À Caen

8/25/14

Today was not particularly exciting, as most of the day was taken up with traveling.  We arrived in Paris from London at noon, and then in Caen from Paris at 4:00.  We are renting an apartment (which is supa cute - pictures to come soon) in Caen, and we are only 10 min from the train station, where there is a shuttle to the WEG.  It was raining pretty good today, but we walked around nonetheless (my feet got soaked - typical Merg touristing), got a bit of the lay of the land before my fave time of day - happy hour.  A little beer, a little wine, and then dinner -  love the French way!!  Off to bed now - Dressage starts at EIGHT am tomorrow (meep).  Here are some of my mom's pictures from London since I didn't take any today.

LOVE DIS 

imma baby

tarzan status hai

london calling

8/24/14

I had a slow start to the day, because of the libations I mentioned in my previous post.  We ended up walking out the door at around 11, to go to a coffee shop nearby.  It turned out to be closed (Sundays!) but holy moly the area was both the cutest and trendiest place I've ever seen.  I could go broke shopping there.  We ate a little snack at an Italian shop, before making our way to Buckingham.  We didn't want to have a big breakfast because we were due to have tea at 2:00, but I did get the best orange juice of my life.  Mmm tasty and refreshing!

a hair out of focus, but one of my favorites from today, with the one above it as well

Before I go on, I MUST tell you what made me so happy today.  So, about 2 months ago I got a new camera.  My other one was wonderful, but was about 6 years old, and I outgrown the functionality a bit.  I moved from a Pentax to a Nikon, and THE BEST thing about this new camera is that it works with old lenses.  My dad just so happens to have 10 top of the line lenses for a variety of functions, back from when he was really into photography.  I brought his macro lens with me, which is great for close up shots of flowers of food (!), but can also act as a bit of a zoom, and the combination of the great lens and the new camera is making a world of difference.  I'm in love!  So shoutout to my daddy - thanks for letting me borrow your lens!

We walked to Buckingham, did the tourist thing with pictures in front of the big gold gate (on Mother's camera) etc, before going to the Royal Mews.  I've been there before, but I mean, horses.  I was happy to go back.  It really is pretty neat because its a functional part of the ceremonies and such for the royals.  It was essential for the trip, since the whole reason we are here is for an equestrian event.
 

Bits from the Obamas to the Queen - notice Presidential seal

From the Mews, we went the entire other side of London for tea at Orange Pekoe.  Totally different from tea at Kensington Palace, Orange Pekoe was not pretentious or ostentatious, simply delicious.  Tea, prosecco, sanwiches, scones, and pastries were the stars of the show, in a little garden solarium as a setting.  It was a lovely midday snack, and by snack I mean they rolled me out of there because I was about to birth a food baby.

We set off from tea to Kew Gardens, which were enormous and perfect for walking off all the food from tea.  And walk we did, for two and a half straight hours.  It is 300 acres and I think we walked about 200 of them.  But it was so neat!  There were so many different areas and species of plants that everything was different wherever you walked.  My favorite part of Kew wasn't even the gardens themselves - Heathrow airport is not far from Kew and so every few minutes, there was a gigantic airplane flying over.  It was fun to see all the different planes come by, and we both really enjoyed them as company as we walked around.

buzz buzz

Mother's favorite flower

We walked through a beautiful neighborhood on the way to the Tube - it would be so nice to live there!  We quickly changed and went to dinner at this place Rules, which is supposedly the oldest restaurant in London at 216 years old.  I had an amazing watercress soup, and also got steak & kidney pie.  The pie was pretty good, just a little heavy.  I think I would've liked it better if it was snowing outside or something, but we just had to get some traditional English food while in London, and neither of us particularly care for English breakfast (baked beans for breakfast - gross gross gross).

favorite photo of the day

Now it's late and we have an early AM to take the Chunnel to Paris, and then another train from Paris to Caen, so bedtime it is!

(I really hope our Airbnb apartment in Caen has good wifi!!)

BACKBACKBACK!!!

8/23/14

I'M BACK IN EUROPE YAAAAALLLLLLLL!

Just as a disclaimer I'm probably jet lagged as hell.  I feel alright now, but probably in a few days I will look back and this whole day will be a big giant blur.  Please forgive grammar and spelling mistakes.

Despite being delayed in Raleigh an hour due to "electrical issues" aka "lets turn the plane off and then on again to see if it works" the flight was not too bad.  We watched an amazing sunset over Virginia while we drank cosmos from the Grey Goose airplane bottles I brought (#strategery), and I think I got 3.5-4 hours of sleep - so I felt pretty good upon landing here in Londontown.

It's weird being back.  It feels like no time has passed and I keep thinking I should be meeting up with my friends.  It's got me in a bit of a weird mood.  We've taken it easy today just because its been a long day.  It took us a couple hours to get off the plane, through customs, and on the Tube to get to our hotel.  Once we got rid of our luggage, life was much better.  Sidenote, my check bag was only 30 lbs! That's a lot of leftover weight for wine!

