House Buildin'

Henry and I are building a house. Or, we're paying people to build us a house. So many people ask us to clarify when we use the first statement. I would think it would be obvious, but I guess you never know. I am not building anything. This house is going up on a piece of property that had been in Henry's family for a while. The old structure was going to be brought down by weather if we didn't do it ourselves, so it was time.

Tearing into a house isn't an opportunity that comes along every day, so we took full advantage. There was a lot of hatchet, crowbar, and sledge hammer action. Safety goggles were worn by all.

So after what seemed like months of planning (it really was months of planning), construction began on the house. Although Henry and I poured over the plans and every detail, there were still some questions in how our two-dimensional picture would translate. So we have been watching anxiously as it is going up.

First step: earth work. I'm not even including any pictures because it's all just dirt. Although the hole they initially dug was quite impressive (and a little bit terrifying). Moving all that dirt took forever (forever = less than 2 months). 

After we got the dirt mostly where we wanted it, we got a foundation. Cement has truly never been so exciting. Also - where is our fourth wall?

Proudly surveying his new cement.

Cement is exciting!

 Henry was there the day they poured the slab, and was able to put our initials in. Awwww.

 

Somewhere between pouring the slab and framing was a whole lot of retaining wall drama. I mean, who hasn't had drama over a retaining wall before? Basically, when you have two people who know as little about retaining walls as Henry and I making decisions about them, it leads to drama. 

So we ended up with 1 rockery to hold up our dirt, and one huge cement lego brick wall to hold up some more dirt. Our dirt isn't going anywhere it isn't supposed to any time soon.

The rocks want to be more exciting than the cement. But do they pull it off?

Just try to get away, dirt!

Finally, walls started showing up, including the elusive 4th wall of our basement. Our house will not ultimately be this awkward yellow color (that is just the color of the siding before paint).

 After the exterior walls frames went up inside, finally giving us a sense of what the space would actually feel like (so far - just like Grandma's basement).

A man and his castle.

 Currently we have two stories and a basement, but no stairs. I can't wait to walk around on the top floor and see what our view actually looks like. Probably looks like the neighbor's bedroom, but there is a good chance we'll actually get to see something quite pretty.

Ta da!

Spicy!

As facebook or my mom has already told you, Henry and I got engaged a few months ago. It was a fabulous experience, and exceeded anything I could have dreamed up. Also, I was surprised, and I didn't expect to be surprised.

It started as most morning do, heading into the bathroom in the morning to brush my teeth. Henry was supposed to leave that day for a conference in LA, or so I thought. This morning, however, there was a card sitting on the sink faucet. I opened it up, and in it Henry invited me to join him on his trip, leaving in 2 days!!! Yikes! This meant that I spent the day getting things arranged to be gone for a week, moving appointments, and crossing my fingers that nothing would come up. I also thought this meant I would definitely be going to Disney Land.

That evening I was attending an end of the year celebration with students and faculty. Joy, a Seattle friend, and I were driving around when I got further news from Henry suggesting that I go find my next "clue", hidden behind a picture of us in my condo. We picked up my labmate, Jeremy, who was also heading to the party with us, who then became an unwitting participant in the scavenger hunt excitement. Joy was convinced that Henry was going to be hiding in my condo, but I was pretty sure he had actually gotten on a plane that day. After I gave the "all clear" to Joy and Jeremy that Henry was not, in fact, lurking in my condo, we found this:

I quickly grabbed the note to discover that it was written in code and I would have to decipher it. By now, we were late for our party so all decryption would have to happen in the car en route. The first few words read "L.A. is just a layover". This set off some intermittent squeals from Joy which would continue the rest of the night. I decoded some more words including "15 hours away". More squeals. In all fairness, she was not the only one squealing. So now I knew LA was not my destination, and it was likely I would be flying 15 hours from LA (although I hadn't ruled out a road trip). This ruled in about every destination outside North America. So. Exciting.

At the party my friends starting making guesses for where I would end up. Henry texted that we would bring back a souvenir for whomever guessed correctly. My best guesses, based on recent conversations, were Dubai, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Spain. I was thrilled about each of these possibilities. I just had to wait for my next clue.

Later that weekend, I got a call from Henry's brother. He told me that Nancy Drew was working to solve the case in the hidden bookshelf. I immediately knew where to look, in my trusty Nancy collection.

