GROUP TRIP TO OCEAN REEF CLUB, FEB. 2013

FLORIDA GETAWAY!!!

A long weekend in Florida to visit our good friends, Patricia and Terry Baxter. they spend their Winters at the Ocean Reef Club and Summers up here in Lyme, NH.

With us were our friends John and Lynne Stahler , and my sister Chris and brother in law, Tom Ditzler.

We flew down on Friday the 15th and arrived in time to check into the hotel there and change for dinner. We all shared a casual dinner in the bar area of the main hotel. There was a duo playing jazz... vocalist and bass. The room was very noisy, so it was not relaxing. This was Presidents Day weekend, so we really ran into crowds everywhere we went. It's not normally that mobbed there.

Southern Florida happened to have a 3 day chilly spell, the very 3 days we were there. So we didnt do beachy things. instead we shopped ( J McLaughlin and a cool Italian shop) and ate lunch with the guys at the Raw Bar restaurant. Chris and Tom went snorkeling and froze! But had fun!
Saturday night was  dinner at the fancy restaurant, '"The Clubhouse", at the golf club. Very nice food and a big table for 8! After dinner, some of us went to the bar for the music. It was Rick Harris and his trio. Rick is a great musician: sings and plays piano and flugelhorn. Seriously: piano with the left hand and horn with the right, and some very good solos too!! So Rick figured out I was a singer and gave me the mike for a few songs. We had a blast!

Sunday , March 17th...... we all decided to go spend the day at Key West. We got an early start and flew down in time or lunch.... at the Conch paradise place on the harbor. Fun food ( fish tacos, and crab salad and stuff)and a great singer, Kevin Poole, entertaining us. We got to kick back there and talk. We all had plenty to discuss.....

Then it was "Blue Heaven" for Key Lime Pie. We were told it was the best in town. We had to walk down DuVal street to get there, so we saw a fair amount of the tourist stuff in town along the way. At least a 30 minute walk..... Tons of tourists like us... busy day!

Tom Ditzler, our brother in law from Delaware, with Key Lime Pie from Blue Heaven

The pie was amazing! Highly recommended!

Cocktails at Pat and Terry's condo right by the dock where they keep their boat. Lovely, and glad to be indoors that evening...Dinner that night back at the Reef was at the Islander restaurant near the pool and beach. Sushi, seafood, very good and fun. Then of course back to the bar for more music. Sunday night Rick was alone at the piano and happy for some company.

We flew home on Monday, back to the snow and the cold.

Today is Saturday the 23rd and we are getting quite the storm.

Grammys trip, Feb 2013, with Berklee College of Music

A Glamour trip to LA with Roger Brown, Pres of Berklee and a group from the school, is just beginning. YEAH!!!!

Thursday, Feb 7th
- Ray and I are flying to LA today to check in to the Omni LA at California Plaza hotel. We will be escaping a big snowstorm thats headed to the "Upper Valley" New Hampshire
and Vermont region that we call home. I'm kinda sad... I happen to love snowstorms.

This evening we will drive to the Beach at Santa Monica. Ray has reserved a table at a fine French restaurant there called  "Melisse".

 The restaurant was Beautiful!! Amazing food well presented. Ray found it on his Zagat site, and we didn't realize that it is a Michelin 2 star gourmet spot. Wow! Given we were feeling like it was midnight when they served our 2nd course, we were troopers and wined and dined right along with the fancy people there. Our son Dave would LOVE to work at a place like this. Local fresh ingredients and no farmed fish here! Check out their website .....

Friday, Feb 8th
We drove to the beach. Visited the town of Venice, then The Adamson House along Rt. 1 just south of Malibu. Its a historic home right on the beach. Our nephew Dan Ditzler used to volunteer there so we were curious. It was closed due to rain(?) but we saw a lot by prowling around and peeking in windows.

Then on to Malibu just to drive around and explore the town. Lunch was at the "Sunset House" right on the beach in Malibu. Wonderful place with a fun bar and good food.

