A Pit Stop In Ithaca

After spending the end of last week in the 1000 Islands, Joe came back to New York City with me! Except because six hour car rides aren't really fun, we decided we'd make a stop in Ithaca on our way back to visit our alma matter.

It was certainly good to be back on the hill. Walking around together, it felt like we never had left at all. I kept thinking that if we went to Joe's apartment, our friends would be sitting on the couch watching TV or around the kitchen table with lunches and laptops out. 

We walked around the arts quad. 

And then made our way back down Ho Plaza, where the iconic clock tower is.

Walking around really made me want to go back for good.

(A girl can dream, right?)

While in town, we also made a stop at CTB for lunch because no trip to Ithaca is complete without. I almost picked up a few of my usual order to take back to the city to freeze, but they had run out. (Sadface indeed.)

My usual. A "Buttermilk Bialy" (melted munster cheese, tomato, sprouts, and mustard on a bialy) and a blood orange San Pellegrino. 

(Wine) Tour De Finger Lakes :: Part 2

Oh hello! Sorry for the break in this post.
Here resumes where I left off with the wine tour the amies and I took the other weekend.

After Cayuga Lake, we made our way over to Seneca Lake.

We first tasted at Red Newt Cellars, which I have been to twice. They make so many lovely, interesting wines. These above are all the steel tanks they age wine in.
Talk about wine on wine on wine on wine!

We finished our tour at Atwater Vineyards, which makes such a variety of wines (dry, sweet, sparkling, mulled, dessert, etc). The views there were without a doubt the best of the tour.

Also these ladies are totally the best <3

While we were at Atwater, I also managed to find Le Copain's name in the guest book from when we went over Senior Week. That was pretty special. :)

After the tour, we headed to Finger Lakes National Forest and pitched a tent there for the night. We actually ended up spending a lot of time in the car since we were pretty cold. We even managed to prepare dinner and drink wine in there without too much of a mess.

Speaking of the wine, we didn't have a bottle opener so got crafty and pushed the cork into the bottle, which ended up working!

The next morning, I got to live my recent past and show my three lovely amies some of my favorite parts of Ithaca/the surrounding area.We started off with a 7:30am hike to Taughannock Falls. It's seriously one of the coolest geologic formations in New York, and apparently was named for the Native American chief who was pushed off the falls by a rival chief long ago!
(*Thanks for reading the informational signs, Amie DB!). 

Afterwards, we made a pit-stop at my beloved Wegmans so I could stock up on my favorite salsas and salad dressings and soba noodles. (If you never heard of Wegman's you should read this.)



After Wegman's, we made perhaps the most important stop anyone can make in Ithaca... CTB (aka: Collegetown Bagels).

I think the amies really liked it too. I got my usual Buttermilk Bialy (sprouts, melted muenster, tomato, and dijon mustard on a bialy) and the amies all got to try their signature rosemary salt bagels.

Once we had breakfast, we made the trek home and ended up taking some pretty back roads through pastoral America, which made for a really nice drive home after a really nice weekend.

Until next time, Finger Lakes!

Other Stuff
01. Wine touring during senior week.
02. The oldest wine I've ever had
03. A few tasty wine (and cider) picks from the tour. All are $20 or less!

• Hellbender from Red Newt (A very tasty and wallet-friendly Port-style wine)
• Black Magic Hard Cider from Bellwether (A beautiful pink hard cider with black currant juice)
• Pinot Bubble from Atwater (A mostly dry sparkling wine with a subtly sweet finish) 
• Chablis from Americana (A dry, light white perfect for summer drinking)

(Wine) Tour De Finger Lakes :: Part 1

Last weekend, three of the lovely amies and I went wine touring in the Finger Lakes (hi whenever you read this!)! It was so much fun to go with these ladies who have been my friends since way back when. Grade school to wine touring... who would've thought?!

Friday, the night before our departure, we slept over at Amie AB's like old times. Even though I swore off drinking for the night, Amie AL popped over with sangria, and well, I definitely forgot any promises I made. We all did. Thankfully there were enough of us to spread it out amongst though! ;)

On Saturday morning, we drove up to the Finger Lakes through some unfortunate rain and started our day off with a modest in-car picnic (to help absorb the alcohol to come). We started our Tour de Vineyards at Americana Vineyards on Cayuga Lake.

At Americana, our sommelier was great with recommendations and finally gave me two samples where I could clearly taste what an "oaked" wine tastes like. Like I thought I knew, but oak isn't exactly a food I eat all that much lol. I tried same wine twice, but one version had been aged in oak and the other had been aged in steel. After that I knew what oak tastes like. Simple as that!

