All by myself

I am half way through my first day on the road alone. It doesn't feel too different. I usually ride in front of Ira, so I couldn't ever see him before. We would rarely talk while riding. It has been nice being able to ride at my own pace. I notice, today I have not stopped as much as we usually would. I eat far less then Ira so I don't need to stop all the time to munch. I got my full days riding done by 1:30. I am hanging out at the Library because it is a little drizzly outside. I plan on riding twenty miles or so more tonight. I know its going to be weird not having Ira around, and I'll miss my partner in crime. Right now though, it feels pretty good to be independant.

I should be on Prince Edward Island by tomorrow! I'll keep you posted.

Ruminations on a dreary maritime day.

We've spent a few days in Halifax, although the reality of things hasn't sunk in yet. This is the end of the line for me. We've been living out of panniers for ten months out of the last year, shopping at a different grocery store every day, driven forward by the promise of something new. That has been my source of comfort and inspiration for a long time now, my reliance on something just over the horizon. Every day on the road has it's low points, be it rain, bugs, or exhaustion. At these stressful ravines I shut everything out by dreaming of a domestic life in the city. In a few days my realities will switch, I'll return to comfort and have life on the road to dream about. I may have learned enough from the hardships of travel to make me content with a commonplace existence, but for now it's speculation. I don't envy Andrea's ride home- I'm sick of touring and the thought of senic roadsides makes me nausous. It's clear that we need some time appart, if we ever hope to have a day without bickering. These last few weeks have been hard. Andrea left on her bike this morning, and I'm getting on a plane this Saturday. How's that for a reality check? The tour is over, but far from digested, feeling like a stomach full of the best and worst foods I can imagine, all mixed together, waiting to be broken into components to fuel the rest of my life.

Not too crazy excited.

Although I have made the decision to ride home from Halifax, I would describe my present attitude about the rest of the trip as just "lets get this stupid thing over with". When I've talked to my sister and different friends, everyone asks me, "why don't you just come home?" I guess the answer is because I feel like I have to do this part of the ride myself; alone. I need to prove to myself I can do it. If I don't take this opportunity now, I feel like I will regret it forever. Plus, I have to go to Prince Edward Island. It has always been a dream for me to go there.

But I really don't want to ride too much anymore. So this is my plan. I will leave Halifax and ride the 150 kilometers to P.E.I. and spend three days or so on the Island. Then I will come back via the bridge to New Brunswick, where I will ride North West into Quebec. This should take me 5 days. Then in Riviere-Du-Loup, I will get on the train (yes you heard me...the train) to Toronto. This will cut off 5 days or so of riding and then I won't have to speak to the French Fries as much. (Does that make me sound like an arrogant and ignorant Amurican? Sorry, I've been on the road for a god damn year and I want to be somewhere familiar. I don't have the energy or desire to experience any cultures anymore. I don't want to be akwardly bumbling along with each person I meet on the road with "Bounjour. Parle vu Englaise? or however the hell its spelled).

Ok, so off the train at Toronto. And then I will ride across through Sarnia to my parents house in Flint. That will be the end of my ride. From there I will take the train or be driven to Chicago. I think I've reached a happy medium. I will be biking enough to prove myself I can do it, but be zooming across the land quickly enough to not be on the road for too much longer.

I just want to get home. So hopefully soon, I will be there having drinks with all you midwestern folk. Save some room for me, I's a commin.

Ok, With My Last Post Said and Done...

I am not done riding yet. I didn't post this information yet because I have family members who read this blog and I didn't want to worry them until it was too late. I know Halifax was to be our end goal, but I have decided I am not quite ready to pack it up and go back to Chicago. When Ira began talking about how ready he was to go home and proposed a shortcut to get to Halifax by skipping Prnce Edward Island, I realized how done Ira felt about this trip. I really wanted to go to P.E.I and I didn't want to give it up, however, I knew Ira wanted to be done. It opend up a new idea in my head. So we took the shortcut to Halifax. Ira's plan remains to fly out of Halifax for Chicago on July 7. However, tomorrow, July 5th, I will start my ride back to the Midwest alone.

