Sochi-bound!

In case you hadn't already guessed it from the title - I'm headed to Sochi, Russia, for the 2014 Olympic Winter Games!

So, next February, I'll be boarding a plane in Salt Lake City, stopping at New York JFK and Moscow Sheremetyevo, then finally landing in Sochi-Adler, Russia, after a full 24 hours (well, 24 hours and 15 minutes according to my itinerary)!

I've been spending some time looking around online at the press facilities. I've been credentialed at some pretty cool events before, but this is a whole new level. I cannot wait to experience it!

Detox Just to Retox

Two Fridays ago, I took a little bit of a trip back to college. Fall Out Boy had a small venue show in Salt Lake City and I could not pass up attending for old time's sake! When I bought the tickets back in February (I think), the only one of their new songs out was "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light 'Em Up)," so I had no clue if I'd actually like their new songs or not. Granted, as someone who has loved all of their albums, I wasn't too worried about it.

Originally, Julia was going to come with me, but she had to go out of town for the weekend, so Ashley joined. We had a very different concert-going experience than my Fall Out Boy days of my youth. There was no waiting in line for hours to make sure I could be on the barricade. I didn't even want to mess with trying to be in the pit and leaving covered in other people's sweat. Instead, we happily waved our IDs and went up to the 21+ upstairs. We were one row of people off the front of the balcony, but they were super nice and actually let us have their spots for the encore.

It was fantastic! I love their new album and haven't seen them live since before Folie a Deux was released, so about half of the show was songs I'd never heard them play live before.

Highlights

• The encore. Oh my goodness the encore! "Thnks fr th Mmrs," "Save Rock and Roll" and, of course, "Saturday." Probably the best encore performance I've ever experienced at a concert.
• The new music. Like I wrote above, I really like the album Save Rock and Roll. All of the songs sounded fantastic live.
• The music period. Every time they launched into another song, I got that feeling you get when your favorite song comes on. Over the course of ten years, somehow all of their music has stayed relevant to me and I enjoy it just as much (and more in some cases) as I did when I was a college fangirl.
• Energy. Despite being more than five years older than the last time I saw them live, these guys have not lost an ounce of their enthusiasm for performing. Joe was still spinning all over the place, Andy was a human tornado on the drums...hell, I'd even say that Patrick has more of a stage presence now than ever before.
• The little things. Ashley and I noticed Pete waving to his little four-year-old song offstage and making funny faces at him. The lick-lick salute. The guitar spins during "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race." Knowing all the places to clap and shout the background vocals. I suppose you could say knowing all of these things is the product of ten years of going to Fall Out Boy concerts.
• The crowd. It was by no means a perfect audience (does that exist?), but everyone there knew all the words to all the songs and (at least to me) appeared to truly be there for the music. The enthusiasm for "The Disloyal Order of Water Buffalos" was just as intense as it was for their hit singles.
• Being an adult. I know that sounds strange, but I feel like I was able to enjoy myself so much more as an adult than I did as a 20-year-old because I'm more confident in who I am. I was rocking out and couldn't care less what anyone thought about it. And that lack of inhibition made the concert all the more enjoyable for me on a personal level.

What a great time! They won't be coming to Salt Lake City on their arena tour (and it would be soooo strange to see them in an arena...definitely have not had that experience before!), so I'm not sure when I'll see another of their shows, but it will hopefully be sooner rather than later. 

XO.

Poets and PhDs

I recently decided to give online dating a shot. And, after regaling some friends with some of my stories, they insisted that I write about it. So, without further ado...my first awkward online dating meetup experience.

When you live in Park City and sign up for a dating website, most everyone else in your "area" is in Salt Lake City. Despite being a little old fashioned in my first date thoughts (and believing the guy should come to the girl), I figured since I was going to be in SLC anyways last weekend, I'd take someone up on their offer of an SLC date. So, I made plans to meet up with this guy at a coffee shop downtown.

His profile was promising: athletic-looking, cute academic in the middle of PhD studies at the University of Utah. In our messages we had exchanged, he seemed like a sharp, witty guy who would make for a great conversationalist. I was pretty excited for coffee with someone who wanted to share some intellectual banter!

So, I arrive at the coffee shop at 4:05. I was five minutes late because I am pretty much always five minutes late to everything. I walk in and there are only three people in the coffee shop. Two are female and the one guy in the shop looks nothing like the one in the photo online. So, I text him and say I'm standing in the entryway. A short, chubby guy (the one guy in the shop) stands up and, rather than exchanging a hug or handshake or whatever gesture you extend on a first date, waves me over to the table and says he already bought a coffee so if I want something, I can go get it.

Strike one. If you can't even offer to buy me a coffee (like...a black coffee that typically costs $1.50 but at this overpriced place YOU chose costs $3.50), that's not promising. I'm always going to offer to pay for my own things but you should at least make an effort.

So, I get my overpriced coffee and sit down at the table. I don't even remember what topic I brought up, but we start talking.

And he has a stutter.