One of these things is not like the other...

New Zealand!

And with that I knew I was headed to New Zealand. Excitement doubled. I had just one day to get check the New Zealand weather report, buy some needed travel essentials, and get packed. Henry and I had committed to reading Under the Dome together in prep for watching the TV show (we are on a Stephen King kick), and he was chapters ahead of me at this point, making this trip the perfect time for me to get caught up and also supplying some needed entertainment for the 15 hour flight (in regular Stephen king fashion, the book is over 1000 pages). Between that and my malaria pills (code for sour patch kids), I was ready to fly. The entire trip including layovers took well over 20 hours.

When I landed in New Zealand the weather was cool (in the 60's) and rainy. Felt just like Seattle. Henry had arranged a car to meet me at the airport, and I was quickly whisked away to the hotel. I checked in, snarfed a Picnic Henry had left for me (Picnic = Australian candy bar), and promptly passed out from jet lag. Henry woke me up and we went to dinner.

The next morning Henry had arranged for us to do a Skywalk - which is to walk around the top of the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. Again, the weather was gray and rainy, and did not promise much of a view. However, Henry was committed to going and I was committed to going along with Henry.

Sky Tower on a day much sunnier than our Sky Walk.

To go out there, we had to put on orange jumpsuits and take off anything that was loose or could become loose, like hair ties, watches, etc. They even made Henry change his shoes. We got put in harnesses, because the platform you walk on is about 1.5 meters wide and has no railings whatsoever. We did our "sky walk" with a guide, Ethan, and another tourist, Renata. As Ethan was arranging the harnesses, we heard him ask a coworker: who would choose to do this on a day like this?, further validating our rainy sky walk.

Waiting to get harnessed and head up -blissfully ignorant of what was to come.

Ethan had us do several challenges which involved varies of forms of putting your trust in your harness and hanging off the edge. Read: terrifying!

Two crazy convicts hangin' off a tower

Pretty soon into our sky walk, Henry dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him. Because my anxiety about being at that height had diminished my frontal lobe capacity into survival mode only, he definitely caught me by surprise. Although I thought he might have something special planned on this trip, I did not expect it on our sky walk.

Yup!

After enthusiastically accepting, I immediately told Henry to put the ring away. I was SO SCARED I would drop it. Little did I know it was double tethered to Henry's harness, which was then transferred to me. The whole "Henry has to change his shoes because they are to loose" was all a ruse to attach the ring without my knowing. We then had to finish our sky walk. I oscillated between feeling completely ecstatic and completely terrified for the rest of the time.

That afternoon Henry gave a key note speech at an engineering conference, the whole catalyst for this entire trip. I was so proud of him. He included a picture of our engagement from the Sky Walk in his talk, making a bunch of New Zealand engineers the first to hear the news. It was really sweet how the conference attendees congratulated us for the rest of the time.

Fancy pants!

I was so awed by how much planning Henry had done, how well he kept the secret, how many details he had accounted for, and how smoothly he had pulled it off. I found out later he had colluded with my sister, my classmate, and my adviser to make it happen. I was so excited to spend the rest of the week exploring New Zealand with my new fiance!

Stuff of late

Let's ignore how long it has been since I posted anything. Here are some of the things that have been happening lately:

Last week was spring break. We were blessed with some excellent weather, which was most appreciated. I spent some days working on schoolwork, some painting my closet, and two days in Portland with Henry.

Submarine Tour!

Voodoo Doughnuts! I kept it classic with a good ol' sprinkle doughnut.

Henry went all in and tried the bacon doughnut.

The requisite beer tasting.  These beers require a lot of contemplation.

Science! This was a demonstration of dropping mentos in diet soda.

No pictures, but we also rented a tandem bike (quite the dandy) and tooled around the city for a bit. Good times.

Henry is also in the midst of tearing down his old house and building a new one. To test out the proposed design as best he could, we created the floor plan using rebar, twine, and spray paint in his front yard.

Sitting on the "couch" in the living room.

Framing the dining room.

After loosing a bet Henry also had to make me chivitos. The result was amazing!

Condo Improvements

Two things have changed around my place: I FINALLY finished painting my interior doors and I got a new deck. I had been working on painting my doors forever. From the time I initially washed and sanded them to putting on the final coat of paint was longer than I care to admit, and quite a bit more than the "weekend project" I initially envisioned. Nothing was wrong with them, I just thought they looked a little yellowed and dingy.