Next we went to Bellwether Cidery/Winery to taste hard ciders. We tried ciders that almost tasted like champagne, ciders that tasted like crisp commerical ciders, and a special and very delicious cider that had black current juice in it and was a beautiful pink color. Talk about dan-ger-ous!

Last on the Cayuga Lake segment of our tour was Lucas Vineyards. We got "Nautie" (a name they gave a few of their sweeter wines) and drank some Tugboat (a juicy red with a slightly complex finish nicknamed "Chugboat". Neither were bad, just not good for wine, but we did have (tug)boatloads of fun!

Those three vineyards concluded Part I of our tour on Cayuga Lake and then with a BAC of barely 0.03 (we brought along a breathalyzer to stay on the safe side!), we drove off to Seneca Lake to taste at Red Newt and Atwater, which I visited over senior week as well.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

xo

Graduation Part 3 :: Commencement (Aka: That Time I Graduated From Cornell!)

On Sunday May 25th, 2014, I graduated from Cornell University!!!
I still can't believe I was lucky enough to go to Cornell. Cornell has perhaps been the best chapter of my life yet. I got to take so many interesting classes, go on so many adventures, and most importantly, met some friends who pretty much became family.

Commencement was pretty incredible. Cornell is so huge that it took over an hour to get everyone (5000+ people) lined up and into the stadium where graduation took place. It's hard to believe so many people go to Cornell, especially when it is such a huge campus and people stay cooped up inside during the many cold months of the school year. Commencement itself was pretty brief since Convocation was the day before, but it was special to be in the same place with all those graduating with the Class of 2014 and everyone's families for that brief moment in time.

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. Lots of pictures. Some receptions. A lovely dinner out with the extended family/Le Copain. An early bedtime to signify my entry into the post-college world.

Thanks for three great ones, Cornell!

( See Part 1, Part 2 )

Graduation Part 2 :: A Family BBQ

The Saturday afternoon after Convocation, all the amis and our families ended up at a lake house Ami M's family rented for the weekend for a barbecue! It was really fun to (finally) meet everyone's families... one ami's somewhat surprisingly southern accented mother (well they're actually from Virginia, but I was surprised), another amie's high school aged cousins, another ami's dad who was taking pictures on an iPad, etc. It felt a lot like a family reunion even though I was only related to five people there (and even though my family reunions contain many fewer margaritas and would never have stuff like fajitas and ceviche). Here's some snippets from that fun bit of the weekend:

Cayuga Lake. Talk about a total charmer.


The amis. <3


More amis.

My grandma + Ami S's grandma + Amie M's grandma all totally hit it off and were in this "Grandma Circle" for probably more than an hour!

Meeting the amis' siblings was so fun. Especially the two with funny younger sisters. Ami J's sister even filled us in on a song he wrote for her about her being a goat. Besides the fact that it was hysterical, it was pretty cute. 

Ami M trying not to feel awkward as I tried to get a hugging picture of him and his sister. I had about ten outtakes of this, but this one came out pretty cute, I think. 

Yup. A total charmer. 

Graduation Part 1 :: Convocation

So finally my graduation posts start  (I was waiting to get pics off my mom's iPhone...)
I think there will be three of these posts, but who knows. Graduation weekend was pretty darn lovely and may call for four postings. Or five. Probably three though.  Anyway (I'm really working on not saying anyways anymores because I'm supposed to be an adult or something), since Cornell is such a huge school, graduation takes place over two days. Convocation was on Saturday and Commencement was on Sunday. There were also a bunch of other things in there... receptions, a BBQ, a post-graduation dinner, some photo sessions, etc.

For Convocation, Ed Helms who plays fictional Cornell alumni, Andy Bernard on The Office spoke (as well as Cornell's president and the senior class president (who is a friend of Ami R and has introduced himself to the amis and me about ten times over the last three years...). Ed Helm's speech was so good. So many good pieces of advice, not to mention it was so funny. Ed Helms's speech can be found here...  You should watch it... I do recommend it! Here are some snippets from that bit of Saturday morning...

Climbing The Clock Tower

Last Thursday, Le Copain and I climbed the 161 steps of Cornell's clock tower. He had been up it freshman year, but I hadn't and figured it was something I would regret not doing before I graduated. 
It was pretty awesome. The 360 degree view of campus from 14+ stories up plus being right next to the bells as a concert played (besides them being really loud) was awe-inspiring. The chimesmaster even played "Let It Go" from Frozen! :)

Ithaca really is "gorge-eous". 

PS: Based on Cornell's 161 steps, there is the famous 161 things to do at Cornell. Here's the list!