Now, I'm not insensitive. I know that stuttering is a real thing and that's not make-or-break for me. But somehow, it seemed to select the most inopportune times to present itself. It didn't select simple sounds to get stuck on. It was the sounds that make you spit. So he's sitting here spitting all over me and I'm trying to maintain a poker face that I'm totally okay with it. Because I'm genuinely trying to give him a shot. I decide to forgo hearing every word in favor of adopting a distance that's a bit further out of the reach of the spit.

The topic turns to interests. He inquires about my run that morning because I had shared with him that I had a six-mile training run for my half-marathon that morning. I tell him that it wasn't great due to the heat, but running is getting easier for sure. He proceeds to explain to me in great detail how much he hates running. And sports. And basically everything that I like.

About the only thing we can agree on is the fact that it is currently hot as hell in Salt Lake City.

So I turn the conversation to him. He mentioned studying for his PhD at the U...what was he studying?

Poetry.

Somehow, I manage to squelch my immediate response of laughter and instead ask what kinds of things he does while working towards his PhD.

"Well, I write poems."

That's awesome! I've written songs before. Which are kind of like poems with a melody. Kind of. So, what kinds of classes do you have?

"We just write poems."

Don't you have a dissertation or something to defend before you get your degree?

"No, we just write poems."

Well, you must have classes where you like...discuss and dissect poems? Like workshop sort of classes?

"No. We pretty much just write poems."

At that point, I decided to stop asking leading questions because clearly there wasn't much going on in this program besides writing poems. The conversation stalled, so I glanced down at my watch and decided to become a senior citizen and announce that I had dinner plans at 5 p.m. for a belated birthday celebration (not entirely a lie...I did have plans for a belated birthday celebration with Korey and Ashley, but there wasn't a time attached to it).

He immediately stood and walked to the door, not really waiting for me or saying much else. At the door, no niceties were exchanged. Rather, he just pointed in one direction and said his car was that way. I nodded and said mine was, too, and he nodded and just kept walking.

So, I kind of took that as a sign that he realized the date was pretty much an epic failure.

But then, the next morning, I get a text message from him.

"Hey birthday girl. How was dinner? I'm still sweating it out in Salt Lake."

I'm sorry, poetry man, but there was absolutely nothing about that coffee "date" that made me the least bit interested in any additional contact with you. And I really don't have any idea how I could have possibly made you think otherwise. You're not an awful human being, but the fact that we couldn't find a single thing that we have in common other than being physically present in the same geographic area? That's not exactly a good sign.

I wish you the best in your online dating endeavors. But you might want to splurge for the coffee for the next girl.

The Perfect Chocolate Cupcake

After years of tinkering with chocolate cake recipes and coming up disappointed, I'm happy to announce that I have finally found an amazing chocolate cake recipe! I stumbled upon this one by accident while I was trying to track down a s'mores cupcake recipe somewhat similar to Sprinkles.

My successful s'mores cupcakes

I've made these twice now - once as part of the original s'mores cupcakes recipe and once as straight up chocolate cupcakes. Both times, they've turned out perfectly. I have made a few changes to the original recipe (because I'm me and I can't help but tinker with recipes), so here it is!

Chocolate Cupcakes (from Unusually Lovely)
1 1/2c granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 eggs
2c flour
3/4c cocoa powder (I used Ghirardelli)
1tsp baking soda
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt
2tsp vanilla
1c buttermilk
1c dark chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 and place liners in a cupcake pan.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix until well-combined. Add vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add dry mixture to the butter mixture, alternating between dry and buttermilk. Only mix until combined so you don't overmix. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 full.

Bake for 16-18 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate caramel pretzel cupcakes

There you have it. I highly suggest you now stop reading this post and start baking right now!

I Heart NY

New York City is one of my favorite cities in the world. I went for a quick weekend last October to celebrate my friend Margaux's 21st birthday, but a weekend in NYC is just a tease! I'd like to go back again sometime soon. I'm a strange person who finds cities (the larger, the better) to be incredibly calming, and I'm in need of some big city calming in my life! I've been in a small town with no trips for too long (no, Salt Lake does not count as a big city)!

Oh hey, look at us, not looking like tourists at all...

Also, I really want some cupcakes. And no one does cupcakes like New York.

Memorial Day Adventures

This year, I had absolutely no plans for Memorial Day. I took a last-minute dogsitting job for Friday and Saturday since it appeared that my long weekend was going to consist of little more than an extra day of sleeping in. However, I ended up with a much more exciting weekend than I'd planned on!

On Friday night, I ended up going bowling with a big group of people. I only knew a few of them, but we all had a great time drinking and eating and bowling! However, I regret to inform you all that I still remain a miserable bowler.

On Saturday, my roommate Debbie and I headed to the Provo River to go kayaking! It's a pretty tame river, so there were very few rapids to mention, but we had a good time and got some sun. The water was freezing, but the weather was quite warm, so it was a nice combination!

