Madison
So I promised I would write more about my weekend adventure, and since another has passed now i was going to write about them both, but writing about last weekend is turning out to be a novel so ill just have to post about the other stuff later!
January 25-26
Madison- The primary catalyst for the weekend adventure was that whyspre had obtained tickets to the Madison Symphony Orchestra for Friday night. So Friday we drove from Mqt to Madison, stopping along the way for delicious Indian lunch at Sai Ram. Whyspre will have to remind me of the name of my favorite dish :( because as predicted I've forgotten it, but I remember that it was a tomato/cream base sauce... We also went to a fairly large used bookstore with actual used book prices... wow! I was super dorky excited to find lots of babysitters club books for my sisters. it was one of my favorite series as a kid, and i think mackenzie will really like it because she likes babies.
anyhow, we made it to the concert a little early but vetoed any sort of shopping or exploring downtown because it was surprisingly cold outside. Instead we explored the overture center where the concert was held, which is made up of quite a bit more than just the orchestra hall. mostly we saw good examples of bad modern art there. The concert itself was fun, but we had the most stereotypically bad patrons behind us, talking and rustling and fidgety and coughing... i actually turned around and glared at the woman after at one point in a song that had become very quiet she started loudly flipping through her program. Grieg was fun because i actually recognized a few pieces and because the music went to a musical, so you could sort of feel the storyline in the music. The 2nd person, whose name i still dont remember, was... well not very memorable. the violin solo was fun to watch, but it seemed to center around the idea of being able to play really fast, rather than playing anything particularly interesting. she played on a strativarius though, so it was pretty cool to be able to say that i was watching a strativarius. Too bad the girl wasn't built to last the way the violin is... or she's been playing the red violin too long and its getting to her, who knows.... she was anorexic, and not in a i resent your figure sort of way, but in a i can see your ribs sort of way. whatever the reason, be it eating disorder or stress, she seriously needs to do something about her health if she's going to keep playing. After that was intermission, then Dvorak. I think I need to hear more of his work to form any real opinion, but i liked what ive heard so far.
After the concert we walked around the capitol to a neat little Irish Pub, whose name i cant remember except that it is gaelic for the badger's den. I had a neat concoction of maple salmon with some sort of apple slaw, and a drink called a cinnamon stick, which was like alcoholic cinnamon apple cider. You could tell that it was a very popular friday night hang out place for the nearby UW- Madison students. I'm kind of curious what's upstairs... next time maybe...
The next day the plan was to walk around downtown, but since we got a little waylayed looking for a parking deck I got my driving tour of campus. I had looked up the campus map the night before and discovered that there is a BUILDING for the microbial sciences *drool* right across from the building for biochemistry *sigh* so we made sure to pass by them and take a good look. Honestly I think the prettiest building i saw was the physics building though. I'd like to walk through campus when it gets warmer and maybe poke around inside the microbe building where i would "live" if i were to pursue my doctorate in madison. I need to look at some other campuses too... i was sort of hoping for more green space, but i know that doesnt really happen often on big campuses in cities....
So, then we wandered the downtown scene, specifically State street where whyspre had visited previously. We visited a used cd/dvd store where i found far too many cds I wanted (the quicklist: tori amos, little earthquakes; ani difranco-2; josh groban; garbage) but unfortunately not many of the ones ive been really looking for (the shortlist: the veronicas; sirsy; fiona apple, when the pawn...; ani's older stuff...). we also visited a shop called princess of India with a very eclectic and colorful mix of merchandise, including a wide assortment of belly dancing outfits :) I bought a skirt (not a belly dancing skirt) that should be very pretty and comfortable for the summer made of a baby blue very thin material. We also visited 2 art galleries, which was fun, even if we mostly made fun of the art. I was amused though to realize that chris and i seem to have some very different tastes in art. there were things we both liked, but my favorites were all very brightly colored, and he doesnt really like his paintings to shout i guess :D I think we both liked the russian woman (whose name i cant remember), but possibly my favorite artist was (something) jung, and i dont think chris was particularly fond of her. to be fair im not sure you could hang her works on the wall of your average house, it would be tricky to have that much color NOT clash with the room. I could definitely see her work decorating a business though, especially a place with younger clientele. She had season themed pieces and her winter painting would actually match the blinding bright choices of bedroom colors i have right now... I think if i ever had money (like a lot of money) i would visit that gallery again because they seemed to have a lot more art that i actually liked than most galleries i've ever seen.
While wandering downtown we scoped out all of the different ethnic cuisine opportunities and finally decided on a small east african restaurant. To be fair chris let me pick the place, and i chose them because neither of us had ever really had african food before. (ok, also because they had a vase of sunflowers). Unfortunately neither of us were really fans... his was bland and mine wasn't bland exactly, just plain... and i just couldnt do the bread stuff, it was really sour. maybe it was an off day, or an off dish, or maybe east african food is good but not there.... i dont know, but i can say that i would probably not visit again unless i were to have already tried everything else and was sick of it. Next time maybe we will get afghan food!
Once we were done with our city exploration we found our way to Maharani, an Indian restaurant chris had been to before and enjoyed. I decided i was sick of chicken and caved in and got my meal with lamb... my only real experience with lamb being in gyro, which ive always been rather fond of. The dish was called something like moghlai, im probably slaughtering that, but it was very good, with an excellent flavor. And I love indian breads! Every type of naan i have ever tried was delicious, and the other kind (dont remember that name either, but it has caraway) is really good with the weird sauces they brought out at the beginning :) Overall, definitely some place i would eat again, although i think i will need to make better money first because it was kind of pricey.
From there we left town and headed to Ironwood, which will have to be another post because this one has taken to friggin long! I'll leave you with a teaser though....