Why am I doing this? Will I be safe alone on the road? Am I totally crazy?

There are many different reasons why I need to do this. I felt as though flying out of Halifax would not be true closure for me. I don't have to be back at any particular time for a job (unlike Ira, who needs to be back by mid-late July to get his job back). I've proven to myself I was capable of doing this in a team effort environment with Ira, but I feel it is important for me to have this experience on my own; to prove I am capable of handling the road alone.

Every time I write the word alone, I can feel certain relatives and friends shiver. I know I will be causeing extra worry to my friends and family by doing this. However, I have to live my life on my own terms. I feel like I need to do this. I know I will have to do things differently then when Ira and I were together. I will need to have my street smart head on all the time. I feel confident, after living in Chicago for almost 10 years, and constantly navigating the city alone, I can handle this. I just need to be smart and keep my eyes open. One thing I realized over the past year on the road is that 98% of the people you meet are good people. Sure there are always that 2% you need to be wary of, but you would need to be wary of them anywhere. I am a firm believer that if something bad is going to happen to you, it will happen no matter where you are. Sure I can hear some of you saying, "yes maybe but your risks rise dramatically of getting hit by a car if you walk out into the middle of the road, then if you just stay on the sidewalk." While this is also a good point, I can not let it deter me from my decisions.

Ira and I are not breaking up. My wanting to do this has nothing to do with my not wanting to be with him, I just want to try this on my own. He knows this is something I feel strongly about. He knows this pretty well by now, as he has tried to argue me out of doing it and has lost each argument (lost it in my mind anyway). He is reconcilled and is supportive of me because he knows I can do it. Besides his initial worry about my safty is the worry that my family is going to be pissed at him for letting me do this. He is concerned people will think he is abbandoning me. I told him, I feel as though my family knows me pretty well and understands how headstrong I am. Once I make a decision, I go for it. So any of you who are reading this...don't get mad at Ira, ok?

I am a control freak thusly I like having complete control over my own life. I need to live on my own terms and not on others. This is something I feel strongly about. If something bad happens (which could have happened at any time before or during this trip) I'll accept the consequences of my actions, and I hope my loved ones understand this. Although I really don't like this song or Frank Sinatra all that much (or the guidos who sing this song every week at karaoke) I do want to look back on my life and know "I did it myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

(God what a cheesy way to end that post. oh well)

The emphasis lately has been on the completion of the tour, but I'd like to touch
on how rad Halifax is. We haven't even dug into the insider scene, just hitting
pubs on the waterfront and crusing around on unloaded bikes.

I'm going to diverge and talk about that picture: Mussels! There's a half kilo inthat bowl, seasoned "Bangkok" style with curry coconut and ginger, courtesy of the Halifax Ale House. I've overlooked mussels for too long and the Canadian coast is a perfect place to rectify that. We've ordered them two times, and they've been some tasty little sea creatures.

I'll catch up on the picture-posting later.

There will be more about this town too in the next couple days, as hinted above. My wireless signal is crap right now so I gotta go...

GOALLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Halifax. The word is so loaded. We've been traveling North America for the last year. Inundated with the same questions over and over. "Where are you heading" is always the first of second question asked. Halifax, Nova Scotia, the answer. When we left on the first half of the trip, I was uncertain of my own capabilities of crossing the mountains to get to the west coast, let alone getting to the east coast as well. Halifax became this word I repeated so many times, it lost its meaning as a city and came to embody the hopes and dreams I had of the completion of my goal; the ultimate proof to myself and everyone else that I was capable of achieving the lofty ambitions I had set upon myself.

We pulled into Halifax yesterday June 30, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.

Our last night before arriving, we were camped in Hubbards, Nova Scotia a shy 40 kilometers (25 miles) away. Knowing this was our last week of riding together on this trip, we've been riding Nova Scotia really slow, doing only about 40-50 miles a day. We got to Hubbards and found a cute park right on the bay to set up our tent for the night. I sat on a park bench watching the rapids of the small creek pouring and spurting forward, fighting its way into the ocean. There is something so meditative of the sight and sound of moving water. As I sat there, I became very contemplative of our trip. I thought of the day ahead, the short ride to our end goal; to Halifax. I thought of our past 300 odd days on the road. We've traveled over 8,000 miles through 30 U.S. States and 2 Canadian Provinces. (8,000 miles is approx 12,000 Kilometers-I have enjoyed doing this conversion here in Canada because being five digits sounds so much more impressive then just four.)