After rafting, we decided to go to Provo (the city) because we were so close (the kayak ride ended about 10 minutes outside of Provo). Now, I was a little nervous about this because there's just something about Provo that freaks me out. It's a beautiful place, but the 90% (or something around that) Mormon population makes for an almost Twilight Zone-like 1950's environment everywhere. It even freaks out Debbie and she's Mormon! But I had heard about an amazing cupcake place there, so I was willing to step outside of my comfort zone for some amazing cupcakes!

And my goodness, were they amazing! It was well worth the trip! I stockpiled a few to take back to Park City with me.

Fun fact: I am holding hot chocolate, not coffee as I usually would with cupcakes. They don't sell coffee at this cupcake place because it's basically on BYU's campus and Mormons can't drink coffee! They make a mean salted caramel hot chocolate, though!

They had an ingenious take on the classic red velvet cupcake that perfectly resolved my issue with that flavor. To me, most places have a red velvet cupcake that is essentially a weak chocolate one with red food coloring. They lack any real, strong flavor. But - The Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe serves their red velvets with chocolate cream cheese frosting! Problem solved!

Fun fact: Those are the same kind of sprinkles they use at Sprinkles, my favorite cupcake place.

Anyways, post-cupcakes, we made our way back to Park City via Salt Lake (had to make a quick stop at City Creek for some shopping!) and I returned to my regularly scheduled weekend dogsitting.

On Monday, I headed down to Salt Lake to meet up with Korey and Ashley for an adventure up to Idaho! We left bright and early in order to make it to Twin Falls, Idaho, by lunchtime. After hours of driving through little more than desert and ranch land, we ended up at Shoshone Falls. It appears out of nowhere!

We hiked around a bit before deciding to head into town for lunch. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to choose from in Twin Falls, so we ended up at Sonic. Being deprived Utahns, we had to, of course, make a stop at the grocery store for some...important items.

Yay for avoiding state-run monopolies on alcohol!

Needless to say, I'm set on wine for awhile.

On our way back to Salt Lake, we took a detour through ranches and desert to Spiral Jetty, an art installation on the north end of Great Salt Lake. It is super remote, although we did go by a rocket fuel manufacturer on our way. Their campus looked straight out of the Cold War and had some rocket models set up for random travelers like ourselves who wandered by.

Finally, we made it out to the lake. We couldn't have asked for a better day to go! The wind wasn't bad, so the water was very still and allowed for some awesome reflections. There weren't many people around, so Korey and I (both of us like to dabble in photography) were able to snap a few dramatic shots. We each took turns climbing out as far as we could get on the rocks. Here's a few of the unedited photos...

Probably my favorite shot of the day

If you ever find yourself randomly in northern Utah, it's definitely worth the detour to check out Spiral Jetty. Make sure you check the water levels first, though, because it isn't always visible!

On our way home, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Ogden for a fantastic, hearty dinner. It was the perfect way to end a long day and cap off a great weekend!

Culture Redux

I had a conversation the other day that reminded me of a post I made in my study abroad blog. I made a comment about how much more nature-y stuff there was to do within a few hours of where I live in Utah compared to where I grew up in Indiana. The native Hoosier still residing in Indiana who I was speaking with got a little offended. I tried to explain that I wasn't knocking Indiana (after all, I'm a native Hoosier, as well, and think I had a great time growing up there!), but it didn't really seem to help.

So, I wanted to share again something I realized while living in Paris.

One of the things that everyone keeps asking me is, "So, is the USA better than France?" The thing is, we're talking about culture here. There's no such thing as a "better" culture. France is different, but it's not better and it's not worse. It's just different. The same thing goes for any culture, whether it be German or Japanese or Egyptian or Iranian or Thai. No culture is inherently better or worse than another. They are just different.

The same thing is true for Utah and Indiana.

While "number of nature-y destinations within 3-4 hours" is not exactly a subjective number (although I'm sure you'd be hard-pressed to find a list with that exact name), perhaps the difference is in my perception. Since I have more nature-oriented friends in Utah, they know of more places to visit. I didn't really have any nature-oriented friends in Indiana (or the ones I did have did most of their nature-y stuff outside of Indiana). Going hiking and skiing and mountain biking and on random camping trips to deserts is an integral part of the culture in Utah. It's less of a thing in Indiana, probably because there are no mountains and no deserts.

Again, going back to my France statement that cultures are different, not better or worse, Utah and Indiana are definitely different. There are things I love and things I strongly dislike about both. I love that nature-focused attitude in Utah. I love the ski culture. However, I don't like the fact that the LDS church has its hand in every single government decision that is made in the state (as I very strongly believe in the complete separation of church and state). I love the friendliness of Midwesterners and their strong work ethic. I don't like that political ignorance is very common in my home state.

So, fear not my fellow Hoosiers. I'm not disowning my home state. I always have a good time when I go home and I'm proud to be from Indianapolis. Just don't expect me to move back soon...well, ever. There's too many other cultures out there for me to experience!