016

"Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation." -Graham Greene

Loved: 

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain: I've had a Scribd membership since the site was founded, and with the changes to the terms and availability of books, found I was suffering. Scribd now only offers a select number of books for free every month, and it's been a huge disappointment by and large. That said, I would never have picked this one had it not been free, and I loved it. Following a small special-forces unit on a "victory tour" after tour of duty in 2004, the incisive social commentary and utterly unique voice of the narrator reminded me of "The Things They Carried" in all the best ways. 

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, Ross King: Another Scribd Selects pick, I absolutely adored this chronicle of the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I remember seeing the ceiling in 2010 and being utterly dumbfounded/overwhelmed by the detail, almost to the point of not being able to appreciate it. I read the book online with a giant, zoomable picture of the ceiling open in another window, and followed the progress of the ceiling in the photo as in the text. I can't recommend this highly enough for any art lover...or history fan, as the commentary on Renaissance Italian and papal politics is also fantastic. (My sister Em would ADORE this.)

The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene: Like I mentioned in my September list, I went on a HUGE Greene kick after falling in love with "The End of the Affair," and it hasn't ended. Michael recommended "The Power and the Glory" after the opera gala in September, and I picked it up a few days later. Moralist, Catholic and gorgeously written, I flew through it in a matter of hours...like "The End of the Affair." This affair won't end anytime soon, clearly. 

Enjoyed: 

When We Collided, Emery Lord: I've read Emery Lord's books in the past, as I followed her back in her blogging days. Geared toward a much younger audience, I can pretty much polish them off in a few hours, but they're beautifully written and perfect for a young adult audience. This one tackled bipolar disorder, death and family abandonment, but in a way that didn't feel overtly depressing or preachy. I'll be following her career for sure. 

Tolerated: 

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo: I must admit, I did actually enjoy this one, but it creeped me out so badly I had nightmares for several days after I finished it. Set in British colonial Malaysia, it's a Chinese ghost story of murder, hauntings, possession and exorcism. Anyone who knows me knows that I get scared by even some Disney villains (the witch in Snow White still freaks me out a little, ha!), and the horror/ghost genre is NOT my thing at all. That said, others who prefer that vein of literature would probably enjoy this much more than I did!

Re-reads: 

None - all new to me!

Off to ND...Go Irish, Beat Hurricanes!

You guys - I'm officially taking off tonight for my first Notre Dame home football game in THREE YEARS. And I couldn't be more excited! 

I started planning this trip with Michael back in, I kid you not, March...over oysters before the opera. Since then, I've managed to assemble quite the assorted crew of friends and family to join me! Michael and his friend Ben are flying from North Dakota to O'Hare, and I'm hopping a flight at MSP to meet them.

We're renting a car, and rendezvousing with Laura and her friend Haley en route to South Bend.

When we get there, MY PARENTS and JONATHAN will be waiting! So excited - my family hasn't been back to campus since my graduation weekend...

...and haven't been to a game since my senior game in the fall of 2010.

On game day, we'll see roomie Hal and his family...which means I'll see more of Hal at ND than I do at home...in our shared apartment...ha!

We're all staying at the Reuvers family's "cabin," which is less than a quarter mile from the stadium, and is truly stumbling distance from Heaven on Earth...aka THE BACKER. The cabin is one of the coolest places to stay...from the Longhorns on the wall to the hundreds of framed photos, and of course the life-size Irish Guard in Paul's old uniform!

I cannot wait to spend the weekend doing all my favorite things...visiting the Grotto, watching morning marchout, doing piccolo cheers at Concert on the Steps and inevitably crying during pregame. Shouting all the songs at the top of my lungs at the Backer while trying not to drown in the sludge or get ceiling drips in my Long Island. Singing the Notre Dame "Lord's Prayer" at Basilica Mass and picking up The Shirt and the 2016 holiday ornament at the Bookstore. Maybe even Studebagels, Papa Smurfs, and Cambodia Thai for good measure! 

