Food:
Ithaca Bakery/Collegetown Bagels»
Aladdin's»
Za Za's Cucina»
Purity Ice Cream»
The Mate Factor»
The Nines»
Short Stop»
Sushi o Sake»
Ithaca Ale House»
Bandwagon Brew Pub»
Hal's Deli»

Nature
Taughannock State Park»
Treman Falls State Park»
Buttermilk State Park»
Stewart Park»
Cascadilla Falls»

Shopping
Ithaca Mall»
The Ithaca Commons»
South Meadow St/Elmira Rd/Route 13 South»

Kid Friendly
Planet Walk - Sciencenter»
Museum of the Earth»
Swimming/Parks»

Wine Tours
Cayuga Lake»
Seneca Lake»

Misc
Farmer's Market»
Ithaca College»
Cornell University»
Akwe:kon House»

The list of local hotels that have been reserved can be found here.

If you have any questions about Ithaca, please feel free to contact us directly.

Please comment below if you have an Ithaca favorite that wasn’t covered or if you have something to add about what was mentioned above.

One of the most important items: the wedding bands!  Andrew just received his in the mail over the weekend, and I received mine a few weeks ago.  Check them out:

Shelby's Ring

Andrew's Ring

For more pictures and information click here for my ring and here for Andrew’s ring.

Let us know what you think!

As per usual we headed over to Chris’ house Friday night and were greeted by two other out-of-towners, Casey Justice and Julie!  They were in town to cheer on a friend, Lauren, who was competing in the Ithaca Triathlon for the first time!  It was a great surprise to find out that they would be in town the same weekend we were!  We all had a blast catching up, always a great time when they’re around, for sure!

Father Daughter Dance

Father Daughter Air Guitar

Our main event, the wedding, took place Saturday.  The ceremony was outside at the pavilion area of Taughannock Falls State Park.  It was an absolutely beautiful day, couldn’t have asked for better weather!  The ceremony was short and sweet, just the way everyone likes it.  I was trying to pay attention to as much as possible since it will be the only wedding I will attend before my own!

Andrew and the Vineyard

Us and the Willow Tree

On our way to the reception we made a quick stop out at the Ovid Airport so Andrew could see his old skydiving buddies.  Everyone was really happy and surprised about our sudden visit.  Admittedly, I don’t know everyone out there very well, but they are all very nice and it was great to chat with them for a bit.

Glenora Vineyards, NY

Glenora Vineyards, NY

The reception took place at Glenora Wine Cellar in Dundee, NY.  Such a beautiful venue!  The dining room for the reception had a whole wall of windows with a specatular view of the vineyard and Seneca lake.  The dance floor and DJ was located out on the huge deck on the other side of the windows.  Perfect weather for the perfect event.  Andrew and I made friends with some other IC alumni that we were seated with and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves (not in a drinking way, though, since it was about an hour drive back to Ithaca).  I took a lot of mental notes during the whole event and must admit that I feel a lot more relaxed about my own wedding now that I’ve been to one.  All the small details are very nice, but simple and subtle really is nice and that’s how I’m trying to keep it.

Fondling the Grapes

Grapes on the Vine

Saturday night we meet back up at Chris’ for a little get-together.  We played a fun game called “Flip Pong” or something of the sort.  It’s a hybrid of Beer Pong and Flip cup and was a lot of fun, but especially challenging because we had extra small cups and a warped table!

We got a really late start on Sunday but once we were up and running we had an amazing breakfast at Sunset Grill near IC’s campus.  We met up with Dorreen to go swimming at Taughannock since Treman was closed, which was truly a shame since it’s our favorite.  We’re not as young as we used to be, though, because we swam for about 30 minutes before we decided to call it a day because we were tired!!

Taughannock was followed with an amazing dinner w/ Jason, David, Christina and Joyce at the Bandwagon Brew Pub.  Wow, what a great little place.  Delicious homemade beer, delicious food, great company.  Andrew, Christina, Joyce and I all headed over to Purity for dessert since no trip to Ithaca is complete without some Purity icecream (even if you’re too full to finish it)!