   

Houses in the town of Venice, Ca

                           

             Adamson House entrance ............   and tile fountain....

Next we went shopping at a cool area called the Lumberyard at Cross Creek Road, and I discovered the Tory Birch store. That's trouble... but I was good and only bought designer flip flops....

Back to hotel to get ready to go to the "Corkbar" prior to the LA convention Center for the "Music Cares" benefit event to honor the music of Bruce Springstein. We were with Roger Brown and his wife Linda, and others from the school. The event that night was amazing and memorable. Lots of great people got up to honor Bruce by playing his songs. Patti Smith, Jackson Brown, Elton John, John Hedges, Neil Young: they all did a song. Then at midnight, Bruce and his band  did a 45 minute set.
We sang along with "Born to Run"!

Saturday, Feb 9th
Free all day! We drove back to the coast  to explore Laguna Beach and visit our friends. Arrived Laguna around 11 am and found a charming coastal town with the shopping area right along the water
and a cliff walk with great beach access. Very nice! We ducked into the Kush fine art gallery and discovered some amazing paintings. I think he called his style realistic metaphor. We bought the book.
More shopping for Julie's birthday, then lunch at "230 Forest Avenue" restaurant. Got a table on the little patio in the sun! More strolling, then we drove up to Newport Beach to visit Morgan and Sandy
at their home right on the beach. Great house, great friends, great visit. We walked the beach in Feb!

Laguna Beach from the cliffs beyond

On Newport Beach in front of the Davis home

Morgan and Sandy's neighbors on Newport Beach

They took us to dinner at "Seasons 52" restaurant in Costa Mesa. The food is healthy and the menu changes weekly. Really good piano man in the bar! I would bring him to Hanover in a heartbeat!

Sunday, Feb 10th
Grammy Day!! We opted to visit the Getty museum at lunchtime. Great place! Perched on a hill with
panoramic views of the LA area. Great architecture , gardens and art!

One view of the Getty.... quite interesting architecture and a beautiful Art Museum!

Then the Grammys! We had to be at the Staples center by 4pm for a 5pm show. The place was enormous, and what a fashion show! Wow! Our seats were in the balcony, which was cool . We could look down on the spectacle. From Taylor Swift doing her alice in Wonderland " We are never getting Back together" to Kelly Clarkson singing Patty Page and Carol King, we were mesmerized. But it was
loud and overwhelming and we were hungry. We headed back to the hotel bar for dinner and at 8pm the whole show started on TV! So we saw it all over from the screen. Epic! It was a great day.

The whole weekend was just fabulous Southern Ca Fun! Ray and I had a ball!!! Thanks to Berklee
College of Music we got the opportunity!

Monday, Feb 11th
Ray flew to NYC for meetings, and I went to Denver to spend a couple of days with Julie.
She lives on Quince Street with Aria, Sam and Ali, and 2 kitties.  I stayed at the Marriot Renaissance
Hotel in the Stapleton area, near Julie. After a visit to her house, I had dinner at Berkshire Restaurant in my favorite little shopping area.. the 29th street center.

Tuesday, Feb 12th
Julie and I spent the whole day together and it was so nice to be alone with my beautiful daughter.
We had lunch at Watercourse Foods on 17th Ave. Delicious vegetarian/ vegan place.
Drove to Golden, CO for a visit and a long walk along the river. Lots of outdoor sculpture there.
Julie was curious to see the town. Back home to play  guitar and sing some songs together. Shes been practicing! A little housework and hanging..... Dinner was at Mercury Cafe on California St
downtown. Organic menu and music! there was a good jazz band playing all through dinner. Then a bluegrass guy came on. very fun place!!! a little funky and that was part of its charm.

Wed. Feb 13th
Breakfast at UDI's cafe at the 29th street Center with Julie and Aria. Then I headed to the airport and back home! Dinner with Ray at Carpenter and Main in Norwich.

Thurs, Feb 14th
Valentines Day Dinner with my honey at Simon Pearce Restaurant in Queechee, Vt.......