This trip marks Ben's first Notre Dame trip after a lifetime as an ND fan, and I can't wait to show him campus. Jonathan is legal now, and I'll be taking him to the Backer - our first time going out together! I'm sure there will be drinking games, shot-skis, and cherry bombs with the Reuvers family too - two schools, one heart at its finest. 

Needless to say, this weekend will be one for the record books. Here's to dreaming of an Irish victory over Miami - if Virginia Tech can do it, I like to think we can! Even more importantly, here's to not forgetting my Backer shoes...

GO IRISH! BEAT HURRICANES! 

The Basic Bitch Fall Checklist

Last weekend was really one for the basic bitch record books. In addition to carving pumpkins with Kelsie on Saturday, I legitimately won Basic Bitch Bingo on Sunday morning: 

Let's play, shall we? 

Puffer vest: check

Flannel plaid buttondown: check

J.Crew from head to toe: check

Leggings: check

Pumpkin spice latte: check

Photo of my feet in leaves: check

All I need are riding boots and a blanket scarf and I'm golden. (If you need a laugh, go search the #basicbitch hashtag on Instagram...there are a shocking number of photos that look just like this one. Only less picturesque, if I may say so myself.)

I was grumpy on Sunday morning after a night of restless sleep and an early-morning trip to the office, so I took the long way home and stopped for a latte on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. On my way up, I drove down Summit Avenue, famously one of the prettiest streets in Minnesota, and couldn't help but park the car and go on a little ramble. Look at those leaves! 

I've realized this fall that I am a fiend for sugar maples...the way their leaves turn the whole spectrum of yellow into orange, before settling into that searing red color. The stretch of Summit I parked and walked on was all sugar maples, up and down both sides of the street and so old that their branches nearly converged overhead. It was, in a word, sublime. 

I mean, look at that. I ended up walking to the Cathedral and popping in for Mass...which, combined with the caffeine and the walk, totally lifted my curmudgeonly mood and set me up for an absolutely lovely day. 

Since I am the most basic of basic bitches, though, I've been taking #omgfallleaves photos all fall...Sunday was just the pinnacle of my basic. More below: 

More Cathedral views on my walk back to my car from work...much earlier in the season. What are these little yellow-leaf trees? I love them inordinately. 

The perfect fall morning at Lake Harriet

More yellow trees in St. Paul

An earlier pass down Summit Avenue - what's not to love about blue-sky autumn days? 

Heading in late to work after a board meeting - the sugar maples outside the building are stunningly beautiful. 

I mean, LOOK. The sheer variegation on those leaves alone is enough to convert me into one of those October-loving, #itsfallyall basic ladies. 

And my personal fave: walking home from a mid-October Mass through Loring Park, I chanced to look up and this beauty caught my eye. Is there anything more quintessentially "fall in Minnesota" than that blue sky and that RED tree? It's affirming over and over again why I live here, and love this season so much. 

And we end with more basic feet in leaves photos. Happy fall, y'all, enjoy it while you can because pretty soon those feet in leaves will be more like "feet in snowdrifts!"

101 in 1001 #82: carve a pumpkin.

Apparently fall brings out my inner basic bitch in a big way. I've been Instagramming autumn leaves like it's my job, my Keurig coffee has been pumpkin spice-flavored since around Labor Day, and I'm rocking flannels, puffer vests, and riding boots at every possible opportunity. What better way to cap off every basic lady's favorite season than by carving a pumpkin? 

It's been years since I last carved pumpkins (in Baltimore with Kaitlin in September of 2013!), and I think I must have forgotten just how involved the process is. Last Saturday, Kelsie supplied two pumpkins - Hy-Vee's finest! - and I picked up carving kits at the downtown Target. Problem: Target's selection was so picked over that I ended up with this as my only option: 

No, I'm totally 27. I promise. Since it was such a gorgeous day yesterday, we set up out on the roof of my building...carving kits, garbage bags, giant knife, and...most importantly...a variety of pumpkin beers to taste-test in tow!