As I sat, I perused select memories of our trip, different days, different places; plucking each one from the streaming mass as I might lean down and scoop a glass of water from the gurgling streamlet. Memories surged through me, like the beautiful sunsets in the Badlands, or a sunrise over the Missouri River; our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean and flying in a plane over coastal Maine. I began grouping memories, thinking about keystone events and places. I thought about how we have been on every edge of the United states, North, South, East and West. We have ridden over the Golden Gate Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge. We've visited places steeped in American History like the Alamo, Mount Rushmore and Mount Vernon. We've seen the immense natural grandeur of our country, visiting every national park, landmark and shoreline along the way, including Yellowstone, Glacier, and the Redwood forests. We crossed our countries two mountain ranges, the Rockies and the Appalachians. In the Rockies we crossed the Great Divide three times. I swam on every border of the U.S; Lake Superior in the North, the Pacific on the west, the Gulf Coast to the south and the Atlantic to the east. We camped on beautiful pristine beaches in the Outer Banks; we camped in the dark pine forests of Northern Maine, and in between two 20 ft towering hay stacks in Montana. We've seen battlegrounds from the Spanish American War, the Civil War, the Revolutionary war, the French and Indian war not to mention all the smaller squirmishes against the different Native American tribes through the west.

We've experienced the many different regions of our country from the Midwest to the west, the Pacific Northwest to the West Coast. We traveled through Texas which is a region of its own, through the bayous and panhandles of the gulf. We traveled through the Deep South and the Colonial South. We crossed through the Appalachians, "Down East", and New England. Each has its own distinct culture, accent and food. We've experienced the amazing kindness and generosity of randam acts of kindness throughout the country as complete strangers would invite us into their homes for a good meal and a warm bed. As people have opened their homes and their lives to us, we've celebrated with people as we happened upon different local festivals, like the Sweet Pea music festival in Boseman, Montana. We've also mourned with people as they've shared their experiences of devistaion like in the areas of Southern Louisiana so brutally damaged by Hurricane's Catrina and Rita.

As I sat categorizing all these places, these people and experiences, more and more memories flooded me, until there were so many, I could not single any one out in particular. They began to wash over me and I felt myself sinking deeply under the weight of all this mass.

When we started this trip, it was so difficult to wrap my mind around the huge goal we had set out to accomplish. In order to stay sane, we needed to segment the trip into a connection of many smaller goals. We left Chicago for my parents house in Flint MI. We left Flint for my hometown in the Upper Peninsula. From there we headed to Ira's Parents house in Wisconsin and then on to Minneapolis. This was our trip, a connect the dots of all our smaller goals.

Our final goal connected the dots of Bar Harbor Maine to Halifax. We left Bar Harbor on Monday, taking the ferry to Nova Scotia. We had spent the previous five days riding along the beautiful Atlantic coast, all the while fighting the fog, rainy drizzle and hoards of evil insects set of biting every inch of our body and sucking every drop of our blood. Sitting on the park bench that night, I had my invaluble bottle of Deepwoods Off at my side which still wasn't enough to keep the bugs off. Although the landscape is physically beautiful, Nova Scotia can be relentless. I can deal with bugs, having grown up in the U.P. We have the same bugs there as here, but I guess I have been away long enough where I have forgotten the true horror of literally being crawing with bugs. On previous nights, before I finally had to break down and get the bugspray, knats and noseeums (no-see-um, a very small bug which you can hardly see, hence the name which viciously bites like a mosquitto but leaves large welts like the black flies)swarmed around me, crawling everywhere including all over my face, even into my eyes.