Friday, Feb 15th
Another trip!!! EEEh Gods! Ray is overwhelmed. So am I, but we're going to Ocean Reef Club on Key Largo, FL to visit our good friends, Pat and Terry Baxter. Along with us are my sister, Chris, her husband Tom, and friends John and Lynn Stahler. 

Northern Stage London Theater Trip, Jan 2013 followed by a tour of MALTA

London has been the destination for this theater trip for the past 10 years, always in January..

This years trip is led again by Giles Ramsey, who arranges for all our shows and behind the scenes
tours and conversations. We are a group of 16, mostly from the Northern Stage area. Our new Executive Director, Russell Maitland was with us, as well as Peter Saccio. Peter is a retired professor of theater and Shakespeare specialist at Dartmouth College. He gave us quite a bit of background, and
contributed richly to a number of our post performance discussions. We had two hotels to choose from: The Grange Whitehall, and the Montague Hotel. They are located across the street from each other in the Bloomsbury area, just around the corner from the British Museum.

First day I arrived was Saturday, Jan . 12th. Rested most of the day and visited the British Museum around the corner from our hotel for lunch. Lovely restaurant up top there with even a mouse in the house!
 Sunday, the 13th, the entire group took in a wonderful piano trio at Wigmore Hall. It was the Cassard/Grimal/Gastinel Trio.  Works by Faure and Ravel.
Sherry and coffee after. Our bus took us on to a long lunch in a private room at restaurant "Les Deux
Salons" in Covent Garden. My favorite part was dessert... a luscious berry tartlike cake. We returned to the hotel at about 4:30... time to rest a while and enjoy life at the Montague Hotel .....

Trafalgar Square in the Snow, with Big Ben in the fog.

Here are the plays we saw: "Uncle Vanya"by Chekov.....at the Vaudeville Theatre, the Strand.
"Kiss me Kate" at the Old Vic!  A Wonderful Cole Porter musical based on the Taming of the Shrew.
David Hare's "The Judas Kiss" starring Rupert Everett, about events in the life of Oscar Wilde, and a new play, "In the Republic of Happiness" by Martin Crimp. Also,
"The Magistrate" at the Olivier Theater at the National. A farce from the late 1800s, Victorian era, by Arthur Wing Pinero.....Starring John Lithgow and Josh McGuire.  What a treat being at the National, the amazing sets and a few dazzling moments in the performances. Nice Jazz in the lobby topped it off.
We have had some really interesting talks with Steve Richards, Political journalist for the Independent...
Sam West, who played Astrov in Uncle Vanya, Sir Trevor NUNN, famous British Director WOW! formerly of the RSC, The National Theater, and now the Artistic Director at the Theater Royal, Haymarket... and Josh McGuire, who played the young character in Magistrate. Very young and getting a great start to his career! The group also met with the lead actress from Kiss Me Kate ( Hannah Waddington) and with Kate Bassett, a theatre critic. I missed the last two as I was off running around London with Ray.
Lunch on Thursday at "Latium" on Berners Street ( very good Italian) with Norwood and Joannah Long and Barbara Jones. Then we went down to the Tate Modern and saw  some of the actual
Mark Rothko paintings that were the subject of the play "Red" from last season at Northern Stage.

Tonight  ( Friday) will be "The Judas Kiss" by DAvid Hare at the Duke of York Theater. Today Ray joined me and we went to lunch At "Galvin at Windows " Restaurant in the London Hilton Hotel Park Lane.
Wonderful food and VIEWS on a SNOWY London afternoon.... they had a nice prix fixe lunch with 2 courses for 25 pounds and coffee after in a Great Bar!!

The DAvid Hare play, "The Judas Kiss" was a really excellent drama about two major events in the life of Oscar Wilde..... when he was arrested for "indecent acts" and after his imprisonment when he rejoined his lover "Bosie" ( Sir Alfred Douglas) in Naples.....  highly recommended!