One done, one to go.

I took my bedroom door and bathroom door off the hinges to paint. Not having a bathroom door can be a little awkward. Whenever I had a guest and someone had to use the facilities, the other person would wait outside on the deck. That was the quickest door to get painted. To paint the room doors, I took them off the hinges and made a makeshift workspace using four 1 gallon buckets. I recommend this for any other urban painters without much room.

Looks like Dexter has been here...

My deck gets a lot of shade and a lot of rain. This combination equals mold. I think the old deck had put in 20+ years of service, which was pretty incredible. However, it was time for it to go. It's not quite the Nebraska back yard I'm used to, but I'll take it. I really enjoy working and reading out here with a cup of hot tea. This is also my access to my pseudo pets. There are three neighbor cats that are always out and about. Henry and I have named them Fancy Cat, Saucers, and the Old Gray Mare. When I'm sitting on the deck they often come over for a scratch, and almost always try to run into my condo. They provide entertainment without any responsibility, which makes them the perfect pseudo pets in my opinion.

deck!

Rest of the 'guay

So....back to Uruguay. What else happened? Henry and I didn't have a ton of time before his conference started, so we decided to take one of our free days and go Colonia. Colonia is a historic town about 2.5 hours from the capitol, Montevideo. It's also on the coast. While we were there, we climbed a lighthouse and could look out and see Argentina. It was recommended to us that we go with a tour company. After seeing what happens when a Thimm gets behind the wheel in a foreign country (ask Larry about the train tracks in zurich), we thought this was a right good idea. No random car rentals for us. Besides, since neither of us speak spanish, we wanted to minimize the number of things we would have to sign without understanding.

So we went with a tour, that was 10 parts Spanish to every 1 part English. That's just enough English to understand what is happening after it already happened. Case in point: we didn't realize the tour would be making stops on the way to Colonia. We pull up to a lovely place in the country, and everyone starts emptying out of the bus. We walk into a building, and find ourselves in this room:

What are all these key chains?

Everyone is looking around, listening to the tour guide intently, and nodding in understanding. I still can't figure out what I'm looking at. We walk into the next room, and it's pretty much the same cases, only filled with pencils. It is finally explained to us that the owner of this establishment holds the Guinness World Record for largest key chain collection and largest pencil collection. Okay....but why am I looking at it? Apparently he has turned his collection into a museum and this is the most interesting thing between Montevideo and Colonia. The collection included many other pieces (of note: a Crystal Pepsi can) and was interesting, once I knew what was going on. The owner/collector also has a business making jam. As any good tour does, this one ended in the gift shop. You could try a bunch of his jams, and of course they were for sale.

Need to find the dolche de leche again...

 Colonia is famous for it's bullring, home of 8 fights before it was outlawed.

Now the other tourists can't figure out what they are looking at...

In Colonia, our tour guide provided some information about the oldest area of town. This particular street has remained unchanged in hundreds of years.

Old.

We enjoyed a lovely meal outside. In Uruguay, no meal is complete without meat. So of course we had meat. We had seen others eating these weird fried balls, and we were determined to try them. They ended up being pretty tasty potato balls. They also served lemon with everything. I have never squeezed lemon on so many different dishes.

Papas Noisettes!

Back in Montevideo, Henry's conference began. That meant I was on my own. I did some work myself, went to a prison-turned-mall, and visited a museum. We did get to meet up with some of his coworkers for a spicy time in the ice bar in our hotel.

jello!

 Other notable moments:

This "sandwhich" was ridiculous, and apparently one of the national dishes of Uruguay. From top to bottom - red peppers, olives, unidentified white vegetable, eggs, ham, steak, french fries, potato salad, lettuce, tomatoes, beets, and carrots.

Lots o' food

We also joined a coworker of Henry's for a nice dinner out. We had some crepes filled with dolche de leche for dessert. They were so, so tasty.

More crepes!

Also, I had more clothes put in the bidet. Pants in the bidet once, shame on you. Pants in the bidet twice, shame on me. I just couldn't remember that the maid comes at 9 o'clock at night to sweep anything left on the floor into the bidet. I thought I was in the clear, but alas, it was not to be.

This I will never understand.

At one of our meals Henry also tried gizzard. It was a brave attempt, but better left to others. Of course, it too came with lemon.