I sat feeling totally exhausted and sick of being stuck outdoors at the whim of the elements. I was ready to get to Halifax. I needed to get back to a place where I could be safely inside. I hate the feeling of having nowhere to go to escape the elements. I guess we could go to a grocery store and wander around for a while, but that was the only optoin. The library in town was closed and the church across the street was locked. So I sat outside, occasionally respraying the deet all over me to keep the evil insects at bay.

Later that night, as I was lying in bed, I thought about the next day, wondering if I was going to feel an amazing sense of accomplishment. I knew I wouldn't. I was preparing myself for a very anticlimactic day. I remember feeling disappointment when we got to San Francisco last fall. We arrived, we were excited to get the city and ride over the Golden Gate Bridge, but once we were in the city, I didn't really feel the sense of accomplishment. We took a couple of token pictures; ones I forced Ira to sit through. Then we just wanted to find our way to the place we were staying. Once we got there, we just wanted to shower and relax. The first half of trip was over; and that was that. I felt disaapointed I wasn't more excited about the accomplishment. The only thing I was excited about, was not having to ride my bike for a while and the constant access I had to a bathroom.

I was preparing myself for the same thing when we arrived in Halifax and I was not disappointed. We arrived, found our way to our host's house and immediatly set to getting clean and relaxing. Ira and I spoke breifly about how great it was and that was that.

I don't realy feel disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm for being at our end goal. Don't get me wrong, we are both really glad. But Halifax, no matter how great and wonderful, is just another city. To reach the goal is wonderful but looking back reaching our goal was never really our goal. The experience of reaching the goal was the true focal point. Cheesy but true: "The Journey is the Destination".

So we are in Halifax, inside a house. I took a bath this morning and I might take another tonight. I know in the future, I may miss this lifestyle we've been living, but right now, I am ready to go back to a regular life. We experienced so much in the past year, had such an amazing journey. I can spend a lot of time now rexperiencing it again through my memories, our blog and all our pictures. It will take a while for the real accomplishment to sink in, and all the ways it will effect my life. Its ok, I don't feel the immediate rush of satisfaction of a job well done. Right now, I am just glad to be away from the bugs. So Ira and I are going to sit around and relax and enjoy hanging out in the city it took us 8,000 miles to reach.

Tent-blogging.

We're camped in a town, down by this river that has a huge military ship floating in it. The ship is gray in the moonlight, menacing, and out of place in such a quaint little town. Suprisingly I'm getting an unlocked wireless signal right in our tent, so i'm lying here in my sleeping bag posting on the n800. Last night we camped in the wonderfuly remote Thomas Raddall Provincial Park. We had a little moonlit cove all to ourselves, until the mosquitoes came out and murdered us. The trade-off for Nova Scotia being so idyllic is that the bugs are savage at dusk, sending us on a four-alarm scramble into the tent. Not so relaxing after a day of riding. Our actual site last night was an exception, miraculously, so we had a campfire and looked at the full moon. The coyotes spent all night cackling in the woods, but nothing visited our tent.

The Ancient Mariners

Most people on the Nova Scotia coast make their living as fisherman; lobster mostly.
The sea plays a huge role in the lives of the people here and they are very proud of their maritime heritage. Here is a memorial we passed yesterday





We've been touring a lot of lighthouses as we go along the coast.



This is the Seal Island Lighthouse.



You can climb to the top and see the lens. This lens took 1000 watt bulbs and could be seen for 18 miles.



A whale skeleton was laid out for display in this driveway.



We've been visiting museums which display many of the antique methods of fishing. In the front you can see an unopened can of lobster from the 1890's. Yum!



Whaling used to be a huge business in this area. On display at the museum we visited today was an antique whale harpoon gun.



And last but not least, mutant lobster claws!

Barrington, NS

I can't think of a more Canadian food than poutine, so we ordered some for lunch. Though not on the menu, I overheared the waitress talking about lobster poutine! I regret not ordering it. All that people seem to do around here is fish for lobster. Villages will often be nothing more than some houses near a fishery. Maybe a shop selling industrial marine supplies, but not even groceries or a gas station.