We parted ways with Christina and Joyce and headed back over to Jason and David’s where we were spending our last night.  Dorreen joined back up with us and we spent the night drinking, singing and watching tons of fun programs.  I stayed up waaaaay late w/ Jason, but it’s always such a good time I can’t help but try and squeeze as much time out of it as possible.

Although we hadn’t gotten much sleep, we had to get up bright an early on Monday to make a meeting with our cake baker.  We finalized most of the details for our cake and put down our down payment.  Ithaca Bakery is so fantastic, I’m certain our cake(s) will be as good looking as they are delicious!  Very exciting!!

Having that extra day in Ithaca really made all the difference.  Rushing around trying to get everything done and see everyone in the typical Friday evening to Sunday afternoon time slot is always so hectic.  I have always loved spending the summer in Ithaca, it’s such a fantastic time of year to be there!  So relaxing, so fresh, so beautiful!  It was really hard to leave and got those wheels in my head turning trying to figure out a way to get back there again!  I think my heart will always be in Ithaca.

Front w/ Button

The craft only took about two hours to complete and I was especially proud because I figured out how to make it myself with no instructions.  Granted, it’s not a very difficult craft to figure out, but I still did it on my own.

Front Flap Open

I don’t really have the right type of paper, so this one isn’t bound to last very long, but just hashing out the design and having a distraction from my typical worries is a reward enough for me!  I really needed to give my mind a break from the usual wedding / financial / life worries that have been piling up recently.

Interior w/ Coupons

Let me know what you think!  Maybe someday I’ll quit my “day job” and start doing crafts and such for a living!  :)

Habitat for Humanity

On Tuesday I had the chance to volunteer at my first Habitat for Humanity construction site shift!  I have volunteered before, but only in the office stuffing envelopes, so I was really excited to get on a site and get some work done on a house.

Back in college, my friend, Quinnen, introduced me to Habitat for Humanity because she was very involved while in college in Ithaca.  I had never heard of it before and it intrigued me right from the start.  She had a lot of great experiences and made a bunch of friends while learning how to build houses and help lower income families afford their own homes.  She even spent a summer after school doing the Bike to Build program with Habitat where she biked across the country with a group of people, making various stops along the way to help build in different communities across America!  How cool is that?

I never managed to get my act together while I was in Ithaca, but I always knew I wanted to get involved when I could find a good time to start volunteering.  As soon as I got to Boston I knew I would have the time and would appreciate the opportunity to meet people in the area while learning some valuable building skills.  I’m developing this serious interest in learning to build and construct houses and I definitely feel the need to offer my time as a volunteer and do something to help other people.

I arrived at the site out in Needham for the morning shift and got to work right away.  The house is nearing completion, so I mostly did a lot of site clean up, but I got to do some really neat stuff too.  I learned how to use a circular saw, yey power tools!  It definitely made me a bit nervous because I haven’t used any serious power tools since I took shop class back in Junior High School.  I also helped lay some concrete.  I ended my shift helping paint the enclosed porch’s interior roof, which I really enjoyed because I like to paint.

The Needham house should be all ready to hand the keys over to the new owners at the end of the month!  I’m really excited for them and proud to think that I helped (albeit only a few hours) to make it possible!

It’s a bit challenging to get Individual Volunteer shifts, but I hope to get out there again soon!  If you’re reading this and have ever wanted to volunteer in general or for Habitat, I highly recommend it.  So far everyone I’ve met is really nice, very thankful and interesting to talk to.  Habitat doesn’t expect you to have any prior building or construction experience and will teach you to do anything they need you to do (that you’re comfortable doing, you won’t have to use power tools or do anything that you feel uncomfortable doing).

There is also Group Volunteer shifts, in fact there is way more opportunity to volunteer as a group since the group needs to donate a certain amount to Habitat which means they have more resources both physically and financially to complete their projects.  If you have a group of friends who are interested, or if your workplace is interested in volunteering time you should check it out!

Wedding Dress Teaser

Recently Amalia went with me to try on some veils with my dress so I could figure out which ones look good.  It was the first time I’d put my dress on in front of a decent mirror since I picked it up so many months ago.  I am glad to say that I am still in love with it and that this time around I even look better in it than I did the first time I tried it on because I’ve lost a bit of weight!