Kels had picked up one short, fat pumpkin and one tall, skinny pumpkin, so we quickly picked out patterns and pumpkins that would work. Then we seriously struggled to get the pumpkins' lids' cut and to gut the things...for some reason, the pumpkins we had were like two inches thick and impossible to cut through! Poor Kels's lid wouldn't come out, then we cut it more and it fell right through the pumpkin. I almost hit myself in the face trying to get my lid out, and by the time my pumpkin was cleaned out, had more guts on me than in the garbage bag. Misadventures abounded, campers. Fortunately, we had cracked beer at this point...I can't recommend having beer handy while carving pumpkins more highly. (For the record, we preferred the Ichabod Pumpkin Ale over the Lakefront Brewery pumpkin beer pictured below...but liked Summit's most recent Unchained series better than both!)

As for what we carved...I was going to try to freehand a Hamilton pumpkin at first, but quickly rethought it when all my template drawings looked like a dude flipping the middle finger. Artist, I am not...and let's be real, my "Hamilton" obsession needs no more fuel! Kels did a bat, I did a ghost. Thank goodness for the pokey-hole pumpkin patterns...although it is seriously hard to get the papers to lie flat on the pumpkins to poke! We came up with the brilliant idea of pumpkin-carving kits on Saran wrap-type material. I think we'll be millionaires someday. 

After poking, we got to carving...and I remembered why I never carve pumpkins. It's really hard! It's not necessarily that enjoyable! Pumpkin guts are slimy! Pumpkin patterns are detailed! My artistic ability is VERY limited! My ghost ended up with very close-together, VERY different-sized eyes...

...and very pointy elbows and a very weirdly-shaped lower body, haha. Kelsie's bat turned out much cuter than my poor little ghost! That said...we were both pretty glad to be done as soon as we were. Let's just say that we realized about midway through why the "two triangles for eyes and a toothy jagged mouth" look is so popular for pumpkins! 

That said...pretty proud of my little guy. THAT said...pretty sure I won't be carving pumpkins again until I have kids and a reason to do so! 

Basic bitch fall checklist: well underway. As for my 101 in 1001...plenty more fun to be had soon! Check it out here, and here's to having random, hilarity-infused adventures! 

An ode to AirBnB

Hey, remember once upon a time when my family spent two weeks in Scandinavia last SUMMER? Yeah, me too, and I'm not going to pull a Paris 2015 and completely ignore that trip, because that trip was the best. We're talking flawless weather, amazing scenery, weird and delicious food, and adventures the Schwegfam will be talking about for years. That said, planning a trip for five is a lot harder than for the three Schwegwomen, especially given I had a lot of pre-existing Paris knowledge and knew next-to-nothing about Scandinavia. 

Let's rewind almost a year back to Thanksgiving 2015. We were all sitting around the family room and kitchen in our pajamas watching the Macy's Parade, when Papa Bear suddenly and authoritatively said, "Okay fam, it's time to talk about our next family trip." Needless to say, our ears all perked up and we immediately tuned out of the parade (sorry, Macy's). What followed was a highly scientific approach in which we each proposed a trip. Me: the UK (Anglophile for LIFE). Jonathan: Austria and Switzerland. Em: Spain and Portugal. Jodes: our eventual winner, Scandinavia. We then ranked trips in order of appeal, assigned a reverse number of points (#1 choice gets 4 points, #2 gets 3, etc) and worked our way down. It ultimately came down to Scandinavia or Austria/Switzerland, and we decided on somewhere none of us had been before: Scandinavia! Next thing I knew, it was 3pm and I was still unshowered, in my pajamas, with a giant Excel spreadsheet and a whole trip itinerary laid out for us. NERD ALERT. 

Traveling with five adults means either paying astronomical hotel costs or getting creative...and with our previous history with AirBnb in Paris and domestically, naturally, we got creative. If you're traveling pretty much anywhere, AirBnb inevitably has amazing options at a wide variety of price points...cheaper than hotels, or total luxury splurges. The added benefit of AirBnb: the local hosts are often incredibly willing to offer tips on restaurants, sights, and getting around. Louise, our Paris AirBnb host, was a dream come true, and we had the same experience getting ready for Scandinavia. 