First we checked out Portobello Market & Notting Hill.  I did this in January while I was abroad, but it was fun to do a second time when I wasn't completely miserable and homesick.  I drooled a lot over all the antique brass, copper, and silver - does that make me an old lady?  Omg I am about to fall asleep as I type this (sidenote).

Tried typing some more.  Nada.  Nap time brb.

Okay, took my nap, now where were we?

Portobello.  We walked around the Notting Hill area for a little while but we were getting hungry (aka Mother was about to keel over) so we made our way to Covent Garden for lunch.  There we SO MANY PEOPLE but somehow we found a really nice Italian restaurant on the second floor for Covent Garden, so we had a great view while we ate our delicious food.  It helped me recharge my battery some, but Mother was still really tired so we walked in a couple shops around that area including Barbour, Joules, and Ted Baker, before going back to the hotel to take the aforementioned nap.

For dinner we went to a Spanish restuarant I found, Barrafina, for the second (or third) best meal of my life.  I suppose the best meal of my life was the one on the Eiffel Tower where Kyle proposed to me (HERE), after that it was Le Jardin de Sens in Montpellier with Daddy (HERE), and then Barrafina in London.  It was just fantastic.  It was teeny, with maybe only 20 seats around a bar, and a long queue.  We waited about an hour to get a seat (impressive, considering we got there at 6:00) and it was worth it.  I think I would've waited 2.5 hours to eat there.  To start, I had an incredible wine (Vilosell 2011 Tomas Cuisine in case you were wondering).  It is funny how crazy I get when I get a wine I love.  I just freak out basically.  We ordered Jamón ham, a heritage tomato salad, langoustine stuffed squid, Morcilla ibérica with quail eggs, and a zucchini flower all to share.  The ham was really spectacular and they sliced it from the leg right in front of us, the tomatoes were ridiculously flavorful and fresh, I can't even describe how good the squid was, by the time we got the ibérica (blood sausage) and zucchini flower I really was pretty tipsy, but all I remember is a blur of deliciousness.  We tried to order duck hearts which were a special, but they'd run out by the time we order them and out waitress recommened the flower instead which was sort of sweet and filled with a light cheese - killer.  To end the meal I had a great sherry (Hidalgo Alameda cream sherry) that was not too sweet, and was perfectly nutty with the Santiago tart (almond tart with dried fruit) I got for dessert.  It was one of the most delicious, most fun meals I've ever had.  Our waiter and waitress were incredibly nice and helpful, the atmosphere was great, it was the perfect first real meal in Europe.

By the time we left, I'd had a glass of cava, and probably 4-5 glasses of wine, so I was mostly drunk to say the least, and then we HAD to stop in the Princess Louise bar for a pint of beer before bed (Louise - I want you to know we were very rowdy in your pub).  Needless to say I had a little headache in the morning.

Slicing the jamón

Quick Getaway

Its not as if I haven't traveled a lot this summer, but I missed BRCHS the last two years... I couldn't make it three in a row.  Sienna and I took a quick trip to Blowing Rock at then end of August to watch the horse show for a day to get my fix.  We got both the bests of their weather - sunny and cool, as well as the infamous Blowing Rock fog.  I also got together with Matt while I was in town for dinner and drinks with him and some of his friends, and Poogie and I had the best walk around Bass Lake, what a fun weekend! 

It was literally this foggy!

WEG Prep Trials

What can I say about the very fast trip to Middleburg to watch the WEG Preparatory Trials?  Wow.  It is always amazing to see our Olympians in person, much less in a smaller environment than those big events, like up at the Great Meadow or down at the Carolina Horse Park.  Adding to my list of reasons why I'm turning into a bigger eventing fan with every passing day, all the show jumpers and dressage queens ship off to Europe to compete from spring-fall, whereas the eventers stay stateside, making it that much easier to see top level competitors in person.  As amazing as it was to see nearly all the same people at the Carolina Horse Park just a few months ago, there is this great buzz now watching them go because everyone wants to see how the horses and riders look as they gear up for the World Equestrian Games in just THIRTEEN days - oh lawdy that's soon.  "Horse Olympics" is quickly approaching and I for one know it is going to sneak up on me.

Anyway, arriving late in M-Burg after getting off of work, we visited with Rachel for a bit, hashed out the plan for the weekend, and then went to bed.  Rachel had to work Saturday morning so Mother and I were solo for the dressage portion of this weekend.  While watching eventing dressage can be rather painful for hours on end, since it was just the people going to WEG, we only had 15 competitors to watch, which made the dressage fun.  Not to mention we had awesome box seats for the weekend, so no people blocking our view, or really anyone around to see the drool hanging out of our mouths.