Thanks to the appointment and Amalia’s help (she gave me a lot of great advice and took pictures), I now know what color and style veil I want to get!  I have also purchased my hairpiece (a small barrette) and my shoes now that I know what my dress looks like again.»   I feel so accomplished.  I will soon be purchasing a veil as well after I look around for good prices/quality a little more.

I am very excited about my dress and the big day that is only a little more than 4 months away at this point.  I hope this teaser is getting you excited too!

With the recent sale of my turntables (and therefore some extra cash) we decided to head up to Nashua again as a follow up to our first indoor skydiving adventure. This time we went with the intent to pick up some new skills instead of just play around.

Shelby was determined to learn how to belly fly and I had set a plan to tidy up my sitfly. Of course at Skyventure there is a heavy emphasis on safety and it’s a requirement to go through a belly-back-sit-headdown progression rather just jump in at the level you’re used to in the sky. After all- in skydiving, once you leave the plane, octagonal 12 foot walls are not blocking you from drifting a lot.

Learning to backfly off the net, practicing turns

Shelby is practicing her turns and fall rate control

We split up 15 minutes of tunnel time and I went in on my back after some training from Kevin (who is the man, by the way). I practiced my 6-points of control and learned to turn left and right on my back, move forwards and backwards and float up and down. I spent a few minutes getting adjusted to backflying in general before feeling comfortable with these aspects of flight.

Shelby was next and completely rocked the house. She has only made one tandem skydive but I swear she was born to fly, she was a complete natural in the tunnel. She is completely stable on her belly and was practicing upward and downward movement and turns. I can say that after our briefings and video analysis it’s clear she is already flying (with only 1 skydive and a few minutes in the tunnel) better than I was even when I already had 20 skydives!

Practicing transitions and coming off the net in my sitfly

Shelby is practicing fall rate control during turns and is completely stable on her own.

I finished up with a transition session where I was practicing transitions between back and sitflying. By the end of the day I was thoroughly exhausted, but was satisfied to have left beginning to work on my stifly in the tunnel. I think I impressed myself more than the instructor with how quickly I progressed. I am by no means a master of backflying but I have a pretty good feel for it and find it fun. I look forward to working a lot on my stifly and seeing Shelby grow into even more of a pro as we prepare for her eventual AFF.

Birds!

On the way back from the tunnel we passed in front of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s in Cambridge. Every time we drive by this area there are always a number of people in a crowd in front of a shopping plaza. Today we decided to finally pull over and check out the situation. It turns out that there is a family of Red Tailed Hawks that has nested on the building in that plaza.

Red Tailed Hawks of Cambridge, MA

This group of Red Tailed Hawks has been growing as a family over the years and is apparently a town favorite of Cambridge. There is always a crowd of “birders” with telescopes and binoculars to check out the growing babies as they learn to fly. It was pretty impressive to see these birds and we caught one of the parents bringing a mouse home for dinner. The young birds were completely thrilled to have dinner, in turn.

Despite a long work and intense wedding preparations, Shelby and I dedicated last Sunday to be both a relaxing and adventurous one.

As a skydiver, Wind Tunnels» play an important role in the sport, at least in recent years. You can cram handfuls of minutes of simulated freefall time in without the distraction of impending impact.

So naturally, living 45 minutes away from a nearby Skyventure tunnel, Shelby and I reserved some flight time. We went in the morning and geared up. I was able to wear my freefly jumpsuit and helmet and Shelby donned a Skyventure flightsuit. We both got video of the event and had a great time flying our bodies in 110mph winds! Shelby proved to be a natural and had great body position despite having only skydived once before! I am excited to see her one day become a champion of human flight.

I, on the other, found just how difficult it was to fly in such a small field. With over 200 skydives, I was still humbled to learn I have some bad habits from having plenty of sky to drift across without any point of reference. The walls of the tunnel led me to focus more and as you can see in the video I struggled to “relearn” how to safely fly my body up, down, and side to side (relative to the air stream, of course).

We’re excited to be spending more time in the tunnel in the near future to hone our freefall skills.