It makes me sad to think about how impoverished the area is, and how dangerous a fisherman's life must be. There are monuments in every town to those who went out to sea and never came back. Every fisherman's yard is heaped with lobster traps, bouys, and giant coils of rope, making it easy to see how many rely on the trade.

Tonight we are camped by a huge old lighthouse. The coastal Highway 3 is marked as "The Lighthouse Route", and we've been making a point to visit as many of them as possible. They are short, wide, and octagonal on this part of the coast.

East of Yarmouth, NS

We're camping on a ridge overlooking an inlet. The sunset glow on the water is beautiful. There are a billion mosquitoes outside the tent, a humming cloud fixed on carrying us away. We cooked in the tent and killed any that entered. Nova Scotians are the most outgoing people we've met on tour. They shout greetings from across yards or fields, welcoming us to the province and wishing us good luck. I have high hopes for this week. We have five days to ride around 250 miles, so the focus will be on taking in the scenery. The swarm outside is bloodthirsty. If the mosquitoes had scissors, we'd be fucked!


I took this picture the morning after I wrote this post. The mosquitoes were almost as bad!

CAT to Nova Scotia!

We just rode a huge catamaran ferry from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, so the Canadian portion of our trip has officially begun.

I came to the woods because I wanted to swim deliberatly

I just wanted to back track a moment...

Since we didn't plan our route too carefully through Massachusettes, we weren't sure what to expect. We knew we didn;'t want to ride through Boston, so we rode straight north from Providence, which put us to the west of the urban sprawl. I was really happily surprised at how beautiful and pastoral the woods are in the area. I got really excited when we past a sign which read, "Welcome to Thoreau's Walden Pond".



It was a beautiful warm day, so we stopped for a swim. I've heard rumors that the pond was very polluted, but I could find no trace of it while we were there. The woods are all in tact around the water. The roads which lead out around it to the site of Thoreau's cabin are inaccessible by car and bicycle, so you can only get there by walking.



On the whole we found the experience to be most transcendental. Here is a pic where I am transcending gravity and my poor gymnastic skills to do a perfect hand stand.

Ira overcomes his fears in the wild blue yonder.

Flying with Brent was my first time in a small prop plane. Sitting in the cockpit was like being in a small, older car, dangling thousands of feet off of the ground.



Brent, our host on Mt. Desert Island, is an avid aviator and offered to take us flying our second day in town.



I couldn't pass up the experience so I stifled my fear of heights and climbed in. My knees almost touched the controls, but the veiw was amazing. I thought about hippy mafia drug-runners flying across Mexico, or Alaskan bush pilots hopping between glacial lakes.



We looped along the coastline and over the ocean, the plane swaying as we moved from one airmass to another. Brent pointed out the odd shape of towns on the island, the way they fork out organicly in the crotch of natural harbors, instead of following roads or railroad tracks like anywhere inland.


(not a great example of what I was describing above, but isn't this river cool?)

By this time I was feeling at ease and looking down at the old mansions in the woods, and the blunt-nosed lobster boats with their constellations of bouys. We looped back into the wind and the plane slowed down, working hard to pull us back to the airstrip.



Fancy little shack, eh?



I was hanging onto my seat the whole time, palms sweating, but knowing I'd made the right choice to go up. Brent is president of his flying club, and a masterful pilot, so I felt bad about my obvious signs of fear. I didn't want to make him feel bad about the trip, which was an awesome experience.



One of the highlights was listening to the pilots talk to ground control. Every transmission was ended with "Bah Habah", as locals refer to the town in their thick Maine accent. Andrea and I agree that our first time flying in a small plane was a total success, and I think I could be persuaded to try it again. Andrea wasn't the slightest bit nervous the entire time, and was ecstatic to be in the air. She can't believe that I get so worked up over heights.



Check out the flickr set of our aerial tour.

Acadia National Park

We are currently staying on Mount Desert Island home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.



The island in incredibly beautiful with tons of trails through the mountains and miles of beautiful rocky shoreline.



We've been so busy while we've been here added with having only access to dial-up, we haven't been able to post as much about everything. I just wanted to quickly touch on things so you all won't think we've died.