We started our trip in Reykjavik, which, due to its size, had fewer options for a family of five. Fortunately, we totally lucked out with this gorgeous two-story condo in Laugardalur, a bit outside of downtown Reykjavik. Jodes and Papa Bear had their own room on the main floor, while Jonathan, Emily and I bunked upstairs. 

Fun fact: all those photos were taken around 10pm - we traveled to Iceland in early June, at peak midnight sun season. The condo was as bright and sunny at 2am as it was at 2pm...which made sleeping under a skylight a bit interesting! That said, we got SO lucky with the weather in Iceland...sunny days and low sixties the entire trip. Perfection. 

Needless to say, some of the Schwegs found it easier to sleep in the sunshine than others. Emily and I may have been wide awake, but we enjoyed our discovery of Jonathan's selected reading material for the trip so much that the insomnia/jet lag combo was way worth it. 

What an endless source of entertainment our very own little gentleman abroad is! 

After Iceland, we packed up and headed to Stockholm right in time to escape the rain headed for Reykjavik. Our family had a harder time with Sweden than with Iceland or Norway, largely due to the very distinct neighborhoods of Stockholm proper. At first, we were going to go really wild and stay about 45 minutes outside the city in a villa on a private archipelago island...travel into Stockholm by ferry, enjoy sunsets on a dock in the sea, and spend the morning swimming in the ocean and then warming up in the sauna. Fortunately, we decided that we'd rather be more central...although I've still got that archipelago vacation on my bucket list! 

We ended up renting a total wild card apartment near Mariatorget, one of Stockholm's biggest and best-known parks. Conveniently located less than a hundred yards from a Metro station, this apartment might have been Emily's dream home. Billed on AirBnB as a "luxury art inner city apartment," it was very bohemian and covered with random paintings, sculptures and objets d'arts. Absolutely bizarre but such a fun immersion in a totally different way of living than we were used to. 

Having the huge amount of space an AirBnb provided over a hotel came in really handy in Stockholm...the second I woke up on our travel day from Iceland to Sweden, I realized I was really, really sick. The entire time we were in Stockholm, I felt like shit...achy, sniffly, and hacking up a lung/short of breath. I'm pretty sure it was probably bronchitis or pneumonia or the plague...or just a particularly insidious garden-variety cold. Either way, having so much room in our AirBnB meant I had my own room to crash in, and didn't keep everyone up all night coughing. Here's to a good night's sleep curing all. 

Finally, Oslo - my personal favorite of the trip! My mom and I found this gorgeous flat in one of our first searches and fell in love immediately. One of Oslo's greatest charms is how easily walkable the city is...we were staying in the western part of the city, but spent a lot of time strolling the quiet (ritzy) neighborhood and exploring the shops around the flat. The above-ground tram was two minutes away, and the neighborhood we stayed in was quiet and relaxed. The second I saw the giant lilac bushes around the door, I was ready to move in. 

Didn't hurt either that inside was basically a dream. Easily the nicest of the places we stayed, and absolutely perfect for winding down at the end of our trip...we were all a little extra-tired and I was still plague-ridden by the time we arrived in Oslo. 

Hideous, right? 

AirBnb saved us so much money on multiple hotel rooms over the course of the trip! That said, we did end up resorting to hotels in Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, and for our last single night in Oslo - in Bergen, we stayed at the Thon Hotel Bristol, which was perfectly nice for a quick overnight stay (and included breakfast, which Papa Bear loooooved). For our last night in Norway, we got in too late for an AirBnb returning from the fjords, so we stayed in the Frogner House Apartments, a way nicer Residence Inn-type deal. 

Next up for our AirBnB adventures: Christmas in a California wine country villa, and a February wedding in Miami in a penthouse condo on the beach! Here's to traveling in style and living like locals!