Amazing Sunday, Part Deux:

On the way back from the tunnel we passed through Concorde and found ourselves close to Walden Pond of Thoreau lore. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit such a historic piece of the American heritage. Before our visit, Shelby and I passed through the village and had an eventful meal at a small restaurant. We did some quick shopping at a small Mom ‘n Pop type antique store. It was fun!

Walden Pond

Walden Pond

We headed back to Walden Pond and paid the parking fee before heading out to the pond. We noticed as we were leaving the parking lot that the Walden Wardens maintained a recreation of Thoreau’s original cabin. We checked out and snapped a photo with Thoreau’s effigy.

Chillin' With Thoreau

Our New Buddy, Thoreau

Moving on to the pond we discovered that due to extreme rainfall and no body of water to drain to, the pond was extremely flooded with most of the regular paths cut off.

Andrew Hiking

We found an outer trail and walked the perimeter of the pond. It was a great hike. We were refreshed and found ourselves enjoying the fresh air for the hour or two long trek. It was a gorgeous day and the pond itself was truly spectacular. We saw some folks swimming and fishing, others hiking and sunbathing, and people just generally enjoying themselves in nature.

A Cute Couple

Sometimes we forget how close we are to nature living in the city. Surrounding Boston are beautiful forests, hiking trails and of course, historical nature reserves like Walden. We definitely will be hitting up more places like this in the future.

Myspace Pic

To sum up, last Sunday was relaxing and adventurous and gave us a breath of fresh air. For a day we got to hide from the stressors of life and wedding planning. Here’s to future weekends to top the last .

Now that the weather has consistently been getting nicer and nicer, Andrew and I have been trying to get outside on way or another.  It’s definitely not winter anymore, but the weather has been a bit spotty for the past month with lots of rain and the random super cold days.  We have managed to adventure a bit on the weekends when we can.

A cool thing about Boston is that you can be in the middle of the city, but if you hop in your car and drive for about 20-30 minutes you can be in the middle of the country.  I’ve noticed that New England has a lot of Recreational Parks with hiking trails and would like to take advantage of exploring them while we live here.  Being Nomads that we are, you never know how long we’ll be in one area so I would like to see as much of it while it’s so easily accessible.

Along the Trail

Boulders Are Cool!

A few weeks back on one of the very first weekends where the weather was outstanding we researched a good location to go out on our first hike and got on the road.  I originally wanted to go check out Walden Pond, but due to the excessive rain of this season, the trails in that area were still flooded out.  We decided on some high grounds to avoid the flooding problems and went to The Blue Hills Reserve.

Beginning of the Trail

I love Pretty Wetlands

The drive took us through a few areas of Boston that we had never seen before (and probably never want to see again, some of them!) and took a bit longer than we had originally anticipated.  I guess a lot of other people had similar ideas about getting out and about.  We headed straight to the info center to figure out which trails would be good.  Since it would be our first hike of the season, we wanted to chose one that would be challenging but not too long or crazy because we weren’t seasoned yet.  The Red Dot Loop Trail to the Great Blue Hill Summit was perfect because it wasn’t very long, it was up a hill on a well-kept trail so we could work up a sweat without killing ourselves and there was a great reward at the top: an Outlook Tower.  The tower had such amazing views of the area and the Boston City Skyline.  We could see out to the ocean and various other lakes in the area as well.

View of City from Tower

View from the Tower

Another great aspect of the trip out to Blue Hills is that we would love to go back again sometime and check out some of the other trails.  It’s not too far away and it’s got some really lovely trails with all different levels of length and difficulty.

Artsy shot of Andrew

Aside from hiking around in the various Recreational Parks within driving distance we have also decided to take short walks with our apartment as the starting point.  There are quite a few little parks and trails nearby as well as interesting little neighborhoods that we aren’t as familiar with as we could be.  PLUS we’ve decided start training our cats to walk on leases!  Xochi is the one we’re currently working on because he’s younger and has more energy so I’m personally more interested in wearing him out as much as possible so we can get some sleep at night.