We've been hiking, biking, swimming and flying all over the place. When I say flying I mean literally flying. Brent, our host here on the island has a pilot's license and we were lucky enough to talk him into taking us flying in his club's four seater plane the other day. We've never flown in such a small plane before and to have a personal tour of coastal Maine was really amazing!



Sunset on Pretty Pond, near the cabin we are staying at.



Sunset on Bar Harbor.


I don't have time to post all the pics, so click here to view our set on flickr.

Continuation of a popular theme...

I knew I'd been missing something. Beer! In Portland Maine, for the second day in a row, we ran into a couple in a red Volkswagen, wandering around New England just like us. They had a beer-map, with brewery locations listed for the area. We found out that yes, there were many of these in Portland, and yes, we were invited to accompany them. The first place we visited was Allagash, named for a river in northern Maine and specialising in Belgian-style beers.



Allagash bottles their specialty beers in 750 ml bottles with corks. This bad boy does the corkin'.



Beer goggles! Haha get it? I'm hilarious. And stylish.

A block from Allagash was Geary's brewery, which isn't as widely distributed and who's beer I'd never tried. They were closing for the day but agreed to a short tour. It was the best brewery tour I've had! Our guide Steve was not only a brewer but the engineer resposible for laying out the whole place.


Claire and Ravi next to open fermetation tanks at Geary's brewery.


Steve uses a condenser coil to serve us beer from the tank.



Steve next to the hop percolator. Wort is pumped through this thing to mix it with hop juice. Steve was an amazing source of beer knowledge.



Guess which hand is mine? We spent the next few hours hanging out in town, exhausted from the extensive sampling.

We've reached Acadia.

Maine is amazing! It reminds me of the Northern Midwest, if it were on the ocean. That is to say there are lush forests of pine and hardwood, lupines, blueberries, black bears, rolling hills, rock outcroppings, and little lakes hidden everywhere. Andrea always knows I like a place if I try to compare it to Wisconsin, so I'm going to say that the Maine harbor communities remind me of Ashland, Bayfield, and La Pointe. It's a little fancier in some places, and the Maritime atmosphere makes it unique. We've had both lobster and chowder and are going to repeat these experiences. Pictures will be posted soon.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire were beautiful, and we'll post about them later, but the big news is that we just entered the last US state of the tour. It's kind of sad actually. I've been looking forward to the end, and now I'm not so sure. Oh well, at least it's rugged coastline and nature from here on out.

Cthulhu fhtagn!*

"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die." - Call of the Cthulhu


One of H.P. Lovecraft's homes in Providence.

Everyone who knows me realizes I'm a tremendous geek, so it should be no suprise that we couldn't visit Providence, RI, home of the cult horror fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft, without poking around the dark corners for some other-dimesional creatures or nameless terror. Tragicly there is no historical center or Cthulhu giftshop, but a little googling turned up a map for a Lovecraft walking tour. This made for an entertaining afternoon hike through historic College Hill, the old part of providence where Poe and Lovecraft both hung out and drew inspiration for their scary stories.



Click here for our photo set from the walk.

On of the high-points was eating gigantic sandwiches at a shop on Benefit Street. They had every ingredient listed on chalkboards, overwhelming my hunger-addled brain in the same way the Lovecraftian cosmic horror maddens any mortal who tries to comprehend it. Anyway, here's the sandwich that Andrea ordered.


That's avacado on on there, not a tentacle.

*Cthulhu waits dreaming. I've been so tired from traveling lately that I'd love to join him in the city of R'lyeh for a while.

A good kind of sore.

It was hard to leave New York, but the time had come, so we loaded the bikes this morning and flowed with the sea of Manhattan traffic untill it faded into the Bronx, thinned and stretched into Yonkers, and then we were in Connecticut.



We rode eighty-eight miles between Brooklyn and New Haven, making it the longest day of our trip to date. The continuous sprawl doesn't hurt our speed; banal suburban landscapes urging us along untill we're pacing the traffic. My legs ache like growing pains, or like a good day of running around the lawn as a kid. I have renewed enthusiasm to ride.



