Recently rediscovered a site that just lists things you can do for free in this city. It’s really amazing what you can end up seeing if you’re willing to just get out there. I’m tired of the rut of doing the same things everytime I meet up with friends. I used to be a lot braver in suggesting things or trying things out, I don’t know why but as I got older, it got easier to stick to the same small locale, doing the typical, dinner, movie, drinks etc. I want to break out of that and make the most of every opportunity.

Spent the Bank holiday relaxing in a Park with a tablet and just nature, it was beautiful 1 week ago

16-Koninginnebrug – great view, med. size bridge

17- Willemsbrug – even better view and great curve on the way down

18- De Watertoren – quirky, beautiful architecture, and a great surprise

19- Jewish Children’s Monument – thought-provoking

20 – Manege – Equestrian arena

21 – Kralingse Plas – Park with lake, beach, and woods

And so many more! 3 weeks ago

We went to the Sweetwater Flea Market last month for the first time. An interesting mix of collectables, cheap shopping, yard sale stuff, food, and entertainment. Looking forward to going back sometime. 1 month ago

11. Chinatown – unofficial but fascinating.

12. Spaansekade – Boats and statues

13. Museumpark – Empty but still beautiful in April

14. Het Park/Euromast Park – Huge and beautiful, full of picnickers and brides in the summer and spring!

15. Maastunnel – Scary but cool. 2 months ago

6. Blijdorp Zoo – found it while biking, tho may wait til summer to actually go in :)

7. Kubus Huizen – funky modern houses

8. Stadhuis – beautiful city hall

9. Pathe Theater – seeing a film in 3D on a huge screen

10. St. Franciscus School/Church – Old and interesting 2 months ago

1. St. Laurenskerk
Massive, beautiful – and hidden in the middle of the city

2. Scots Kerk
Old and quaint, but filled with friendly people

3. Market – So many people and some great prices on vegetables and clothes!

4. Bibliotheek Centraal- Huge. So many stories full of books and people – little old men playing chess on a big board, students chilling out on couches, parents and children in the children’s area

5. De Groene Passage – Eco friendly shopping center, very cool. Food, coffee, cafe, home supplies, and gifts! 4 months ago

Some sites visited:
Meadows Museum at SMU
Brunch at the Mansion with girlfriends
State Fair of Texas
Dallas Arts District
drive through historic Kessler PArk
Crow Collection
Dallas Museum of Art
Historic Texas Theater
JFK 6th floor museum 5 months ago

Over the weekend, I got to attend the Long Beach Zombie Walk, a Halloween-themed festival held at a local park. There were vendors, food, and lots of bands (all of whom were decked out in their zombie best and changing words of popular songs to fit with the day’s theme). I enjoyed seeing other people’s costumes, and the Thrill The World folks were pretty good too.

As you can see by the picture above, I found some pretty badass makeup artists to zombie-fy me for the festival. Many people were impressed/grossed out by my slit throat :) We didn’t actually participate in the Walk itself though.

From what I understand, this festival is fairly new to Long Beach, and they’re still kind of getting their feet under them. It was a nice way to kill an hour or two, but I think that they can probably improve it over the next couple of years. The whole thing was kind of lacking in activities – if you weren’t interested in shopping or listening to the bands, there wasn’t a whole lot to see or do.

Oh, and the Jesus Freaks outside the festival holding their signs and yelling through the bullhorns about us all going to hell…yeah, I could live without that part too.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars. We’ll probably go back next year, although I don’t think we’ll get there quite so early. It was a bit dead (nyuck nyuck, punny!) in the early part of the day. 6 months ago

Go see the “Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen” exhibit in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/nyc_exhibition_celebrates_katharine_41COELXSQ0C8J9vk3IJLjN 7 months ago

The Man, myself, and my friend Ricky got to attend a performance of Batman Live last weekend (which I thought was going to be completely stupid but ended up being a lot of fun). It was at the Staples Center up in LA, which I’ve driven past on numerous occasions but never actually stepped inside.

In addition to visiting the Staples Center, we had dinner at Lawry’s Carvery, which looked and sounded like it was going to be an overpriced steakhouse but ended up being a pretty decent sandwich joint. It was certainly better than paying $7 for a hot dog at the arena :)

Rating: 4 of 5 stars for the show and dinner. Staples mainly hosts basketball games, but they do a lot of other events too. I was expecting parking to be a nightmare (because it always is in LA), and I was surprised by how not-awful the parking situation ended up being. I’d definitely go to another show there, as well as revisit the Carvery. 7 months ago

The USS Iowa has recently been brought to the port of Long Beach (they say it’s the port of LA, but it’s in Seaport Village, which is on the San Pedro side of LA, not LA proper). They turned it into a floating museum, and the Man and I went and checked it out today. Gorgeous weather for it too, if a bit warm.