Big Ben  with the Eye in view... This was shot the day we visited Houses of Parliament.

Saturday was our last Day in London. Ray and I went on a great guided tour of the Houses of Parliament ( just amazing and highly recommended),  then to Joel Robuchon's "Atelier" restaurant (yum my!)  Then we joined the group for a new play at the Royal Court Theatre called "In the Republic of Happiness" by Martin Crimp.

Ray and Cyn at Atelier for Lunch

It was very modern and a bit bizarre and hard to follow....But lots of modern issues addressed.
Our group Farewell Dinner took place at the London Naval and Military Club on St James Place.
We drank, dined, and discussed our experiences over the past week. Good closure! Bravo to Giles Ramsey for planning and leading an excellent, and very rewarding week of theater !

Did I mention the weather? cold, snowy, slushy, messy! January is a terrible time to be in London.


After London, Ray and I flew to Malta to stay in Mdina at the Xara ( Shara) Palace hotel.

visited the South side of the island and the ancient temple there, then to the capital of Valletta with its Cathedral, harbor, museums and the hospital founded by the Knights of St John during the middle ages.

                                                               Church in Mdina

 

                                         
                                               Traditional houses in Cathedral Square , Mdina                                      

                                                           The Mdina Cathedral

Classic Fishing Village, Marsaxlokk

                                     
                                                         Rocky Grotto  at the edge of Malta

                                   Town Square: Lorraine ( our guide) lives here

                                            A tranquil moment at Fort St Michael, Malta

 
                                                       Old Stone walls of Malta

                                               The Co Cathedral of St. John in Valetta, Malta

                                       Hallway in the Castle of the Knights Templar, circa 13th century

                                    The Ancient walled city called Mdina.... our hotel, Xara Palace, was in here

Home on Wednesday, Jan. 23rd!

Trip to Southwest France with our Moms

Angele and Cyn on the patio at our house in Biarritz France, Sept 23rd, 2012

This was our home for 2 weeks: Sept 22nd to Oct 6th, 2012

Ginette, Claude ( Rays Brother) Angele ( Rays mom ) and Cyn

Biarritz town

We arrived in Biarritz, France on Sept. 22nd, and spent several days with Rays Mom, Angele, his brother Claude, and wife, Ginette. Here I am with the three of them in San Sebastian, Spain, just over the border.  And in the 2nd photo , we see the coastline of Biarritz with famous lighthouse.
Below are two shots of the famous Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. Very post modern bizarre. We visited Bilbao with Craig and Ev. The art inside was cool too.

Interior of Guggenheim

Exterior of Guggenheim

My Brother , Craig, and mom, Evelyn joined us on the 26th and spent another several days touring around with us. Below, we are all at dinner together in our rented Biarritz house. Craig is on the left and Ev is at the far end of the table. We also have Ginette, Angele,  Ray, Claude, and yours truly on the right. We had a local chef come and prepare a wonderful dinner for us all. What a treat!

Hello Friends! This is my new blog, inspired by my brother, Craig. He's had a blog for ages. I didn't know how easy it would be to set up.

Ray and I  live in Two places... Summer months are on a lake. This photo was taken yesterday morning, (October 27th, 2012) of our yard and woods . Amazing colors all around!

Our Winter abode is in a New Hampshire  town. We just moved this weekend to our  house in town, where we will be until sometime in May.

This is meant to be a travel blog to help us keep track of our trips over time. We love to travel together and our goal is to see as much of the world as we can manage, and approach it different ways. Before this blog existed, we had some pretty amazing travel adventures. A few of the highlights were South Africa in March of 2012 ( Singita game reserve in Kruger National Park, Johannasburg, Capetown and the wine country), India  in March of 2011( an amazing journey through Northern India.... Deli, Jaipur, Odiappur and Veranassi and the ganges River), South America with the kids for Christmas and New Years  of 2008/ 09. Paris with the kids Thanksgiving of 2009.

Did I mention Ray is a brilliant photographer, and I'm hoping he'll share some of that with us along the way.