Just outside of Stratford my wheel made a sound like a coil of bailing wire had been sucked through the fender. I haven't figured out how, but the blade from a pais of scissors pierced my tire and was rattling against everything as the tube deflated. A tyvek boot solved the problem. I plan to ride this one for the rest of the trip, despite the damage. I've seen numerous pairs of broken scissors on the sholder before this, but the omen has gone unheeded until now. Who leaves broken scissors in the street anyway?

LUPA

Our friend, Shawn, who has been making so many appearances on our blog lately, is an old friend from Chicago. He left us about 3 years ago, moving to New York to work in the Restaurant business. He is currently cooking at Lupa, one of Maria Batalli's restaurants. You know, Mario Batali, one of the food network's celebrity Chefs, the red haired Italian Chef, from Iron Chef America. Although Shawn slaves away 10-12 hour shifts in kitchen, he had never actually eaten there. When he invited us to come along with him, even though we are on a budget, we couldn't refuse.



The full name of the restaurant is Lupa Osteria Romana. I asked Shawn and our server, Elizabeta, what a Roman style Osteria is and they both described it as being a less formal establishment with a bar on one side and a few small tables. One can order a cafe or cappuccino at the bar and perhaps a few small food items as well before sitting down. So in essence, an Osteria is more like a cafe. Lupa, being more formal, resembles more a trattoria or tavern style restaurant, and is an Osteria in name only.

Lupa is located near Washington Park, home of the famous Washington Park Arch. The restaurant itself resides on a small and cozy side street. The atmosphere is warm and earthy. The walls are painted a burnt orange color with a beautiful Mahogany Bar lining the left wall and dark shelves containing their wine selection on the right. The atmosphere is very welcoming and unpretentious.



We decided to make lunch reservations for Friday at 2:30. We made a quick pit stop to pick up some beer before arriving. Shawn said it was customary for fellow coworkers to buy beer for the line cooks when coming to eat as a token of appreciation.

We arrived and Shawn quickly started introducing us to everyone there. The staff was incredibly friendly and very excited to see Shawn come in as a customer. We were seated immediately and the menus came flying out. Shawn and I had discussed how we wanted to go about ordering. I love sampling as much food as possible, but Shawn felt ordering a la carte was better then the sampling menu. We decided to do a la carte family style so we could sample the specific things we wanted. We all agreed the best person to choose the items would be Shawn, since not only is he is intimately involved with menu, which he cooks 5 days a week, but we also felt a little intimidated by the menu which was predominantly in Italian.

The food was served in three courses; the antipasto, the primi (pasta course), and the secondi (the entrée course). Shawn had been telling us how they do all their own butchering and curing of meats, including many different sausages and prosciutto.

For our antipasto course, we ordered the Grande under the carne section, so we could get a sampling of their in house cured meats. The Grande was served with four slices each of Prosciutto Di Parma, Coppa, which is cured pork shoulder, and Salumi, a small round salami. It also came with a bowl of sliced Lingua, which is beef tongue, and finally 2 slices of Testa, also known as headcheese. Beside this, we also ordered Tuna with Cannelini beans, Marinated Eggplant with Mint and Radicchio with Anchovies. In addition to all of this, the chef sent out an Escarole salad with walnuts, red onions and pecorino.



The prosciutto, salumi and coppa were all very traditional. They were good, but nothing out of the ordinary. The Lingua was very good. I have had tongue before and I remember it being very chewy. Lupa's Lingua was very tender with a surprisingly sweet flavor. The tuna had a good flavor but was a little tough and over cooked. My favorite was the marinated eggplant. It had excellent texture being still slightly crisp and the balance between the slightly acidic lemon flavored marinade with fresh taste of the mint with the subtlety of the eggplant was amazing.



I wanted to be open minded about the Testa aka, head cheese. Headcheese is made of the left over portions of meat from the pigs head cooked in Gelatin. I have always heard stories of my Austrian grandfather making headcheese every year when he made sausage. He loved it, but my mother said everyone else in the family hated it. I tried it both on its own and on bread. I just didn't like it. While the flavor of the meat itself was nice and pungent, I couldn't get over the gelatinous consistency or taste. It just felt as though I was eating mucousy fat with meat chunks. I wont be testing out the testa again.