Boyd Martin and Shamwari 4 powering along

Lynn Symansky and Donner

Sinead Halpin and Manoir de Carneville

Marilyn Little-Meredith and RF Demeter looking STUNNING 

Buck Davidson and Ballynoe Castle RM

After the dressage we hung around for about an hour before going on the coursewalk with the legendary Jimmy Wofford.  While it was super neat having him explain the difficulties and questions of each fence, it was hot as balls, so I was sort of miserable.  After walking around in the heat of the day for a while, we went back, took a quick nap, freshened up, went to the grocery store, and then reconvened with Rachel for the stadium jumping phase of competition.  This is where the trip got a little wild.

Jimmy on the course walk

The three of us all love Veuve champagne, so whenever we get together, there is at least one bottle involved - this time it was two!  All before the competition even started, mind you.  It was really hot still, so it was lovely sitting in the shade, talking and catching up, while drinking our favorite form of bubbles.  When the competition started, we moved to our box to watch, but then Rachel and I got into my self titled "poor girl sangria" which is fruit soaked in vodka for a few days, cheap red wine, and Sprite.  I'm 100% sure it was the sangria that made things get rowdy, although the Veuve certainly got us on our way.  We sat and sort of watched the competition (which is why none of my showjumping photos turned out particularly well), socialized, met Rachel's friends, the owners of Stackhouse saddles came over at one point and were very prim and proper Brits that just didn't know what to do with us. Since there were only 15 competing, the jumper rounds only lasted about an hour before they started a bareback puissance (high jump for you non horse people).  While puissances are fun enough by their own right, unbeknownst to us, in a bareback puissance if you have a rail or your horse stops, you can take off your shirt for another try! We weren't the only people who didn't know about that rule, so the entire crowd cheered when someone knocked a rail because that only added to the atmosphere.  All in all the show probably lasted from 7-9, but by 9 the sangria was gone.  After the competition, they had dancing planned in the VIP tent which I was not too keen on, partially because I'm not a big dancer, and also because I know how crazy horse people can get from my time at the Blocking Rock Gala.  Well one of Rachel's friends inevitably dragged me over to the dancing at the goading of my mother and Rachel.   It was fun for about 5 minutes until I started stressing about how I was going to ditch the friend, because obviously I could not stay there all night.  At that point a very drunken Karen O'Connor danced by and I realized I definitely was not in Kansas anymore.  Recounting my mother's side of things, while I was dancing away, she and Rachel packed up the leftover food and then came to find me.  Rachel dived right in and Mother walked the entire perimeter at least twice with no sign of me until I followed Rachel out of the crowd.  Luckily she found me, we danced a little bit, and then peaced out to get Mother.  I also non-stop said "I'm so glad you found me I thought I'd never be able to get out of there!"  It was quite the rowdy bunch of middle aged horse people.  Once outside we saw Rachel's friend Prem, and his wife Donna.  Prem was a couple drinks deep as well, and he followed Donna to the other side of the tent before he and Rachel started dancing together in a most hilarious manner (aka griding) by themselves, in the middle of this giant tent, while Donna, Mother, and I laughed at them.  It was just so funny because it was so uncharacteristic of Prem.  Somehow we made it home alive, but oh lawdy what a night!  While Middleburg is always fun, that evening is going to be hard to top.

Boyd and Shammie

Marilyn and Demeter - gorgeous as ever (loving the Salamander jump!)

Bareback Puissance

The one picture of us from this weekend, and I really think it sums up Saturday night

Sunday had another early start, as we wanted to help Rachel with her barn chores so then we could all go watch the cross country phase that started at 9:00! It was a lovely morning, all the riders rode supremely well, and it was great seeing how they all tackled specific obstacles after hearing Jimmy Wofford's analysis of the questions each fence posed.  Everyone got around clear, and P-Dutty "won" the trial with Mighty Nice, which seems so fitting because of Bruce Duchossois recent passing.  There was a great atmosphere on this day in particular because it had everyone excited for WEG because the American team looks so strong and they have such a talented pool of horses and riders going across the pond.  We are under the 2 week mark now (since I'm just finishing this 2 weeks after our trip)! 

Phillip and Trading Aces, booking it

Phillip and Trading Aces again - BOING!

Kim Severson and Fernhill Fearless

Favorite picture of the weekend - Boyd and Shammie again

Boyd and Phillip talking

Lynn Symansky and Donner

Sinead and Tate (who attacked this fence!)

Marilyn and Demeter, over the polo ball and stick

L-R: Sinead, Lynn, Hannah Sue, and Kim, just chillin

Zooom! Phillip and Mighty Nice

I was incredibly sad to leave Middleburg this time (its always hard to leave horse heaven though), but am so excited to be back in France, at the biggest equestrian event in the world, in just under 2 week's time!