Andrew and Xochi

We forgot to take pictures the first time we took him out, but we recently decided to walk to the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and take Xochi along for his second excursion.  Unfortunately Xochi is NOT very keen on the whole experience as of yet.  He pretty much just trembles and tries to hide when we put him down.  So walking Xochi is mostly carrying Xochi until we reach the destination then trying to coax him to walk at all.  We got pretty successful this last time.  We would put him out in the open on a patch of grass then encourage him to come to one of us.  He would do so after scoping out the area for a minute then crawling over ninja-style to one of us in order to have something to hide behind.  It’s a pretty funny experience each time!

Xochi On His Leash

Hopefully with more practice and exposure he’ll take to enjoying the walks since it’s the only time he’ll ever get to leave our little apartment.  It is very amusing to have a kitty on a leash and we definitely get a fair share of weird looks.

I first approached Harvard’s Director of Collections and Informatics at the Herbarium, James Macklin. He thereupon put me in touch with the lead Librarian at the Botanical Library, Judy Warnement and a few other colleagues who were specialists in certain areas where my grandfather had influence.

From the get-go the folks at Harvard were extremely accommodating and went out of their way to provide me with database information regarding my grandfather, who was a famed Ethnobotanist from Colombia with Harvard Honors and helped me really connect with his legacy in a profound way.

The news of my interest in my Abuelo’s legacy hit their community and a photo emerged from an old acquaintance of his, Leslie Garay (also a famed botanist). In his retirement and old age he was able to produce an original image of the Orchid-named after my grandfather-in bloom in the Venezuelan Amazon. What an honor to have that image. He subsequently sent myself and his Harvard associates an image of them all in the Amazonian jungle studying with Richard Evans Schultes and one of Schultes’s students.

My grandfather's orchid

Shelby and I set aside a day to go visit the Herbarium and Botanical Libraries. We were greeted by Lisa, who is one of Judy’s assistants. We were given a brief tour of the main library and led to an area where Judy had a number of famous works, articles, letters and other pieces from my grandfather, laid out for us to see. We looked at some specimens, read some articles and soon moved on to the archives.

Another librarian and specialist Stephanie Zabel led us through the archives and showed us some preserved specimens (some hundreds of years old!) and taught us quite a bit about their categorization and preservation processes. Stephanie was super friendly and I can’t say enough about how willing she was to show us their processes and talk to us about the work they do.

Diagram/Drawing of my grandfather's Orchid

Description and phylogeny of my grandfather's Orchid

She brought Shelby and I to meet Irina Ferreras who was ready to show us an original, preserved specimen of the Orchid named after my grandfather. Epistephium hernandii was discovered by Leslie Garay and named after my abuelo, Hernando Garcia Barriga, in honor of his work in the Colombian Amazon.  It was an amazing sight to say the least. I was kind of in awe the whole time and managed to snap a few photos with my cell phone camera. A large section of it’s 15′ stalk and flower was preserved flat in one of their “red archives” that keep the older, original and larger specimens safe.

My grandfather's Orchid (the flower) in the wild

My grandfather's Orchid (preserved speciment) - I took this photo at the Harvard Botanical Library

We talked to Irina for a bit and got some great ideas for some projects I could undertake to help maintain my Grandfather’s legacy and obtained some contact information for some important figures in the community.

We then returned to Judy’s area of the Library where we read the articles and letters she had pulled out for us.

We wrapped up the day with a nice discussion with Judy and made sure to thank everyone for their efforts and hospitality. It was truly an amazing day and we were thrilled to connect with my Grandfather’s community and his work in a way I could never have imagined. I was able to touch base with some of the old explorers (i.e. Leslie) who pretty much set the standard for the Indiana Jones type of field research…you don’t find that any more. Shelby, at the same time, was able to connect with my grandfather’s legacy and get a glimpse of who he was.

My grandfather, Hernando Garcia Barriga was truly an influential figure who stood with the other giants of his time, in his field. His work in the Colombian Amazon has contributed greatly to our understanding of ethnobotany and has enabled modern medicine to produce countless drugs and medicinal solutions we all now take for granted.

My grandfather (second from left) among his contemporaries in the Amazon

Abuelo’s legacy has left a permanent mark on society and will be something I carry with me through my life as I remember him.