Here I am trying the Testa the first time. You can see how well I'm enjoying it.


For the primi course we sampled three different kinds of pasta dishes.



I first tried the Bucatini All' Amatriciana, which is a long hollow noodle, like a mix of a macaroni and spaghetti noodle. It was served with tomato sauce and a fried meat (the name eludes me) cured similar to prosciutto but made with the cheek of the pig. Ira criticized it for being too heavy, but I thought it was delicious. The salty meat mixed with the sweet of the tomato sauce created an excellent balance. This balance I found to be missing in the next pasta dish, the name of which also eludes me. It was a traditional spaghetti noodle with the same meat as the first pasta dish, this time cooked in an egg cream sauce. The sauce was incredibly rich and savory. Together with the pork, it felt too salty, but was still very good. Lastly, I tried the Linguine and Mussels. This dish was very nice in its simplicity. The sauce was prepared with the liquor of the mussels with just a bit of butter and lemon to give it body. It was served over the linguine with the mussels and a few slices of jalapeno peppers. The peppers gave the flavor just the right zing to keep the taste from being too boring in its simplicity. I felt the sauce and noodles, paired with the muscles for a bit of sweet and the peppers for some zing worked quite harmoniously. Ira, who always prefers hot food, liked this dish the best.



The secondi course, or entrée, we had Saltimbocca and Trout. Saltimbocca, which is made of Veal, prosciutto & sage, literally is translated to “jumps into the mouth”. It was incredibly delicious and rich. The prosciutto giving just the right amount of seasoning and texture to the delicate veal. The trout, which was served whole, fried in a light breading with crushed capers, was a bit of a disappointment. The meat was not as tender, feeling slightly over cooked and definitly under seasoned. The subtle flavor of the fish was nice, but the dish didn't jump into the mouth as the previous dish.

before:


after:


The entrées were accompanied by side dishes of charred asparagus, which were nicely crunchy and fresh, potatoes served in a fried pancake style and sea beans. I had never heard of sea beans before. Sea beans also known as samphire is a type of seaweed. It is naturally very crisp and salty from the seawater, so it was simply served with butter and was really very good.



After all this food, as you can imagine, we all felt pretty destroyed. When Elizabeta came back and introduced us to the desert options we all felt as though we had better pass. However, when Elizabeta came back to the table, she was bearing not the expected bill, but four spoons, which she dispersed around the table with a parting smirk. Next two beautiful dishes appeared at our table. One plate held a white cream custard with a black berry sauce and garnished with fresh black berries. The other plate presented us with chocolate dipped gelato of cherries and truffles, served with a chocolate cherry ganache.





Both were delicious; the first was light and creamy, and the second dish was rich and sumptuous.



Along with these two dishes, we were also brought four large shot glasses holding a white liquid Shawn jokingly referred to as Slurpino. The glasses held a mixture of lemon gelato, Prosecco (an Italian white sparkling wine) and vodka. The sparkling wine gave the gelato a light and crisp taste and the vodka helped tame the sweetness. Marcus, bowed out of eating the deserts due to a lactose intolerance, so I just had to help him finish his drink as well as my own. Shawn particularly was busting the buttons from his shirt, both in pride of the food as well as from being bloated.



By the time the meal was over, 2 1/2 hours had elapsed. My stomach was feeling distended from all the food we ate, and I realized I was feeling pretty tipsy from our final desert, which turned out to be far more alcoholic then it tasted. All in all, we had an amazing meal. I have a tendency of feeling slightly awkward and self-conscious when in a fine dining experience, but having Shawn there to explain everything, made it so easy. Shawn's coworkers were all incredibly friendly and helpful which lent to very comfortable and unpretentious meal. We even got a quick tour of the kitchen afterwards, which was very exciting to me.



Although the bill was the equivalent to the budget of multiple days, it was totally worth it.



Thanks Shawn!