She had never tried downhill skiing before, but watching all of the tiny children zipping around she felt sure she too could do it-- then came the tow-rope, and the children fell like pins.
January 25-26
Madison- The primary catalyst for the weekend adventure was that whyspre had obtained tickets to the Madison Symphony Orchestra for Friday night. So Friday we drove from Mqt to Madison, stopping along the way for delicious Indian lunch at Sai Ram. Whyspre will have to remind me of the name of my favorite dish :( because as predicted I've forgotten it, but I remember that it was a tomato/cream base sauce... We also went to a fairly large used bookstore with actual used book prices... wow! I was super dorky excited to find lots of babysitters club books for my sisters. it was one of my favorite series as a kid, and i think mackenzie will really like it because she likes babies.
anyhow, we made it to the concert a little early but vetoed any sort of shopping or exploring downtown because it was surprisingly cold outside. Instead we explored the overture center where the concert was held, which is made up of quite a bit more than just the orchestra hall. mostly we saw good examples of bad modern art there. The concert itself was fun, but we had the most stereotypically bad patrons behind us, talking and rustling and fidgety and coughing... i actually turned around and glared at the woman after at one point in a song that had become very quiet she started loudly flipping through her program. Grieg was fun because i actually recognized a few pieces and because the music went to a musical, so you could sort of feel the storyline in the music. The 2nd person, whose name i still dont remember, was... well not very memorable. the violin solo was fun to watch, but it seemed to center around the idea of being able to play really fast, rather than playing anything particularly interesting. she played on a strativarius though, so it was pretty cool to be able to say that i was watching a strativarius. Too bad the girl wasn't built to last the way the violin is... or she's been playing the red violin too long and its getting to her, who knows.... she was anorexic, and not in a i resent your figure sort of way, but in a i can see your ribs sort of way. whatever the reason, be it eating disorder or stress, she seriously needs to do something about her health if she's going to keep playing. After that was intermission, then Dvorak. I think I need to hear more of his work to form any real opinion, but i liked what ive heard so far.
After the concert we walked around the capitol to a neat little Irish Pub, whose name i cant remember except that it is gaelic for the badger's den. I had a neat concoction of maple salmon with some sort of apple slaw, and a drink called a cinnamon stick, which was like alcoholic cinnamon apple cider. You could tell that it was a very popular friday night hang out place for the nearby UW- Madison students. I'm kind of curious what's upstairs... next time maybe...
The next day the plan was to walk around downtown, but since we got a little waylayed looking for a parking deck I got my driving tour of campus. I had looked up the campus map the night before and discovered that there is a BUILDING for the microbial sciences *drool* right across from the building for biochemistry *sigh* so we made sure to pass by them and take a good look. Honestly I think the prettiest building i saw was the physics building though. I'd like to walk through campus when it gets warmer and maybe poke around inside the microbe building where i would "live" if i were to pursue my doctorate in madison. I need to look at some other campuses too... i was sort of hoping for more green space, but i know that doesnt really happen often on big campuses in cities....
So, then we wandered the downtown scene, specifically State street where whyspre had visited previously. We visited a used cd/dvd store where i found far too many cds I wanted (the quicklist: tori amos, little earthquakes; ani difranco-2; josh groban; garbage) but unfortunately not many of the ones ive been really looking for (the shortlist: the veronicas; sirsy; fiona apple, when the pawn...; ani's older stuff...). we also visited a shop called princess of India with a very eclectic and colorful mix of merchandise, including a wide assortment of belly dancing outfits :) I bought a skirt (not a belly dancing skirt) that should be very pretty and comfortable for the summer made of a baby blue very thin material. We also visited 2 art galleries, which was fun, even if we mostly made fun of the art. I was amused though to realize that chris and i seem to have some very different tastes in art. there were things we both liked, but my favorites were all very brightly colored, and he doesnt really like his paintings to shout i guess :D I think we both liked the russian woman (whose name i cant remember), but possibly my favorite artist was (something) jung, and i dont think chris was particularly fond of her. to be fair im not sure you could hang her works on the wall of your average house, it would be tricky to have that much color NOT clash with the room. I could definitely see her work decorating a business though, especially a place with younger clientele. She had season themed pieces and her winter painting would actually match the blinding bright choices of bedroom colors i have right now... I think if i ever had money (like a lot of money) i would visit that gallery again because they seemed to have a lot more art that i actually liked than most galleries i've ever seen.
While wandering downtown we scoped out all of the different ethnic cuisine opportunities and finally decided on a small east african restaurant. To be fair chris let me pick the place, and i chose them because neither of us had ever really had african food before. (ok, also because they had a vase of sunflowers). Unfortunately neither of us were really fans... his was bland and mine wasn't bland exactly, just plain... and i just couldnt do the bread stuff, it was really sour. maybe it was an off day, or an off dish, or maybe east african food is good but not there.... i dont know, but i can say that i would probably not visit again unless i were to have already tried everything else and was sick of it. Next time maybe we will get afghan food!
Once we were done with our city exploration we found our way to Maharani, an Indian restaurant chris had been to before and enjoyed. I decided i was sick of chicken and caved in and got my meal with lamb... my only real experience with lamb being in gyro, which ive always been rather fond of. The dish was called something like moghlai, im probably slaughtering that, but it was very good, with an excellent flavor. And I love indian breads! Every type of naan i have ever tried was delicious, and the other kind (dont remember that name either, but it has caraway) is really good with the weird sauces they brought out at the beginning :) Overall, definitely some place i would eat again, although i think i will need to make better money first because it was kind of pricey.
From there we left town and headed to Ironwood, which will have to be another post because this one has taken to friggin long! I'll leave you with a teaser though....
She had never tried downhill skiing before, but watching all of the tiny children zipping around she felt sure she too could do it-- then came the tow-rope, and the children fell like pins.