Sweetbread = not tasty

Up to a month before going, I had no idea that South America was in my near future, least of all Uruguay. It was a really fun place to visit, and forced me to learn about a culture and country that probably wouldn't have crossed my mind otherwise. Between that and all the meat, the trip was a win.

Pants in the Bidet

For a hot second my original blog title (Tine Abroad) is again relevant. I am in Uruguay. Does this seem random? It is. Henry is here for work and I am fulfilling my life long destiny to be someone's traveling companion. Today is our first day here, after over 20 hours of traveling. Honestly, I didn't even know where Uruguay was before this trip. I had it pegged as South America, but just assumed it was skimming the top of the continent with Colombia or Venezuela. Totally wrong. Uruguay is nestled underneath Brazil, very far south, on the east side of the continent, and very far from Seattle. The time change isn't too bad, only fours different, but a night of three hours of sleep on a plane makes me pretty tired.


Some early observations: traveling abroad is always an interesting juxtaposition of foreign and familiar, especially coming from the US. Our culture is omnipresent, it seems, and it can be interesting to see what gets out. We were greeted with adverts for ice road truckers and a dubbed version of Pawn Stars. Something definitely got lost in the translation of that one. On the more foreign end of my experience so far: ordering food. My German skills have only allowed me to identify ham (jamon) and mushrooms (some version of champion) on menus.  Henry and I have a Spanish dictionary along, but even with that, ordering often comes down to identifying the animal and knowing no more. For supper tonight, I knew I was getting pork. After that, it was anyone's guess. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Also foreign: coming back to our hotel room to find the maid had put my pants in the bidet. No joke. I had left them on the bathroom floor after my shower. The maid had obviously cleaned up elsewhere by moving shoes to the side of the room, etc. Still, this seems like a bit of a leap. Am I missing some important cultural information about cleanliness/hygiene/use of toilets? Fortunately (?), the bidet is dry. Please cast your votes as to whether or not these pants are wearable again without being washed. We are assuming the bidet was cleaned before we came, and it has not been used since checking in.

Henry and I arrived at the hotel around noon today. We showed off our travel grime and then headed out for a walk around town and some lunch. The walk was a spicy adventure in dodging dog poop, but the weather was absolutely lovely and we had a gorgeous view. Technically, we are told the town is on the river, but it sure looks like the ocean to me. There is 22 km of sidewalk that winds around the outside of the city on the coast, with occasional beaches among rocky outcrops. We thought it was warm enough for short sleeves, but the locals all seem to be wearing winter coats. It's definitely in the 60's and may get into the 70's one day we are here. Something else for us to learn about perhaps.

Some pics so far:

Walking along the "rambla", the sidewalk along the coast.

Beautiful sunset over Montevideo.

Dinner: Pick your animal!

Birthday, Take 2

My mom and sister came out to visit me for my birthday week. If I do say so myself, we had an awesome time. It was a good combination of touristy/new city stuff and good ol' hanging out.

One of the new things we did was take in the Wooden Boat Festival. They had a bunch of cool wooden boats ranging from the type of speedboat Indiana Jones almost gets chopped up in in the Last Crusade, to an old navy patrol boat, to your average luxury sailboat. Depending on the owner, and with permission, you could board some of them. We were also given a wooden coin that we were supposed to vote on our favorites with. I voted for the Indiana Jones look-a-like boat.

 Lisa took up crabbing as part of the festival.

We also got an hour sail ride on one of the wooden boats. Our boat had been a fishing boat in Alaska. I think it was built in 1911. Our captain told us that it sailed in the same waters as the boats on "The Deadliest Catch". Given it's size, that was hard to imagine.

We also ate lunch outdoors before going to Pike Place Market. Mom actually found some fish she might enjoy eating.

Their visit happened to coincide with a "bachelorette" viewing, so they were sucked into it without a choice. It is my experience that regardless of a person's reluctance going into this, everyone leaves with the opinion that it was time well spent.

We had a mini-early celebration for mom, and of course were still celebrating my birthday, so party hats were in order.

The weather had warmed up enough that we could pretend it was reasonable to have brunch outside.

We also watched the fireworks from the roof of my condo. It's not often that I celebrate the 4th of July in pants and under a blanket. It was surprisingly cold, but a great view. So glad for their visit!