In addition to being able to wander around the ship and see the guns and missile launchers and control rooms and such, they have converted part of the inside of the ship into the “museum” area with informative displays. There’s also a small theater which shows part of a documentary about the ship and what it did (was commissioned for WWII, Korean War, Cold War, and even Desert Storm). The video also showed a pretty cool simulation of what the ship would look like from the bridge during a naval battle. Very neat!

As of right now, they don’t have a lot of the cool stuff open to look at – the Man was disappointed that we didn’t get to see the living quarters or the engine rooms. According to the website, they’re working on those and will have them open soon, so I guess we’ll just have to go back :)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars, probably will go up when we go back for the extended tour.

More photos from my trip available here.7 months ago

This arboretum/botanical garden is literally on the campus of the university where I finished my undergrad, but I had never actually been inside until today! The Man and I went walking through for about an hour – the weather wasn’t too unbearably hot, and there were quite a few shady spots and some neat trees and plants.

A lot of the vegetation is stuff that is native to SoCal or grows well here, which means lots of desert-y stuff and not many flowers. However, there were some pretty sweet ficus trees (including the banyan, which grows aerial roots from its branches to the ground) and a bodhi tree which was dedicated to the university by the Dalai Lama! I also enjoyed the bamboo forest and the little stream that ran through the park.

The rest of the pictures from my adventure are here.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – not especially exciting, but a relaxing place to go and spend an hour or two walking around quietly. 7 months ago

Pirate’s Dinner Adventure is set up like a sports arena, except rather than having a court or a rink in the middle, there is a “lagoon” (several inches of water contained in a massive cement pool) and what they say is a replica of an 18th-century pirate ship. The ship is complete with lots of ropes and nets and that sort of thing, which the pirate performers swing from and use for the pirate challenges. The floor also opens up to become a trampoline, and trampolining pirates are kinda awesome. And they feed you dinner while you watch the pirates running around being piratey.

The acoustics in this place were not so great, which made it hard to hear dialogue sometimes…but you can mostly follow the story anyway, and quite frankly, the storytelling is not why people are there. People come to see the pirates singing and dancing, the wenches in revealing garb, and the insanity of the aerial silk performers. The performers were all pretty good as well, which was nice. “Our” pirate (they assign you to a section by color when you arrive at the theater) was the physical-comedy pirate, and he put on a really fun performance.

There was also a dead knockoff of “Memory” from Cats – we’re not talking just the same chord progression, but literally a difference of maybe one note per phrase. There has to be a copyright issue there; they weren’t even trying to be subtle about it. ‘Twas entertaining for my family, since we are all musical theater nerds.

Three and a half out of five stars for this one. I’d go back, but not at full price. We had a buy-one-get-one coupon for this performance, and at $50 a couple it was priced just about right. 8 months ago

“my own town” includes the city of Long Beach (my actual city of residence), and the greater surrounding areas of Orange County and Los Angeles. I lived in north and central OC for the better part of 30 years, but there’s still a ton of things I haven’t done there. LA proper is about a 40-minute drive from the LBC, and I’ve done so few of the really “touristy” things up there that it’s kind of ridiculous. Must remedy!

I’ll be getting my first experience in tonight: Pirate’s Dinner Adventure. Insert your own pirate joke here. 8 months ago

4. Chessington World of Adventures Resort. This is definitely a family-oriented theme park (and therefore, aimed at younger children) but I really enjoyed myself. The kitsch of it and its unconvincing attempts at replicating other cultures/eras/themes kind of made it all the more amusing through the eyes of an adult. Also, seeing the glee of fearless children is quite humbling (for this scaredy cat). 10 months ago

3. Boat tour of the Thames – I guess, strictly speaking, this isn’t a site so much as it is a speedy tour of many sites, but it ticks the right boxes in my head, so I’m going to count it. =) The weather held up almost right til the end, so we were lucky! 10 months ago

1. Went on the London Eye during the sunset
2. Visited the Broadway market

(Both are worthwhile, in my opinion!) 10 months ago

This entry will be an organic entry – I will revisit and revise it until I am satisfied with the list of 20 sites that I would like to visit as an intratourist. Yes, I made up that word :p

This is only a list of suggested sites, not obligatory places to visit.

In random order:

1. Fotografiska.
2. Story Hotel.
3. Strindbergmuséet.
4. Globen Arena SkyView.
5. Beyond Retro.
6. Gammalt som Nytt.
7. Stockholm’s Catholic Cathedral.
8. Moderna Muséet.
9. Grand Verandans Smörgåsbord (425 SEK per person)
10. Restaurant Boqueria (tapas)
11. Allsång på Skansen
12. Stallmästaregården, frukostbuffé
13. Cadierbaren (it’s been a while).
14. Gondolen (it’s been a while).
15. Fyrsafari.se
16.
17.
18.
19.
20. 11 months ago